Honey Hill House

by Lisa Ireland

  ‘People had no business saying things like that to you. Nobody knows what goes on inside my head. I promise you, you are enough. The past couple of months have been the happiest of my whole life. If Lucy had not turned up with Ollie I would have been happy to never have kids. Warialda is important to me yes, but who knows, maybe Jimmy will have kids and they’ll want to take over the farm.’

  ‘Well, now you don’t have to worry. You have your own child.’

  ‘Yes, I have Ollie and I have a responsibility to him, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be together.’

  ‘Mitch, I want to believe you, really I do. But this is a big deal. I think maybe Lucy’s right. A child deserves to be with both their parents if possible. I grew up in a single-parent family and while Dad did his best, I longed to have my Mum as well.’

  ‘That was different. Your mum passed away. She didn’t have a choice. I do and I’m not going to choose to be absent from Ollie’s life. I just don’t want to live with his mother.’

  ‘Obviously that’s up to you. But I don’t want to be the person that stands in the way of a family being together. Lucy wants you back. Not that long ago you were head over heels in love with her. Maybe, if you give it a go, you can rekindle that.’

  He shook his head, ‘No!’

  ‘So what if we stay together and Lucy decides to take Ollie back to England? Have you thought about that?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t think she’ll do that. But if she did we’d work it out.’

  ‘Mitch, I’m sorry. What we’ve had has been wonderful. I’ll never forget these past few months and what you’ve meant to me, but I can’t stand between you and your son. You need time to sort that situation out and my heart isn’t up to the uncertainty. I’m sorry. I wish it didn’t have to be this way but I have to protect myself. It’s over.’

  Chapter 18

  ‘I can’t believe the Demons are in the grand final,’ Caitlin said over the top of the hair dryer. ‘It’s so exciting!’

  Bea looked at her in the mirror. ‘Since when did you follow the Demons? I haven’t seen you at one game this season.’

  Caitlin laughed. ‘Since the Dragons bombed out of their comp weeks ago.’

  ‘I keep telling you, you need to give away that NRL nonsense and come on over to AFL.’

  ‘Ha! Don’t get your hopes up. I’m never going over to the dark side. I’m only on board for the grand final and that’s only for the socialising. When footy season starts next year I’ll be right back on the sidelines cheering for the Dragons every chance I get.’

  ‘I take it from all the talk about town that grand final day is going to be huge,’ Bea said.

  ‘Yeah. Dulili hasn’t had any sort of team in a grand final for ages. You can expect lots of locals to trek to the ground tomorrow and then win or lose everyone will congregate back at the pub for speeches and so on. It’ll be a big night. You’ll be bringing all your family I expect?’

  Bea hesitated. There really wasn’t a choice. She wanted to support the team. She’d been cheering them on all season, so she could hardly miss the grand final. And the function at the pub would be a great opportunity to introduce her family to the locals. Dad would love the game and hopefully when he saw her among her friends he’d stop worrying about her being a single woman ‘in the middle of nowhere’. But … Mitch was a supporter too, and there was every chance he’d be at the game. He didn’t often come back from Sydney to visit, but the odds were pretty high he wouldn’t want to miss the chance to see his team in a grand final. They hadn’t spoken once since he’d left, and Bea was keen to keep it that way. It was just easier.

  ‘You’re worried he’s going to be there, aren’t you?’ Caitlin said, as if reading her thoughts.

  Bea nodded. ‘I know it’s stupid. This is my home now and it’s his hometown. Of course we are going to run into each other at some point. It’s just awkward with my family here and all. I’d rather there wasn’t a scene. But I can hardly stay away. Dad’s only been here for twenty-four hours and he’s already onto the fact that there’s a big game on tomorrow. I can’t say I won’t take him. Anyway, maybe Mitch won’t come.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Caitlin said doubtfully.

  Bea’s stomach clenched. It’d been over two months since Mitch had moved to Sydney with Lucy and Ollie. She’d moved on, she’d had to. If she let herself dwell on what had happened there was a chance she’d slide down into a dark hole and never crawl out again. Mitch moving away had made life easier. It didn’t stop her missing him, but at least she didn’t have to worry about bumping into him in the general store or at the mailbox. If he was still living here she didn’t know if she could have stayed on. But he was gone and life was simple. Good, even. The B&B was finished and her family was here this weekend so she could do a ‘dry run’. Next weekend she had her first paying guests arriving.

  Most of the time people in town avoided mentioning Mitch’s name, which she appreciated. Dulili was her home now. She was a local, not just one of the ‘dollar people’ anymore. She’d quickly grown to love this place and, provided Mitch stayed away, she couldn’t see herself leaving the town any time soon.

  ‘There,’ said Caitlin. ‘What do you think of the new colour?’

  Bea looked in the mirror at her caramel-coloured hair. She’d kept the short do, but decided to go back to her natural colour. After a few months of transition it seemed Caitlin had achieved the look she was after. ‘It’s great,’ she said, smiling into the mirror. ‘I feel like myself again.’

  * * *

  Mitch couldn’t help but notice the extra cars in Bea’s driveway as he made his way up to the cottage. He recognised the white Patrol as her brother’s car. Obviously her family was here for a few days. That was going to make it difficult to get her alone to say what he had to say. No matter. He had time on his side now that he was back in Dulili for good. Hopefully now that he was back on the farm permanently, Bea would give him a fair hearing. He needed her to understand that no matter what else happened in his life, having her as a part of it was his number one priority. He just hoped it wasn’t too late for that.

  He’d kept up with her life through the snippets of information his mother offered up during their weekly phone calls. Not that he would ever ask about her directly, but Mum—God love her—seemed to understand his need to hear tiny updates on Bea’s life, so she wove the information into her conversation, giving it no more emphasis than the footy scores or the latest complaints from Imelda Wade. As far as he knew there was no new man in Bea’s life. At least that was something.

  As he approached the cottage Mitch felt a huge weight being lifted. How he had missed this place. Lucy absolutely adored the small semi-detached house he’d rented for her in Tempe, but living in Sydney’s inner suburbs these past couple of months had made Mitch yearn for the wide, open spaces he was used to. The very things Lucy loved about the place—it was close to public transport, lots of shops and restaurants—were the things that made him twitchy. There was too much noise, too many people, and for the life of him he couldn’t get used to having neighbours right next door, who he could occasionally hear fighting through the walls.

  The one thing about his time in Sydney that had made all those annoyances worthwhile was Ollie. After two months of being in his son’s company on a daily basis, he felt he’d gone some way to bridging the gap in their relationship caused by their year-long separation. Ollie was just as likely to call out ‘Dada’ as ‘Mama’ these days, and Mitch had quickly become adept at caring for his little boy. He would miss waking up in the single bed opposite Ollie’s cot, but the time to make the break had come. Lucy was settled now. She loved her job working for a bank in the city, and the fact that she’d been able to secure a childcare place for Ollie in the same building made life much simpler for her. Over the past few weeks the two of them had eased Ollie into his childcare routine and he seemed to be thriving.

  Of course Mitch would still be part of Ollie’s life. He and Lucy had a
greed to a visitation schedule of every second weekend and three full weeks a year. For the moment Mitch would go back to Sydney for the weekend visits and bring Ollie back to the farm only when he had custody for a stretch of time. They’d agreed to revise the schedule once Ollie got bigger. First thing Monday he planned to visit a lawyer in Orange to get an official agreement drawn up. Lucy had actually been very reasonable about the whole thing so far, but if he was going to move forward with his life he felt he needed to have their arrangement formalised.

  Maybe then he could prove to Bea he was serious about his intentions towards her.

  * * *

  Bea threw her hands in the air and screamed along with the rest of the crowd. She bent down, picked up her little nephew and whizzed him around in a circle. ‘We won, Felix, the Demons won!’ She set him back onto his feet and looked at her sister-in-law. ‘Can I take him out to the middle with me?’

  Nat grinned. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Come on Felix. Grab your footy. We’re going out to congratulate the players and we can have a bit of a kick too, if you like.’ They ducked under the fence, with Rosie hot on their heels.

  By the time they got out to the middle there were dozens of well-wishers on the ground. The players had formed a circle in the middle. It seemed they were opting to do the team song out on the ground instead of in the clubrooms, so their supporters could share their celebrations. Bea scooped Felix up and popped him on her shoulders so he could get a good view of the action. She joined in the singing with gusto and Felix did his best to sing along too. Good thing she’d given him that crash course in the team song last night, just in case.

  Once the song was done she turned to wave at Nat, Joe and her dad only to find herself staring right into Mitch’s eyes.

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’ Great way to show how together you are, Bea. Just great.

  ‘Yeah, big crowd today, so I guess it’s easy to miss people.’ Rosie began to run circles around him and he bent down to give her a pat. ‘Look how much you’ve grown, girl. Looks like Bea’s been taking good care of you.’

  Bea smiled. Rosie had been a comfort since Mitch packed up and headed to Sydney. Officially, she belonged to Warialda. She was a working dog, but everyone knew her heart belonged to Bea. ‘Your dad’s been taking her out with him most days, but she comes home to sleep each night.’

  Mitch smiled. ‘I’m glad you were able to take her on. The city’s no place for a dog like this one and she might like me a lot but you’re the one she loves.’ He looked up at Felix. ‘Who’s this, then?’

  She lifted her nephew from her shoulders and placed him carefully on the ground. ‘This is Felix, my nephew. Felix, this is Mitch.’

  ‘That was some great singing from you just now, Felix. Did you enjoy the game?’

  Felix nodded silently and an awkward silence fell between them. Bea couldn’t think of one thing that was worth saying. Idle chit-chat with Mitch seemed heartbreakingly pointless. ‘Well, Felix,’ she said, ‘I’d better get you back to your mum. Good seeing you, Mitch.’

  Mitch opened his mouth but she didn’t stay to hear his reply. She turned on her heel and raced back to her family without looking back.

  ‘Wow, what a game,’ Joe said as she approached. ‘I thought they were goners at three-quarter time but that last quarter was just amazing.’

  Bea grinned, despite the fact that her heart was still hammering in her chest after her close encounter with Mitch. ‘Yeah, it was amazing. The boys will be celebrating long and hard tonight.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Joe said, ‘Dad tells me there’s a celebration on at the pub tonight. Are we going?’

  Bea shrugged. ‘Did you want to? I thought it might be a bit much for the kids.’

  ‘The kids will be fine,’ Nat said. ‘I was talking to your friend Caitlin earlier and she said she’s taking her twins. She said the pub is really kid-friendly. Besides, Joe and Dad can go in your car with you and I’ll take the kids in our car. That way if they get tired or cranky I can take them home without ruining everyone’s night. We don’t want you to miss out on a big town event like this, Bea, just because we’re here. And from what I’m hearing it sounds like it’ll be lots of fun.’

  Clearly there was no getting out of it. At least the pub would be packed so the chances of any one-on-one time with Mitch were extremely low. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Looks like that’s all sorted then.’

  * * *

  The pub was jumping. Mitch couldn’t remember a time when he’d seen the old place so packed. The atmosphere was great, but the crowd made it hard to see if she was here. He’d been scanning for ages without any luck.

  ‘Hey Mitch,’ Caitlin slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Good to see you back in town.’

  He leaned in and kissed her cheek. ‘Thanks. Good to see you too.’

  ‘Are you home for long or is this just a flying visit in honour of the footy?’

  ‘I’m back for good. One of the farmhands I hired to help Dad out in my absence has moved on. Lucy’s got herself sorted with a good job and my little bloke is all settled in at his new childcare place, so I figured now was a good time to make the break.’

  ‘So you and Lucy are not together?’

  ‘Nah. I suppose you could say we’re friends. We get on well enough and both of us have Ollie’s best interests as our priority, so we’ll always have that in common. But there’s nothing else between us. That was over a long time ago.’

  Caitlin nodded. ‘Got a recent picture of the little man?’

  Mitch grinned and pulled out his phone. ‘Sure do.’ He opened up his photo stream and found the most recent snaps of his little boy. Caitlin oohed and aahed and made all the right comments, and his heart swelled with pride as he showed off his son. After a few moments Caitlin handed back his phone. As he stood to slide it back into his back pocket he saw Bea walking right past them. He touched her lightly on the arm.

  For the second time that day her eyes widened with shock when she saw him. ‘Oh, hi Mitch,’ she said. She leaned over and gave Caitlin a greeting kiss.

  ‘Isn’t this great?’ Caitlin said. ‘The pub’s just jumping. I think they’re going to do speeches and presentations in the bistro in a few minutes. I might head off and see if I can score a good possie. See you in there?’

  Mitch and Bea both nodded as she waved and made her way across the crowded bar.

  ‘Bea, I—’

  ‘Sorry, Mitch. I promised Nat I’d get her some hot water for the baby’s bottle. Gotta keep moving. Sorry.’

  As she walked away he realised that it was going to take more than just a few quiet words to win her back.

  * * *

  Bea stood towards the back of the bistro with her family, clapping as the last premiership player was presented to the crowd. Despite her earlier encounter with Mitch she was glad she’d made the effort to come tonight. Her family had met just about everyone in town, and her Dad had just told her what a lovely little town this was and how happy he was she was doing so well here.

  She’d kept an eye out but Mitch seemed to have disappeared after she’d snubbed him. She felt a twinge of guilt at the rude way she’d brushed him off, but she just wasn’t ready to deal with him yet. She hoped her behaviour hadn’t scared him away from the pub altogether. The Demons were his team too and he had every right to be here. Hopefully in time chance meetings like today’s wouldn’t be so tense. Maybe one day they could speak to each other as friends, but right now the pain of their break-up was too raw. As much as she hated to admit it, she was still in love with him. Avoidance was the only way she knew to deal with that.

  The club president, Rick Fordham, was speaking now, thanking the players, the coaches and the supporters for all they’d done for the club throughout the year. Bea looked around the room at all the happy faces, including a few of the newer residents such as herself, and thought how lucky she was to have ended up here.

  Loud applause made her direct her
attention back to the stage, where Rick was now winding up. As he finished one of the players came forward and spoke quietly to him. Rick nodded and went back to the microphone. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘It is my very great pleasure to announce a special guest speaker tonight. This speaker has been away from our fair town for a while and we were honoured that he made the trek up from Sydney to see the boys play today. Without further ado I invite former player and club legend, Mitch Mitchell, to the microphone.’

  Thunderous applause followed Rick’s announcement and Bea felt her pulse rate increase as Mitch stepped forward.

  Mitch tapped the microphone and then grinned sheepishly as the crowd shouted good-natured orders for him to ‘get on with it’. ‘Thanks Ricky,’ he began. ‘Great game today boys. You did Dulili proud just like you have all season.’ A roar went up from the crowd and there were many shouts of ‘hear, hear’ and ‘go Demons’, as well as much clinking of glasses. When the noise finally died down he continued. ‘I’m sure some of you boys will have noticed an increase in your fan base this season. We’ve been lucky enough to gain some new residents here in Dulili and some of those residents have become one-eyed Demons fans. Tonight I want to talk to you about one of those fans. In her short time in this town she’s become a loyal Demons supporter, in fact many know her as our most vocal fan.’

  Several of the locals began to laugh and turn in Bea’s direction. Her pulse thudded at the base of her throat.

  ‘In fact, I have to thank the Demons, because it was at one your games that I realised how special this woman was to me. I fell in love with her as she cheered from the sidelines. I am, of course, talking about the beautiful proprietor of Honey Hill House, our town’s brand-new luxury B&B.’

  More applause and a few wolf whistles as the space around Bea began to open up a little. She could feel the eyes of many upon her, most particularly her father’s. Her hands began to shake and she had to step forward and place her glass on a nearby table to stop from spilling its contents all over herself.