“I knew that the American health system was different but shit.” I shook my head slowly. “Didn’t realise how different it is. If I had a number like that hanging over me as I was trying to heal? Let’s just say I wouldn’t be getting a whole lot of rest. I told you.” My eyes met Mackenzie’s and right now I could see every fleck of brown and green in their depths. “I’d do whatever it takes to look after you.” With a nod to Kimberley. “And your mum, because she’s the person most important to you.”
“I can’t accept this.” That shaky tone, full of pride, I knew it well. My mum sounded like that when she needed help towards the end of her illness, and Kimberley was the same. “Troy, you’re a very nice man and I appreciate how you look after my daughter, but?—”
“It’s done.” I was able to shut up rowdy sheds of shearers with one word and I was able to stop Kimberley’s protests in a far calmer tone. “It’s done and I can’t exactly go to the hospital and ask for a refund. Wouldn’t even if I could. I don’t regret what I did, not for a second.”
“But how…?” Mackenzie’s voice was so small right now. “You didn’t… Not the farm. Please tell me you didn’t sell the farm to help my family out.”
“Farm’s still there,” I replied. “A little smaller, because as my siblings pointed out, the place is too big for the four of us. It’s either more help or sell a few paddocks off and honestly, selling was a relief. My family…” I smiled then. “They didn’t want yours to suffer and so some of the money went to cover your mum’s medical bills.”
“You’re going back to Australia.” Kimberley didn’t use her mum voice often, but she did right now. “Mackenzie, on the next available flight.”
“What? No.” My girl shook her head. “I have a job?—”
“That sucks the soul out of you.” Kimberley pointed a finger at her daughter. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You only got into finance because of that little asshole, Alex. It’s not your passion.”
“Most people aren’t passionate about their jobs.” Mackenzie tried to pull away, but I held her right where she was. “No one leaves school and develops a passion for cleaning toilets.”
“But you found yours.” There were no flies on Kimberley. She was telling it as it is. “With those animals, in that rescue, and the darling little kangaroos.” Her focus shifted to me and she smiled. “With Troy. That’s where you’re supposed to be, not living your old life in your childhood bedroom.”
“I’m going to move out,” Mackenzie protested.
“Yes, to get back on that plane and go back to that farm.” Kimberley’s smile was a little watery. “To your home Down Under. I’ll always have a room here for you when you come to visit, but that’s…” She nodded slowly. “That’s where you’re supposed to be.”
For a moment, there was only silence. I replayed in my mind the ways I thought this would go and it wasn’t this, but I couldn’t help but be grateful to Mackenzie’s mum. She articulated what I was thinking, feeling, but was too stubborn to acknowledge. Because there was a selfish reason why I had paid out that bill. It was a noose around all our necks, getting tighter with every day, and right now, I just wanted everyone to breathe.
“What do you think, love?” I asked, studying Mackenzie’s expression.
“What do I think? What do I think?” Women asking the same question in a row was rarely a good thing, so when her arms went around my neck, all I could do was blink. “I think that I’d rather shovel mountains of square shaped poo than do another expense report.”
I held her tight.
“Take me home, Troy, to a place amongst the gum trees.” When she pulled back, her eyes were shining with unshed tears, but it was her wild grin that caught at me. “Something about a sheep or two?”
“Whatever you want,” I said, right before pressing a kiss to her lips. “Whatever the hell you want.”
Chapter 37
Mackenzie
“You’re back!”
I was and nothing had ever felt this right. It wasn’t just that navigating the long trip back to Australia was a lot easier with Troy at my side. We could at least sleep on each other’s shoulders, rather than trying to make a travel pillow work. The minute we got off the plane in Melbourne, I sensed it. The air was different here somehow, in a way I couldn’t explain beyond one word.
Home. It felt like home.
Charlie wrapped her arms around me, her big hug taking me by surprise and that seemed to trigger everyone else. It wasn’t just Billy and Bronson sweeping in to take over the moment she released me.
“Thank God you came back with him,” Billy said in a stage whisper. “Couldn’t bear Troy here getting his poopy pants on if he’d returned on his own.”
“Would not.” A heavy arm went around my shoulders, tucking me in close. Pressing into Troy’s side felt exactly right. “Wouldn’t have come back here without my girl, for one.”
“So how was your…? Nugget!” Charlie’s question was cut off by a slam of the rescue door. Just like before, it rattled on its hinges, then popped open. The furball came running over, stopped at our feet and eyed us, then went running around in circles. “Calm down!” she told the wombat. “Now is not the time for the zoomies.”
“We’ll get the bags,” Troy said, then nodded to his brothers, gesturing to the car he’d left in long-term parking.
“So, did you ask her…?”
I barely heard Billy’s question. My eyes were everywhere, trying to take it all in. Some small part of me felt like I’d made it all up, the rescue, the farm, the Drysdales. That my alarm would go off soon and I’d have to make the long, dreary commute into the city to get to work again.
