The Vet from Snowy River

by Stella Quinn

  Mostly. Until those corporate sharks in charge of the staff-to-patient ratio at Acacia View eroded her dignity.

  She dragged herself back from the bitter edge. These kind people here weren’t part of that, and Connolly House had been a haven of kindness there at the end of Jill’s life. ‘I think you all would have adored my Aunt Jill. I know I did. And she really was the coolest auntie ever.’

  She hesitated. Glanced at Marigold, who gave her a smile then swept her arms up so the sleeves of her apricot caftan billowed like parrot wings.

  ‘Go in peace,’ said Marigold.

  Vera’s mumbled go in peace was drowned out by the sound of sods of earth being shovelled down upon the coffin.

  Poppy threw her arms around her neck and gave her the hug she hadn’t known she needed.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your aunt, Vera.’

  ‘Thanks, Poppy. It means a lot to me that you’re here.’

  ‘Dad told me and asked me if I’d be okay with ditching school for a couple of days which, you know, was no biggie.’

  Vera was so pleased to have a reason to smile. ‘That was a noble sacrifice.’

  The girl tucked her hand in hers. ‘I’m glad I’m here … especially now I can see you don’t have any family with you today.’

  She gave Poppy’s hand a squeeze. ‘I’m glad too. But the no family thing? I’m used to it.’

  ‘Parents?’

  She shook her head. ‘My mum died when I was a teenager.’

  ‘But, your dad? Cousins? Step-siblings?’

  She shrugged. ‘I was an only child, and Jill never had children. My dad and my mum weren’t married. She met him on a trip to Italy to visit the region her parents had emigrated from. He never made it to Australia. Jill always said it started out like a romance movie but ended like a really bad cliché.’

  ‘Wow. He never visited you? I’ll never understand that.’

  She smiled. ‘Yeah, but that’s because you have your dad wrapped around your little finger.’

  ‘Speaking of … hey, Dad, can you come and hold your brolly over Vera? I’m going to run ahead. I promised to help Kev with the hot water urn.’

  Vera took a quick breath as Josh stepped up beside her. She had to say something to him, but what?

  She started with the least important but easiest to find words. ‘I’m sorry about that article in the paper, Josh, that dragged you into my mess. I know how you dislike being the subject of gossip, and now I’ve given the people of Hanrahan something else to wonder about.’

  She could feel him looking down at her.

  ‘Gossip stopped bothering me long ago,’ he said quietly. ‘I just don’t like it when it affects the people I care about.’

  Her boots crunch-crunched on the wet gravel as she walked, the silence between them stretched tauter than an elastic band. He wanted her to say she cared about him too, she could feel it. He wanted to know why she’d promised him that this thing between them, this heat and need and rush meant something, but then pushed him away.

  She should have tried to explain days ago—visited the surgery, knocked on the front door of the Hanrahan Pub until she found which room he was in. And if she’d known what she wanted to say, maybe she would have. Instead she’d cloistered herself away with her cat and the hot mess of quilting fabric that made her feel guilty every time she looked at it.

  Her head was a mess, her thoughts clogged up together like gunk in a grease trap. How could she explain the bleakness she was feeling to someone else when she couldn’t explain it to herself?

  Don’t let your guilt get in the way of your life, Marigold had said to her once. She glanced over her shoulder, to where smooth earth now covered her aunt’s grave. She’d not been ready to hear that advice. Marigold had been a benevolent stranger then, not the accidental friend she’d since become.

  Grass would grow like billyo over that new earth after this spring rain had passed. Cicadas would sing nearby on long summer evenings, leaves would skitter past in autumn, and southern stars would wheel overhead. And her aunt would be resting for eternity in Hanrahan.

  This was, she thought on a rush, a tether. The funeral service was doing more than farewelling Jill, it was also connecting Vera to the community here in a way that couldn’t be broken.

  She looked ahead of her up the path, to where people she knew—people she’d grown to care for—were shaking rain off their coats and bundling indoors into the historic stone cottage that marked a chapter in Hanrahan’s past.

  Her footsteps faltered. She had a choice, she just had to make it. Did she really want to be trapped in this rain-dreary moment while the world spun on without her?

  No. She’d let worry and despair drag her down long enough. She couldn’t add grief to the burden. This was her day to choose to accept a little of what Josh, and Marigold, and Graeme—even that pesky grey cat that had adopted her—had been offering.

  Friendship. Belonging. Love.

  Josh must have felt he’d waited long enough, because he broke the silence. ‘Poppy’s just down for the weekend, but when the school year ends in December she’ll be here for most of the six-week break.’

  ‘You must be happy about that.’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Josh, I—’

  ‘Listen, Vera—’ His voice was low, and he stood to the side so the other mourners could bypass them and head up the wooden steps into the community hall. They were alone now.

  ‘You first,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not going to pressure you anymore about seeing me. You’ve made it clear I’m not what you need right now, and I respect your decision. I just hope this—you and me thing, whatever it is or isn’t—won’t affect Poppy in any way. She loved working at the café, and I’d love it if she could keep doing that when she’s here. There will be zero awkwardness from me, I promise.’

  What? Josh was done with her?

  ‘But I adore Poppy!’ she stuttered out. I adore you, too. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but the screech of tyres on the wet road nearby drew her gaze away from Josh’s face. A navy sedan slid into a car park. Out of it, looking as neat and pinstriped as a Bunda Street banker, stepped Aaron Finch.

  CHAPTER

  34

  ‘Vera, I had to come when I heard.’

  Josh scratched his head. Who the hell was this guy? Whoever he was, Vera didn’t seem pleased to see him. She’d gone stiff as a board the moment the guy stepped out of his car.

  ‘What are you doing here, Aaron?’

  ‘I had to see you.’

  ‘You just saw me last week. In court. Where I had to answer to an alleged crime that you dobbed me in for.’

  This was Vera’s old boss? He rested a hand on Vera’s back. ‘You want me to get rid of him?’

  The guy—Aaron—shot him a look. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘The name’s Josh. I’m Vera’s friend. And if she doesn’t want to talk to you, then I’ll be the one assisting you and your pinstriped suit back into your vehicle.’

  Aaron ignored him. ‘Vera, look, this has all got way out of hand. Can we just talk?’ He reached out for Vera’s arm in a way that had Josh’s caveman instincts rising to the surface.

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you, Aaron. Not now, not ever. Go home.’

  ‘Come on, honey. You know I think you’re a wonderful person. It’s not too late to fix this. To fix us.’

  Honey? Us? Josh looked at Vera, her pale face, her strained eyes. She was in no condition to be fielding more drama today, especially the thousand and one questions he wanted to ask her. Because describing her boss as someone who might call her ‘honey’ and ‘us’ had been singularly lacking from her recital of her problems back in Queanbeyan. Maybe he should have turned to page six and read the rest of that damn article. Everyone in town must know more about the woman he was in love with than he did himself.

  Woah. Had he just thought the love word? He needed a minute, damn it, and he needed this city suit with the gra
bby hands to be gone. ‘Kev will have the urn boiling by now. Let’s go find that cup of tea.’ He could check out his last-minute paint job on the ceiling in the light of day and hope like heck he hadn’t missed anywhere. Standing on a ladder late at night wasn’t his ideal time of day for finicky paint jobs in ornate plaster ceilings, but it had sure helped him keep his mind off fretting over why Vera had been ghosting him.

  Vera shrugged away from him. ‘Stop telling me what to do, both of you.’

  ‘Vera, you’re a little pale,’ he said. He wanted to bundle her into his arms and carry her inside, but she was looking as prickly as she had when he’d first tried to chat with her in the café—as brittle and fragile as one of her own brandy snaps.

  She didn’t meet his eyes.

  ‘I can find my own cup of tea,’ she said, then turned to the other guy. ‘You’re not welcome here, Aaron.’ Then she turned and bolted up the stairs to the hall, Aaron at her heels, and slammed the door so both men were stuck outside in the rain.

  ‘Nice job, mate,’ Josh said, eyeing the man standing next to him. He wondered how Kev would feel about him punching a stranger in the nose among his lovingly tended rose bushes. He fought back the urge.

  ‘Your car’s that way,’ he said. ‘Do us all a favour and get lost, will you?’

  He never did get that cup of tea from Kev’s urn. After staring down the man who’d called Vera ‘honey’, he’d felt the grip on his temper come loose.

  Josh didn’t lose his temper often, but when he did, he lost it like a champion bull. He decided to channel his massive desire to punch the crap out of something into the burned inner walls of the clinic. The fire chief had given him the all clear to rip it down, and now was the perfect time for some destruction. Or it would be, once he’d torn his way out of this damn suit and tie.

  He was knee-deep in rubble, smashed gyprock and self-loathing when Poppy found him.

  ‘Hey, Dad, where did you go?’

  He pulled the dust mask off his face. ‘Sorry, Poppy. I needed some time out.’

  ‘Did the funeral make you sad?’

  ‘Not the funeral as such, no.’ He shrugged. ‘We were there for Vera, not because we knew her aunt. No, it was afterwards. I got mad, then sad, and now I can’t decide what I am.’

  Poppy hoisted herself up onto his workbench. ‘Girl trouble, huh.’

  Wow. His fifteen-year-old daughter was getting ready to workshop his relationship with him. Parenthood was not for the faint-hearted. He swung a crowbar into a charred mass of chipboard shelving and hauled until the whole unit ripped free and crashed to the ground. ‘Your dad may have been an idiot, Pop.’

  ‘Mmm. Tell me everything.’

  He frowned at her. ‘Are you psychoanalysing me?’

  ‘Dad, I’ve watched a lot of daytime television, and I’ve been scrolling through angsty teenage social media messages for years. I’ve got this. Why have you been an idiot?’

  ‘Because Vera told me she didn’t want to have a relationship with anyone, but I kept thinking if I was nice enough, and patient enough, she’d change her mind.’

  Poppy nodded. ‘You thought you knew best.’

  ‘No! I … well, yes, I guess I did. But she did agree to get, um, involved …’ He cleared his throat and hurried over the images in his head. ‘But I don’t think she meant it. I don’t think she was lying, but maybe she just meant it in the moment, not for real.’

  ‘Just a gentle heads up, Dad: I can give advice without hearing all the gory details.’

  Bloody hell. Why, oh why, had he started this conversation?

  Poppy crossed her legs. ‘Did she tell you why she didn’t want to have a boyfriend?’

  He dropped the crowbar to the floor and turned to face his daughter. ‘Well, that’s the thing. She did tell me, but then today, after the funeral, I found out that she’d only told me half of it. She had another reason which is kind of a doozy.’

  ‘Oh? What?’

  ‘She has another guy in her life. He showed up after the funeral, and that’s what made me go—’

  ‘Apeshit?’ Poppy said helpfully.

  ‘I’m pretty sure your mum doesn’t like you saying that.’

  ‘Let’s not change the subject, Dad. Maybe you should let Vera decide what she wants.’

  He sighed. ‘Yeah. That’s what I was trying to tell her today, before Mr City showed up.’ He planted a dusty hand on his daughter’s knee and squeezed. ‘You’re smarter than you look, Poptart.’

  ‘I know. You think it’s too early for pizza?’

  ‘It’s never too early for pizza.’

  ‘Just give me a minute to get out of Hannah’s dress.’

  He laughed, and it felt like the first time he’d truly enjoyed himself in days. ‘Oh, honey, that’s not Hannah’s dress.’

  ‘What! She got it out of her cupboard.’

  ‘That’s your grandma’s dress.’

  ‘No way. I mean I knew it was ugly, but I’ve never been to a funeral before that I remember. I wanted to look the part.’

  ‘Well sure, if you thought everybody dressed up as daggy eighty-year-old grannies to attend funerals, you were spot on.’

  He chuckled, and then Poppy did too, and then the two of them were laughing like kookaburras, there in the wreckage that had once been the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic reception room.

  Poppy slung her arm around him. ‘You’re gonna be okay, Dad.’

  He kissed her hair. ‘Thanks, Pop.’

  ‘But … since we’re having a D & M and all …’

  ‘What’s a D & M?’

  ‘A deep and meaningful conversation.’

  ‘Is this another daytime TV counselling strategy?’

  She gave him a shove. ‘I’ve been thinking about what to do about Jane Doe and the pups. They’ll be needing to go to a proper home before I’m back for the Christmas holidays, so it’s best if we get it sorted now.’

  This was clearly a day for being reminded about all the shitty things headed his way. ‘I’m trying to block that out, Pop. I can only have my heart ripped out of my chest so many times.’

  ‘Dad, that’s kinda sad.’

  ‘I know. Come here and give your old man another hug and I’ll promise to be brave about saying goodbye to them all when the time comes.’

  She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a squeeze. No eyebrow ring digging into his arm today, he thought, and hid his smile in her hair.

  ‘You know as well as I do we’ve had dozens of offers for those pups, Dad. The second they get their last shots, there’s going to be a queue at the door of people wanting to take them home.’

  ‘Hey. I’m supposed to be the practical one. You’re supposed to be persuading me to keep the whole litter.’

  ‘Dad. Get a grip.’

  ‘You talk to your mum about keeping one?’

  ‘Ten kilo limit in the townhouse complex, so that’s a no. Maximus is such a guts he probably weighs that already. Besides, he whispered a secret in my ear this morning when I jumped in the box to say hello to them all.’

  ‘Maximus can whisper?’

  Poppy gave him a light punch to the arm. ‘You know that kid, Parker, who says his Rosie is our Jane Doe?’

  ‘I’ve not forgotten him.’

  ‘Maximus thinks Parker may prefer a young, frisky boy pup to an old dog with a grey snout who’s fallen in love with my dad.’

  Crazy, but he felt tears back up in his throat. Was Poppy offering to give Max up so he wouldn’t have his heart broken when Jane Doe left? He cleared his throat. He was losing it. Totally, utterly, losing it.

  ‘Dad? You’re not saying anything.’

  Because he couldn’t speak, damn it. He buried his nose in her hair. ‘Maximus is yours if you want him, honey, and that’s that.’

  She gave a little sigh. ‘But Dad, I’ll be going to uni in a couple of years, and my brothers are way too crazy to be left in charge of an animal. Besides, Maximus is a Snowy River dog. He wouldn’t like the
city.’

  ‘A bit like me.’ He sighed. ‘Max’s idea isn’t a bad one. Maybe he’s smarter than he looks, too.’

  Poppy snorted. ‘Considering he looks like a brown bathroom sponge, that wouldn’t be difficult.’ She frowned at him. ‘Did you really hate the city so bad, Dad?’

  ‘No. You were there, which made it the place I wanted to be. But I always wanted to come home to Hanrahan. And now you’re older, you’ve got your own life, your own friends. You don’t need me to chop the crusts off your sandwiches every second week anymore.’

  She grinned. ‘Or tell me off for getting my ears pierced.’

  ‘Or rush out to the printing store at midnight because there’s no ink in the printer when you’ve got an assignment due at eight am.’

  She sighed. ‘Good times, right?’

  ‘The best. But maybe we can have different good times from now on. You can live with me whenever you want, maybe bring some friends with you and we can do a little horseriding, a little hiking. Ski season would be fun.’

  ‘It’s a deal. But hey, um, if you don’t need me to rip any walls out in an act of angst solidarity with you, I thought I might go see a friend. There’s a banana-choc-chip muffin recipe we’re keen to try.’

  ‘Wait, you can cook?’

  Poppy rolled her eyes.

  ‘That’ll be your mum’s gene pool. My role was providing the good looks and charm.’

  ‘Humility too, I see.’

  He pulled the end of her braid. ‘Who’s this friend?’

  ‘Remember guinea pig boy?’

  ‘Kelly Fox’s son?’

  ‘Yep. Braydon’s kinda cute, and he likes baking. I texted him when I was back in town and he invited me over after school.’

  ‘Bakery dating. Who knew? You think it would be okay to take my girlfriend with you? Jane Doe could do with a walk.’

  ‘Sure thing. Oh, and Dad? I reckon Vera’s going to decide she wants you, so hang in there, okay?’