10 AMELIA

10 Amelia

It was obvious that the participants intended to make a very late afternoon tea event of the meeting, so Amelia snuck from the boardroom as soon as she could. The light was still on in Faelie’s office; Amelia suspected that, despite her demands, her manager didn’t trust her to lock up. Well, that suited her just fine. As Gavin and his wife, Hannah, were passing through town that evening, headed from Keith to Adelaide for another hospital admission tomorrow, she had suggested she buy them dinner. She wasn’t about to let herself get tangled up in Gavin’s life—that was half the reason for moving away from Keith, creating the necessary distance to buffer her emotions, keeping herself aloof so that pain couldn’t seep in—but she did owe him for dropping off her furniture. Tracey had suggested that, of the two pubs at the bottom of main street, the Overland provided the best meals.

Amelia unlocked her phone to shoot Gavin a text, directing him to the correct pub.

‘You did a runner, too?’

Sean’s voice drew her eyes from the screen and she set the phone down. ‘Not a local, so I was only in there on sufferance-slash-work. Not sure that the new chairman is allowed to escape early, though.’

Sean chuckled. ‘They’ve moved on to rating the food, so I think I’m excused until next meeting. Besides, you’re about as local as me, so I don’t think you can use that as a get-out-of-jail card.’

‘I’m sure you’ve been here longer than a couple of weeks.’

Sean picked up one of the pens from the jar on her desk and spun it idly between his fingers. ‘You’d be right, but I can’t say that we’ve managed to integrate into the community too well.’

Amelia shuffled some papers, trying not to stare at him. Sean was a good-looking man, his eyes an almost electric blue. And, now that Heath’s inexplicable hostility toward her the previous week had toned down, she’d noticed that he had his father’s eyes. Clearly not his disposition, though. ‘Integrating can be overrated.’

‘Thought you were a small-town girl? Integrating’s mandatory, isn’t it?’

‘Not if you move around often enough,’ Amelia said, her gaze travelling beyond Sean as Heath entered the room.

‘Probably the most intelligent thing I’ve heard this afternoon,’ Heath said gruffly. ‘You done, Dad?’

Sean cocked an eyebrow. ‘Social battery fully discharged already?’

Heath snorted. ‘You know it no longer charges.’

Kinship sparked in Amelia. She dropped the arms she’d automatically crossed over her chest. ‘Sometimes it’s all hard work, isn’t it?’ she said. She always tried to sound upbeat, not give any inkling of the pain inside. But it was exhausting.

Heath scowled at her. ‘Hard work at least has a reward.’

The spark fizzled and died. The only ‘hard work’ was making polite conversation with this perpetually surly man. She angled so her shoulder blocked him and turned her full attention to Sean. ‘Have you had any more problems with foxes?’

Sean shook his head. ‘Not yet. But lambing is only just getting into full swing. I can’t pretend I know too much about the business, but my gut feeling is that foxes will only go after the injured or orphaned lambs, so I’m hoping it won’t be too much of an issue. In any case, I’m sure Heath will scare them away. Possibly even without firearms.’

As she lifted Karmaa from the crate, Amelia risked a glance at Heath from beneath her eyelashes. To her surprise, an unwilling grin had lifted one side of his mouth, perhaps acknowledging his father’s jab.

‘Taylor mentioned that one of the local guys, Paul Schenscher, I think, breeds working dogs,’ she said. ‘He has a litter nearly ready to go. Perhaps that’d be your solution.’ She tickled Karmaa’s velour-soft chin. ‘I’d love to get one myself, but no room in the Jabby for more passengers.’

‘You’re planning on taking off again?’ Sean asked.

‘Once the job here finishes up—which might be sooner than I anticipated.’

‘Sounded to me like your boss was just throwing around a bit of muscle,’ Heath said.

‘I suspect my boss was trying to impress you with her management technique.’

Heath grunted, but she wasn’t sure whether it was disgust at the possibility of Faelie flirting or at her assessment of the situation, so she rushed on. ‘In any case, I don’t stop anywhere long enough for it to be fair on a dog.’

‘That doesn’t sound all bad,’ Heath mulled. ‘No strings, no ties, no responsibilities.’

Yeah, and no love, no family, no future.

‘Why?’ Sean cut across her thoughts.

‘Why, what?’ she almost stammered, unaccustomed to such overt questioning.

‘Why do you avoid settling? Always been a bit of a gypsy?’

He couldn’t be more wrong. The buried memories of domesticity that flashed into her mind were almost overwhelming: an apron tied around her waist as she iced tiny cupcakes and set sparkly candles in them; slathering little hands with poster paint to form stamps on Christmas cards; hiding Easter eggs around the homestead—then re-hiding them to prolong the shrieks of joy that accompanied each find. A wave of sorrow and grief welled inside, and she felt her chin wobble, the too-ready tears form.

She busied herself putting Karmaa back in the crate, then snatched up the light backpack she preferred to a handbag. ‘No. Not always,’ she said briefly, surprising herself with the admission. It would have been safer to lie.

‘Not got a hankering to put down roots anywhere, though?’ Sean asked.

God, why wouldn’t he stop? ‘Roots rot,’ she said shortly, making for the door.

‘Can’t argue with that,’ Heath said as she brushed past him. ‘Everything dies.’

What the hell would he know?

Gavin and Hannah were already at the pub by the time she’d taken Karmaa home, fed him and the magpie, and let the possum loose in a closed bedroom for the evening. The truth was, she’d dawdled; today had been a lot of time spent with a lot of people, and she wasn’t accustomed to fending off so much interest, carefully skirting inquiries into her personal life.

Tiny lights twinkled on the narrow bridge spanning the broad Murray River, silhouetting Gavin against the window. She sucked in her breath in shock: how could he have aged so much in the few days since she’d seen him? She suspected he was on chemo, but she wasn’t going to ask. No questions, no answers—that was the unspoken deal.

He felt frail as she hugged him, and she wanted to run home. Go back to the animals that needed her, the ones she could save.

‘Gav, how lovely to see you. And Hannah.’ She embraced the woman, trying not to notice that Hannah’s smile was sorrowful, her eyes filled with knowledge of the tragedy to come.

No. She couldn’t let herself think like that.

Amelia took a seat, fishing around for something to say, something that didn’t rely on the mundanities that always seemed to include enquiring after someone’s health. ‘Got someone sorted to take the Cherokee up for you, Gav?’

Gavin shook his head. ‘Not yet. Reckon I’ll have to drop by here and beg a ride in your Jabby. Even if it is colder than a witch’s tit in there.’

‘Gavin!’ Hannah reproved fondly.

‘What?’ Gavin faked innocence. ‘Just talking about the weather, my love. You had enough fuel on board to get here all right then, Amelia?’

‘Always. Can’t have too much fuel on board—’

‘Unless you go down in flames,’ Gavin finished. The rec pilots shared a macabre sense of humour. ‘You found a hangar at the local field?’

Amelia passed a menu to Hannah. ‘There are specials up above the bar, too,’ she said, pointing at a colourful chalkboard above the till on the opposite side of the room. She paused in confusion as she noticed Lynn’s twin behind the bar counter. Or was it Lynn? Surely two women wouldn’t have exactly the same unlikely shade of hair colour and nail polish? ‘No,’ she said, turning her attention back to Gavin. ‘A friend put me on to a private hangar. Middle of a paddock, heaps cheaper, and no air traffic when I want to take off.’

‘Sounds like somewhere I want to fly from.’ Gavin’s eyes gleamed with the prospect of an illicit flight. She knew why: piloting meant becoming one with the aircraft, leaving everything else behind. There were no fears, no regrets, no grief, no guilt in the sky. No room for anything but focus on that moment, that instant in time that could last forever.

‘Let me know next time you’re coming through. I’ll sort something.’ Unless she’d moved again already, she thought guiltily. But Gavin wasn’t her responsibility, she’d made sure of that. She didn’t have to stay in Settlers Bridge just so he could occasionally escape to the skies.

Yet, if she did stay a while longer, couldn’t she bring him some joy?

No . She had no obligation to the older man. The fact that she considered it for even a moment meant that she needed to bail: on this relationship, this town. Anything that was tying her down. Anything except the animals.

She tapped the menu. ‘What do you fancy? They’re pretty busy tonight, so I’d better go up and order.’

‘The surf ’n’ turf looks good,’ Gavin said, his gaze on a nearby table.

‘We’ll just share the soup special,’ Hannah said quickly.

Amelia frowned. ‘I’ll be horribly offended if you do. This is my shout, a thank you for running all my furniture down here. And a welcome to my new town.’

‘Gavin will never eat a whole meal,’ Hannah said doubtfully. ‘And I don’t have much of an appetite myself, anymore …’

‘Then I’m sure we can get the rest packed up for takeaway.’ Was chemo expensive or was it on the free list? She couldn’t ask, couldn’t protect Gavin, couldn’t save him, but she could send them away with full bellies. ‘And I fully intend to have dessert as well,’ she said firmly. ‘You’ll be doing me a favour. I live on toast all week because there’s no point in cooking for myself.’

Anticipatory grief filled Hannah’s eyes and Amelia could have kicked herself.

‘Five seconds to decide or I’m going up and ordering a whole load of food,’ she said as she stood. Running away. That’s what her life was all about. Running away from guilt and from emotions.

She would order extra and send Hannah and Gavin on their way with an ice brick and takeaway containers, she decided as she stood in line at the till. If they didn’t need the food, they could toss it; if they did, she’d done the right thing. And, most importantly, done it without any of them being required to acknowledge the tragedy that made the gesture necessary.

‘I’d say what were the chances of meeting a girl like you in a place like this—’ Sean’s lilting accent interrupted her thoughts as she stepped up to the counter ‘—but chances are actually pretty high in a two-pub town on a Thursday night. Hello again, Lynn.’

So it was Lynn? ‘I thought you ran the IGA?’ Amelia said to the woman behind the bar.

‘Fingers and pies, lovey,’ Lynn said cheerfully. ‘You know how small towns are; we have to double up sometimes. Unless we can persuade some of you youngsters to hang around long enough to take over the reins.’

What was with this town and encouraging people to stay?

‘Speaking of, is that granddaughter of yours staying this time, Sean? She’s looking more settled.’ Lynn seemed in no hurry to ring up Amelia’s order, despite the queue.

Amelia turned side-on, awkwardly positioned in the middle of the conversation. She hadn’t initially realised the unkempt young woman was Heath’s daughter, although her sullen look should probably have been a tip-off. She had deliberately taken a seat alongside the girl at the meeting when it had become obvious that everyone else was avoiding the vacant chair.

Sean’s usually cheerful expression darkened a shade. ‘No, Charlee’s back off to uni in a couple of days. At least, I think she is. Hard to tell with kids, isn’t it?’

‘And the well-spoken young man, Ethan? He’s Charlee’s boyfriend?’

It intrigued Amelia that of all the judgemental descriptors she could have applied to the tattooed, slightly menacing-looking guy, ‘well-spoken’ was Lynn’s choice. Yet she was right: Ethan had made his point clearly and persuasively, and, somehow, without him shoving it down their throats, the Regional Action Group had unanimously moved that investigating the possibility of a skatepark was to be their first order of business.

‘Seems that way,’ Sean said.

‘Well, he’s going to have to visit regularly—with Charlee—to get this skatepark business underway,’ Lynn said happily. ‘It’s always nice to get some more young ones in town, and it’s wonderful that he wants to be so involved.’

Sean placed a hand in the small of Amelia’s back. ‘Of course, now we have Amelia, too.’

Another time, another place, the gesture might have felt all kinds of wrong, but for some reason, Amelia was instantly at ease, her slight tension ebbing as she was included in the conversation. ‘I’m only here for a short time,’ she reminded him.

‘Oh, no, don’t say that, lovey.’ Frown lines appeared above Lynn’s enhanced eyebrows. ‘This town will get to you. There’s nowhere better to be.’

‘We’ll see,’ Amelia said slowly. Bookending her thoughts about hanging around longer for Gavin’s sake, the inundation of requests seemed almost … prophetic. It had been three years. When did she stop running?

‘Forget the coffee, Dad.’ Heath’s voice startled Amelia. He stood slightly behind her. Glowering.

‘Sorry for holding up the queue,’ she said, deliberately bright in the face of his perpetual irritability, although she crossed her arms, grasping her elbows tightly.

‘Not your fault,’ he said tightly. ‘Dad will talk the leg off a chair. In any case, coffee this late will keep me awake all night.’

‘And that’d be something different?’ Sean said, his tone odd, almost sympathetic.

Heath dismissed his father’s concern with a shake of his head. ‘I was thinking, Amelia, if the lamb—Karmaa, you said?—is causing you problems at work, why don’t you give him some company?’

‘Company?’ she said warily, surprised he’d remembered the animal’s name.

Heath shot her a droll look, then glanced across to where Gavin and Hannah watched them with interest. ‘You don’t have him under the table here, do you?’ She shook her head. ‘Instead of losing your job over him, why not take on another lamb? One of the ewes threw twins this afternoon. You said that Dorpers aren’t good at mothering two, right, Dad?’

Sean raised his eyebrows. ‘I did say that. Didn’t think you’d actually listened to me, though.’

‘So you’ll probably end up needing to bottle-raise one. There’s no point you tackling that if Amelia’s prepared to foster the second one along with Karmaa. We could spring for the milk powder for both.’ Heath turned back to her. ‘I checked it out online, and that stuff is expensive. So we kind of saddled you with something that I guess you haven’t budgeted for.’

He was worried about the cost to her? But, more importantly, did he mean Karmaa was only with her on a foster basis? Because he could bloody well think again. She’d take the lamb with her even if she had to stow it in the back of the Jabby, nappies and all.

Amelia shook her head. ‘Roni Krueger recommends using full cream cow’s milk to raise lambs, enriched with powdered milk so it’s closer in fat content to sheep milk. She put me on to a dairy that sells unpasteurised milk direct, so it doesn’t work out too expensive.’ Not that the cost would have entered into her decision to save the lamb.

‘Ah. Okay. Like I said, sheep aren’t my thing.’

Sean chuckled. ‘Insert a Kiwi joke there.’

‘Or not.’ Heath rolled his eyes as though his father’s humour was exhausting. ‘Anyway, if you have a pair of lambs, they’ll keep each other company. You’ll be able to duck home every few hours to feed them. And keep your job. Stay in Settlers Bridge a bit longer.’ He gave a grin that momentarily vanquished his morose attitude. ‘Maybe get that dog.’

‘Oh, what a fab idea,’ Lynn gushed, seeming to think she was included in the conversation that was holding up everyone’s dinner. ‘There, that’s all sorted then, lovey. You’ll have to hang around for a while.’

Amelia wanted to refuse, wanted to take the coward’s way out and run far from here, where the locals seemed determined to include her in their lives. But if the lambs needed her, how could she deny them? ‘Yeah. Okay, that sounds like a plan,’ she said reluctantly. ‘For a while.’

Heath nodded decisively, curt again. ‘I figured it’d appeal to that maternal streak.’

He may as well have slapped her across the face.

‘So what do you fancy, lovey?’ Lynn said, belatedly noticing the queue. ‘Oh, are you all right? You’ve gone white as a pav.’

Sean caught her elbow. ‘Steady up, there.’

Amelia shook him off, angry with herself for exposing a reaction that could lead to questions. ‘I’m fine. A beef parmi, chicken schnitzel with mushroom gravy, and a surf ’n’ turf, please.’

Her heart was pounding, the blood buzzing in her ears and she felt sick. Heath thought she had a motherly nature. But if that was true, she wouldn’t be alone now, would she?

A commotion a few feet away snatched their group’s attention: a chair lay on its side, a man on his knees beside it.

‘My God, Gavin!’ Amelia pushed past Heath. ‘Are you okay?’ She was overreacting, she knew it, but the emotion of a few seconds ago made her response uncontrollable.

‘Chair jumped in front of me.’ Gavin chuckled as Heath helped him up.

‘You tripped? It wasn’t … a turn or something?’ God, she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to ask, terrified of the answer. But how could she turn a blind eye?

‘Hush, there. Can’t admit to a fall at my age. They’ll have me in God’s waiting room quicker than a feed of stewed prunes going through.’

‘God’s waiting room?’ Heath said.

‘The bloody nursing home. Or, in my case, palliative care.’

‘No!’ Amelia blurted. He’d said the words. Admitted he was going to die. She dropped her hand from Gavin’s elbow. ‘No, Gavin, you can’t—’ Or, more correctly, she couldn’t. She couldn’t deal with this again, couldn’t lose someone she—no matter how reluctantly—cared for.

Gavin caught her hand and patted it. ‘Steady up there, love. It’s all right. We’ve all got to go sometime, you know.’

She was trembling, her lips numb.

‘I’ve a few weeks left, in any case,’ he said, as though the timeframe should placate her.

‘No, not yet, not yet,’ she whispered, although it wasn’t truly Gavin she pleaded with.

With the rest of their group—even the irrepressible Lynn—stunned to an uncomfortable silence, Gavin gave a shrug. ‘It’s not so bad. At least I got a heads-up, which gives me a chance to do all the important things: catch up with everyone I want to see for one last meal, one last drink. This is the way it should be, dying in the autumn of my life.’ He nodded as though he truly accepted his lot. ‘It’s like everything is soft and muted, the colour slowly slipping away. I don’t fancy holding out for the winter. Dying in cold, stark loneliness. Nothing could be worse than that.’

He was wrong.

Noah had died in the spring. Permanently in his youth, never aging, never ailing. Just gone.