Six years later
Nick Langtree pulled back the tattered curtain hanging at his caravan window and peered outside. A light, misty rain was falling over Winters Hill. The whole place was quiet and still, like the pause between breaths. The dark sky was tinging the whole place with a kind of melancholy, the effect intensified by the burned-out stable and the garden—once full of flowers, it was now just a tangle of brambles and weeds. Nick dropped the curtain and stepped away from the window.
He didn’t like to think about the past. Usually, he distracted himself with work, but this morning he’d managed to slice his hand open. It had been a stupid accident; his hand slipping while he’d been replacing a couple of rotten floorboards in the barn. The result had been a trip to casualty at the local hospital, a dozen stitches and a lecture about farm safety. He’d been glad to get back home—hospitals always brought back terrible memories. But being unable to do any work around the farm had left him alone with his thoughts, which was never a good thing.
Nick stepped over to the tiny galley kitchen and flicked on the kettle, biting back a curse as he bumped his bandaged hand against the bench. His sleek black cat, Tabitha, regarded him imperiously from her perch on the top of a faded blue armchair.
‘What are you looking at?’ Nick muttered.
The cat continued staring at him for a moment before closing her green eyes and going back to sleep.
‘Sorry, Tab, I didn’t mean to snap.’
With his coffee made, Nick sat down at the small table and tried to think about anything but the past. The doctor had said he shouldn’t use his hand for the next few days. That was all fine and well for a medic, thought Nick, but he still had a mob of sheep to care for and a farm to run—at least, what was left of it. Six years ago, Winters Hill had been a different place. All Nick’s hard work had been beginning to pay off and the sheep run looked as if it was going to make a small profit. The future had felt bright and full of possibilities for both him and Sophie. They were deeply in love and had a much-wanted baby on the way.
But all that had changed in a heartbeat.
He sighed as he pushed away his untouched mug and tried to think what he could do. Fixing the floorboards in the barn was out. Maybe he’d just go for a walk and see if something presented itself. He glanced around the caravan, trying not to remember the plans for the beautiful, spacious house he and Sophie had been building when the fire struck. There was just enough room for him and the cat in the caravan. He was glad for his table, which doubled as a desk, his armchair, and a small TV. He thought about lying down on the double bed crammed behind the small partition he’d added to create a little privacy from the sleeping and living area.
Outside, a few steps away from the front door, he’d built a fully functioning bathroom for Sophie, who’d refused to move into the caravan while their house was being built unless there was a hot shower and a flushing toilet. Sophie’s brother had said that she was being a princess insisting on it and maybe she shouldn’t contemplate moving in until the house was finished. But Nick never thought of it that way. She’d never asked for anything else and damn, if all it took was some plumbing and a bit of hot water he was happy to do it. Besides it meant that the two of them would have their own space rather than living in the Telford’s spare room.
Nick winced as he got up and opened the door. Heavy rain had replaced the mist and it was loud as it hit the tin roof of the old tool shed.
If he had any sense he’d go back inside and write the rest of the day off. But, then again, he never admitted to being sensible. Nick picked his raincoat off a hook, stepping into the downpour, and shut the caravan door firmly behind him.
***
Tash Duroz stacked the last chair on the table, glad the day was almost over. The people of White Gum Creek did their best to keep The Gumnut Bakery a going concern, but today had been quiet. Thank God for the orders from local restaurants and cafés in the surrounding area, which kept the bakery afloat. When Tash and her baby brother, Alex, had taken over the bakery about five years ago, which had been a pretty scary thing for a then twenty-three-year-old, she’d soon realised they couldn’t only rely on the locals to make the business viable. In her grandmother’s day, the town had been big enough to keep the bakery ticking over. In recent years, however, several of the local farmers had gone broke, and a good proportion of young people had moved to bigger towns in pursuit of other opportunities and more excitement. But it wasn’t entirely doom and gloom. There’d been a steady trickle of tree changers arriving to escape the bustle of Melbourne. Thanks to them, the town was beginning to bloom again, and so was the bakery.
Tash remained determined about growing The Gumnut Bakery into a more profitable business. The bakery had been founded by the Duroz family back in the early days of the town and had been a fixture through both the tough times and the good. Her grandmother had always claimed the family had flour in its blood. Tash had long since resolved that she wouldn’t be the one to let the bakery go.
Preoccupied, she tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear and started mopping the old slate-tiled floor. Even though she was a good baker, it was her brother Alex who had the light touch of an artist when it came to making bread and pastries and cakes. The fact he took his skill for granted frustrated Tash, but she’d learned to live with it. Alex seemed to have an innate ability to instinctively know what ingredients to add to a recipe to transform it from the ordinary. For Tash it was a different story, she had to learn through experiment, trial and failure. In any case, though Alex surpassed her in baking, Tash had the business savvy. Three years ago she’d started supplying their artisan bread and baked goods to gourmet delicatessens and restaurants throughout the shire. Since then, they had steadily made a name for themselves with the foodie crowd.
For Tash, cooking and dining were integral parts of life in a busy world. They embodied family, conversations, continuation and the memories that bound the people you loved together.
It didn’t take her long to finish the mopping. The truth was she liked this part of the afternoon, when Alex and the other staff had gone home, and she could enjoy the silence of the shop and the hint of cinnamon in the air. It always gave her a moment to pause, take a breath and reflect on the day.
When she and Alex had taken over the bakery, Tash had immediately changed the opening hours, much to her grandmother’s horror. Tash had always known that she had been destined to run the bakery. From an early age she’d been captivated by the magic of baking and her grandmother had encouraged it. As she grew older, Tash realised that if The Gumnut was going to survive it would be through her and Alex, as their mother had no interest in continuing it. White Gum Creek and the bakery stifled Anna Duroz and she longed for the day that she could escape both of them. If it was left to her, Tash knew her Mum would sell up and move them all to the city, which was the last place Tash ever wanted to be. The town, the bakery and the family history were all in Tash’s blood, this was not only where she wanted to be, it was where she belonged. Her grandmother knew that and also that Alex felt the same—that’s why she’d given the bakery to them.
Tash had held her ground, arguing she needed to chase large outside orders to supplement the business they did with the townsfolk. The day started early, and most days Alex, along with their baking assistant, Joey, were in the kitchen by 5 am. Tash would join them at about six-thirty, whipping up a few batches of muffins and scones. After the baking was done, Alex did the daily deliveries and Tash looked after the shop until she closed it at four, giving parents and teachers time to grab a loaf of bread after school—and the kids the opportunity to buy the sweet stuff they enjoyed.
Taking over had been hard in the beginning. Her grandmother found it difficult to relinquish control. Tash understood this. When Tash had taken it over, the bakery had been only been making a small profit. But soon Tash had managed to improve on it with a lot of hard work and dedication.
And Alex had done his bit. Sure, he may complain every now and again, but Tash knew that he always had her back and The Gumnut was just as important to him as it was to her. Tash’s friends said that she had put her personal life on hold while she consolidated the bakery. That was true, to a point, but there was another reason she didn’t put herself out there. She was stuck on a guy that didn’t even see her…Well, not really.
Tash could lie to Sally and Bec, and even to Alex when she said that she only felt sorry for Nick Langtree. But it was harder to lie to herself. She remembered him from before the fire. He had a devastating smile and a laugh that was contagious. He’d moved to the area about nine years ago—God, that was a lifetime ago. She had met him in the bakery, and she had thought that Sophie Telford was the luckiest girl in White Gum Creek.
Poor Sophie. Tash winced. Since the accident, Nick had kept to himself. In the first couple of years, he was like a ghost; he hardly ventured into town. But in the last year he had started to come back to The Gumnut at least once a week.
He wasn’t the same man. The smile and the laugh appeared to have disappeared forever. He seemed small and hollow and quiet. He wore his dark hair long to cover the burn mark seared across his right cheek. The backs of his hands carried more scars, a constant reminder of a day he must have wanted to forget.
Tash felt sorry for him. She told herself that all she wanted was for Nick to start living again. It had been six years and he deserved a little happiness. That was all it was; he was a lost soul who needed to be found. Sally and Bec would joke that Tash was trying to rescue Nick, just like she rescued everything else. Ever since she was a kid, Tash had rescued animals. If there was a stray dog in town, nine times out of ten it would end up at the Duroz place. So would lizards, birds, beetles and even cats, even if they weren’t lost and didn’t have any particular interest at being saved, although they never refused a bowl of milk before they were returned to their rightful owners.
But this was different. He might not know it yet, but Nick Langtree needed Tash’s help.
***
Totally sodden, Nick stared in dismay at the large, bright-red spray-paint angled across the tin wall of his hayshed. The bloody local kids had been at it again. It was the usual stuff, and Nick figured he should be used to it by now, but if he was honest, the taunting words still stung.
Monster, Murderer, Freak.
Maybe what they said was true, maybe he was all those things and deserved to be tormented. Not that he needed graffiti to remind him. He managed to do that all by himself—every day.
Get Out. You Don’t Belong Here—Leave Winnterr’s Hill.
‘Damn it, if you’re going to spray all over a man’s shed, you could at least get the bloody name right,’ he muttered.
Maybe it was the only way to stop the guilt, but for a second he took pleasure thinking about what he’d do to the little shits. Yeah, an all-day grammar lesson—that should kill their enthusiasm for graffiti.
They must have enjoyed messing with him. They never took it too far—well, at least, they never harmed the livestock or gutted the caravan—but every couple of months they decided that at least one of his sheds needed redecorating.
Nick wasn’t that surprised. He lived a near hermit-like existence, and Winters Hill was just far enough from White Gum Creek to appear isolated but still near enough to reach on a bike. There had been a lot of talk over the years about him in town and what had happened. Some of it was true, some embellished, and some was a heap of shit. He guessed that it was only natural that some people would think that his place was inhabited by some deranged monster, but why the hell did they have to go and write all over everything?
Nick glanced down at his bandaged hand. At least he didn’t need two hands to paint the wall. He did, however, need to run into town and grab some paint. He glanced at the sky. It looked like the rain had set in. Maybe he should just leave it; if he didn’t paint over the words perhaps the culprits would think he didn’t care and lose interest?
He headed back to his caravan. As the rain grew heavier, little rivulets ran down his dark hair, and Nick shivered as they trickled down the collar of his plaid shirt. He glanced over his shoulder at the accusing words. The kicker was that some of them might be true.