by Janet Gover
‘Can I be bridesmaid?’
‘I’m sure Lizzie would love that.’
Something moves on the side of the road, then another shape leaps out from between the trees into the path of the swiftly moving car. Her father swears as he turns the wheel—too late to avoid the kangaroo, which flies into the air and lands on the bonnet of the car with a horrible crash.
Kath screams as the car starts to slide on the icy road. Her daughter screams too. Both voices are lost in the sound of tearing metal as the car rolls over and over again, before smashing into a tree. The engine splutters for a few seconds then there is silence, broken only by the sounds of a dying kangaroo thrashing in the long grass.
Soon that stops too.
Kayla opens her eyes. She is cold. So very cold. One of her shoes is lying in the grass near her face. It’s one of her very best shoes. The ones with the gold straps, which she loves more than anything. Except there is something staining the shoe. Something dark and red. Now she can’t wear it at Lizzie and Mitch’s wedding.
She hears her father calling her name. She tries to call back to him, but the words won’t come. Something wet and sticky is on her face and her head hurts. Her leg hurts too.
‘Mummy? Daddy?’
She tries to move and screams. Then the pain and the noise and the fear fade to darkness and silence.
CHAPTER
63
There were lights in the kitchen of Willowbrook as Mitch pulled into the driveway. His heart leaped. Was Liz home from the hospital? But even as the thought formed, he knew he was wrong. If she’d been released, Liz would have gone straight to the King of the Ranges to check on her horses. The horses were always her first thought. He’d never really minded that. Mitch cared about his horses too, although they’d been relegated to second place in his heart after he and Lizzie had shared that first kiss in the cemetery. They’d laughed together about that later. What a place for a first kiss. As for their last kiss … that had been standing in front of the altar at an old wooden church in Merriwa. Their first kiss as husband and wife. And their last.
He pulled up to the house and parked his car next to the red one that was already there. He was tired. After a full day of competition, the drive here to care for Liz’s horses was tough. A neighbour was checking Mitch’s horses, but he would trust no-one with the Willowbrook animals. He owed Liz that.
But first, he had to know how Liz was doing.
He knocked on the kitchen door. There was no answer. Kayla must be at the stables. There was a light on in the feed shed as he approached. The door was open, but the room was empty. Puzzled, he walked into the stables and found Kayla leaning on the door of Deimos’s empty stall. She was crying silently, her face a mask of grief.
Mitch’s heart stopped beating. ‘Kayla? Is it Liz? Is she …?’
Kayla looked up at him, her brow wrinkling as if she was trying to remember who he was. ‘Oh! No, Mitch. She’s fine. She’s going to be fine.’
He placed one hand on the wall of the stables until his mind and body absorbed what she had just said. ‘That’s—well, thank God.’
‘Yeah. Look, Mitch, I’m sorry but I’m really not up to talking right now.’
‘What’s wrong? If it’s not Liz.’
‘Oh, it’s Liz. It’s always Liz.’ The bitterness in Kayla’s voice was shocking.
‘What?’
She gathered herself up and seemed to focus on him for the first time. ‘I’m sorry, Mitch. I can’t. Not tonight.’
He didn’t want to hear that. Something had happened between the sisters, and he needed to know what. He was no longer going to just stand back and wait, but the look on her face told him tonight was not the right time to push.
‘All right. I just came to check Liz’s horses.’
‘I already did that.’
Mitch tried to hide his surprise.
‘I’ll look after them until Liz is out of hospital,’ Kayla continued. ‘After all, Willowbrook is my legacy too.’
‘If you’re sure …’
‘I’m sure. It’ll save you driving back and forth each day. You’ve got enough on your plate with the competition, without this as well. But I can’t come and get Deimos. I don’t have a licence for the truck.’
Mitch could have told Kayla then that he had just completed the first day of competition on Deimos. He could have told her the colt had done well and she could reassure Liz that her dream was still alive. But he didn’t. It was clear she didn’t want to hear that.
‘It’s all right, I’ll look after Deimos and Zeke. But if you need any help, just call me. About anything.’
‘Thanks, Mitch, but right now I need to be alone.’
He left. As he drove away, Mitch realised that everything was about to change. In many ways, he was glad. Things between the three of them couldn’t continue as they had been. He hoped that the change would be for the better, but he wasn’t certain.
CHAPTER
64
Liz lay in the hospital bed, watching the shadows move across the ceiling. Her head hurt under the bandage. Her leg hurt where the snake had bitten her. Her back hurt from a night spent in an unfamiliar bed. But most of all her heart hurt, and none of the painkillers the nurses brought would fix that. For most of the night, she had lain sleepless, counting the mistakes she had made in her life, starting with that day fifteen years ago. By the time the morning sun slipped softly into the room, she had a very long list.
It was no wonder Kayla had left.
No wonder Mitch had found someone new.
She had driven them away because every time she looked at them, the guilt threatened to break her. She had punished them for her guilt. And herself too. And look where it had left her: estranged from her sister, estranged from the man she had loved and married, and lying in a hospital bed while her chance to save the Willowbrook legacy slipped through her fingers.
‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ she whispered.
‘Maybe you owe me an apology as well.’
Liz hadn’t expected to see Kayla again, at least not so quickly. She struggled into a sitting position as her sister walked into the hospital room. She was tired and in pain, but she was ready for a confrontation. She deserved everything Kayla was about to say to her. She would lie there and take it.
‘I do. And I’m so sorry, Kayla. Sorry for everything. I’ve been lying here all night thinking and wishing I had done things differently.’
‘It’s too late for that.’
Liz couldn’t meet her sister’s eyes. She stared at her work-roughened hands lying on the pristine white sheet. ‘I know.’
‘But it’s not too late to fix things. Between us. And with Mitch. Because you’ve been wrong about something all these years.’
‘I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.’
‘True—but I think they all trace back to something that’s been haunting you about that day.’
‘You know we never meant you to follow us. The priest had agreed to marry us at eight o’clock. We would have called you all after that. I really thought no-one would miss me until then. Or they’d think I was down at the stables or something. I never thought you’d follow us. I still don’t know how you found out.’
‘I guess that part is my fault.’
‘Your fault? How?’
Kayla slid into the chair beside the bed. ‘Liz … I’ve remembered.’
After all these years, Kayla’s unemotional declaration was almost like a physical blow. How could she be so calm? Liz struggled to find something to say, but there were no words.
‘I’ve remembered everything. I guess from the shock of your being hurt and then being back here. Last night I drove out to the crash site. It’s the first time I’ve been there since … it was strange. There’s no sign of the crash after all these years, not that I thought there would be. But while I was there, something happened. I remembered everything about that day.’
Liz opened her mouth to speak, but she didn’t kn
ow what to say. Kayla held her hand up before she could even try to find the words she needed.
‘Let me finish. I’m the one who woke early that day and realised you were gone. I told them. If you are to blame, then so am I.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. I saw that your party dress was missing and told Mum. When they figured out where you were, all Dad wanted was to catch you.’
Liz shook her head. ‘We thought we were being so clever. We were idiots.’
‘I remember there was fog, and there were roos on the road. Dad was driving a bit too fast, but it was an accident, Liz. A horrible accident. You can’t keep blaming yourself.’
‘But if I hadn’t—’
‘Stop it, Liz. I could say the same thing. If I hadn’t opened your wardrobe and seen that the dress was gone. If there hadn’t been a fog. Or if there weren’t roos on the road. Or if Dad was driving slower. There are so many ifs. After all these years, Liz, you have to let it go. Mum and Dad would want you to get on with your life. They’d want you to be happy, not punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.’
Liz blinked. ‘That’s easy for you to say.’
‘It’s not really. Don’t forget, I lost my parents too. Then the only person I still loved—you—sent me away.’
‘I had to. I couldn’t run Willowbrook and look after you too. If I’d tried they would have taken you away from me.’
‘I know that now. But at the time, all I knew was that my sister had sent me away. I lost all of my family … and my home. At least you were sleeping in your own bed.’
A sharp pain sliced through Liz. Another layer of guilt to shoulder. ‘I never thought about it like that. I am so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?’
‘I can understand. An eighteen-year-old should never have been asked to shoulder that sort of responsibility.’
‘Thank you.’ It was more than she deserved, but Liz was profoundly grateful to her sister. ‘I really am so sorry. And if it helps, I missed you too. So many times I wanted to drive down to that school and bring you back home, but I was struggling and I didn’t think I could care for you too.’
‘Thank you. And yes, it does help.’ Kayla walked over to the bed and, ever so carefully, hugged her despite the bandages and the splint and the drip. It was a short hug, but it meant more than Liz could say.
‘Liz, I have to ask. What about Mitch? Why did you leave him?’
‘How could I not?’ Liz felt her heart breaking all over again. ‘My parents were dead, and it was my fault. It was our fault. Dad told me, before he died, that he didn’t want me to marry Mitch. He died trying to stop me. How could I be with Mitch after that?’
To her utter surprise, Kayla laughed.
Liz stared at her in astonishment. ‘How dare you—’
‘You’re wrong,’ Kayla said quickly. ‘Liz, you are so wrong. He wasn’t trying to stop you. He wanted to be there to walk you down the aisle.’
Liz blinked, trying to understand. No. That was wrong. It had to be. Her father’s words came back to her: I had to get to you. I didn’t want you to …
She shook her head. ‘Kayla, he told me. There, in the hospital. He was—he was dying. He could barely speak, and the only thing he wanted to tell me was that he didn’t want me to marry Mitch.’
‘What did he say? Exactly.’
‘He said he didn’t want us to get married.’
‘Are you sure? Really sure?’
Liz opened her mouth to say yes, she was sure. She hadn’t given up all her dreams over something she wasn’t sure about. Then she stopped.
‘He said he didn’t want me to do it. He was so weak he could barely speak. And then … he died without saying anything else.’
‘That wasn’t what he was trying to say. He didn’t want you to get married without him and Mum and me being there.’
‘You can’t know that.’
‘Yes, I can. I was in the car that morning. I heard him and Mum talk. And I remember it now. All of it. They loved Mitch like a son, you know that. Maybe they would have liked you to wait a bit, but they always knew the two of you were right for each other. They weren’t against you marrying Mitch. They just wanted to be there when you did.’
Liz closed her eyes, almost in pain as Kayla’s words filled her brain, along with the echoes of their father’s voice. The room seemed to spin as she struggled with conflicting beliefs. But when she opened her eyes again, it was suddenly very clear to her. Kayla was right.
‘All these years …’
‘You idiot,’ Kayla said, but Liz could hear the love in her voice. ‘You divorced Mitch for no reason.’
‘Well, actually …’ Liz hesitated.
‘What?’
‘We’re not divorced.’ The words came out almost as a whisper.
‘What! Seriously?’
Liz nodded. ‘For a while he stayed here, trying to get me to take him back, but I drove him away. Finally, he went up to Queensland. I didn’t see him again until he bought the river flats and the chapel four years ago.’
‘And why didn’t you do something about it then?’
‘I hated him for buying the place. More than that, I hated myself for selling it. It made me feel like a failure.’
‘And—sorry, but I have to ask—in all that time, have you…?’
Unable to speak, Liz simply shook her head.
‘No!’ Kayla’s shock was almost funny.
‘We never had a wedding night.’
‘But before you were married?’
Liz smiled faintly. ‘Once. Just once. The night we decided to run away together. But after that … well, Mitch said we’d be married in a couple of weeks. He wanted to wait. Damn him for being so honourable.’
Kayla was still shaking her head. ‘And I guess you’re going to say that nothing has happened these past four years, when he’s been living across the creek from you.’
‘At first I was so angry that he’d bought the land. I saw it as betrayal and, yes, I know.’ She waved Kayla’s protests away. ‘I know he was actually helping me. But I was so ashamed of my failure that I couldn’t deal with that. And then it was too late, the rift between us was too deep. If your photographer hadn’t made him join that first photo shoot, we probably would still barely be on speaking terms. All my fault too.’
‘But you love him, don’t you?’
Liz didn’t even have to think about that one. She nodded.
‘Then don’t you think it’s time you did something about it?’
‘It’s too late. We fought yesterday and he told me—he said he’s had enough of waiting around for me.’
‘And you said you didn’t want to be with him? I think you were both lying—to each other and, more importantly, to yourselves.’
Kayla was right. How did her little sister ever get to be so wise?
Liz looked around excitedly. ‘Let’s get out of here. Mitch will be at Murrurundi, competing. I want to see him. We need to talk.’ She pushed herself upright and made as if to get off the bed, but the splint enclosing her leg held her back. A twinge of pain in her arm reminded her she was on a drip. ‘Kayla, I need a nurse to get this thing off my leg and …’ The room started to spin. She fell against the pillows.
Within seconds a nurse appeared. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She checked the drip in Liz’s arm and repositioned her leg into a more comfortable place.
‘I need to go …’
‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ The nurse put her hands on her hips and gave Liz a stare that had no doubt terrified hundreds of patients before her. ‘You’re not going anywhere until the doctor says you can.’
‘But—’
The nurse pursed her lips. She began tucking in Liz’s bedding, as if to imprison her by bedclothes alone, then she glared at both sisters, before leaving the room with a warning sniff.
‘Damn!’
‘She’s right, you know.’ Kayla was trying not to laugh. ‘You’ve waited this long. One more day won
’t kill you. And besides, just what do you think you’re going to achieve with one leg in a splint?’ She raised a suggestive eyebrow and Liz smiled.
It felt good to laugh with Kayla again, to talk like they used to. Liz was certain they’d butt heads again, but that’s how sisters were. She knew there was a lot of healing to do, but they were on their way.
CHAPTER
65
Mitch was exhausted and beginning to wonder if he would be able to finish what he had started. He was caring for both his and Liz’s horses at the Murrurundi competition grounds and he was competing in a gruelling competition, riding a horse he didn’t know very well.
But that was nothing compared to the second-by-second fight against the overwhelming need to just drive to Tamworth Hospital to see for himself that Liz was all right.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked his messages again. Still nothing. He’d had no news since he’d found Kayla crying in the stables two nights ago. She’d said Liz was going to be all right, but Mitch needed more. He wouldn’t be reassured until he saw her. Talked to her. Touched her.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face as the paramedics had carried her away. She had been so still and so pale. If she was out of danger, was she still in hospital? If not, why hadn’t she come here? Her first instinct would be to check on her horses. If she wasn’t here, she must be in hospital. That wasn’t a good sign.
And then there were Kayla’s tears when he’d found her in the Willowbrook stables. He’d been so glad to see the sisters, if not exactly friends again, at least talking. Had that gone wrong? He wasn’t sure either of them would get over another estrangement.
‘Good luck in the cross country, mate. See you at the finish line.’
‘You too.’ Mitch raised his hand as a fellow competitor rode past.
It was time he got ready. During all his training for this important event, he’d never even suspected how intensely personal it would become. He had come to believe that his whole future happiness rested on winning. And it had very little to do with training horses.
