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Connor cut her off. Emma listened and then started talking again.
‘Because Dru’s tired and the doctors are going to be around a lot.’ Emma stared at Dru and held up crossed fingers.
Good, she was putting him off.
‘Okay, Connor, not a problem. I’ll let you know if there are any developments. I’ll check that I’ve got the right number for you.’ She listened again. ‘Okay, fair enough. Right, okay, I’ll do that too, but I’ll keep in touch by text and then when you’re in service you’ll be able to get it okay? Rightio, Connor, take care. Bye.’
Emma ended the call and put the phone on the stand next to the bed without making eye contact with Dru. When the phone was on the stand, Emma looked down at her folded hands in her lap.
‘Well?’ Dru said. ‘What did he say?’
‘Connor said to tell you not to forget one important thing.’
‘What thing?’
‘He said even though it’s hard for him to talk to you or come and see you this week, he said to remember he loves you.’
Dru’s throat clogged and she found it impossible to talk.
‘He was a bit taken aback that he couldn’t come and see you. I hope I didn’t sound too unbelievable saying that the doctors were going to be with you all the time, but then he said he couldn’t come anyway. You put me in a difficult situation, Dru. You need to speak to your husband.’
Dru shook her head and her bottom lip quivered.
‘Anyway, he can’t come to see you because he and Greg are out of town.’
Tears began to roll down her face. Emma stood and leaned over and pulled a tissue out of the tissue box beside the bed. She gently wiped her sister’s cheeks.
‘Oh, Dru. What’s going on?’
Chapter 15
McLaren Mango Farm - Sunday
Tarni
After the pleasant morning tea break yesterday, the day had passed quickly, and the next morning, Tarni had her control tray of seeds ready. They sat in the sunlight pouring through the window at the end of the bench when she heard Cy’s ute pull up outside. She picked up the pipette of the hormone mix and slowly placed two drops beside each seed, and then carefully lifted the tray of seeds and placed it in the incubator. She breathed out a sigh of satisfaction as she closed the door and set the timer. One to go.
She was grateful to Kane and Ellie McLaren for the opportunity of finishing her research on their property. It was good for her and fitted well with Kane’s research trip to Mexico. Together, she hoped they would get some great results. Kane would increase the efficiency of his crops, and Tarni would complete her doctorate.
A win-win situation, but the other spin-offs for her, even before the first week was up, had been unexpected. She guessed she hadn’t given much thought to what being on the farm would be like. Even those last two days at Makowa Resort, she’d been too tired to wonder about it. She’d been focused on the long drive up from Adelaide, planning and ordering the equipment she needed, rather than wondering what it would be like to be on the mango farm.
Being away from the city and away from crowds and away from people who knew her was a new experience. Her work at the institute was interesting and it complimented her university studies well. Her work and study had been her salvation when Jonty died.
Tarni had known for a few months it was time to make a change to her life. To move on to something different, and to stop brooding on what might have been. Sally and Tamika had given her the usual platitudes, that it was time she needed, but staying in the same apartment in Adelaide, and going to the same job every day, Tarni had felt no different than she had the day the police had knocked on her door nineteen months ago.
She’d wondered if time was the answer. Maybe a change of scenery would help. One thing that she had learned from it; she would never trust anyone to stay with her. She would never give her heart again.
Tarni’s parents had been killed in a car accident when she was in her mid-teens, and she’d gone to live with her grandparents. Within a year, her grandmother got sick and passed away, and then the next year when she had been in her final year of high school, Tarni was left alone with no family when her beloved Pop died.
Sure, there were aunts and uncles and cousins somewhere, but they were scattered across different states. Tarni left the small country town she’d grown up in and moved to university in Adelaide and focused on her study.
Meeting Jonty in her honour’s year had been a life changer for her; and even though he was gone now, she didn’t regret one moment of their time together.
She was happy that he loved her, and she loved him.
When she was cooking last night, Tarni realised she hadn’t thought about Jonty or Adelaide all day. Time hadn’t done it; the complete change was making her feel like a new person.
She hummed under her breath as she reached down and pulled out another tray, ready to fill with the treated seed-raising mix, and the last remaining seeds.
