by Cathryn Hein
She studied him a moment, gaze lingering on his scar before sliding away. ‘I’m sure you do all right.’
Matt’s eyebrows rose at the half compliment but Callie was too busy staring through the trees to the yards with her hands on her hips to notice. Today she had her hair tied back low into two pigtails, giving her a girlish air. A sky blue singlet set off her eyes, her cuffed, faded red cotton shorts and worn out Dunlop Volleys showing off slender legs. Sweat or sunscreen cast a shine over her tanned shoulders and he was struck by how beach girl pretty she was. How she seemed to portray a kind of free-spiritedness, so incongruous to what he’d seen of her at the hospital and at Glenmore, when her reactions appeared those of someone who was anything but free.
She moved away from him, ducking under the branches to the edge of the shade, and nodded at Topanga, still chewing on his feed. ‘That’s a nice-looking horse. Is Wal planning to race him?’
‘No. He’s just breaking him in for someone.’ Matt made a face. ‘Although he’s making noises about me taking over the job.’
‘I didn’t know you could ride.’
‘That’s the sticking point. I can’t.’
A smile tugged her mouth. ‘Yes. I could see how that would make things difficult.’
‘You’re the horsey one.’ He cocked his head to the side. ‘Maybe it’s you he should be asking.’
‘No thanks. I have enough on my plate.’ She turned away again and swept her gaze around. If there was a purpose to her visit she didn’t seem in any hurry to divulge it. ‘This place used to seem like heaven when I was a kid. I was always so excited to come here.’ She shook her head, expression slightly puzzled. ‘I can’t see it now. It just looks like a normal farm.’
‘I imagine it was the horses.’
‘Yeah. I always was a sucker for anything that neighed.’
‘And now?’
Callie looked up at him from under lowered lashes. ‘Now I’m a sucker for different things.’
He took a step closer and reached up to wrap both hands around an overhanging branch, gratified when her gaze skittered over his flexed biceps and chest. ‘Callie Reynolds, are you flirting with me?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the way you just looked at me.’
She shook her head. ‘What is it about you Graneys? You all seem to have egos the size of elephants.’
‘So what was that look for then?’
‘That look, which you so badly misinterpreted, was merely that of a woman in need.’
‘A woman in need?’
Humour lit her blue eyes but her voice feigned seriousness. ‘A woman in deep need.’
Matt pursed his lips, nodding. ‘This deep need of yours, would it happen to have something to do with Glenmore?’
‘It would.’
He flipped through what help she could require and thought he knew. ‘The tractor won’t start.’
‘Attractive and a mind-reader.’
‘Attractive?’
‘I’m a woman in need. Right now any capable man is attractive.’
He clutched his palms to his chest. ‘You wound me.’
She laughed. ‘I’m sure you’re tough enough to take it.’
‘Fortunately for you, I am. All right. I’ll take a look, but I’d better warn you my assistance comes at a price.’
Callie crossed her arms and shifted her weight onto one hip, expression wry. The movement caused the strap of her singlet to fall to one side, exposing a very white bra strap. ‘Oh, yes?’
Matt resisted the urge to lift the singlet strap back in place. The conversation might be borderline flirty but it hadn’t progressed to the point of touching. And he wasn’t sure that he was reading her correctly anyway.
Only one way to find out.
‘Dinner, tonight. I’ll cook you that steak I talked about.’
‘Can’t, sorry. I’m working.’
That threw him. What the hell would Callie need a job for? ‘Working? Where?’
‘Working, yes.’ Noticing the strap, she adjusted it. ‘Thanks in part to Wal lumping a horse on me, things are going to take a lot longer with Glenmore than I thought. Morton might be able to survive on clover but I can’t, so I scored myself some bar shifts at the Royal to help tide me over.’
The idea she was staying on, even for a short while, appealed. A lot. ‘What about Friday night then?’
‘Working.’
He eyed her. ‘Saturday?’
‘The same. And thanks to it being the Australia Day long weekend, I have shifts on Sunday and Monday as well.’
He let out an exasperated breath. ‘Okay, how about you just tell me what night you aren’t working.’
‘Smart play. Tuesday. I’m as free as a bird on Tuesday evening. You may impress me with your steak-cooking expertise then, but,’ she held up a warning finger, ‘only if you can get the tractor going.’
Matt pointed to his chest. ‘Attractive, capable man, remember?’
Though Glenmore’s Fiat tractor should have been retired from service years ago, Matt discovered nothing wrong with it – Callie simply couldn’t fathom its gears.
Driving the ute and tractor, operating machinery and safely attaching and detaching linkages and PTOs was one of the first things Wal had taught Matt as a boy. At the time his mother had been unimpressed when she found out, but looking back, the old man had been correct to do so. Unfamiliarity and inexperience caused accidents, and the novelty made a marvellous respite from the monotony of boarding school. School was fun, but at Amberton lay adventure.
‘You’ll have to organise more diesel,’ said Matt as he inspected Glenmore’s small but fairly modern diesel-grade polyethylene fuel tank and pump system. Until Matt had pointed it out, Callie assumed Maggie had used the leggy, alien-looking drum that stood on rusted stilts on a concrete platform behind the machinery shed. Maggie probably would have had she’d been allowed, but as Wal so often liked to grumble, farm health and safety had so bogged them in rules and regulations it was a wonder they could farm at all. Matt supposed she’d been left no choice but to upgrade.
The tank registered around a third full. Not enough to keep a tractor as old as Glenmore’s running for the work Callie had in mind. Given the Fiat’s age and condition, an army Bushmaster probably had better fuel efficiency.
‘More diesel.’ Callie scratched at her arm, the tease-filled girl he’d seen at Amberton replaced by someone more pensive. ‘All right. So how do I do that?’
‘Just take the tank into Versace’s. It’s where Wal gets his diesel from. Maggie probably has an account too.’ He rose from his crouch. ‘There’ll be paperwork around somewhere. Or you could just ring and ask.’
She looked away from him, studying her foot as she dragged it through some weed.
‘How much will it cost, do you think?’
‘I don’t know. A reasonable amount I guess.’ Matt looked at the tank and did a quick calculation. ‘Three or four hundred. I don’t really know. Wal would be the best one to ask. But you’ll need more than one tank if you’re planning to slash the entire property.’
She shook her head and walked away to stand at the edge of the concrete apron, arms crossed, as she surveyed the overgrown paddocks.
He watched for a moment before moving alongside her. Morton had retreated to the small stand of gums shading the far eastern end of his paddock. Bird chatter filtered from the forest, and on the rising breeze he could hear traces of the ocean. The forecast southerly change was at last approaching. If Callie wanted to make the most of the cooler weather she needed to get moving. But he kept his counsel, leaving her to think on whatever it was that caused that pinched, hounded look on her face.
‘You ever had one of those days where you just wanted to run?’ she asked quietly. ‘And keep running until you’ve run so far you can never go back.’
‘Plenty.’
Questioning blue eyes swivelled to meet his.
He sh
rugged. ‘War’s shit.’
She held his gaze for a moment, then her expression softened. ‘Thanks.’
‘What for?’
‘For putting things into perspective.’
Genuinely puzzled, he frowned and tilted his head. ‘How?’
‘You reminded me how lucky I am.’
He thought of the terrified children he’d seen, and the women with eyes so haunted he wondered if they ever slept. The bodies. Stevie.
‘Yeah, we’re all lucky.’ Feeling the need to lighten the mood, he pointed his chin toward the Fiat. ‘Come on, I think it’s about time you learned how to drive the beast.’
The tractor was cramped with the two of them inside. Matt stood in the cabin with his arms braced against the frame and a slouch in his back. Each time he tried to move, his leg brushed Callie’s arm and he found himself constantly apologising.
‘I can’t get the seat to lower,’ she said, fidgeting with the setting.
He stooped down for the lever, bumping her again. ‘Sorry.’
‘You don’t have to keep apologising.’
‘Yeah, I do. My old London nanny would smack me around if I didn’t.’
‘You had a nanny?’
‘A nanny and a posh boarding school. I’m a well brung-up bloke.’ He winked at her and pulled hard on the stiff adjustment. The seat suddenly dropped, bouncing Callie into his arm. ‘Fuck, sorry. You okay?’ She gave him a look that made him hold up his palms. ‘All right, I’ll stop apologising. You set now?’
Placing her hand on the wheel, she balanced her feet on the pedals and wriggled her bum a bit. ‘Yep.’
‘It’s pretty straightforward,’ he said, pointing in turn at the tractor’s mechanics. ‘Key, starter button, clutch, high and low ratio gears, handbrake.’ And so the lesson continued, covering all the basics and safety issues he could think of until, finally, Callie was ready to take off. Tongue protruding slightly between her lips in concentration, she followed his instructions. The tractor lurched as she released the clutch too quickly before recovering to a sedate chug.
She grinned and leaned forward, bouncing in her seat. ‘Easy!’
‘Driving is. We still have to get you sorted with the slasher.’ Matt straightened as much as the cabin allowed, wincing at the ache already forming in his back. He looked behind to give the mower a last check and pointed to an overgrown area past the main gate. ‘Head over to that clearing. There’s plenty of practice space, and around the house is where you should do first anyway.’
Though he suspected she knew most of it from watching her grandfather, Matt explained the mechanics of raising and lowering the mower, and the operation of the power take off. He wanted to make sure she understood the beauty and danger of machinery, and what to look out for when things went wrong, just as Wal had patiently taught him all those years ago. Within minutes Callie had it mastered, the slasher cutting a messy swathe through the long growth as pleasure in her achievement brightened her face.
Though his back ached and sweat soaked his T-shirt, Matt stayed on the tractor until she’d completed the entire area. She learned fast and, to his relief, took the task seriously, concentrating on getting the mower as close as possible to the fenceline while taking care to leave a safety margin, and monitoring the dials and machinery. Honk spent the entire time strutting around his patch with his head up and neck snaked, bugling his irritation at the noise. Not that Matt could hear him, the cacophony of the tractor kept the goose, and everything else, drowned out.
‘Dinner. Tuesday,’ Matt ordered when the tractor was safely returned to its bay in the machinery shed and he and Callie were making their way toward the house via the newly slashed front yard. ‘And don’t be late.’
‘Late?’ She thinned her lips and gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘You never said anything about having to be on time. The tide might be right.’
‘What’s the tide got to do with anything?’
‘Fishing.’
‘Fishing?’
‘Yes. Fishing.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘You know, rod, reel, bait, ocean.’
He stepped onto the spongy side lawn, another aspect of Glenmore that could do with some maintenance. ‘As a matter of fact I do, but I’m not quite sure what that has to do with our dinner date.’
‘Well, a day off means fishing.’
‘It does?’
She nodded, expression serious. ‘It does.’
‘And you’re prepared to be late for an evening with me—’ he pointed to his chest, ‘—the attractive – your words – capable man who fulfilled his promise to get your tractor going, for the sake of dropping a line?’
‘I am.’
Matt raised his eyes and made a tsk noise, as though he couldn’t believe such an attitude could exist in a woman. ‘Callie Reynolds, you are one strange bird.’
His display of mock disappointment proved a mistake. With his gaze averted, Matt failed to register Honk stalking around the edge of the house until it was too late. As soon as the word ‘bird’ was out of his mouth, the goose launched, great wings flapping, head streaking toward Matt’s groin like a white and orange cobra.
He jumped backward, accidentally knocking into Callie, who’d ducked behind him. She grabbed his arm for balance, pulling him even further back just as he jerked his hips away from another lunge from Honk. The movement overbalanced them both and Matt only had enough time to grab Callie and spin her sideways before momentum sent him crashing to the lawn, Callie dropping painfully on his chest in an uncomfortable sprawl.
He blinked at the sky, unsure if it was his chest or the sprinkler head digging into his arse that hurt most. Callie rolled off him and they both lay staring, chests heaving, while Honk released a victory bugle.
‘You all right?’ Matt finally managed.
‘Yep.’
‘Interesting day.’
‘It is.’
They stared some more, floored by a mad bird.
‘Not quite what I had in mind.’
‘No.’
Matt started to laugh. Callie joined in, giggling in a way that reminded him bittersweetly of Hope. For a yearning moment he wished he could talk to Callie about her, share the good times, the things they loved about Hope, keeping her alive through their united memories. But he and Hope had always been private. Secrecy was what helped make the relationship so intense.
Like so much else in his life, age had given him perspective. Hope might have broken his heart, but that didn’t mean he didn’t respect what they’d experienced. It’d been special the way only first loves can be. Sharing her now, even after Wal’s revelation, would seem like a betrayal.
Honk sounded another smug trumpet, cutting their laughter.
‘That steak,’ said Callie, flopping her head to the side and regarding him with moist, mirth-filled eyes. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to swap it for roast goose?’
Nine
After the fun of Matt’s tractor driving lesson, the thrill of operating heavy machinery and the satisfaction of seeing some progress on her Glenmore chore list, Callie thought slashing would be fun. If not fun, then at least not onerous, but the first full morning on her own had her reassessing that idea. By the end of her session on Saturday, she hated the job.
Driving monotonous laps of Glenmore’s paddocks left her too much time to think, and Glenmore and thinking didn’t co-exist well. The more she contemplated, the more confused she felt about her plans. Callie knew what she was doing was right, but since when did rightness feel so damn wrong?
Thanks to her poor financial situation, she’d had no choice but to dig into Nanna’s cash account to pay for diesel, and while Versace’s were sympathetic, business was business. If Callie wanted fuel, she had to pay upfront, which she did, heading straight for the newsagent’s afterwards to invest in a ledger, driven by the irrational imperative to keep account of every dollar of Nanna’s money she spent. Why, she wasn’t sure. The land and cash were all hers anyway. The only person she was ac
countable to was herself, yet Callie couldn’t shake the feeling she was stealing. From the Hope Foundation, from her parents. From Hope herself.
And while the weather remained cool, Callie had endless hours on the tractor to dwell on the thought.
Fortunately, when her mind finally tired of picking over the bones of her situation, she had Matt and her inconvenient attraction to him, along with Lyndall Soriano’s fear of Morton, to occupy her thoughts.
In the two days since his lesson on Thursday, Matt had been over each morning to check on her. He didn’t stay long, just enough to give the machinery a quick once-over and ask how she was faring. They’d exchange a few minutes’ banter and then he’d leave, Callie watching his ute as he drove away, flustered by the warmth he left behind.
Kate and Lyndall Soriano also became regular visitors, with Callie taking the lunchtime arrival of Kate’s teal Range Rover as her cue to stop for the day. The paddocks might have needed slashing, but Lyndall’s fear of Morton was pitiful. Callie didn’t know what she could do to help, but she wanted to at least try.
While Lyndall hovered near the house with Kate, Callie would lead Morton out of his paddock to the shade of Nanna’s liquidambar, chattering brightly as she brushed him down and cleaned out his hooves, doing her utmost to demonstrate that the gentle horse was harmless. Yesterday, Callie had vaulted onto his back and sat astride, savouring the long-forgotten joy of having a horse between her legs. She’d leaned forward, rubbing Morton’s mane and tugging his ears until Lyndall’s despairing expression sent her sliding back to the ground.
At a loss, Callie tried to ask Wal for advice when she visited before her shift at the pub, but the old man’s mood turned filthy the moment she mentioned Lyndall’s visits. After Wal’s revelation about Nanna’s plans, Callie understood his anger, although she was finding his temper increasingly difficult to tolerate. What worried her more was his appearance. The corrugations in his face seemed to have deepened, each furrow more shadowed. His disapproving mouth, always sunken, had submerged even further, forming a hollow in his face like a closed up sea anemone. Even his eyes appeared to have lost their healthy alertness, and there was a sheen to his skin, like a cold sweat, Callie didn’t like. But if he was in pain, Wal refused to acknowledge it.
