Enjoy this free sample of the heartwarming House of Hearts, a House of Jewels novel by Amber Jakeman. The closed-door House of Jewels family saga follows the business and romantic fortunes of the Huntley family of jewelers.
About House of Spades
Can love blaze later in life?
Rural romance House of Spades takes readers to the heart of the beautiful Byron Bay hinterland, where serial single Flame Rhys accidentally rekindles a widower’s passion for life, for his land and for love.
But how can Ross Archer convince Flame to stay with him, when every other lover has let her down? And will a dark secret spoil it all?
Flame is a runaway bride when opposites attract in this seasoned romance.
Chapter 1
Flame Rhys held her umbrella closer as the rain banged down around her. She loved living in rainforest country, but it meant making friends with water, down her collar, into the tops of her red gumboots and up her sleeves.
Thank goodness for Becca and her generous heart, giving her a lift as far as the crossing. Not much further now.
Glad to be alive, Flame laughed as she stomped along the wet road, shiny as silver in the late afternoon. As great drops of water smashed down onto the umbrella from the limbs and leaves, Flame imagined the tree trunks pushing ever higher as they drank the rain, squeezed by the vines twisting tighter and thicker, reaching for the sky. A couple of king parrots shrieked past and she wished she, too, had bright green wings and could soar up through the canopy and fly across the valley and beyond, to see her grown-up girls. It had been too long.
The surrounding mountains disappeared, shrouded in cloud, as she inhaled deeply the fragrance of wet soil, replenisher of life.
As she rounded the home corner, back to her caravan, she glanced up at the hermit’s old farmhouse at the top of the hill; the stranger was her closest neighbor.
She looked forward to boiling her kettle for hot tea with sugar, or maybe even a hot chocolate with the precious UHT milk? She hitched the backpack higher on her shoulders. It was heavy, full of fresh fruit and vegetables and more spirits for the stove.
If she cursed Grady again, it would spoil her day. Bitterness could grow heavier than storm clouds.
“Greedy Grady, greedy Grady,” trudged her rubber-clad feet, one after the other. At least she still had the caravan, with its jaunty little spirit stove. Not long now and she’d enjoy that hot drink.
Down the last stretch of road she stomped, careful not to slide. Her fingers numb with wet and cold, she slipped open the gate latch, closed it again with care, and headed down the hill. Here, the ground was sodden with rain, the high grass and undergrowth laced with drips, tiny spider webs drooping with droplets. Not long now.
Her gumboots repaid her richly in the mud. Had someone driven down recently in something big? A tractor? The ruts were deeper than ever, like weals in the rich brown flesh of the earth.
Closer to home, the skies opened again. The drops beat down, atomizing through the umbrella, exploding on her world. The roar of the creek rose to a howl as she approached, but when she passed the stand of Sally Wattles, it was Flame’s turn to shriek. She looked right and left and right again, but there was no denying it.
Her caravan was gone, the place it had been, empty, like the socket of a missing tooth. So much for the chance to shrug off the heavy pack and peel off her wet clothes and steamy boots. So much for the simple pleasure of a hot drink.
A black leech waved around on the toe of her red boot, seeking flesh, and she rubbed it off with her other heel.
A great sob lodged in the back of her throat. Her caravan, her haven, full of the only things she’d salvaged from all her years of moving—gone?
Had her van been impounded? Police had taken one of her old unregistered cars once. Horror washed through her. Not that again!
Or maybe Grady came back for it. Again, she cursed the moment she’d laid eyes on Grady. Why had she ignored the inner voice which had warned her against his too-blue eyes, his oh-so-smooth smile and that voice? A professional crooner, singing slow love songs dripping with honey … How could she have been so foolish!
Or had someone else stolen it? Everything she owned was inside. If only she’d stuck to her resolve and sworn off men forever, she’d never be in this mess, sodden and homeless.
Defeat dragged down her shoulders, already weary from the pack, but she forced up her chin, and heaved a huge sigh. Her only option was to turn around and trace those tracks in the mud, to see if they might lead her to her caravan—one step at a time. It was all she’d ever taken, for better or worse.
Back at the road, her eyes traced the muddy trail, upwards. Above the steep paddock, in the gathering darkness, were other clues. Up at the hermit’s house, more lights shone than usual. Headlights? A tractor maybe? And behind it, a dark outline. Her caravan. But why?
Fast following the relief, anger began to bubble, and by the time she reached her van, fury blazed, white hot and pulsing.
…
Ross Archer had seen mad people before. They weren’t mad. They had disabilities or impairments or mental health issues; the terminology kept changing.
This woman wasn’t mad. Sodden, puffing from her march up the hill, she was simply furious, incandescent with rage, a force. So much for imagining the trespasser would be grateful.
“Ross Archer,” he said to the woman. Her red hair was dripping wet, and her face, flushed. “I saved your caravan.” He extended his hand. That was the secret. Keep your cool and state your case with a polite smile.
Ignoring his hand, she looked him up and down with venom.
“‘Saved’ it? How dare you touch my caravan!” The woman practically spat the accusation. She fumed, eyes flashing. Was that smoke coming out of her nostrils? Maybe she was a dragon. No, it was only water vapor in the tractor lights as the darkness of evening deepened. She stared at his outstretched hand and back into his eyes.
Ross retreated one step, her contempt for him visceral.
“Take it back where you found it,” she said. “Right now. Right this minute. Do it.”
Ross brought his hand back to his warm pocket. The rescue operation had taken hours. Since Margaux’s death he rarely ventured outside the farmhouse, let alone into the tractor shed. Firing up the old thing after a full year had taken hours of tinkering, and all the while the rain had thundered on the tin roof, reminding him the creek would be rising.
Piloting the tractor down the wet road and muddy track, wrestling the van onto the tow bar and bringing both vehicles safely up the steep hill in the sheets of driving rain had been more than a challenge. “Heroic,” he would have called it, before this woman passed her own judgment.
“What gives you the right to touch my home?” she spat.
If the livid vision in front of him was sopping wet, so was he.
He bit his tongue. Telling her to calm down was unlikely to work. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He’d assumed she’d be grateful.
“I’ll call the police!” she said. As she shook her umbrella, droplets of water flew at his face.
“You will do no such thing.” Ross stayed calm, but as another cold drip made its way down the back of his neck and another landed in one eye, a flicker of defiance ignited inside him. Hungry and tired, he was in no mood for her tirade.
“I will,” she glared, all spirit. “You’ve nicked it. You have no right, none at all.”
Ross almost snapped, but a lifetime’s practice of dealing with the public kept him in control. He closed his eyes and opened them again, but she was still there, glaring at him, imperious, her hatred palpable. It was ridiculous.
“Actually, you’re a trespasser,” he said, voice steady as a newsreader’s. “I’ve saved your caravan from being washed away in flood waters. You don’t need to thank me, but the least you could do is stop shaking water at me.”
In her red raincoat, the woman blinked and held her umbrella still. Her eyes flicked sideways. She glared at him again.
“Trespasser? Grady said all creek front is public. Anyway, you weren’t using it. That’s for sure.” Had her voice dropped a notch on the aggression scale?
“Well, Grady’s wrong, I’m afraid. It’s private land down there. My land. Not Grady’s, and not yours.”
“But …”
“In fact, you can have your caravan back. Feel free to take it away. I don’t actually want it.”
He turned to walk away, when suddenly the woman flinched and dropped her head, her expression hidden in the darkness. Her shoulders drooped. Had all the fight gone out of her? Was she crying?
A great wave of sympathy for her broke over Ross. Maybe she was in shock. What did he know of her anyway, this woman with red hair who’d been camping out of sight in his creek paddock for who knew how long? Who was he to assume he was some kind of hero for towing her caravan up the hill? Maybe she’d wanted it to wash away. And who was Grady?
Without thinking, Ross reached for her, at the very least to ease the heavy pack off her back. As he took its weight, she stumbled forwards against him and he found himself supporting her. In a kind of surrender, she folded herself into his chest. Her sobs shuddered through him, twisting his heart, shaming him. He was glad he’d held his cool. All his life he’d labored to make life easier for itinerant people, yet they insisted on making foolish decisions—like camping beside flood-prone creeks.
Resting her pack gently against his leg to stop it falling into the wet grass, he reached one arm around her and then another as she sobbed. How long had it been since he’d held a woman like this and offered comfort? Too long. Through her raincoat, the woman’s frame was small but strong, as if she were used to heavy work, yet it was his strength she drew on. Tenderness and protectiveness awakened in him, from somewhere deep within.
After a minute or so, she pushed herself away from him, taking a step back. She dragged a rainbow patterned handkerchief from her pocket, a cheery touch of color in the gloom as she wiped her eyes.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “I can’t believe I just flew at you. Thank you.”
She caught his eyes, rolled hers and shook her head with an embarrassed laugh as a blush of shame rose. “It’s been a hard few months, and the caravan is all I have in the world. I’ve been half expecting Grady to come back and … long story.”
The hermit stayed silent. “So when it was missing I assumed you’d stolen it. I never even thought of the creek rising. It’s just I’d been so looking forward to a cup of tea. Can I offer you a cup of tea? And some cake? You look hungry and tired, too.”
Did he? Ross put a hand to his face. He hadn’t given a thought to his appearance, but he could imagine it. Grizzled, shaggy as a bear, and soggy. Anita had nagged him into a cut and shave last time she’d visited, in the winter school holidays, but that was months ago.
He glanced back at the golden slice of doorway to his sanctuary, the farmhouse. It would be dry in there, if lonely, but he was used to being alone. He liked it this way, or so he told Anita every time she phoned and tried to talk him into returning to Sydney.
“It’s no trouble,” the trespasser offered again. “I’ve just bought more fuel for my stove.” She gestured at her backpack and nodded at the van. She had a beautiful smile when she held her head high like that. Even in the gloom, it shone out like a beacon, open and generous; bewitching. It was all he could do not to smile back, and he hadn’t smiled since …
He took a step back, and another. “No. Thank you. But, no.” She was still looking at him. Why? He broke away from her gaze, searching for anything else to hold his attention. His eyes fell on the caravan, and he focused on that. It was solid, real, a problem he could solve. Simple. Unlike his emotions.
“Look. Your caravan.”
“Um. Mr Archer, did you say? I’m sorry, but I really can’t tow it away just now. Grady took the car; a while ago, actually.”
She stared at him, her face small under the hood, every trace of anger gone.
“Look,” Ross shouted above the deluge. “How about I just back your van under the tool shed for now?”
She looked around and noticed his tin-roofed shed, open on two sides. “Yes. Yes, please. Thank you, Mr Archer, sir.”
“But I won’t have a cup of tea, thank you; nor cake. I’m not hungry, and there’s no need to call me ‘sir.’”
Did she know he was lying about the hunger? All she said was, “suit yourself.”
Striding to the shed, Ross stood the wheelbarrow up beside the row of spades and shoved an old barrel of feed against the wall to make more space.
He climbed back onto his tractor and backed the van under the shelter of the shed, a precision operation, if he said so himself. Not bad for a city slicker.
By the time Ross unhooked the van, secured the tractor back in its own shed and splashed his way back to the farmhouse, Flame had quietly followed her backpack into the caravan. The only sign of the woman was the glow of a light inside her van, blinds firmly pulled down, and her red gumboots, propped upside down against the caravan step to dry.
Ross couldn’t make her out. One minute she was rough as guts, and the next, refined and proud. His stomach grumbled. She was right. He was tired and hungry. As he shook off his wet raincoat and eased off his own gumboots at the back door, he wished for a moment he’d accepted her invitation—let himself eat cake.
Inside the farmhouse, he lit the stove under his own kettle, reached automatically for another tin of baked beans, and wondered what he’d done.
Chapter 2
So that was the old hermit! Flame was astonished. Well spoken. Gaunt, long salt and pepper hair and a matching beard, a bit wispy. Sad eyes. She stirred two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into her steaming tea and carved herself a large slice of cake.
As another barrage of rain swept against them, she broke eye contact, searching for something to focus on that wasn’t this man who’d been unexpectedly and inextricably kind to her.
She saw her backpack, raindrops bouncing off it. She should really put it inside, out of the wet. She picked it up, turned in her boots, walked to the caravan, snatched up the wet pack, opened the van door, stowed it inside and closed the door tightly, returning to stare at him. She half wished she could follow it inside, make her cup of hot chocolate or tea, and pretend this had never happened.
She peeled off her wet clothes and dressed in her warm pajamas, the legs rolled up to her knees. She soaked her feet in the last of the warm water and closed her eyes as she sipped her tea, relief flooding through her bones. Bliss.
Ross’s shed provided extra shelter from the rain. Flame pushed a tentative finger under the nearest blind and peered out. The lights of the farmhouse glowed amber in the deep purple twilight.
So, the hermit had rescued her van, and she’d accused him of stealing it. Awkward. She ought to apologize properly, or at least must thank him, but how? What do you buy a man who lives like a hermit, doesn’t like cake, and won’t accept so much as a cup of tea? It was unsolvable. Instead, she began thinking about practical matters. Her mind instantly filled up with a long list of all the things she had to do. They were expecting her at the vineyard on the coast at eight o’clock in the morning, to clean up and help prepare for the next set of guests. She’d have to be at the bus stop at seven.
And the markets were coming up this weekend and she was almost out of her signature tie-dyed scarves and sarongs. If she didn’t make more by then, she’d have to do a spot of fortune telling instead—not her favorite way of earning a few extra dollars—but how could she dye her cloth without the creek nearby?
And when would the hermit expect her to leave? If he was right about the land, and he probably was—Grady’s words had always been too good to be true—she’d have to find somewhere else to park her life; but Grady had taken the car. She was stranded.
She shook her head. Men! She was done with them. It wasn’t that they weren’t nice to have around sometimes. She liked them, but living with them? Fraught. Doomed. She should know. Grady wasn’t the first sweet-talker to persuade her to partner up. After Sven, there’d been one after another. Back then, she still believed in love, and when Grady had melted her heart, she’d foolishly rushed in.
They all showed promise in that first burst of attraction, when they couldn’t lavish her with enough love and attention, but once she fell for them, they eased back on the charm and effort, settled into neutral on the couch, and expected her to wait on them. She woke up one day and realized all the chores had become hers, and all the benefits, theirs.
Then they’d leave. Or she would, if she figured it out in time. That was when she’d move on, if they hadn’t beaten her to it.
She should have seen it coming with Grady. That money Stella had sent her last year for the mesclun cold storage? Grady had convinced her they should spend it on a better car.
“No point growing and storing our product if we can’t deliver it on time,” he’d told her.
It was true their old car was unreliable. Her car, actually, but it was Grady’s caravan they’d been living in—one of his attractions. With their better car, the four-wheel drive, they’d been able to tow it somewhere new, down by the creek in Rainbow Valley. Secluded. Plenty of water and a fertile river flat for the lettuce. It had all been perfect—until Grady had fallen for that young singer and shot off northwards with her in their car, never to return. She could have reported it stolen, but of course he’d registered it in his own name, and she actually preferred to keep the caravan. He’d left it to her; he’d said in his farewell note, doubtless to assuage his guilt.
No point dwelling on the past, she told herself as she finished her simple meal, but a shiver ran through her. What if the hermit had been right about the creek? What if it had risen throughout the night while she was sleeping, and washed her away? Such tragedies happened.
Now, so safe and warm, she was content. She toweled her feet dry, took the bucket, opened the van door and hurled the water out one of the shed’s open sides, into the dark night. It sluiced out in a great shining arc, lit by her trusty lamp.
In here, under the shelter of the shed, her van was warmer and dryer than ever. As she placed the bucket back under the bench, she felt for the satchel, tucked up safely out of sight. Relief washed through her again. Nothing was stolen, apart from what Grady had already taken— the car and her dignity. She’d be able to pay Stella back soon after all, and she hadn’t drowned.
Gratitude towards the hermit surged. He’d given her another chance. She wouldn’t waste it. Not this time.
Chapter 3
Ross washed up his single plate and propped it against the upside down mug on the edge of the sink. His eyes scanned the fields as he considered the caravan, recalling the day he’d first seen it.
His neighbor, Craig, kept leaving phone messages asking him to fix a fence.
It was weeks before Ross had found the energy to go and investigate, down in the creek paddock, as far away as another continent. Back then, Ross’s world was the bed, the tap and an old lounge on one of the verandas.
He barely slept, forgot to eat, and never left the house. He didn’t know where the time went, but he supposed it passed. The neighbor certainly thought so. Ross had played back the phone messages in a kind of haze, not really listening, but just going through the motions of what you’re meant to do just to stop the machine blinking.
“Sorry, mate,” Craig had said. “Heard about your wife. Don’t want to cause trouble but my cows keep getting out.”
And another.
“Ah. Ross? Craig here. Craig Donovan. On your south side, mate. About the fence? Ring me back.”
And again.
“That fence, mate. I’ll have to just fix it and charge you half. Ring me back.”
When the autumn rain stopped, Ross made himself go. He fired up the four-wheel drive and drove down. He hated the thing, so new and unused it still smelled like Margaux’s hand cream. They’d planned to drive it across Australia, once they’d settled into the farmhouse. Instead they’d driven to doctors’ appointments and weeks of treatments; and finally he’d just driven it alone, to the hospital, and then to the funeral. He’d got into it as little as possible since; only when he was completely out of groceries.
He’d wound down all the windows, flicked a large spider out into the garden, and turned the key. There was something to be said for Japanese technology. He truly hadn’t run it for months.
Driving jolted him—the height off the ground. He’d winced at the flaring of the light off the front of it, shied away as the gate loomed up, managed to drive through without hitting the post. A truck roared past, scattering gravel.
Gingerly, Ross eased it onto the dirt road and turned the corner to the lower paddock. He got out to unhook the gate, and praised himself for remembering to close it again before driving downhill. At least Craig’s stray cows wouldn’t get run over on the road.
Weeds had grown over the track and the puddles were so big he wondered at their depth. Maybe Anita was right. Was it all too much for him, keeping this big property? He had zilch farm experience. The closest he’d come to living on the land in his life, until Margaux’s dream move, their big tree change, had been mowing their lawn in suburban Sydney.
He parked the car and walked down his driveway, if that’s what you could call the muddy track.
The weeds and scrub towered so thick and high it was hard to find the fence. He expected to see a fallen post or two, but instead, a bright beam of light caught his eye. It glinted as he walked towards it.
A bright crystal flashed rainbows as he approached the beige edge of a structure which blended into the bush as if it had grown there. A caravan.
He stopped and listened. Bird calls, the gurgling of the creek, a moo or two from one of Craig’s cows. Nothing else.
“Hello?” he’d called. “Anyone there?”
Yet there was a smell, beyond the crush of lantana—the smell of ash. He found it, the remains of a campfire, inside a circle of round river rocks, and, behind it, more flashes of color.
A wind had come up, whistling in the higher branches. He walked faster. Down towards the creek, the land flattened out. A couple of cows munched on his grass, and there, strung out between the trees, against the backdrop of olive greens and browns, were swathes of cloth, covered in every color of the rainbow, pegged up on long lines, flapping in the wind.
Ross strode closer, mesmerized by their beauty, until he was surrounded by billowing blue and purple and orange and pink, drying in the sun. The soft cloth danced, flicking his skin, with the sky pure blue above, and his feet in mud.
For a moment he was back in his childhood, playing among the sheets set out to dry, running his hands along them in the sunshine, marveling at how they shut out the rest of the world.
There was a sensation of trespassing, despite the fact he was on his own land. The undulating rainbow-colored cloth lifted his heart, replacing the grief that had surrounded him for too many months.
Time disappeared as he stood and gazed and wandered up and down, enchanted, before he remembered his mission—finding the fence line to examine the neglected posts and wires.
That evening, Ross rang Craig about the fence and offered to pay half for the repairs and a bit more for labor. He didn’t mention the caravan.
Later, he’d occasionally force himself out of the farmhouse and amble down, to see if anyone was there and confront them about their intentions, but no one was ever home, or if they were, they’d make themselves scarce at his approach.
But he worried about the van when the creeks began to rise and the rain kept falling. What if it washed away in the middle of the night? What if someone was inside?
So. The trespasser was a woman with red gumboots and a raincoat and temper to match. He hadn’t even asked her name.
…
Morning dawned fresh and bright, the sky and air and grass and fields washed clean by the rain. Ross wondered what was different when he rose from his bed, wandered to the kettle as usual, filled it and lit the stove.
He peered out at the paddocks and watched the birds swoop into the valley from high in the Nightcap Range and westward from the sea, criss crossing the spaces like they owned the place. He chocked open the back door, surveyed the old hen house and the side of the shed—and did a double take.
Way out in the side paddock, her red hair aflame in the first rays of sunshine, the trespasser clumped along in the long wet grass in a purple jacket and those red gumboots, stooping occasionally.
The memory of their fight burned in his chest, hotter than the tea. He recalled the effort it had taken him to rescue the clapped-out caravan; her anger and accusations that he’d stolen it. Why did he feel like a voyeur as he watched her return to the shed then head out to the road a few minutes later? Her life had nothing to do with his, yet she stomped around on his land in those red boots as if she owned it.
It wasn’t anger he felt exactly. Curiosity? Amusement at the way she dressed? It was as he finished a first piece of toast that he realized. It was that he was feeling anything at all. Apart from that time when he’d wandered between the lengths of colored cloth, he’d been in a daze for a year. Numb.
The encounter jolted him right out of a grey cold. She’d provoked fury in him, though he’d fought to hide it—and then such compassion. Had he really just towed away her home, without even asking? Maybe she’d been right to yell at him. But did that give her the right to go on walking all over his land? It bothered him that it bothered him.
Then, after she’d fallen into his arms, he’d suggested she keep her caravan under his shed. What kind of sucker was he? Margaux had always said he was a soft touch, and his younger daughter wouldn’t be impressed. He could imagine Anita’s nagging voice. “What kind of person are you sheltering, Dad?”
An hour later, when he ventured outside, he nearly tripped on his back step, where a pile of kindling steamed in the warm sunlight.
Was this a gift? A peace offering?
All day, Ross watched for the woman’s return, and as she bounced in through his front gate, full of energy, he went out to meet her, to confront her, or thank her for the gift, or at least find out more about her.
“I’d do it for anyone,” she said of the kindling. That put him in his place. So, he was still a nobody in his grey world of grief, the world without Margaux.
Suddenly, Flame stared him in the eye and gave him a smile so big something opened up inside him, a blaze of joy that stopped his breath.
“I’m so grateful to you, truly I am, Mr Archer,” she said. “Thank you for making sure I didn’t wash away.” She laughed, but he didn’t join in. He was rusty.
They stood on the driveway staring at each other. Her chin was up again.
“I’m sorry I can’t take away the van just yet,” she said, meeting his eye. “I’m Flame, by the way.” She shot out her hand.
“Flame,” he said, trying the sound of it as he took her hand and shook it. It was small and strong, like her body. “Unusual name.”
She shrugged. The name matched her temper, her gumboots and the color of her hair, springing out in Botticelli ringlets. Venus. Not for the first time he wondered about her age. Forty? Fifty? Fit. Vibrant.
“I owe you thanks,” she said, placing her hand on her hair as if she knew he was studying her. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you much, unless you’d like fish fingers for dinner?”
“Fish fingers.” His stomach grumbled. He hadn’t eaten fish fingers since he was a child. “Sounds delicious, but I won’t join you, thank you.”
“Okay. I’ll eat them all myself then. Is it okay if I stay a bit longer, please, Mr Archer?”
“Call me Ross,” he said.
“Please, Ross?”
His heart flickered as she said his name. It felt so good, he turned away, his answer gruff.
“You can stay a bit longer,” he said, over his shoulder, as he set off back to his house.
“Thank you!”
As he entered, the phone rang—another call from Anita, back in Sydney.
“You must be lonely up there, Dad,” she said. “You know my job’s in Sydney. I can’t cook for you from down here. Come home.”
“I don’t need you to cook for me, Anita. It’s kind of you, but I want to stay here. This was our home, too. Your mother loved it up here.”
“But you’re so far from everyone. What if something goes wrong?”
“I have neighbors. We keep an eye out for each other.” Did Craig Donovan look out for him? No more than he watched his cows, perhaps; but this Flame, she’d left him kindling, of all things. It was thoughtful.
No matter how often he explained it to Anita, she kept asking the same questions, always with the aim of uprooting him from the farm and luring him back to Sydney.
But he couldn’t go back to the suburbs, not now.
It was true he could spend whole days simply staring out the louvers across the valley. Anita would never understand if he tried to explain that doing nothing was doing something. He was literally watching the grass and trees grow, letting himself grow—grow past the past and into a future neither she nor he could imagine.
All that rushing around, waking to alarm clocks, shaving, catching the 7.23am train five days a week, mowing the lawn and washing the car. The days of routine became weeks of routine, then months, then years, then decades.
When he and Margaux had broken away together to enjoy a different life in retirement, buying this farm on a whim had never been his idea, but it had become her gift to him.
At first, routine had followed them after all, in ever decreasing increments. Medical appointments, drives to the Tweed for chemotherapy, slotting in times for pills, for curling up together, for treasuring each other, for remembering, for resting, for saying goodbye.
In the emptiness following Margaux’s death, there was the farmhouse, so little of it showing her designer’s touch—a host of unfulfilled plans. Yet it was his home. In all those days that blurred, one into another, after his rare visits to town for groceries, the old farmhouse welcomed him, with its creaking tin roof and wrap-around verandas, with its flaking paint and wide-planked floors, hewn from local timber way back when the forest trees were ring barked and sliced and diced and sold a century or more ago, and the land turned over to grazing, for dairy, then beef cattle.
Slowly, the medicinal smell of Margaux’s favorite old couch in the corner dissipated, as the sheer variety in the nightly influx of insects towards his reading light became a regular source of wonder to him.
And the farm. Yes, it was too big for him; it was going wild, it was a waste. That was the point. It was bigger than he was, bigger than his pain and his tiny life; exactly what he needed.
“But it’s not natural, Dad.”
That was the trouble with Anita. As a primary school teacher she often forgot she didn’t know everything. The fact this place was completely natural—untamed and free in a way suburbia couldn’t even imitate—this was his consolation after so much pain.
“Aren’t you lonely, Dad?”
Maybe he was, but if so, right now, he preferred being lonely to being with others. So many people, all his life—thousands of them, and responsibility for millions more.
As a public servant, Ross was a middle manager when he gladly accepted redundancy from a branch of the planning department, conceding powerlessness to make as many changes as he’d wished.
He didn’t miss the crowded train rides into town, the days of meetings in grey towers, and the nondescript lift interiors where colleagues with grudges avoided each other’s eyes as they clutched their take-away coffees. So many acres of institutional carpets and grey workstations looking out into the city of concrete, steel and glass. So many policy changes, restructures, filling maternity positions, mediation, new ministers, and on and on and on.
How had nearly four decades disappeared so quickly?
Margaux had held up her side of the bargain, shopping, cleaning, cooking, ironing his five white shirts each week and shepherding the girls through school. That Bethany had turned out so brilliant had surprised them both—her scholarship, the law degree, and the postgraduate opportunity in the UK.
Anita was always the needy one, always wanting more. More dessert, better Christmas presents, extra hugs. They’d thought if they gave her space to find her feet, she would start to bloom. Anita had finished her teaching degree and found a job in their part of Sydney when they announced their plan to move to the country.
Anita had complained to each of them separately. By then, Margaux had fallen in love with the idea of the farmhouse, and Ross, the tractor; and though neither of them were farmers, it was all irresistibly and wonderfully different, and they pushed the sale through as quickly as possible.
That Margaux fell ill barely weeks into their new life remained tragic. Ross still grieved—the unpacked boxes, the renovated part of the front veranda and the plants she’d added to the garden the only signs Margaux had been there with him at all.
With its tin roof, the old house sighed and groaned through the cool of night and the sun’s rotation, and wept with him in the autumn rains. It was all he could do to find his way to the old chair on the side veranda and stare at his valley.
In school holidays, Anita visited to nag him, restock the deep freeze and pantry with tins of food, and plead with him to abandon the failed mission, whatever it had been, and come back to Sydney. In between, she’d phone. It was monotonous. He’d tell her the truth—that he wanted to stay—but she never accepted it. Though he knew she was trying to be kind, it irritated him.
“I have to go, Anita. My toast is burning. Have a great week!”
With an irrational lurch of longing, Ross realized what he wanted for dinner now were fish fingers. If only. Flame’s proximity was a force.
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