The Country Girl

by Cathryn Hein

  The Country Girl

  Cathryn Hein

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  CATHRYN HEIN is the bestselling author of eleven rural romance and romantic adventure novels, a Romance Writers of Australia Romantic Book of the Year finalist with Santa and the Saddler, and a regular Australian Romance Reader Awards finalist. Her novel Wayward Heart won the member’s choice award for best cover at the 2016 Australian Romance Reader Awards.

  A South Australian country girl by birth, Cathryn loves nothing more than a rugged rural hero who’s as good with his heart as he is with his hands, which is probably why she writes them! Her romances are warm and emotional, and feature themes that don’t flinch from the tougher side of life but are often happily tempered by the antics of naughty animals. Her aim is to make you smile, sigh, and perhaps sniffle a little, but most of all feel wonderful.

  Cathryn currently lives at the base of the Blue Mountains in New South Wales with her partner of many years, Jim. When she’s not writing, she plays golf (ineptly), cooks (well), and in football season barracks (rowdily) for her beloved Sydney Swans AFL team.

  Discover more about Cathryn and her stories at cathrynhein.com.

  For Jim

  Contents

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Excerpt

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 1

  There were locals who claimed Fortune had always gazed favourably on Castlereagh Road. Perhaps that was true, back in the day—the long-lost good times before Fortune’s ugly cousin Tragedy crawled in and tore a family’s heart apart.

  For Patrick Lawson, those people couldn’t have been more wrong. Castlereagh Road was where despair battled hope in a war where victory for one was as unthinkable as the other was impossible.

  Some days he never felt like this. Some days Patrick imagined he was happy. That the two-kilometre drive from his parents’ farm to Springbank was the same as it had been eight years ago, when he was seventeen and he and Maddy had first fallen in love. That she’d greet him in the yard like she always did, grinning the smile that made his heart feel proud and possessive, and other parts of him hunger.

  Some days he deluded himself that the world was okay, and the joyful life he’d mapped out could still happen. Then a day like today would rise up and kick him so hard it was like it was his body shattered beyond repair. His brain wiped of its human beauty.

  It was the horse that set him off. Again. Hanging over the post and rail fence with his dark brown eyes and snip of white on his nose, and stupid twitching ears constantly moving as if guided by intelligence. Khan spotted the ute and tossed his head and flared his nostrils in happy greeting, and for one blinding moment all Patrick wanted to do was smash his foot on the accelerator and drive as fast at the fence as the engine would allow.

  Instead he kept a steady pace down the drive while sweat beaded his brow and his grip turned slippery, and he pretended not to notice as Khan followed his progress at a lively trot and then broke into a canter and veered away from the rail, racing, racing, like Maddy would now never do.

  It took Patrick a good few minutes under the blast of the car’s aircon to set himself right. He never liked for Grant and Nicola to see him when he was like this. They had enough to cope with as it was without the burden of his anger. And he sure as hell never wanted Maddy to sense it.

  He got out and slammed the door shut and glanced at the paddock. Khan had cantered away to the far end, below the slope and out of sight. Patrick hoped he rotted there.

  There was music playing, drifting through the screen door. He could hear Nicola singing softly, probably preparing dinner. Patrick wondered why the familiarity of it didn’t soothe him.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, knocking on the jamb and entering.

  Nicola looked up from the spuds she was peeling. ‘Oh, Patrick. Hi.’ She smiled. ‘Sorry for the singing. I thought you were Grant. He’s due back from town any minute.’ She nodded towards the radio. ‘You can turn that down now.’

  ‘And spoil your fun? I’ll leave it.’ He paused. ‘How is she?’

  Nicola’s smile slipped a fraction as it always did when talking about her daughter. ‘Oh, not too bad.’

  Which meant not too good. Patrick glanced at the doorway that led to the living-dining area, now converted to Maddy’s day room. He could only see the edge of the bed. Nicola must have wheeled Maddy to the French doors so she could look out.

  ‘Need me to do anything?’

  ‘No. Grant helped me bath her earlier. You go on in.’

  He nodded, stepped towards the door and took a breath. No matter that he did this every day, he still needed that pause. He was a man stuck in a loop of disbelief, as though each night erased the truth and each afternoon he had to face it again for the first time.

  A heartbeat was all it took, a fortifying half-breath and then he could stride in, smiling the love he still felt. That he’d promised he’d always feel.

  ‘Hey, babe.’ Patrick kissed her hello, closing his eyes and letting the soft skin of her cheek caress his own as he breathed her in. Maddy smelled of the body wash Nicola favoured, and the massage oil she used for the muscle-stretching exercises.

  He moved back a little, searching Maddy’s eyes for a hint of recognition, anything, but they remained unfocused. In the early days Patrick used to fret that she might be blind but the doctors assured him she wasn’t. The blankness was simply a symptom of her minimally conscious state, plus there were moments when Maddy definitely recognised her parents. Followed by really shitty times when she would notice Khan through the window and make a movement that could have been anything, but Nicola swore was Maddy reaching.

  Something she never did for him.

  Spotting a crust of dried saliva, Patrick automatically snatched up a wipe and cleaned it away, then caressed her hair and moved across to the bookshelf. A velvet box sat in one corner. He picked it up and took out the ring, and shifted back to gently unhook her curled left wrist and hand, and slide it on her ring finger.

  He sat with her hand cupped in his, the diamond sparkling in the afternoon sun, and began to talk.

  ‘First of the weaner sales today. Prices were strong. Most of them northern buyers. They’ve had good rains up there and are looking to restock, plus the export market’s picking up. About time. Things have been pretty crook.’

  He paused and stared out the French doors at the view of the patio and garden, and paddocks beyond. Grant and Nicola had been graziers once, before the accident. In the past they would have been with Patrick
and his dad at the saleyards on a day like this, assessing the lots, watching the auctioneers in action, nodding in approval at the rally in prices, but most of Springbank had been sold, leaving only a few hundred acres around the house. Patrick’s dad had bought the 600 acres that bordered their own property, Wiruna, along the southern side, and the rest had gone to the McDayles.

  ‘You would have enjoyed it, Mad. Everyone upbeat.’ He returned his gaze to her, amazed at how she could look the same yet so different. The accident had left her once-fit body twisted and wilted, despite regular physical therapy. The golden tones of her skin had faded long ago, leaving it almost translucent.

  Her face remained beautiful but also heartbreakingly wrong. The nose he used to plant affectionate pecks on was still straight and fine, her cheekbones high. Nicola kept Maddy’s dark eyebrows as precisely shaped as they’d always been, and the thick lashes surrounding her chocolate brown eyes remained long and still fluttered against him in butterfly kisses when he pressed close. Her hair was clean and silky but was now kept shorter for practical reasons. No thick pony tail to give teasing tugs.

  His darling Maddy, and yet not.

  The mouth he’d kissed so often moved involuntarily in yawns and contortions. Her eyes rolled. Frowns appeared and disappeared at random. There was no speech, only incoherent vocalisations. Sounds unlike anything Patrick had ever heard, like something in agony. He hated them. They made his gut clench in fear for her, that she was trapped and hurting and calling for help.

  Nicola believed she understood every nuance of voice and movement. That Maddy was communicating to her with what she had left. Grant humoured his wife but in secret had revealed to Patrick that he thought it was only wishful thinking. The doctors were certain that the slow transition from coma to vegetative state to minimal consciousness had progressed as far as possible given the severity of Maddy’s brain injury. But hope was a living thing, and every real or imagined sign of improvement brought with it the idea that the experts could be wrong. That one day those who loved her would have her back.

  ‘I heard a bit of news today.’

  He rubbed his thumb over the diamond of her engagement ring. The ring that had taken him four long months to save for. The ring that he’d slid on her finger while bended on one knee like a cartoon Prince Charming as she’d nodded over and over, and half-sobbed, half-laughed above him.

  Patrick studied Maddy’s expression and saw nothing. His fingers tightened. Maybe he shouldn’t tell her. Maybe there were some things she didn’t need to know.

  But he’d made a pact from the start that he wouldn’t keep secrets. That their lives and those of their families and friends would remain as talked about and dissected as they’d always been. This was news he would have told her before. No matter how bittersweet, he’d tell her now.

  ‘Clipper finally found the balls to ask Bec to marry him. She said yes. Wedding’s going to be in November apparently. They want …’ He inhaled deeply as his throat seemed to fill with gravel. ‘They want to start a family straight away. Clip reckons he’s wast—’

  Patrick got up, breathing and blinking hard. He shoved his hands into his pockets and faced the doors, away from Maddy, ordering himself to pull his shit together. He peered at the sky, feigning interest in the weather while he tried to swallow the painful thickness from his throat.

  A keening noise sounded behind him. Patrick closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the glass, wanting to smash it through. It was Maddy making one of her sounds. Nothing more. Yet the keen kept coming. To his heart it was like a wail.

  He forced himself to turn around and felt like he’d been sledgehammered. Maddy’s mouth was curled and her eyes were scrunched shut. It wasn’t an unusual contortion but today it was different. Today, sliding from the corner of her right eye, was a tear.

  ‘Patrick?’

  Nicola was at the doorway, tea towel in hand. He stared at her with his mouth open as Maddy continued to keen.

  Frowning, she stepped into the room. ‘Patrick, what’s the matter?’

  He stared back at Maddy.

  Nicola walked briskly to her daughter’s side and inspected her face. The worried expression softened as she gently brushed Maddy’s fringe aside. ‘It’s okay, honey. Dinner’s not far away.’ She smiled at Patrick. ‘Her stomach’s probably hurting. She was in a mood and didn’t eat much at lunch. I’ll bring her bowl in a minute.’

  But Patrick knew better. It wasn’t hunger, it was grief and anger at the unfairness of life. The same emotions boiling up in him. Except in his case he didn’t want to just shed a tear, he wanted to wreck things, destroy, the same way Maddy’s life had been destroyed, the way Nicola’s and Grant’s had. The way his own had.

  He didn’t look at Nicola as he shoved past. His thoughts were elsewhere, on the rifle Grant kept. The gun safe and ammunition.

  Patrick had been coming to Springbank his entire life: as a typical farm-kid neighbour, as a teenager in love, and as a man. He knew pretty much where everything was kept. Most of all he knew where the keys to the gun safe were stored.

  ‘Patrick?’

  Nicola’s startled voice carried up the hall but he ignored it. He rummaged in the office drawer and plucked out the keys. Minutes later he had the rifle and bullets.

  When he turned back into the hall Nicola was there. She took in the gun, her eyes turning enormous.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He shook his head and pushed past her.

  ‘Patrick?’

  He kept walking.

  ‘Patrick!’

  The kitchen screen door opened with a squeal and banged shut behind him.

  ‘Oh, God. Oh, God. Grant! Grant!’

  The outside air struck Patrick’s face, cooling the tears there. Unaware he’d even been crying, he swiped at them as he marched. Grant must have come home. Patrick had to hurry now, before the older man stopped him.

  Khan was back grazing near the fence. He whickered when he spotted Patrick and immediately wandered over to hang his head over the top rail.

  ‘Good boy,’ crooned Patrick, holding his hand out and stroking the horse’s forehead. He rubbed, sniffing back tears, hating even touching the animal but needing it calm for what he was about to do. Satisfied, he stood back to aim the rifle.

  The horse stayed still in anticipation of more attention.

  Patrick’s teeth were clenched, his breathing ragged. One squeeze, one gentle little squeeze, and the thing he hated most would be gone. He breathed in and sighted, honing in on an imaginary crossing of diagonal lines drawn between Khan’s eyes and ears.

  More tears slithered, bringing with them another noise. It was a few heartbeats before he realised it was coming from his own mouth. A kind of inhuman rasp.

  He swallowed it away, shoved the butt harder against his shoulder and tightened his grip on the forestock. Khan blinked, the skin above his eyes wrinkling as if in confusion.

  One squeeze. Just one.

  Footsteps approached. Grant stood alongside him. Patrick kept focus on the wavering barrel, trying to hold it steady. He wasn’t a cruel man. This wasn’t about suffering. This was about eliminating the reminder of everything that had gone wrong. A bullet in the right place would ensure that.

  Patrick sniffed and blinked, and braced his legs harder. Slowly he drew in a breath and began to move his finger.

  A worn hand rested on the barrel. ‘Don’t, son.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘You don’t.’

  Patrick shook his head but he eased back on the trigger. He couldn’t fire with Grant this close.

  ‘It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s.’

  But it was. It was absolutely the horse’s fault. Maddy hadn’t done this to herself.

  ‘Pat, it won’t change anything.’

  ‘I just want to go back. To the way it was.’

  ‘I know, son. We all do.’

  There was no pressure on the barrel, just the weight of Grant�
��s hand, but it felt like the sky pushing against him. Patrick clenched his jaw. He needed to do this. Why couldn’t Grant see that?

  ‘Don’t kill the thing she loves.’

  ‘I hate it.’

  ‘I know. But shooting Khan won’t help you and it’ll only hurt Maddy. You don’t want that.’

  The barrel dropped, Patrick’s head with it. He would never hurt Maddy. Never. He let out a sob as the older man took the rifle from his hands and placed it on the ground. Then Grant’s arms were around him and his choked voice was promising Patrick that the pain would pass. It was just a moment. They all had them now and then.

  ‘It’ll be all right, son,’ said Grant, patting his back one last time and letting go.

  ‘Yeah.’ Patrick rubbed his hand across his mouth, wiping his tears as he went. ‘Yeah.’

  But they were words he was finding harder and harder to believe.

  Chapter 2

  Tash Ranger smiled as she focused the video camera. Her friends looked brilliant, exactly as specified. Colourful and cool, and without a scrap of Melbourne black, which was just as well. Not a lot of breeze found its way into the tiny backyard of her townhouse and the evening was a bit of a stinker. Black was the last thing anyone needed to be wearing.

  Her soon-to-be ex-townhouse, she reminded herself. This time next week Tash would be gone. To fresh woods and pastures not new, as she liked to misquote Milton.

  Her stomach did a slow nervous flop. This project would be a success. She would make it one. Eighteen months from now Tash would be looking back and laughing at her silly doubts.

  ‘Come on, Tash!’ yelled her shaggy-haired neighbour Thom, looking his usual casually hipsterish self in rolled-up drainpipe camel chinos, braces and a striped shirt that looked like something Tash’s pa would wear but was most likely an expensive designer label.

  ‘Just making sure you all look gorgeous!’

  She inspected the screen again, then, checking no one was near, zoomed in on Brandon Seymour for a second. A long, indulgent second that made her heart beat too fast and her brain fizzle. Quickly, she zoomed back out before she combusted with lust. Or was caught.