Wildflower Ridge Page 2

  Dark clouds rolled in from the west, casting deep shadows over the shearing shed. By the time they trekked up to Wildflower Ridge and back, it would be almost dark. A quad bike pulled up in front of the procession. Tim watched Angus shuffle back in the seat and gesture to his eldest grandchild and only granddaughter, Evie. Within seconds, the girl had jumped down off the ute tray, launched onto the front of the four-wheeler and guided it forward, leading the convoy towards the Grampians mountain range.

  Tim returned his attention to the task at hand, gently wiping the dainty crockery’s gold banding.

  ‘Help, Tim?’

  Tim shook his head at Eddie Patterson, keen to keep his brother as far away from the delicate china as possible.

  ‘She’s right, Ed. I’ve got this covered. But do us a favour and toss some wood on the fire, so it’s all toasty warm when the McIntyres get back? Then we’ll head home.’

  Eddie grinned, his left cheek dimpling just like Tim’s as he gave his brother a thumbs up. He hurried to collect the wood from a well-stocked wheelbarrow at the back door and raced across the kitchen, tiny pieces of loose kindling dropping behind him. Tim quietly picked them up and watched Eddie load the fire from the corner of his eye. Eddie’s tongue poked out the corner of his mouth, his wide, almond-shaped eyes fixed with concentration.

  The phone rang, cutting through the kitchen radio. Tim dried his hands, silenced the music and reached for the house phone.

  ‘Y’ello, McIntyre Park.’

  An unfamiliar voice came down the line. Smooth. Confident. City.

  ‘Hello, is this Angus McIntyre?’

  Tim leaned back against the kitchen bench, keeping an eye on the lounge room as he spoke. Sounds like the salesman Angus described this morning. The nerve of the guy, hassling farmers all hours of the day.

  ‘He’s not in at the moment, but we’ve already told you, mate. We’re happy with our local tractor dealer. Weren’t you supposed to scrub this number off your call list?’

  There was a pause. Tim exhaled quietly as Eddie finished loading the fire without incident and gave him another thumbs up. For most twenty-one-year-olds, such a task would be a non-event, but for a boy with Down’s syndrome, each successful fire-related accomplishment was an achievement. The man’s voice came down the phone again, laced with irritation.

  ‘I’ve got no idea who you think you’re talking to, but I’m not calling about farm machinery. I’m calling about Penny. And I’m assuming you’re not her father?’

  Tim looked up sharply, his grey eyes fixing on the family portrait from the late nineties. Of the four McIntyre daughters, Penny looked the most like her late mother, Annabel, with the same light-red hair, pale skin and captivating smile.

  ‘Sorry, mate, I thought you were someone else. Can I take a message?’ He reached for the notepad beside the phone and swallowed down the questions that jumped into his mind, reminding himself he had no grounds to quiz this man about the country girl who had stolen his heart and thrown it away without a backward glance.

  Three

  Penny woke with a start. Her eyes shot open at the strange tapping noise, and she rolled onto her side. A sleepy smile tugged at her lips as she spotted the man sitting in the corner, a laptop spread across his knees. His large frame dwarfed the plastic hospital chair, his perfectly knotted tie as precise as his haircut and professionally tailored suit, his shirt even whiter than the hospital linen. She didn’t need to look at the wall clock to know it was evening—the level of stubble on Vince Callas’s jaw was evidence enough. A sense of calm descended over Penny as he set aside his computer and reached for her hand. Penny squeezed it, the warmth and familiarity almost making tears well up again.

  He leaned in to kiss her.

  ‘How are you feeling, babe?’

  Penny breathed in his scent; the same smell of coffee, pepper and lime that permeated their St Kilda apartment. Her aching muscles loosened a little.

  ‘Terrible. A bit shell-shocked, really. I can’t believe Georgie would do that to me.’

  ‘Everyone in the office is gutted for you, Pen. But it’s an HR thing, nothing personal.’

  ‘Ten weeks, though? It’s career suicide. I’ve never taken more than a fortnight off at a time, not even on our European jaunts,’ she said. She grinned sleepily, trying to search for a silver lining. A glass-half-full attitude was a habit she had inherited from her late mother, Annabel, and shared with two of her three sisters. ‘But at least I’ll have you at my beck and call during my convalescence. Maybe we should get a bell and I can ring it when I need a fresh coffee or clean negligee.’

  Vince looked away, and she squeezed his hand again.

  ‘Relax, I’m joking. The doctor has only ordered bed rest for the first few weeks, then I’ll be able to potter around quietly as long as I promise to outsource the domestics. I could always ask one of my sisters to come up for a few days, ease the strain,’ she said, hoping her suggestion would lighten the mood.

  Her sisters’ lives were already oversubscribed with family and calling in to visit their father at the farm. But the joke fell flat. Vince didn’t know the first thing about her sisters. She doubted he’d even be able to spot them in a police line-up.

  ‘About that, Pen … I’ve got to head back to the office in a minute. We’re going to pull a late-nighter to nail the quarterly budgets, but I wanted to talk to you first.’

  Something about his tone set her alert system into overdrive. She was pretty sure he wasn’t about to get down on bended knee and snap open the ring box she’d seen hiding in his underwear drawer the previous month. Not that she’d been snooping, of course, but before she knew it, the little aqua box with its signature white ribbon had been lying on the floor and the diamond had momentarily glittered on her left hand for all of a minute, before Vince’s key had turned in the apartment door and she’d hastily stuffed it back into its hiding spot. No, she thought, taking in his strained expression, this was not that moment.

  ‘I’m taking the Sydney secondment, Pen.’

  Penny searched his blue eyes as a tight knot formed in her stomach.

  ‘You can’t be serious? Now?’

  ‘It’s bad timing, but I’d be mad not to take it.’ He squeezed her hand, trying to catch her eye.

  Penny wrenched her arm away. Although her energy was flagging fast, she felt like whacking him over the head with one of the bunches of flowers he’d had couriered to the hospital yesterday, when he was caught in a meeting. Probably too busy arranging his secondment, she realised, scrambling up into a sitting position. The cannula in her hand tugged sharply.

  ‘What am I supposed to do? Book into a hotel and live on room service? You weren’t even interested in the Sydney secondment last week.’

  Vince looked away, fidgeting with the lapel of his Italian wool blazer.

  ‘I’ve left a message for your father. He’ll collect you from the hospital, take you back to the farm. They’ll look after you much better than me, babe.’

  ‘The farm?’ Penny felt like a parrot, mimicking Vince’s words. For such a confident public speaker, who regularly outlined intricate marketing plans and headed up a team of six junior staff, she was frustrated by her own inability to string a sentence together. She gaped at him, alternating between fury, hurt and confusion. How can he spring this on me now?

  ‘It’s a huge opportunity for me, Pen, and I’m not really the Florence Nightingale type.’ He looked around the hospital room helplessly, gesturing to the cords tethering her body to the medical paraphernalia. She watched him shiver as the automatic medication dosage machine delivered its hourly top-up with an unceremonious glug.

  She turned away, biting her lip to stop the tears that threatened, and tugged her hospital gown closer around her body. This new betrayal was even harder to handle than Georgie’s. What was it Georgie said about loyalty?

  ‘We’ll be fine, babe. Plenty of couples manage long-distance relationships. We’ll chat all the time.’

  P
enny took a deep breath and tried to assess the situation objectively. What if Vince broke his leg on the eve of the Paris marketing conference? Would I give up the trip for him? She bit her lip, aware that her own hesitation held the answer. For the very first time Penny cursed the mutual ambition that formed the cornerstone of their relationship.

  The scent of flowers and the sound of a telephone imprinted on Penny’s senses before she was fully awake. For a moment she thought she was back in her office, sitting at the shiny white desk that was always adorned with fresh flowers, fielding calls from clients and media outlets. She blinked and fumbled for the phone, hoping it would be Vince or Georgie calling to explain that today had been a horrible joke. She squeezed her eyes shut against the too-bright screen and put the phone to her ear.

  ‘Penny McIntyre speaking?’

  Her youngest sister’s voice rang out through the quiet hospital room.

  ‘Are you okay? Why didn’t you tell us you were ill?’

  Penny winced and stabbed at the volume button as her sister Angie rushed on, barely drawing breath.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to call you all evening, ever since Vince called Tim Patterson,’ said Angie.

  Penny squinted as she switched on the overhead light. She glanced at the clock. Almost 9 p.m. After Angie’s comment, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see the clock hands twirling backward. The parallel universe in which her current boyfriend would be calling her ex-boyfriend was just too strange to imagine.

  ‘I must have hit my head harder than I realised, Angie. For a minute there, I thought you said Vince called Tim Patterson.’

  ‘I did. Tim’s our new farmhand. He was at the farmhouse when Vince called, while we were visiting Mum’s memorial rock. I can’t believe you missed her anniversary dinner, by the way. So, are you really coming back?’

  Penny took a moment to follow Angie’s excited trail of conversation. Suddenly her aches and pains receded into the background, replaced by a wave of guilt. Mum’s anniversary. Shit. Shit. Shit. She couldn’t even tell herself it was because she was away from her desk and the calendar that guided every minute of her working life. Yesterday’s personal column would have been unmarked because writing it down at the start of each year, when she added birthdays, was too painful. Normally she just remembered, the date etched into her memory. The date when their teenage years went from carefree to grief-stricken. The day their mum, Annabel, had died in a single vehicle car accident.

  ‘Earth to Penny … Hello?’

  ‘Sorry Angie, I can’t believe I missed Mum’s dinner, either. Again.’

  Penny pushed her hair away from her face, took a deep breath. This week is an absolute disaster … She struggled to recall the last time she’d set foot on her family’s third-generation merino stud. Too long, obviously, if she’d missed the memo about Tim Patterson taking on a farmhand’s position.

  ‘Don’t leave me hanging. Are you coming home or not? We’d all love to see more of you.’

  Penny looked out the darkened window at the skyline of the city she had called home for the last fifteen years. The buildings she shopped in, dined in, worked in, lived in. The life she had so diligently created for herself, that was so far from her country roots.

  ‘C’mon, Pen. You know you want to.’

  She could hear the teasing in her sister’s voice, her enthusiasm as fresh as the bright sunflowers and dahlias sitting on the bedside table. A mix of emotions ran through Penny’s head as she bade Angie goodnight. Everyone at home sounds happy about it. And Vince is pretty pleased with his miraculous solution. Why can’t I muster up the same enthusiasm?

  Four

  ‘Try turning her over again, mate,’ called Tim, leaning out the ute’s window. His V8 engine purred at the slightest touch of his boot, and he cocked an ear to listen as a second, much softer engine started in the car in front of him.

  ‘You’re a legend, Tim,’ said Sam Kingsley, stepping out from behind the wheel of the battered station wagon. Tim unclipped the jumper leads from his battery terminals and carefully lowered the hood of his Holden WB. Buffing fingerprints from the metallic paintwork with his sleeve, he unclipped the cables from Sam’s jerkily idling engine and looped them back into a neat bundle.

  ‘Thanks for the jump-start. Can I shout you a counter meal? Reckon a pot of pale ale and a steak sanga would go down a treat for lunch.’

  ‘Mate, save your money and buy yourself a new car battery. Or a new car, while you’re at it. This is a step down from the Cruiser,’ said Tim.

  Sam ran a hand through his blond hair and shook his head.

  ‘Don’t remind me. Cost-cutting at its finest. Not that you’ll see Lara trading in her car or giving up those bloody expensive marathons. You heading to dinner at the farm again tonight? Penny’s coming home.’

  Tim stared past the rows of tightly packed homes—cookie-cutter houses, as his Nanna Pearl called them—over the power poles and street lights, in the direction of McIntyre Park. He’d only been in the small township of Bridgefield for an hour and already he was itching to get back to the open paddocks and rolling hills that comprised his office.

  ‘Not sure yet. I don’t want to intrude. Eddie’s always keen, but Stella reckons I spend too much time over there as it is,’ Tim said. His sheepdog, Bones, nudged his hand. Tim patted the kelpie’s head absent-mindedly. He hadn’t seen Penny in more than a decade, but she ambushed his dreams sometimes, working alongside him in the paddocks, just like she had in high school. He shook himself, irritated at her ability to make his traitorous body tingle like a teenager. Pull yourself together, Patterson, doesn’t make a lick of difference to you whether she’s a career woman or a milkmaid now. Not your woman. Not your problem.

  Sam smirked at Tim as he leaned against the tailgate. ‘All the more reason you should come. Be like old times. Me and Lara, you and Penny. Stella’s just jealous. Don’t let her tell you what you can and can’t do.’

  Tim shook his head, guilty for thinking about a girl from his past when he had enough trouble with the woman in his present.

  ‘We’ll see. Better head off. Angus wants me to finish the fencing before he gets back from Melbourne this arvo.’

  ‘Slave driver. That’s where Lara gets it from. He’ll have you under his thumb too, if you’re not careful.’

  Tim shook his head as he clipped his kelpie’s collar onto a chain, securing him to the ute tray. He waved out the car window as he nudged the WB back onto the road.

  ‘You’re full of it, mate. Angus’s the best bloke I’ve ever worked for.’

  Diana threw up her hands in protest as she stopped for a red light. Though she was a natural at handling a dozen screaming preschoolers and her own tribe of rowdy boys, she was much better suited to the open roads of the Western District. The lights changed and the chorus of tooting that had followed them from the hospital continued. Had she had more energy, Penny might have found Diana’s uncharacteristic swearing amusing.

  ‘I don’t know how you handle this every day, Penny. It’s like I need to stick a sign to the window saying “I’m from the country” so they’ll cut me some slack. Bloody hell! That one came out of nowhere,’ Diana gasped, flicking her fringe out of her vision.

  Penny heard her dad chuckle from the back seat.

  ‘Better you than me, love. And remember, you’re the one with the bull bar.’

  ‘You’re doing great, Diana. Traffic’s always thick around the hospital. We’re almost there,’ said Penny.

  Diana jerked in and out of the traffic, cursing each time she received another toot. Penny breathed a sigh of relief when her street came into view, gesturing to the three-storey apartment complex.

  ‘It’s that one across the park, with the decorative green panels.’

  Diana nodded grimly, twisting the steering wheel of her four-wheel drive. She parked beside a row of plane trees, their leaves clinging to the last of their greenery before changing colour and floating to the footpath.

  I’l
l miss their autumn display. Penny pushed down a wrench of resentment. Vince’s words from earlier that morning scrambled in her head. It’s business, not pleasure. You’d do the same, Pen. I’ll have everything packed up and ready by the time your family gets into town. She knew he was just being practical, but why did it feel like such a betrayal?

  Angus poked his head between the two front seats.

  ‘Righto love, you wait here while we collect your stuff. Diana and I will have you loaded up and ready to roll in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

  Diana twisted and reached across to the back seat, pulling a handful of snacks from her voluminous Mary Poppins-style handbag.

  ‘There’s an apple, a banana, popcorn, Tiny Teddies and a bag of chips to choose from. Knock yourself out. Let’s see if I can avoid getting tooted at in your underground parking lot.’ She grinned, shutting the car door gently.

  Penny’s phone vibrated on her lap as she waited.

  She squinted at the bright screen and scrolled down to see a message from Jade.

  Hey gorgeous girl, safe travels back to countryside. Love Jade. PS. Heard Georgie dodged a call from that gossipy reporter re Whitfield Pharma story. Will keep eye on his newspaper column.

  Penny groaned. She hadn’t even thought about the story being picked up by the press. Georgie will find a way to put a good spin on it, surely … ? She tapped out a quick reply, cringing as the brightly lit screen made white spots dance in front of her vision. For a person who made a living out of marketing and mopping up clients’ messes, the feeling of being on the receiving end was mighty uncomfortable.

  Penny watched her sleek black car appear under the roller-door of the communal garage. Diana was hunched over the steering wheel, pulling out an inch at a time. She parked in the street and emerged with a perplexed expression.