She walked through the stand of gums, searching for any signs of an injured animal. Even one who was uninjured might need her help—there’d be nothing here for the animals to eat for a while. Once she was satisfied there was nothing, she moved on to the next clump of gums, all the while searching both the ground and the trees with anxious eyes.
After checking the whole area, Carol returned to her car. The fence was almost finished.
‘Nothing to worry about here,’ she told the man. ‘Go look for your sheep.’
He gave her a cheerful thumbs up.
Carol continued her search by car, stopping wherever there were blackened gums, but found no victims. Ahead there was one last area to check, where smoke was still rising from the embers of the fire. As she approached, she saw the RFS truck parked on the side of the road. A couple of firefighters were out in the paddock, shovelling dirt on the smouldering remains of a fallen tree. Carol parked behind their truck and got out.
Another firefighter appeared from the cab of the truck. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked in a voice that was both tired and angry.
‘Ben.’ Carol resisted the urge to rush up and hug him. She would not be welcomed. ‘I’m out here looking for injured wildlife.’
‘Of course you are. Well, go right ahead.’ He turned away.
‘Ben? Wait. I’d like to talk to you.’
He stopped moving, but didn’t turn around. ‘I have nothing I want to talk to you about.’
‘Won’t you let me say I’m sorry?’
‘For what, exactly? For all those times as boys we sat or slept in the back of the car while you were on some mercy mission? For all the nights you weren’t home? For all the times we watched you run into some fire, terrified that you wouldn’t come back out? Or just for seventeen years of lying to me?’ His back was as stiff as his voice was hard.
Carol felt her heart breaking. ‘I know I wasn’t the best mother. I tried, but I was alone. I worked two jobs because I had to. How else was I going to put food on the table? Buy your football boots and cricket whites? Yes, I wasn’t there enough, but you and your brother didn’t seem to need—’
Before she could finish the sentence, he spun to face her, his face taut with disbelief. ‘Now it’s our fault? Justin and I had to be there for each other becauseyou weren’t.’ He walked away.
‘That’s right. Turn your back on me.’ Carol’s heartbreak gave way to anger. ‘That’s what you always did. Both of you. If you needed me, don’t you think I needed you, too? You are my sons. My family. I would have done anything for you. But you both turned your backs on me. You had each other and that’s all you needed or wanted. I wasn’t invited into your private world. Well, all right then. I’ll leave you alone.’
As she turned she saw Justin standing behind her.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing that hasn’t been going on since you were kids. Apparently nothing I can fix. So I’m getting out of your lives. If you find any injured wildlife, call Anna. Although, if the two of you do to her what you did to me, she won’t want to know you either.’
Carol flung herself back into her car while she had some vestige of control remaining. As she drove away, she looked in the rearview mirror for a last sight of her sons. Justin facing her, his face creased with concern. And Ben, a tall, taut figure with his back braced against her.
CHAPTER
19
Justin hadn’t called. Three days after their disastrous date, Anna locked her surgery at the end of the day and walked along the path to her house. Her phone was in her pocket, but she had stopped checking it every hour. Almost stopped checking.
Letting herself into the house, she took a can of beer from the fridge before settling herself on a squatter’s chair on the back patio. She glanced at her phone before she laid it on the side table, but there was still nothing from Justin. No call. No message. She took a deep draft of beer, relishing in the crisp, cool taste.
Of course he hadn’t called. Why should he? After such a disastrous night out, no man in his right mind would have called. First the embarrassment in the restaurant. Then takeaway Chinese as the only meal they could get, because she couldn’t bring herself to enter anywhere people might be gathered. What man would want to be with a coward? And then that confrontation with Ben. Justin and his twin were close. Loyalty to Ben would always be his first choice. Carol had told her that. There was no way he’d go out with someone Ben disliked. A dislike that, from the sound of his voice, could easily swing into hatred.
Exactly the same as our mother.
That night, Anna had wanted to ask Justin what Ben had meant with those words, but it hadn’t seemed the right time. Now the chance had passed. And it really didn’t matter. Ben and Justin would move on when their work here was done. They might be back if there was a fire, but Justin’s life wasn’t in Wagtail Ridge. Hers was.
She shook her head. It was a nice dream, to think just for a few days that a man like Justin could still be attracted to her. But that was all it was. A dream. It didn’t matter that her heart beat faster around him. Those butterflies of attraction that made her body ache had no answer in his. She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the tight tug of the skin of her face as she did. She should have known better than to dream.
Her phone buzzed and the hope came back. The butterflies woke, only to vanish when she looked at the caller name on her screen. Were mothers psychic? She picked the device up.
‘Hello, Mum.’
‘Hello, darling. I’ve been waiting for you to call and tell me all about your date the other night. With the fireman.’
