‘The first thing I want you to understand,’ the woman who’d identified herself as Meredith Burns said, ‘is that you’re not going mad.’

A thousand times Teagan had reflected on those words. Without them she would have been truly lost. It was the simplicity of them, the hope they held, that had brought her to make the most important decision of her life. A decision she should have made a long time ago.

She’d asked for help.

Teagan stared around her. The Wellness Centre’s rear garden was nice this time of day. Cool in the shade but dappled with light from the hot spring sun. At first she’d baulked at the idea of coming here but after listening to Doctor Johar outline her medical treatment, and Meredith’s suggestion for therapy, it had seemed the smart decision. Anti-depressants took time to take effect. Individuals could experience unique responses to dosages and types, and often finding the right drug was a matter of trial and error. Some reportedly made people worse before they got better, and the centre offered the safety net of twenty-four-hour medical supervision and counselling.

What it also offered was a place to hide.

Neither her mother nor Vanessa pushed, but Teagan didn’t miss the relief in their faces when she told them. A reaction that had cut deeply at the time, and made her feel even more useless and unwanted. But it was either Falls Farm or the Wellness Centre. Against the thought of becoming a zoo exhibit at Vanessa’s, with people tiptoeing around her and every move and mood fussed over and judged, the privacy-obsessed centre seemed the perfect sanctuary.

For two weeks now it had been that. The peace she was beginning to feel here made Teagan almost wish it could be forever.

She still struggled to remember the day of the cricket match. The details – exact words, exact faces, the run – remained fuzzy. The emotional pain didn’t. That remained vivid and mostly centred around Lucas and his betrayal. Except it wasn’t really betrayal. She understood that now. He was trying to help, like the others, but for some reason that scab remained itchy and unhealed.

She looked sadly towards the tree canopy. Lucas was over now. The Falls was over. As soon as she felt strong enough she was heading back to Levenham. Like the Wellness Centre, it was safe there. No one bar Em knew what had happened in her time away. No one would look at her with mockery or pity. There’d be no contempt for causing a fuss and ruining a cricket victory.

Teagan jerked as a twig cracked behind her. Her fingers gripped the timber seat’s arms. She clenched her teeth, wishing he’d leave her alone. This was all his fault. Why couldn’t he see that? Having him come talk to her was like suffering an encounter with the two-faced god Janus. One face a mask of contrition, the other secretly laughing.

She breathed hard through her nose and said nothing as he dragged a chair close and set it at right angles to her.

‘Lovely day.’

Teagan looked deliberately in the other direction. When she’d brought up his visits with Meredith she’d said that it would help if they talked. But Teagan didn’t want to talk, not to him.

He never seemed to mind that she ignored him. The words kept coming regardless, as if she was actually listening instead of humming in her head to block him out.

‘Penny said Emily called. She’s going to bring up Astra for you next week. That’d be good, wouldn’t it? Seeing Astra.’

Despite herself, a tear slipped down Teagan’s face. Astra. She missed her horse so much. Sometimes she thought that it was leaving Astra behind that had worsened her depression. The lack of her silky coat to cry onto, the comfort of her soft nuzzles as Teagan poured her heart out, the understanding in Astra’s kind brown gaze, had led to bottling up her fears and emotions until they turned rancid.

‘Lucas said he’s building a stable for her. Well, not really a stable, more a three-sided shelter with a yard, but it’ll give her a bit of shade and somewhere to stand in a storm.’

At the mention of Lucas, Teagan breathed even harder. They all talked about him as if the two of them were still together, when she knew that was impossible. He’d visited once, in the early days. She was fragile and unwell with side-effects from the anti-depressant she’d been prescribed, and the visit was hard to remember clearly, but it was here, in her favourite place on the grounds. She’d been sitting down, staring at nothing. Imagining herself a different life. One in which she’d copied Ness and disappeared overseas instead of burying her soul in Pinehaven’s rich soil.

He’d crouched in front of her and taken her hands, his eyes very blue and strangely liquid. He’d licked his lips, his chest moving up and down from his shallow breaths. ‘How are you?’

Sad, she’d wanted to answer. Sad and hurt and guilty and miserable and worst, worst of all, still in love with him. Instead she’d blinked and let the tears slide.

He’d seemed to take it as some sort of positive signal. He’d said her name in anguished tones and tried to embrace her. For a moment she’d let him. Her eyes had closed and she’d seen sweet white light behind the lids. Then she’d remembered all he’d kept from her. The collusion. The lies. In a rush she’d thrust him away and stood, panting. Checking left, right, left again. Not knowing where to run. Only knowing she had to before the hurt shredded her further.

He’d stepped back, apologising, his hands spread. ‘I’m sorry. I just needed to see you.’

His voice was thick and caught her attention. She’d stared at him, the ponytailed hunk who’d voiced his attraction on first meeting and never took it back, and for a wonderful second the dark curtain of her heartbreak and sickness had parted and she’d believed. Sweet white light. Hope.

‘I’ll come back another time.’

Too much. Too many words. None of them the right ones because there were no right ones. The curtain had closed back over.

‘No other time. No more.’

His expression had collapsed. He’d stood helpless the way she felt helpless. Then he’d nodded and walked away with his hands on his head and his head tilted back. She’d followed his progress, certain from his body language that he was going to turn back. When he’d reached the path he’d paused, but it was only to look at her. She’d taken a step towards the shadows, not wanting him to see how hard she was crying. His hands had fallen, his shoulders had slumped. Without another glance he’d trudged on.

Teagan still didn’t know what to make of that memory.

She threw a look her father’s way. Why didn’t he get the message and do the same?

‘Shouldn’t be too bad a run for them,,’ he said, still talking about Em. ‘Couple of days at most. Dom said they can bring Astra to the grounds here for you to say hello. That’d be good, wouldn’t it?’

He did that a lot, her dad. Adding ‘wouldn’t it?’ to the end of statements, like a verbal tic. One of these days, just to shock him, she might answer.

‘Emily and Josh – they’re getting married, did you know? – plan to stay with Vanessa for a few days. Apparently Josh wants to check out a few shops in Sydney. Custom-furniture-design places, that sort of thing.’

Teagan knew about their engagement. Her mum had told her. She’d been pleased for Em. Josh was a good man. Both she and Jas had always suspected that neither Em nor Josh had ever got over their teenage love affair and breakup. Josh was probably living out at Rocking Horse Hill now, helping Em around the farm. Most likely having sex in every corner like she and Lucas used to at Astonville.

She swallowed. Lucas, Lucas, always Lucas.

A movement had her sliding her eyes towards her dad. He was glancing at his watch.

Catching her peek, he smiled sheepishly. He looked better these days. Cheerier. No sign of the desperate cheat that had skulked and snapped around Pinehaven as he’d secretly destroyed his daughter’s world.

‘Meredith wants to see me at eleven. I don’t want to keep her waiting.’ He rose and patted his pockets, a habit he’d always had, although Teagan never understood what he was checking for. ‘Best get going. Good to talk to you, Teagan. You take care now and don’t stay out too long. Can’t have you getting burned.’

She watched him ready himself to shuffle off with another pocket pat. ‘Why do you do this?’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Can’t a father talk to his daughter?’

‘You stopped deserving the right to be called father the moment you started lying to me.’

His expression clouded. The smile he’d been trying to keep fixed flattened. ‘You’re right. I did. I made a lot of mistakes. Especially with you.’

‘And now what? You think you can just act like it all never happened? That you didn’t gamble Pinehaven away? My home, the place I loved like nothing else.’ She slapped a hand on her chest. ‘You emptied me of everything, even my dreams. And I didn’t see it coming because there was no way I could believe my own father would do that to me. But he did. And that made me the biggest fool on earth because I not only believed your lies, I helped you perpetuate them.’

He took her spat words with his back straight and eye contact unwavering. ‘I did all those things. I hurt you, your mother, your brother. Friends. Everyone. I acknowledge that.’

‘Well, bully for you.’ Teagan looked away. She’d had enough. No doubt he’d try to apologise again. She was sick of hearing it.

‘You and I are too alike, Teagan.’

She made a ‘pfft’ noise. ‘I am nothing like you.’

‘Then why are we both here?’

Him she had no idea about, nor did she care. But Teagan’s goal was to get better. Walk out strong and return home to a safe place and start again.

‘Go away,’ she said tiredly. ‘Just go away.’

She may as well have not bothered speaking.

‘When your brother said he wasn’t coming home,’ said Graham, ‘something broke in me. With no son to pass Pinehaven on to, all that I’d worked for, that my father – your grandfather – had worked for, seemed wasted.’

‘Right. And I was nothing, was I?’ The tear sting was back. She breathed deeply through her nose in an attempt to ease it only to find the effort made her throat ache. She gave up. The tears were going to come anyway. ‘You had a daughter.’

‘I know. But I thought that as soon as you married you’d go off somewhere else.’

‘Married? Jesus, Dad. I was working so hard on the farm I didn’t get a chance to even go on a date!’

‘I know.’ He lowered his gaze. ‘I’m sorry. I should’ve realised you loved Pinehaven more than Owen ever could. Penny tried to tell me, but I didn’t want to believe her. I was too upset that Owen had chosen another man’s farm.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Owen didn’t choose anything. He fell in love, that’s all.’

‘No more ridiculous than you thinking no one loves you.’

Teagan swiped at her eyes, angry she’d started this conversation. She should have let him walk off.

‘It didn’t start out as gambling. It was a way to help make the farm prosperous. The salespeople promised that if I followed their program I could make money. Good money. It seemed easy, not much risk. They had testimonials, charts. I was going to use the extra income to make the improvements the place needed. Finally buy the new tractor I’d been promising.’ His jaw wobbled. ‘I thought if Owen saw what he was missing out on he’d come home.’

Of course Teagan never figured in that plan because she didn’t matter. She’d never mattered to him. But she’d been too dumb to see it.

‘He was never going to come home,’ she said, rubbing her face. ‘Why do you think he went away in the first place? He didn’t want to be stuck at Pinehaven anymore.’

He hadn’t wanted to turn out like his parents, is what Owen had actually said. She remembered it clearly. They’d been in the woolshed, getting ready for shearing. Teagan loved that time of year. The smell of it. The productivity. The shearing team and the way the sheep looked bright and new afterwards. Owen had been working permanently at home for four years by then and growing more disgruntled by the day. He’d worked hard – it wasn’t in their Bliss genes not to – but he’d resented it. The way his life seemed to be already decided for him, mapped by a father’s expectations.

He’d told her then of his plans to escape. He was going to travel. Have adventures like Aunt Ness. Thanks to Penny’s parents being English he was eligible for a British passport, enabling him to stay and muck around the EU all he liked.

‘But what about the farm?’ Teagan had asked, struggling to comprehend why he’d want to leave Pinehaven.

Owen’s face had set with stubbornness. ‘No way I’m staying here to stagnate like them.’

She hadn’t understood. To be like her parents was what Teagan wanted. They worked together, managed things, went through good and bad standing stoically by each other’s side. It’s what farming people did – they withstood. Owen wanted to run to something unstable, something unknown.

She should have run with him.

Her father sagged into a seat and stared bleakly at the ground. ‘I didn’t know that. He never said. I just assumed . . .’ His mouth turned down even further.

‘Like you assumed I’d leave.’ The scorn Teagan felt was incredible. ‘You could’ve asked.’

‘Never been one to pry.’

‘No. You like secrets. Even when they could ruin us all.’

He looked up, strength returning to his face. ‘We’re not all ruined. We still have each other. We’re still a family. We still have that love. These are rich things. All you have to do is see them.’

He glanced to the side. Meredith was walking towards them.

‘I thought I’d find you two here.’ She looked around at the lush bower. ‘Such a gorgeous garden. Peaceful.’ Her focus went to Teagan. ‘It’s a nice place to rest, and talk.’ She waited for her to respond but Teagan wasn’t playing. ‘Did your dad tell you about Astra?’

‘Yep.’

‘We’ll arrange for her to visit.’ She tilted her head. ‘Or you could go to see her, at Lucas’s.’

Teagan shook her head, her throat feeling strangled. ‘I can’t.’

‘That’s all right. We’ll bring her here for you to say hello.’ Meredith turned to Graham. ‘Penny will be joining us this session.’

Her father’s face changed at the news. He stood, patting his pockets, eager.

Meredith nodded to Teagan. ‘Don’t stay out too long. I know it’s shady here but you can still burn.’

They walked off, leaving Teagan to her shaky thoughts.

When they were out of sight she dug into her shorts pocket and pulled out Lucas’s pendant. She turned it over in her hands, watching the light catch the silver. Pondering the craftsmanship. The way the enamel had a depth to it.

Rich things she couldn’t see.

But longed to.