Hayley hadn’t slept well. It was hard to distinguish between dreams and memories lately, but she suspected the ones that involved Luke were merely wishful thinking. She was up early, coffee in hand, leaning against the timber railing of the fence as she watched the sunrise. She loved how the thin veil of night slowly lifted inch by inch to reveal the bright new day in soft shades of pink, orange and yellow.
The sound of a vehicle drawing closer made her ears prick, and she fought an attack of butterflies in her stomach as she recognised the ute.
‘Hey,’ Luke said as he climbed out of his vehicle, shoving his hands in his pockets.
‘You’re here early,’ she said for want of anything intelligent to say.
‘Sorry I didn’t call, but I didn’t want to wake you up. Thought I’d get a bit of a head start on things. I need to draft off a few of the steers.’
‘That’s okay. You don’t have to call to ask to come over. I was just up watching the sunrise.’
She felt the tension hanging between. ‘Listen, about yesterday,’ she started but was interrupted.
‘What you do and who you do it with isn’t any of my business,’ he said shortly.
It felt like a slap across the face and Hayley was momentarily lost for words before indignation came to her rescue. ‘Exactly. Just like it’s none of my business who you give private tours to.’
She really wished she could have been the bigger person and kept her mouth shut.
‘I didn’t know Lucinda was coming,’ he said finally, surprising her with his willingness to discuss it at all.
‘Then that must have been a surprise.’
‘Almost as big a surprise as seeing you and Weaver there together,’ he said stiffly.
‘We weren’t there together. He was there for a meeting. I was just having a drink with him.’
‘Looked like more than a drink to me,’ he said, looking down at his boot as though it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
‘Maybe if you decided to give Jason a break instead of antagonising him, he wouldn’t feel a need to try to provoke you at every opportunity.’
‘Me give him a break? I told you, I tried to help him and he almost broke my bloody jaw.’
‘He’s really trying to get his act together, Luke. And you were right, he did have issues—how could he not after everything he’d been through? But he needs a friend now more than ever. I know he hurt more than your jaw that night,’ she said softly. It must have wounded Luke to have a childhood friend turn on him so violently. ‘But he’s truly sorry for what happened. I’m just not sure he knows how to say it.’
Luke gave a snort and dismissed her words with a shake of his head, but she saw something flash across his face and knew she’d hit a nerve.
‘Sounds like you’re worrying about his wellbeing a bit more than is warranted for a guy who just does odd jobs around the place.’
‘He’s a friend. There’s nothing else to it.’
‘You kiss all your friends like that?’ he shot back.
‘This isn’t about Jason. It’s not even about you believing I’m going to ruin businesses with my book or send Lochmanning broke.’
‘Interesting that you can dismiss my family’s business viability so casually,’ he cut in sarcastically.
‘My book isn’t going to have any detrimental effects on anyone. So what if it sparks some controversy? If anything it’ll be better for business if it brings people out to take a look around. Stop snatching at straws and face the real reason. It’s about Edward and Jane. Isn’t it.’
She saw his expression shut down and harden the features she’d come to know like the back of her own hand. ‘Why does it bother you so much? You’ve lived around Pearl your whole life. Why is it so hard for you to accept what I’ve experienced? What are you afraid of?’
‘Maybe I’ve just had enough of this crap being forced down my throat all my life, without having someone I—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘What if I believed that what Wilfred Mason did was justifiable?’
Hayley stared at him. ‘But you don’t,’ she said simply.
‘But what if I did, Hayley? What if what I believed was just as unshakable as what you believed? Could you live with someone whose beliefs were so different to yours?’
‘You’re comparing me to a cold-blooded murderer?’
‘I’m comparing you to a man who was adamant until the day he died that he’d done nothing wrong,’ he shrugged. ‘That was his belief.’
It was clear then that Luke had no intention of accepting her and they had no possible future. ‘I better leave you to it,’ she said, turning away sadly.
‘Hayley—’
She turned, watching him expectantly. Say it, she pleaded silently, grasping at what little hope she had. Hayley, I want us to start again. It’s okay about the book…I don’t care that we don’t agree on the same things… But he wasn’t going to say any of that. Slowly she turned away again. As she moved past, she held her breath. Say something to make me stop, she pleaded silently, but the only noise she heard was the calling of birds high in the trees and maybe a long, sad sigh.
Once safely inside the house, she touched her fingertips to her cheeks and realised that she was crying. No. She was not going to cry. She had no reason to. Luke was his own person, they weren’t a couple, they never would be. All they’d keep doing was disappointing and hurting each other. She could see it, like one endless loop, repeating the same frustrating pattern.
She had to put a stop to it, she couldn’t go on living next door to the man, loving him like she did and continuing this on again, off again thing they had happening. She had to end it once and for all.
Luke was in a bad mood when he arrived back home and it didn’t improve for the remainder of the day. He should have said something. He’d wanted to. Desperately. The words he wanted to say burned inside him, but he couldn’t get them out. What was wrong with him? He tossed down another beer and stared moodily at the empty room. What was he doing? He was thirty-one years old and he was sitting all alone in an empty house, pining for a woman he could have if he’d just shake off this stupid fear inside him.
He’d always known about Edward. It had been part of him. As a child he remembered things about growing up here at Lochmanning—things he shouldn’t have known because they happened a long time before he was born. He’d never thought anything of the memories until he’d gotten older and somehow understood that it wasn’t normal to talk about the things he’d lived through before.
His name had been Edward, before. And he’d died.
Gran had been the only one who understood. His parents had ignored his odd comments for the first few years, but one day when he was about seven, he told his father that he felt bad for the things that had happened to the local Aboriginal people who had lived here before they’d been chased away. His father lost his temper. ‘You are not Edward Mason. Your grandmother has filled your head with this rubbish and it’s time you bloody well grew up and stopped all this rot. Enough is enough. If you want to be a farmer, you better start acting like a man or you can forget about working here one day.’ He could still recall the sharp sting of embarrassment and shame that had followed his father’s outburst.
His dad was his hero; all he’d ever wanted to do was be a farmer just like him and make him proud. To suddenly hear that he was an embarrassment to the man he worshipped almost gutted him with shame. Nothing was more important to him than being a farmer, and if that meant he had to stop remembering then so be it. So he had. He never thought about Edward Mason again, and somewhere along the line he forgot about his other life. Until a woman with dark hair and cornflower blue eyes came back into his life.
Luke went in search of another beer but the fridge was empty. He needed to escape this empty house. There was too much quiet, and memories liked quiet places.
He headed down to the bar, glad to find it wasn’t overly crowded. He walked behind the counter, taking a beer from the fridge before wandering around to sit at the bar and drink.
‘What’s going on with you?’ Grant asked after he finished serving a customer up the other end.
‘Why?’
‘You’re in here drinking for starters.’
‘I didn’t know there was a law against it.’
‘You’re never in here drinking alone.’
‘I ran out of beer at my place.’
‘Fair enough. But I think you chose a bad night to renounce your hermit lifestyle.’
‘What do you mean?’ he frowned across at his older brother and saw him nod towards something behind him. Luke turned in his seat and groaned as he saw a table of party-goers and one in particular who was very familiar. He turned back and continued drinking his beer, hoping he might go unnoticed.
‘Hey, cowboy, can I buy you a drink?’ Lucinda’s smooth tone, which he’d once loved, now felt like fingernails on a chalkboard.
‘I’m good thanks, and I get them free,’ he said, holding up his beer. ‘I thought you were at the wedding.’
‘It was an early wedding, with the reception at lunchtime. Who even does that?’ she asked, leaning both arms on the bar to better show off her cleavage. ‘Anyway,’ she continued in that bored tone, ‘the reception’s over and the night is still young.’
‘I’m sure you and your friends will figure out something to entertain yourselves with.’
‘You should come over and join us.’
Luke slid her a dry glance. ‘No, thanks. I seem to recall I never got on with your kind of friends.’
‘You’d like these ones.’
‘I doubt it, Cin,’ he said, taking another long pull of his beer and feeling the slight buzz from the previous ones starting to kick in.
‘No one calls me that anymore,’ she said softly, and he caught a rare vulnerable look on her face. For a moment it caught him off guard. It hadn’t all been bad, just the last part.
‘Let’s have a few drinks and a couple of laughs, for old times’ sake,’ she said with a smile, ordering two more beers and handing him one before gently tapping their bottles together.
He took a long swig of the beer and let her lead him across to the table of people waiting for her. What the hell, he thought, taking another drink. She was going to find out sooner or later that he hadn’t changed and give up whatever her game was, but it had to beat sitting at home alone thinking about Hayley.