by Stella Quinn
Vera wriggled out of Josh’s arms so she could hug her lawyer. ‘You’re the best.’
‘I know. Now, I’ll go work my magic on the judge, and I’ll meet you both inside for the formal apology.’ And with a nicotine-tinged kiss on her forehead, her lawyer was gone.
CHAPTER
45
One sneaky text mid-afternoon to Graeme was all it had taken.
Josh turned off the old highway just as the setting sun was stippling the upper crags of the Snowy Mountains in gold and orange and pink. Vera, thankfully, was in such a tizz of delight she had barely noticed when he pulled into the alley behind the café instead of driving her home.
He walked round to her side of his truck and opened the door for her.
She gave him a half-smile. ‘I don’t have a work shift tonight, you know. We could go back to my place …’
Man oh man. The glimmer of flirt under those words stripped the blood from his head. Perhaps he’d been a little rash sending that message to Graeme, but given the hubbub leaking out from between the brick and timber of the café walls, he was too late to cry off.
But he could have a moment.
And—if he played this right—he could maybe have a lifetime of moments.
Vera cleared her throat. ‘Umm, are you going to say something?’
‘I’m about three seconds away from planting my lips on yours, Vera, I just …’ Woah, this was a heck of a lot harder in reality than when he had been practising it in his head. He blamed it on the skip bin and the food scrap smells lurching out of it. Could he not have used his brain and pulled over by the lake reflecting the sunset? Under the majestic snow gums in the town’s heritage-listed park?
To hell with it. He’d waited long enough and he wasn’t waiting a second longer. Love was love, no matter where he proclaimed it.
‘I love you, Vera.’
‘Oh, Josh.’ Those green eyes had smudged into smoke, and the lips he was about to kiss trembled. ‘You have to know I love you too.’
He couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across his face. ‘Yeah. I figured.’
Her eyebrows snapped together. ‘You figured?’
He hauled her in close and swivelled so she was pressed up against the dusty length of his old ute, and he was pressed up against the prim, grey-suited, jasmine-smelling length of her. ‘I’m kind of irresistible,’ he murmured as he ran his hands up into her hair and held her face there, just inches from his own. ‘Just ask Jane Doe.’
She gave a little giggle that made his heart spin cartwheels in his chest. ‘Okay. You are indeed irresistible.’
He brushed the tiniest of kisses onto her mouth.
‘Oh,’ she moaned.
‘I’d kiss you again,’ he said, ‘but we need to get some things settled first.’
‘Yes to anything. Kiss me quick.’
He hovered a breath away. ‘So that’s a yes to my question?’
Her lashes were dark against her cheeks, and her cheeks were flushed, and her mouth was doing things to the stubble on his chin that ought to be outlawed in a public place like an alley.
‘What’s the question?’ she murmured against his cheek.
‘I want to get married. To you. Say yes and I’ll let you kiss me properly.’
Those dusky lashes shot upward. ‘You want to get married? To me?’
He shrugged, all kinds of insecurity tightening around his gut. He had everything riding on this moment. His life. His happiness. His desperate desire to have the whole of that future happiness tangled snugly with Vera’s forever and then some more.
‘I want it more than I’ve wanted anything. What do you say? You got room in your life for a small-town vet with a fifteen-year-old daughter and an old brown dog?’
She ran her hands up his chest and all sorts of unquenchable fires started burning.
‘I have all the room in the world. Yes, Josh. Yes!’
That was all he needed to hear. He gathered her close and fastened his mouth to hers.
It took a while, but eventually he remembered there was a café full of people waiting to join in the celebration. He rested his head against hers while he lowered his, um, heart rate enough to brave the crowd.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she murmured.
‘I’m with you a thousand per cent on that. Small problem.’
She smiled. ‘More questions? Let’s just fast-forward and pretend I’ve said yes to everything.’
‘You hear that ruckus going on inside The Billy Button?’
She lifted a head. ‘You’re right. It does sound a little rowdier than usual for a Friday evening.’
‘That’ll be the welcome home party.’
‘For … me?’
‘If you’re going to get mad with someone, get mad with Graeme,’ he said gallantly. ‘Come on.’
He shepherded her round the side of the building and in through the front door and the blast of laughter and cheering nearly lifted the roof off the place.
Marigold was first in line, a blur of tangerine lipstick and beaded earrings. Alex was there, dusty and tall in his fire brigade outfit, clapping him on the back, and Kev must have dug deep into his endless drawer of ties, because he was wearing a yellow swirly number that could have stopped traffic.
He ducked to the side so the wellwishers could throng around Vera, and was heading for the counter to sweet-talk Graeme into selling him the coldest beer in the fridge, when a squeal nearly took out his eardrum.
He turned, and there was Poppy.
‘Dad!’
‘Popstar, I wasn’t expecting you so soon.’
She looked smug. ‘I had a secret plan going. The school year finished at noon today, so I caught the first train out and Hannah collected me from Cooma.’
He wrapped her in a hug. ‘Huh. Where is my secret-keeping sister?’
‘Oh, some sheep fell off a truck and she took off. Graeme’s in charge of me in your absence.’
He held her away from him so he could look her over. Was this the same girl who’d barely looked in his direction without rolling her eyes six months ago? He kissed her on the cheek and hugged her again until she squealed.
It was a lucky day for him when Vera offered his daughter a job.
It was an even luckier day the day she agreed to be his wife.
He held Poppy’s hands in his. ‘Poptart, I have some news.’
She grinned. ‘Oh yes? It’s not lovey-dovey news, is it, Dad, because I have my limits.’
He pinched her hand. ‘I just asked Vera to marry me.’
This time her squeal got buried in the lapel of his jacket before his eardrum was perforated.
‘Dad, that is so amazing only …’
She pursed her lips.
‘Only what?’
‘Who’s going to break the news to Jane?’
He pulled her ponytail. ‘You working here tonight or what?’
‘Of course I’m working. I’m Graeme’s right-hand girl.’
‘Well, go find me a beer, will you, kiddo?’ he said, his eyes roaming the crowd until they found Vera’s smiling face. ‘Your dad’s in the mood to celebrate.’
ONE YEAR LATER
Vera scrolled up to the first page of her manuscript and sat for a moment before typing out the word.
D-E-D-I-C-A-T-I-O-N
She felt a little teary. Was this what closure felt like? She hoped so. God, how she hoped so. How many months ago had it been when she had made that rash promise to herself and to Jill that she could make a difference?
The shame she’d felt when she’d thought she’d let her aunt down had made her life so very bleak.
A deep purr rose from under her desk and she nudged her slippered feet against the plump sides of her old grey cat.
‘You’re right, Daisy,’ she said. ‘That’s all behind me now.’
The cat had snoozed beside her—at her feet, across her keyboard, sprawled across the reference book she most particularly needed to read—for every wor
d of this guidebook for families trying to navigate the aged care sector. As Vera had typed, Daisy’s injuries had healed and word-by-word, month-by-month, she had finally come to believe that her own wounds had healed, too. She had fulfilled her promises; to her aunt that she would campaign for change, to the bundle of fur she’d once offered a saucer of milk to in an alleyway. A publisher had put their faith in her and offered her a contract; aged care workers and facilities and families had helped her with research so the guidebook contained perspectives that differed from her own.
She was proud of it. She was proud of herself, for seeing it through.
To my Aunt, she typed. You lived a full and fearless life and deserved to be safe, respected and cared for in your final years. This book is for you, Jill, and for all the other fierce and fabulous women who grow old before their time.
A large pair of hands slid over her shoulders and she leaned her head back into the warmth that was Josh.
‘I think I’ve finished.’
He leaned down and pressed a kiss into her temple, letting his hands slide down and around the swell of baby belly pushing out her dress. ‘I’m proud of you.’
She covered his hands with her own and took the moment to just be. ‘You know what, Josh?’
He pressed his cheek to hers. ‘What?’
‘I’m proud of me, too.’
‘I’ve got something to show you.’
She smiled. ‘Is that a line? Because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen what you’ve got to offer, Josh Cody, and I am one hundred per cent in.’
‘Don’t distract me with saucy talk, Vera Cody. Come on.’
She followed him out of the large open-plan room he’d made in the second storey of his grandparents’ apartment block, then down the hall with its polished timber floors and extravagant trim. They passed the doorway to Poppy’s room, then to their room, then he halted at the door to the other as-yet-unused bedroom.
‘Shut your eyes.’
She shut her eyes and held her hands out to the man she trusted more than life itself. ‘Show me.’
She heard the door open, its timber humming over the newly laid carpet. The faint smells of paint and turpentine lingered in the air, overlaid by the cleanness of lake and mountain roaring in through the open window.
Josh’s hands found her waist and moved her forward a few paces. ‘Okay. Open your eyes.’
A cot stood where, until yesterday, bare carpet had been the only comfort in the room. Its sides gleamed white, its legs were turned in shaker style, and above it, spinning in the breeze, hung a mobile of gaily painted wooden animals.
Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. ‘You made this?’
He grinned. ‘Graeme lent me a corner of his shed so I could get it built on the sly.’
‘It’s perfect. So perfect.’
‘Our first family heirloom.’
She reached a hand to the mobile and sent it spinning. ‘You made this too?’
‘I cut them out. Poppy and her brothers painted them. They wanted to be involved.’
So, so perfect. ‘Josh.’
He smiled. ‘I know, I’m pretty awesome,’ he said, then he put his fingers to his mouth and blew a short, sharp whistle.
Jane Doe trotted into the room dragging a large paper sack with her.
‘We thought you might like this to go on the cot.’
She could barely make out the knots in the ribbon, the tears were running so swiftly. She gave up, and tore the paper off the heavy parcel, until a mass of dense, coloured fabric flowed out of the wrapping and landed on the mattress of the cot. Jill’s quilt!
‘I don’t understand! How did you—’
‘I put in an outrageous bid in Marigold’s community hall fundraiser. She’s been keeping it for me ever since.’
The rag quilt. She ran her fingers over the ruffled squares. Ones Jill had stitched. Ones she had stitched from material given to her around the craft table at The Billy Button Café. Every stitch had brought her further along in her journey from a confused, lonely woman to the woman she was now.
‘You’ve given me the world, Josh. You know that?’
He wrapped his arms around her, so the two of them stood at the foot of the cot, looking down to where their child would sleep. Jane Doe’s tail thumped against their legs like a heartbeat.
‘You’ve given it right back, Vera.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Hanrahan, where this book is set, is of course a made-up town. The cakes I’ve baked over the years haven’t been works of art like Vera’s, and the quilts I’ve cobbled together have had more than their share of wonky stitches. I think Marigold would approve.
What is not made up, however, is my love of small towns and rural settings and characters who take the time to really introduce themselves on the pages. The small town I grew up in didn’t have brumbies in the high country or gum trees tangling their limbs over snowmelt creeks. It had coconuts, not snow. It had kids messing about in canoes, and mango trees lining the main street, and a grocery store where you could only buy a potato if the ship had been in.
It was the kind of place where returning after a long absence felt like coming home and that was the feeling I wanted Josh to have after his long absence away from Hanrahan.
His love for old buildings and his interest in their preservation mirrors my own. I went to boarding school in a regional country town in Queensland where the streets are home to stone and brick buildings that have survived a century and a half with varying degrees of success. Sadly my in-person visit to reacquaint myself with the historic buildings in the Cooma district was “covidated” so I had to content myself with the websites devoted to sharing the long and diverse history of the Snowy Mountains region. I particularly enjoyed reading about the restorations done by the volunteers of the Kosciuszko Huts Association.
Also … I may have watched the movie, The Man from Snowy River, about a thousand times as I wrote this book. That music! Those wild skies! Clancy! My book also owes a nod to the bush poetry of Banjo Paterson and John O’Brien. The humour and affection they could portray as they described their country characters’ antics is a skill I very much admire and hope (think the guinea pig scene!) I was able to match. I have a swag of bush poetry of my own hiding in a folder on a shelf and can confirm that my rhyming skill is right up there with my wonky stitches.
What is not wonky, however, is the support I have received as I have deviated from my life’s path (mother, accountant, dog lover, reader) to embrace the wonderful world of fiction writing. Thank you to my writing group, Jayne Kingsley, Megan Mayfair, Marianne Bayliss and Anna Foxkirk, who have cheered me on through many a manuscript.
Thank you also to the Australian Society of Authors and HQ Fiction. Their generous sponsorship of the 2020 ASA/HQ Commercial Fiction Prize, in which an early manuscript of The Vet from Snowy River was shortlisted, resulted in my story receiving a publishing contract from Harlequin MIRA. My journey with Harlequin’s editorial and cover teams has been a dream come true, and that phone call from Rachael Donovan at HarperCollins to tell me my book had attracted their interest ranks as one of my Very Best Days Ever.
Thank you to the back gate girls; you know who you are.
Thank you to my family.
Thank you to Romance Writers of Australia whose competitions, community, and conferences gave me the confidence to pursue a career as an author.
And, finally, thank you to the readers who have chosen this book from all the wonderful books out there. I hope you enjoy The Vet from Snowy River. If you do, please tell your friends.
Happy Reading!
ISBN: 9781867225607
TITLE: THE VET FROM SNOWY RIVER
First Australian Publication 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Stella Quinn
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