by Holly Ford
She picked up the phone. As she had hoped, it was Cally who answered her call.
‘Carr’s still out,’ Cally apologised.
‘Never mind,’ Lizzie said. ‘Could you let him know that I got home okay?’
That evening when the landline rang, Lizzie let it. She didn’t trust herself to talk to Carr — not yet. She wasn’t ready to pretend that everything was normal. She had a feeling she’d end up asking questions she might not like the answers to. That she, or he, would say something that couldn’t be unsaid.
By the time Glencairn’s number came up on her cellphone screen on Tuesday, Lizzie had pulled herself together enough to be able to answer the call in her usual tone.
‘There you are,’ Carr growled. ‘I was getting worried about you.’
‘Sorry,’ she said brightly. ‘I had to go into town yesterday. I didn’t get back until late.’
‘You left early on Sunday.’
‘Yes.’ Lizzie paused. ‘I had some things I needed to do.’
There was a silence.
‘Look,’ Carr said gruffly, ‘I’m sorry I had to work all weekend. This weekend’ll be different. I’ll get things out of the way.’
As a waiting call beeped in Lizzie’s ear, she checked her screen quickly. Ella. Tapping ignore, Lizzie took a deep breath. ‘Actually, I thought I’d stay home this weekend.’ The silence on the other end of the line was so deep she wondered if she’d declined the wrong call. ‘Are you there?’
‘I’m here.’
Lizzie tried to keep her voice light. ‘I have a whole lot of jobs I need to catch up on around the vineyard, and—’ Dammit. Call waiting. Ella again.
‘And?’ said Carr, acidly.
‘And,’ she blurted, ‘anyway, we could probably do with a bit of a break.’
More silence.
‘Look, I have to go,’ Lizzie told him. ‘Ella’s trying to call me. It must be something important. We’ll talk later, okay? I’ll call you next week.’ She ended the call.
‘Mum …’ Ella sobbed.
‘Darling! What on earth’s wrong?’
‘It’s Luke … He — he’s gone. We broke up.’
‘Oh, Ella, I’m so sorry.’ Although, Lizzie had to admit, not entirely surprised. ‘When?’
‘This … this morning.’
‘Darling.’ God, Ella sounded beside herself. ‘Tell me what happened.’ Lizzie settled herself on the sofa.
As her daughter managed, with some difficulty, to get the whole story out, Lizzie tried to keep her mind on what Ella clearly thought was its most important aspect. She felt awful for Ella. And for Luke. But her daughter was going to move to New York?
Outside, she could hear the distant throb of a helicopter high in the sky. She wondered if it was Carr. If there’d been a Mountain Rescue call-out. Unaccountably, a lump rose in her own throat. She hoped nobody was too badly hurt.
‘… he won’t even take my calls,’ Ella concluded, desperately.
Poor Luke. Lizzie knew how he felt. ‘Maybe,’ she suggested cautiously, ‘this is all for the best.’
‘How can it possibly be for the best?’
‘When you see somebody building you into their life …’ Lizzie swallowed hard. ‘Building a life around you … well, if you’re not sure you feel the same way about them, it might be kinder to let them go.’
‘But I love Luke. More than anything.’
‘Do you, Ella?’ The helicopter seemed to be coming closer. Lizzie tried to ignore it. ‘Really? Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ her daughter sniffed, sounding even more wounded. ‘How can you even ask me that?’
‘Well, darling, ever since you started working for Damian it’s been pretty hard to tell.’ Lizzie peered out the windows. The chopper was flying frighteningly low. What the hell was it …?
‘Listen’ — watching the helicopter settle onto the lawn, Lizzie raised her voice above its final clatter — ‘I have to go. I’ll call you later, okay?’
By the time she’d got Ella off the phone and made it to the door, Carr was already standing in it.
‘A break from what?’ he demanded.
Speechless, Lizzie watched him unzip his flight overalls. ‘A break from … from seeing each other,’ she managed, at last.
‘You’re saying you don’t want to see me?’
‘No,’ she stammered, backing away as he made his way inside. ‘I’m not saying that. I’m not saying anything. You said—’ Lizzie broke off.
‘What did I say?’ he snapped.
‘That I had to stop trying to be part of your life.’
Carr glared at her. ‘When the hell did I say that?’
‘Last Saturday night.’
His glare deepened.
‘When we were in bed,’ she told him. ‘You said the station was your life, not mine, and you didn’t need my help, and you needed me to stop.’
‘That’s what you heard? Jesus, Lizzie.’ He gave an angry shake of his head. ‘If you’re going to get upset about something I say, at least stay awake for the rest of the sentence.’
He took her by the shoulders. ‘I said that I needed you to stop me before I fuck up. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice. I know you have a life of your own. What happens out there on the hill is my problem, not yours, and it isn’t the only thing that matters to me. You have to help me make sure that neither of us forgets that.’
Lizzie stared up at him. She’d had no idea he was capable of producing so many words at once.
‘I don’t need you to help me work the station,’ he said, his voice lowering. ‘If I need another hand, I’ll hire one. I — I just need you to be there with me’ — his lips brushed hers — ‘when I wake up.’
She rediscovered her voice at last. ‘I can do that.’
He watched her face urgently, a look she’d never seen before in his eyes, the swirl of an old pain. Even as she thought it, his mouth came down on hers again, kissing her harder, his hands pulling her hips to his as if he could erase whatever was in his mind against her body. As he worked her shirt loose, Lizzie’s own thoughts fled.
Some time later, retrieving her clothes from the floor, she stood up to find Carr watching her still, his expression guarded. Lizzie felt a stab of unease. How much damage had she done by running away from him over a stupid misunderstanding? The trust they’d had: was it gone? What had he meant about not making the same mistake twice?
Wrapping herself in her shirt, she settled behind him on the sofa, resting her chin on his shoulder. ‘Are you staying tonight?’
‘Are you asking me to?’
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Please.’
‘Then I’ll stay.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll always stay, if you ask me.’
‘I’m asking.’ Putting her arms around him, she ran her hands over his chest. ‘Can I ask you something else?’
‘What?’
Lizzie nestled her cheek against his neck. ‘What happened with you and Elyse?’
To her relief, his back stiffened only momentarily. ‘She walked out.’
‘Just like that?’ she asked gently.
‘In the end.’ Carr sighed again. ‘It was the first day of the autumn muster. I was just about to head out, and Elyse told me she was leaving. She told me she’d met someone else, that she’d been seeing him for months, and that she was moving out to live with him. She said there was nothing I could say or do to change her mind.’
‘What did you do?’
‘What could I do? I had seven men and a chopper waiting for me outside. I told her we’d talk about it when I got back.’
‘And when you got back?’
He nodded. ‘She’d gone. Ash, too.’
Lizzie was silent.
‘I’d promised him that his first full muster would be that year. He was desperate to get up the hill. But his shoulder was still pretty banged up from the accident, and Elyse wasn’t keen to have him out there, so I had to lay down the hard word and tell him he couldn’t come w
ith me.’ Carr paused. ‘I didn’t see him again for two years.’
‘Two years?’ she blurted, completely failing to hide her shock.
‘Elyse didn’t trust me to look after him. She wouldn’t let him come down to the station until he was old enough to be on his own.’
‘And you didn’t go to see him?’
‘Things got pretty rough after Elyse left. I was on my own. I couldn’t leave the station. And the bank was circling. All Glencairn’s land was tied up in trust, Dad had seen to that, but I had to borrow to buy out Elyse’s half of the stock and plant. For a while there, flying was the only thing paying the mortgage. I was struggling to find the cash for a trip to the sale yards, never mind a weekend in Auckland.’
Lizzie held him more tightly. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It was a long time ago.’ Carr stroked her hand.
‘You know, he rang me one night,’ he said, after a while. ‘Ash, I mean. Not long after they’d gone up there. He was crying. He said he wanted to live with me. That he wanted to come home.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘That he couldn’t. That I couldn’t look after him. That he had to stay with his mother.’
Oh God, Lizzie realised: it wasn’t some girl who had broken Ash’s heart — it was his father. Heart aching for them both, she pressed closer to Carr’s neck. ‘That must have been difficult.’
‘Someone had to be the bad guy. Ash had to live with Elyse. It seemed better that he hate me.’
‘Have you ever told him that?’
He shook his head.
‘You should talk to him,’ she said gently.
‘I think it’s a bit late now.’ Carr’s voice was wry. Slipping out of her arms, he pulled on his jeans, crossed the room, and began adding more wood to the fire.
Lizzie decided to let the subject drop. He’d had enough for one day, surely.
‘Ash is talking about going back to the States,’ Carr said, still stirring the fire. ‘I told him he should move into the cottage, but apparently that’s not far away enough. He says his old job’s open in Wyoming.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, again. Gosh. She knew Ash had been unhappy about Cally, but she couldn’t believe he wanted to— Hang on. ‘You told him he should move out of the homestead? Why?’
‘Him and Cally. It’s hell just watching them. One of them has to go.’
‘And you think it should be your son?’ Lizzie stared at him.
Carr looked back at her in surprise. ‘Well, I can’t ask Cally to move into the cottage by herself, can I? She doesn’t even have a car. Anyway, Ash created this mess. It’s up to him to fix it.’
For a second, Lizzie was dumbfounded. How could he make something so wrong sound as though it was the most logical thing in the world? ‘And did Ash,’ she managed at last, ‘tell you he wanted to go to Wyoming before or after you told him to get out of the house?’
‘I didn’t tell him—’ Carr broke off, appearing to give it some thought. ‘It was after,’ he admitted. ‘But he’d come in to talk to me about something, anyway. It must have been that.’
‘Maybe he just wanted your help with something. Maybe he wanted to talk about Cally.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Ash hasn’t wanted my help since …’ Carr’s brow furrowed.
Since the last time he’d sent him away? Lizzie waited for Carr to make the connection.
‘You think he thought I didn’t want him around?’
Again. Yes! ‘I think,’ she tried not to be too brutal, ‘perhaps he might have got the wrong idea.’
Sitting back down on the sofa, Carr draped an arm around her and settled back thoughtfully, gathering her to his chest. ‘I should talk to him,’ he said.
Lizzie looked up in time to see the familiar twitch of his mouth. Smiling, she curled in closer. Carr pulled her bare legs across his lap, his hand stroking her calves.
‘Ella’s moving to New York,’ she told him.
‘She is?’ He glanced down at her. ‘Since when?’
‘Since yesterday.’
‘What about Luke?’
‘They broke up.’
‘Yeah? That’s a shame.’
Good God. He actually sounded like he meant it.
‘What happened?’
‘Oh, you know. Life.’ Lizzie sighed. ‘And she told him she wanted to move to New York.’
Carr nodded. ‘That’ll do it.’
‘I’d better call her back, actually,’ she remembered. ‘We were on the phone when you dropped in.’
‘Yeah,’ he sighed. ‘I’d better call home, too. Let them know where I am.’
‘I suppose,’ Lizzie said, echoing his sigh, ‘you have to go back tomorrow.’
‘You know how it is.’ Briefly, he rested his cheek against her hair. ‘I’ve got things to do.’
Neither of them moved. God, she couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving in the morning.
‘I don’t suppose,’ Carr said, ‘you’d come back with me?’
Stroking his chest, she looked up at him. ‘Are you asking me to?’
He met her eyes. ‘Please.’
‘Then I will.’ Lizzie touched his neck. ‘I always will, if you ask me.’ She raised her mouth to his.
‘You mean that?’ he asked softly, drawing back.
‘I do.’ As his lips touched hers again, an awkward thought occurred. ‘Just don’t ask me on Thursday. I promised I’d go down to Queenstown and help Ella pack.’
She was relieved to hear Carr laugh. ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ he said firmly, slipping one under her shoulder blade. ‘We’ll fly down.’
‘You know.’ Lizzie rolled over, settling her cheek into its familiar position against Carr’s chest as his arms reclosed around her. ‘I do have to go back to the vineyard at some point.’
‘I know.’ Carr’s voice was resigned.
It had been over a week since they’d waved Ella off, and Lizzie still hadn’t been home.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to stay,’ she said gently. It was true. This was the longest she had ever stayed at Glencairn, and every day that passed just made it more difficult to contemplate leaving.
‘But,’ Carr said.
‘But,’ she agreed, ‘there really are things I have to do.’ Some of them must be getting quite urgent, in fact.
‘You want me to take you back today,’ he said, ‘don’t you?’
‘Thank you.’ Lizzie hesitated only slightly. ‘You know, you could stay the weekend with me.’
‘Yeah.’ Carr’s arms tightened. ‘Okay. Ash can handle things here for a couple of days.’
‘Really?’
He kissed her hair. ‘We’d better drive, though. There’s a front headed through.’
She felt a stab of guilt. ‘Are you sure Ash will be all right?’
‘It’s just a bit of rain. It won’t bother the stock.’
‘I meant with Cally.’ Carr hadn’t exaggerated how awkward it was every time they were in the same room.
‘They’ll just have to survive.’ Letting go of her, Carr got up. ‘Which reminds me. There’s something I have to do before we go.’
A couple of hours later, her bag packed, Lizzie made her way downstairs in time to see Ash exit the library, an odd expression on his face.
‘Good morning,’ she said curiously, as he seemed about to walk right past her without a word.
‘Lizzie,’ he said, his voice a little hoarse. He coughed. ‘Sorry, I didn’t see you.’
‘I’m heading off today,’ she told him.
‘Yeah.’ Ash cleared his throat again. ‘Dad said.’ He frowned at her for a second as though he might have something more to add.
Lizzie waited.
Bending, he kissed her quickly on the cheek. ‘See you next weekend.’ Before she had time to react, Ash had vanished up the stairs.
In the library, she found Carr standing at the window.
‘You talked to him, didn’t you?’
H
e nodded.
‘How did it go?’
There was a pause. Lizzie smiled to herself as Carr, too, cleared his throat. ‘Not too badly.’
‘You sorted things out?’ She put her arms around his waist, leaning her head against his shirt.
‘We made a start.’
Lizzie ducked under his arm as he raised it for her. ‘What did you tell him?’
‘Pretty much the same thing I told you.’ He looked down at her. ‘That I need him here.’
‘Is he going to stay?’
‘He’s going to think about it.’
‘You’re getting good at this,’ she teased him gently.
Carr gave her a steady look. ‘You ready to go?’
By the time they pulled into the vineyard that afternoon, the sky behind the hills was a deep and ominous black. As a trio of rabbits fled from the lawn at the Hilux’s approach, Lizzie shot Carr a mischievous look.
‘Remember the first time you drove me home? You were so steely.’
‘I wanted to touch you so badly, I thought the cab would explode.’ The muscle beside his mouth moved as he looked over at her. ‘Nothing’s changed.’
‘Not true,’ Lizzie grinned, letting herself out of the ute. ‘You’ve fixed the door handle.’
The air outside was charged and perfectly still, as if the whole valley were holding its breath for the storm. She stood looking at her house, the long wall of glass that today, more than ever, seemed to hover between the rocks and the grass.
‘Come on,’ she said, as Carr walked around the cab to stand beside her. ‘Come for a walk. Let’s go check on your boundary fence.’
She led him up through the vines, his hand in hers more real than any of the familiar landmarks around her. At the fence across which they had seen each other for the very first time, she stopped. Over its line, Carr’s land climbed to the dark horizon which, she now knew, was barely the beginning of Glencairn Station.
‘Whenever I stand here,’ she told him, not taking her eyes off the view, ‘I think about you. Where you are. What you’re doing behind those hills.’
