The room was quiet. Lou hadn’t come far, given that she was now staying at the Welcome Inn, a particular form of torture after Mary Moriarty’s interruption two nights before. But it was better than what she would have to put up with at Sunset Downs – the sight of Gage, cold and frustrated, and her mother, still playing no speakies after Lou’s failure to show up to the cemetery.
At least she knew, after finally checking her phone messages, that the police and the insurance company had dropped the investigation, and Skye would be compensated for the loss of the house, at least enough to buy another small place. The one thing Lou needed to resolve before she left Stone Mountain (hopefully tomorrow, after tonight’s meeting) was what her mother wanted to do. Like it or not, plans would have to be made.
A harping voice at the back of Lou’s mind kept reminding her how she’d felt the day Skye had collapsed, and asking if she really was okay to be heading back to Sydney while her mother was in such a precarious state. But so far, she had managed to keep the nag successfully gagged. There were a whole lot of ways to care for someone, even if you weren’t immediately on the scene, and Lou was confident she could set something up that might work.
But right now, she needed to get through this.
Local councils were strange creatures, and Stone Mountain’s governing statutes were no exception. Once Lou had dug into the requirements of activating the exceptional circumstances provision of the council’s powers, it was clear that they would have to hold a town meeting – inviting all ratepayers to take part in having a say about what the council planned to do. It would be a delicate meeting to manage. The mayor would need to advise everyone of the decision he had made to invoke his powers to grant the company access and exploration rights over a swathe of land that cut through almost all the major properties on the mountain. He would have to explain the commercial and social benefits for the town, without giving away the parlous state of the town’s finances, or his own dodgy dealings in trying to keep it afloat. Having been in town long enough to take the temperature of community sentiment, Lou knew there would be a lot of opposition. It would be so much easier if her father could simply stand up and tell them that this was the only way out, for the town and for the farms, but instead, he was going to have to take a fall. Lou was under no illusion that he would never be elected mayor again, which would be horrible for him, having enjoyed the town’s adoration, but it was infinitely preferable to the jail term he would face if he gave the game away. Lou was not prepared to let him go down, not when she was in doubt that he had done everything for the sake of this small, parochial shithole.
It would be too unfair.
The function room at the Queen’s Arms, usually reserved for meetings of the Cattlemen’s Association or the Country Women’s Association, had been filled with chairs in expectation of a large crowd. The room looked ill-equipped for the gravity of the task it faced; its purple-swirl carpet sported ancient beer stains and smelled like camphor. The Regency-patterned wallpaper was faded and inglorious. Two long trestle tables had been erected at the front of the room, along with a makeshift lectern. There was room for the mayor, Matt, a representative of Clean Gas, and the head of the Cattlemen’s Association.
The meeting would follow the usual proceedings for formal business in Stone Mountain. Lou had managed to rope Mitch into helping her reconfigure the karaoke machine so she could use it to support a roving microphone if anyone required one, which Lou doubted. Stone Mountain types didn’t go in for all that showiness. Attendees would stop at the bar to inoculate themselves against the horrors of formal bureaucracy at work, before moving into the back room as early as possible, to ensure they secured the back seats. It was the same thing in Stone Mountain whether it was church, school or local government business – no-one wanted to sit at the front.
Lou flicked her eyes around the room, hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything. A hundred seats were lined up in front of the main tables, but the room was still completely empty. Clean Gas had asked for facilities to run a PowerPoint presentation, but Mitch had laughed at the absurdity of the idea. The company had also suggested they provide refreshments, but Lou and her father had vetoed the idea. As her father had said in his plain-speaking way: ‘The community will know it’s getting fucked; they don’t want to feel like they’ve broken bread with the fuckers.’ Stone Mountain people hated a gimmick. Almost as much as they hated Clean Gas.
Lou decided it was time to slip out and get her father; make sure he was prepped for the event, knew his lines and knew how to respond to the barrage of questions he was sure to face. She headed for the door, and bumped right into Sharni.
‘Oh, hey,’ Sharni said, reaching out to hug Lou. She looked tired but spectacular. She was wearing very tight dark blue jeans, a soft white shirt and her favourite red boots. Her hair was loose and her face free of make-up except for a mad slash of red on her lips. She looked country-girl hot and Lou wondered what Matt would make of it when he saw her.
‘Hey, hon,’ Lou said, melting into Sharni’s arms. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
‘You said we could talk?’ Sharni’s face was hopeful. They hadn’t seen each other since the night in Matt’s room, but not because Lou was avoiding her. She’d just had a helluva lot to organise.
‘Can we do it after?’ Lou wanted to tell Sharni that she didn’t have to explain anything; that Lou would never judge her.
Sharni’s face fell, and Lou’s heart followed it down. ‘I swear, I’m not fobbing you off, sweetie pie,’ she said, using the old pet name to buy Sharni’s goodwill. ‘I’m just stressed out of my tree.’
Sharni nodded, and gave her a small smile. ‘Okay. What can I do?’
Lou grimaced. ‘Not much, I don’t think,’ she said, noticing a few cowboy-hatted men starting to trickle in and hug the back wall. ‘It’s game on, and I have to get Dad.’
‘Good luck,’ Sharni whispered as Lou made for the door.
Lou blew her a kiss, trying to project a confidence she didn’t feel. She hadn’t seen Gage since the night at the bar, and she knew he would be here tonight, furious about the proposal. A notice had appeared in the local paper this morning, and the whole town was abuzz.
She found her father across the road at the council chambers. ‘Showtime,’ she said, trying to inject strength into her voice.
For his part, Gary looked like hell. He was sitting at his big chair in the office that doubled as a bedroom, doodling notes in a little spiral-bound notebook, looking like a small boy who didn’t want to go to school.
‘Really?’ he asked petulantly, his floppy hair falling across his eyes.
‘Yep,’ she said, going over to his chair and holding out her hand. He took it, as she knew he would, and she helped pull him up to tower over her. ‘Man up, Mr Mayor, it’s time to face the music.’
Her father was dressed as usual in grey pants and navy shirt, but gone was his easy, bounding grace. He shuffled towards the door like he was being led to the guillotine.
As they crossed the road to the pub, Lou looped her arm through his.
‘There really isn’t another option, Dad,’ she said, holding hard to the warm strength of him, believing in his ability to get it together. ‘The council goes down, the farms go down, the town goes down.’
‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘I just never wanted it to be like this.’
As they reached the front of the pub, Lou noticed a woman standing by the door.
A frisson of energy seemed to pass through her father, electrifying him. Lou released his arm quickly, like she might get a shock if she didn’t.
‘Good evening, Mr Mayor,’ the woman said, her voice low and pleasant. It took Lou a moment to recognise the woman dressed in simple pants and tunic. Her silver hair was cut in a sharp bob that grazed her jawline, and her fiercely bright blue eyes were outlined prettily in grey kohl. She was arresting, if not beautiful, and she looked different outside the hospital setting.
‘Dr O’Brien,’ her father said, and there was a tone in his voice Lou didn’t recognise – sweet and flirtatious. His usual approach with the many women who loved and threw themselves at him was to feign incomprehension, but it was clear to Lou that there was more going on here than met the eye.
‘To what do we owe the pleasure?’
‘Well,’ Martha O’Brien said, smiling at Lou, ‘I hear there’s a meeting tonight. As an interested local, I thought I might come along. Watch our mayor perform, see what the people have to say.’
Gary’s shoulders fell a little. ‘Oh,’ he said, shaking his head gently. ‘I’m not sure you want to do that. I don’t think it’s going to be a very happy meeting.’
The good doctor shrugged. ‘All the better,’ she said, holding out an arm. ‘You’ll need a friendly face.’
Lou watched in amazement as her father took the doctor’s arm, and held his other out to her. She grasped it, relief surging through her that this woman had turned up exactly at the right time, and managed to inject a dose of something good into her father.
Maybe she really was a miracle worker.
But by the time they entered the room, Lou’s confidence evaporated.
The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of stale beer, and the excited buzz of conversation had a decidedly cranky tone. Most of the room’s occupants were men, along with all of the people sitting at the front table: Matt Finlay; Brian Buchanan, red-faced President-for-life of the Cattlemen’s Association; and a good-looking fifty-something guy whose jeans were too new and boots were too shiny. He had to be from Clean Gas.
There was a momentary lull as they entered the room, then the buzz started again, even more loudly and with an even crankier edge. Lou was sure if they’d lived in a different time, someone might have called for the tar and feathers.
‘Like tearing off a Band-Aid,’ Gary said, escorting Lou and Martha to the very front row and depositing them in some seats. ‘Best get on with it.’
The mayor made his way to the front of the room, shaking hands with Matt, Brian and the company man on his way to the seat closest to the lectern. Lou’s insides fluttered as she watched his clench-jawed determination. She tried to glance around the room without being too obvious, using the elaborate ritual of settling her bag to reconnoitre the scene behind her. And, of course, like heat-seeking missiles, her eyes found him almost immediately. It was as though the two of them had some kind of internal magnets, drawing them to each other, because Gage found her at the same time.
He was sitting almost dead centre in the room, dressed to kill (hopefully not Lou, or her father) in a charcoal shirt and his best blue jeans. He’d left his hat at home, but was clean shaven and determined. His father sat on one side of him, and Piper on the other. Piper looked classic and beautiful in tailored grey pants and a simple white shirt. Her hair was scraped into a high bun, showing off the spectacular lines of her cheekbones and jaw. Lou’s heart melted at the sight of her, even from such a quick glance. She already missed her, and it had only been a couple of days.
But it was the look Gage gave her that most unnerved her.
There was something simultaneously cold and broken about him. He was sitting very still, and he looked a long way away, like he was an automaton, just going through the motions, carved from the stone of his beloved mountain. Like her, he couldn’t help meeting her eyes. Unlike her, he seemed to have made up his mind to hate her. Perhaps this was the result of the finality of her words the other night; perhaps he’d realised she was involved with her father’s plans with Clean Gas.
Perhaps a little of both.
Watching him, Lou’s fingers tingled, wanting to go over and touch him, reach out and feel the warmth of his skin, tell him she had never wanted to hurt him, would never hurt him. But it was too late for that. She had, and no doubt she would again, given the chance.
And she was going to do it some more tonight.
She slumped in the uncomfortable plastic chair. She couldn’t go to Gage. God alone knew what Piper and Bo were making of all of this. Her mother was nowhere to be seen, and even if Lou did see her, she would only feel the old blend of hurt, disappointment and bitterness. She and Sharni were still partway at odds, at least until they could patch things up. And her father was about to become the sacrificial lamb for a godless drought.
Lou felt suddenly, entirely, alone. She was used to feeling alone, but somehow in the city it was easier. She had built a little burrow for herself. She had her work, a few friends, and Sharni. She stayed busy, and tried not to think about all she had left behind, and what she had lost. A film of tears clouded her vision as she cursed herself for coming to the damned reunion. It had been such a stupid idea. One night – in, out. Yeah, right.
Look what had happened. She had landed in the middle of a damned disaster – a fire, cancer, the stuff with her father. And if they hadn’t come back, the whole thing between Sharni and Matt might never have reared its crazy head again. She and Sharni could be back in Sydney, enjoying shiatsu and eating vegetarian Vietnamese spring rolls. Their only dose of country would be watching re-runs of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
Lou tried to release the sigh that was caught inside her quietly so that Martha O’Brien, sitting beside her, might not notice it. But Lou was pretty sure the doctor noticed anyway, because the older woman reached over, picked up Lou’s hand, squeezed it, and placed it firmly in her own lap, keeping it entwined with hers and giving it a little pat for good measure. Lou supposed Dr O’Brien knew some things about providing comfort, but it didn’t matter to her right now that this was a professionally learned skill. It just helped. The warm press of her palms seemed to radiate calm into the deepest parts of her, and Lou took a few deep, steadying breaths.
Then Martha spoke, very quietly so no-one would overhear. ‘You got a rough deal in this town, sweetheart,’ she said, patting Lou’s hand again. ‘I know all about it.’ She paused. ‘And I know about tonight, too, and how hard it’s going to be for you.’
‘He told you?’ Lou turned to face Martha. She was very surprised her father would tell this woman what was going on. But as she met those intelligent blue eyes, she got it. Martha was the kind of woman you could tell things to. The kind of woman who understood things, a whole lot of things that other people might not get. She looked like she understood compromise, and the imperfection of humans, and could still like them.
For the second time since she had met her, Lou had the strongest urge to lay her head down on this woman’s lap and let her pat her hair.
Martha nodded. ‘He did.’
Lou considered the doctor. ‘Are you two …?’
Martha laughed. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Not yet.’ She paused, looking at Lou as though she was assessing her capacity to understand things. ‘But I think we will be. Sometime. Maybe sometime soon.’
‘Even though …?’ Lou flapped a hand at the lectern where her father was shuffling papers and readying himself to start proceedings.
Martha laughed again, and the sound was lovely. ‘Even though,’ she agreed, patting Lou’s hand again. Then a small frown creased her brow. ‘You know, Louise, you don’t need to understand all the reasons people have for being the way they are. Sometimes you can just accept them.’
Lou had the very strong feeling they were talking about more than Martha and her father.
‘You mean my mother, don’t you? Skye.’ Lou grimaced at Martha. ‘You don’t know the whole story. You might think you do, but you don’t. No-one does.’
Martha shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter in the end,’ she said, letting go of Lou’s hand and wrapping an arm around her shoulders instead. ‘You know that? It actually doesn’t matter what Skye did, or didn’t, do.’ She squeezed Lou’s shoulders a little. ‘Or even both.’ She smoothed Lou’s hair from behind, like she wanted to ease some of her tension.
Lou closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it might have been like to have someone like this as her mother, someone so wise, and so kind; someone who did motherly things.
‘It doesn’t matter because making peace with all that shit isn’t about Skye.’ Martha squeezed Lou’s shoulders again. ‘It’s about letting go of all that stuff you’re carrying around on these skinny little shoulders. Not for her. For you.’ Then she pulled her hand off Lou’s shoulders and reached down to rummage in her bag, pulling out a pair of square black glasses. ‘People are so funny,’ she muttered as she fixed them on her nose. ‘All that Dr Phil shit. We all think we have to resolve everything; make peace with our demons. Blah blah.’ She waved a dismissive hand. ‘Sometimes we don’t have to do any resolving, any working through or working out. Sometimes we just gotta let go. Accept that it is what it is. And we’re here. We’re alive. We survived. And we’re gonna be okay.’
Lou smiled weakly at Martha, feeling those all-seeing magic eyes bore into her. ‘Is this what you get from working with people who are dying?’
Martha chuckled. ‘Maybe,’ she agreed. ‘One thing’s for sure.’ She winked and settled back in her chair to watch the action. ‘I never met someone who was dying who wished they’d been angrier with people.’
Lou wouldn’t have thought anything could distract her as her father called the meeting to order. She would have thought she would be so preoccupied by worrying about how he would go and how the town would react that she couldn’t think about anything else. But as he tapped the little microphone and asked people to shush, Martha’s words swirled like a kaleidoscope in her brain. She had really never thought about such an option; it had always seemed to her she either needed to make up with her mother, and make peace with what had happened here, or stay away; she couldn’t live here in some limbo between the two. A tiny strand of lightness entered her heart at the thought. It wasn’t some great revelation, not some backlit epiphany, just a thought that settled and looked for room inside her as she watched what was about to happen. Something to think about later.
Her father cleared his throat. ‘Well, thank you everyone for coming along tonight, and in such numbers.’
A loud ‘boo’ sounded from the back of the hall, and Lou’s stomach lurched. Martha placed her arm around the back of Lou’s chair again, giving her shoulder a little squeeze.
Gary almost lost his stride but covered it quickly with a crooked smile. ‘I can see we’re getting in practice for the footy game this weekend.’ He paused. ‘Go the Bombers,’ he added, and a few people laughed grudgingly. Gary seemed to visibly relax. Lou wished she could hold up a sign saying: Remember these are your people, Dad.
Gary cleared his throat and started again, speaking slowly and simply. ‘As you all know, following the ad in today’s paper, we’re here to discuss council invoking the special circumstances powers so we can sell the Maria Downs parcel of land to Clean Gas. I’m not going to make any bones about it – most of you don’t like the idea. It means you won’t have any choice, Clean Gas will get right of way over your land and some exploration rights as well.’
The few voices that had been muttering discontentedly stopped to listen to what he had to say. They liked and respected him enough to give him that, at least. This was vintage Gary Samuels – plain speaking, honest, careful.
The mayor pushed his hair out of his face and glanced around the room before continuing. ‘So I guess you’re probably wondering why I would do something like this?’
A few voices from the back called out ‘Too right’ and ‘Fuckin’ oath’.
Gary nodded. ‘Well,’ he said, spreading his hands, ‘let me tell you a story.’
As he said the words, Lou felt the room relax. This was more like it. They knew her father’s stories almost as well as she did. And they wanted him to make sense of this for them; to explain what he was thinking.
Gary drummed his fingers on the lectern, like he was preaching a sermon. ‘When I was a kid, growing up in the hills behind the Mountain –’
Most people knew Gary’s history. The hilltowns were poor territory, where a few dirt farmers scratched out a living on tiny plots. Their kids were scraggly and undernourished, and the place was full of people who had escaped to self-sufficiency from someplace where life wasn’t working for them. They were, overall, off the radar and on the bottle. The folks of Stone Mountain didn’t have much to do with the hills folks, and their collection of raggedy little villages, but they liked that their clever, charming mayor grew up poor and prospect-less in a place they understood.
‘I used to go out hunting, with my pa, when I was real small.’
Lou had never met her paternal grandfather, and she had believed her father when he’d told her it was for the best. Sounded like he’d been a real arsehole.
Gary took a breath, and seemed to be collecting himself. ‘One day, I found this little rabbit. He’d been hurt.’ His tone had changed – his accent was broader than usual, and his cadence slower. Lou knew this sometimes happened when he talked about his childhood, almost like he was dropping back into that time and place.
‘I wanted to take him home, take care of him.’ He shrugged. ‘He was hurt pretty bad, but there was no-one to tell me no. And there was no-one to tell me how to look after the little thing. I tried.’ He shrugged again, this time like he was trying to shake something off. ‘I washed him up and fed him.’ He met Lou’s eyes like he was trying to say something only to her.
Lou tried to reassure him with her eyes: We’re listening, Dad.
‘But he was never going to survive. No-one told me, no-one was there to guide me. And no-one helped me either. My ma and pa didn’t care; they thought it was funny. Funny little Gary with his sick rabbit.’
Her father’s tone was so engaging, Lou knew everyone in the room could see the dirty little boy he had been. And they were listening, hanging on his words.
‘In the end, Bugs – that’s what I called him – well, he died slow and painful, in front of me. I wanted to save him. I thought I could, if I could just look after him right.’ He raised his hands in a gesture of appeal, and Lou felt the room lean in to him. She wished she could go and stand beside him, put her arm around him, and the boy he had been.
‘And then, when I wanted them to put him down, they wouldn’t. Said it was a waste of ammo. And I couldn’t do it, of course. So I just watched the little thing die.’
Gary shook his head. His eyes pierced the room, daring anyone to doubt his bona fides. ‘You know me. You know I wouldn’t be doing this if I thought there was another way. The fact is, Stone Mountain needs this money. Council needs to do this deal to keep afloat, and to provide all the things this town needs to survive and thrive. I’ve done the maths.’ He glanced quickly over at Lou, and the stares of a hundred hateful townsfolk descended on her. ‘We need to do this deal, and this is our only option.’
He raised his hands in a placating gesture as a chorus of angry murmurs gathered strength. ‘As mayor, my job is to balance what we all need; weigh it up against our various interests. This drought has gone on a long time. Right now, our community is completely subject to the whims of Mother Nature. I want to take us beyond that; I want to give us a fighting chance.’
As he sat down, few people clapped, but at least no-one booed again, or did anything worse. Lou’s shoulders started to unclench. Soon it would all be over.
Matt was up next, and she felt the town tune in.
Matt Finlay had been a big deal back in the day – a star footy player and an all-round golden boy. They loved that he had married a local girl, had even been able to forgive his defection to the city, given that he appeared to have gone off and become important and successful. There was nothing they loved more than a local boy made good. It warmed their hearts.
‘You all know me,’ Matt boomed.
‘Not as well as our sisters,’ a wise-cracker yelled from the back row.
Matt ate it up. ‘Very funny, Davo.’ He grinned at the offender. ‘I’m a changed man.’
‘Change your girlfriends more often than your underwear, you mean,’ the voice hooted back.
Lou wanted to punch someone, preferably Matt, but she needed him to help them tonight, so she had to play nice. She comprehensively zoned out for the next ten minutes while Matt Finlay played the room. She barely took in anything he said – something about jobs, and progress, and gas not getting in the way of farming. Instead of the words, she registered the smooth way he worked his audience.
For every heckler, he had good-natured banter.
For every objection, he had a reasoned answer.
When it was over, the room was thoroughly seduced, just like poor Sharni had been her whole life. Lou had no doubt once the formal meeting ended, Matt would be shouting drinks at the public bar, thumping backs and declaring it was ‘just business’. While her father would be ruined.
When Gary asked the representative of Clean Gas if he felt the need to say any words, he shook his head, his careful smile telling Lou that he felt Matt had earned whatever take he was getting from this deal.
Then it was Brian Buchanan’s turn. The head of the Cattlemen’s Association stood, his face going even redder as he lumbered over to the mike. Brian was a popular local farmer whose land had been in his family’s hands as long as records existed. But public speaking was not his strong suit. He flapped a wad of papers, telling the group that they detailed the objections of the local farming community to the proposals. Then he tried to explain a few of the more critical concerns of the group, but lost most of the audience at ‘fracking’ and ‘water tables’. Lou felt sick as she watched him flail to make his points, and shut her eyes against the agony of it.
Finally, it was over and Brian sat down, looking like he was going to be investing in a stiff drink once the meeting was over.
The mayor stood again, looking, if not relieved, at least glad proceedings were almost at a close, but there was no triumph on his face. Lou could read the long lines of disappointment in the way he held himself. This had been a dark victory.
He asked the group if anyone wished to say final words, and Lou was sure there would be at least one or two souls brave or angry enough to have a go, despite Matt’s best efforts at seduction. She turned, like the rest of the room, to see if anyone was making moves to stand, and her breath jammed in her throat as she watched Gage stand from his seat and make his way to the lectern.
All the eyes in the room were on him as he sauntered up, taking his own sweet time, as though he knew that everyone in the room just liked looking at him. Which they definitely did, but Lou doubted he realised it.
By the time he reached the lectern and faced the crowd, the expectation was so thick Lou was sure she could smell it. She had no idea what he was doing. Gage didn’t do public speaking. He didn’t do much speaking, full stop.
And he took his time to start now. He looked around the room, doing a full sweep before coming to settle back on Lou.
‘Well,’ he said, like he was speaking directly to her. ‘Shit sure has been going down, hasn’t it?’ He gave the crowd a wry smile, so slow and ironic that Lou was sure even the old cow cockeys in the audience wanted to lie down and beg him to take them now. Instead, they just laughed warmly and leaned forwards in their chairs.
‘In fact,’ he went on, reaching up to scratch his head, ‘I feel like I’ve been in the Twilight Zone, sitting back there listening to all this horseshit up here.’ He held up his hands placatingly as the townsfolk cheered. ‘I mean, no offence to my old mate Matt.’ He gestured good-naturedly behind him. ‘He’s excused. After all, he’s been spinning shit since high school.’
The town loved this. Matt Finlay and Gage Westin – two of the most exciting, beloved sons of the town, going head to head in open combat in front of them, and all the while maintaining the semblance of good ol’ boy mateship.
‘I’m just surprised y’bought it. I mean …’ He scratched his head again like he was genuinely puzzled. ‘I know the women are partial to his lies, and I know he’s a sexy dude and all, but I wouldn’t have thought any of you blokes want him to park his footy tags under your beds.’ He paused, and the effect was so theatrical, Lou couldn’t stop the smile spreading across her face. ‘Do ya?’
There were cries of ‘No way’ from the crowd.
‘Well then,’ Gage said, nodding as though he was relieved that small matter had been cleared up. The crowd was under his spell. If Matt had been all pretty-boy football hero, Gage was the real man of the hour, about to tell it how it was. Lou was sure if she shut her eyes she would hear a low, collective pant. She should be worried. She should be hating this. She knew how hard it would make things for her father. But damn if it was not something special to watch Gage stand up there and talk to his town.
She knew that in reality there wasn’t really that much he could do. Sure, he could make things uncomfortable for her father and for the company, but he couldn’t stop the deal going ahead. Council was required to consult, under the relevant statute, but it wasn’t required to do anything about it once it did.
As her eyes sought out her father’s, she could see that even he was sitting back to enjoy the show. Only Matt looked like he wasn’t so pleased about it, but he had to bite back his irritation and act like it was all some great game between the two of them. He couldn’t show his hand, how much this deal meant to him. Lou knew better than anyone that the sniff of desperation was like a cold shower to a hot deal. And she knew that Matt would know it too. For him, the whole thing depended on toughing this out.
‘So, anyway,’ Gage continued, shrugging a little. ‘Here’s how I see it. We don’t want the gas. We belong here, this is our home. We don’t know enough about this stuff yet; what the extraction process does.’ He was ticking things off on those long, fine fingers as he went. ‘We know all those trucks rumbling through the valley and onto the mountain are gonna mess with the herds, and cause God knows what disruption to the crops. But you know what?’
They were so bought in, Lou was sure she could hear the crowd murmur ‘No, what?’ under their breaths as they leaned in to the good-looking local boy who was talking the sense they’d been assembling in their own heads, but hadn’t had the courage or the confidence to say.
‘None of that shit matters. None of it is the reason why I don’t want these fuckers on my land.’ He turned and eyeballed the company guy, who smiled wanly and tried to project goodness. ‘Because I don’t need to give any reasons. It’s my land.’ He spat the words like hard pellets of hate. ‘Mine, and my family’s. Always has been; always will be. They can have it, but only if they drag me off it. And let me tell you –’ Gage’s face was so serious now, everyone in the room could see the tic jumping under his right eye and the hard coil of muscle where his jaw clenched under his cheek. ‘They wouldn’t be dragging me off it conscious.’
Piper let out a loud shout of support, and he grinned at her.
As the full force of how Gage felt about this issue hit home, Lou’s stomach turned a circle and hung upside down the way it had the first time Sharni had dragged her on the rollercoaster at Luna Park. Her hands started to sweat and her breathing picked up. She felt like she was suddenly very exposed, as the real mood of the room made itself known very clearly. They all agreed with him. None of them wanted this deal.
Shit. He was gonna hate her forever for her part in this. And he wasn’t going to be the only one.
Gage sat down to thunderous applause as her father drew the meeting to a close. As Gage walked past Lou’s chair, he searched out her eyes. She was looking down at her feet but she felt him approaching and couldn’t resist. It was always like this, like picking a damned scab you knew was just not ready to heal. As he looked at her – right into her, in fact – his eyes were sad and cold. A clear question burned in them: How could you?