Chapter 35
Emory
Abead of sweat trickled its way down Emory’s back, tucking into the lace trim of her tank.
She shoved the last plastic tub into the back of her car and dropped her hands onto the faded fabric of the boot.
These tubs weren’t this heavy last time she had loaded them, even though the contents were exactly the same.
She’d triple-checked that everything she was packing away had come to the farmhouse with her.
All the toys Byron kept here for his days with Clayton had been catalogued and packed away in their baskets before she’d gotten to work loading the tubs.
There was no reason for their luggage to be heavier now.
Nothing except the added emotional baggage she now carried.
After helping her carry everything out to the car, Mya pulled out her phone and gasped at whatever message she’d received.
She hadn’t bothered to squeeze her oversized phone back into the pocket of her jeans before mumbling something about checking on Clayton and running back inside.
Emory had rolled her eyes, but was thankful that her friend was here to help.
It was easier than having to keep an eye on Clayton while she played Tetris with their belongings.
Emory had taken her oversized sweater off under the heat from the outback sun, but it now burned at her shoulders.
Sweat beaded on her forehead and back, and all the little wispy strands that had escaped her messy bun were stuck to her neck.
She would not miss this. Sydney was sure to have its own weather annoyances, but the extremes here in Gardner Creek were surely worse than whatever the city could throw at her.
With both large tubs squashed into the boot, Emory hauled a suitcase up.
Mya had done this part for her, all those days ago, when they were packing up the cottage.
Now, Emory wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to manage lifting the oversized suitcase into the high boot of her small SUV.
She propped it against the opening, shifting her grip so she could squat underneath it and use her shoulders to push the suitcase up to the height she needed. If she could just …
The suitcase toppled from her grip, falling from her shoulder and hitting the gravel of the driveway with a thud.
She could have called out for Mya’s help.
All those mornings her friend spent helping haul groceries for her parents meant she would always be stronger.
Emory had lost count of all the times she’d relied on Mya’s upper body strength over the past few years.
Building Clayton’s cot when he outgrew the tiny bassinet, bringing in the new TV when Jaxon had taken the old one with him, loading her car when she had to evacuate for the flood.
That flood had changed almost everything, but it didn’t change how much Emory needed her best friend. It was time for Emory to depend solely on herself. She could do that. Right?
Besides, if she got Mya to load and unload the car now, how could Emory expect to be able to do it herself when the time came to move to the city? She was going to be alone, she might as well get used to it.
Her eyes began to burn. Emory bit her lip, catching her breath, determined not to let something like a silly old overfull suitcase upset her.
She reached down for it, positioning it against the car.
The black fabric looked rusty from the red dust of the driveway.
Everything had dried off so quickly under the spring sun that came out after the flood.
The rapid change would never make sense to Emory.
She rolled her shoulders and reached down to pull the suitcase into her arms again.
Bending her knees, she wriggled her shoulder underneath the weight, then rose slowly, keeping the suitcase balanced between her hands and the tubs in the boot.
The wheels dug into her arm, but with a final heave, she felt the top of the bag tip onto the tub.
Emory released all the breath she was holding and slid the suitcase into place.
All her emotions came out with that breath.
Every ounce of sadness she felt about leaving the people she loved in this town finally released.
All the tears she thought she had gotten out while packing reemerged tenfold, streaming down her face.
She was not going to miss this town, but she would miss some of the people.
Tucker, and the way they had fallen into an almost sibling style friendship. She remembered the time he fixed her car when the engine light came on and how he mowed the lawn every week when Clayton was still a baby.
Mya. Of course, Mya. Emory was going to be so lost without her best friend. Phone calls and video chats would simply not be the same as all the late-night confessions or hushed chats in the library. She was going to miss knowing her best friend was always only a few minutes away.
And Byron. Her chest panged and her knees went weak as Emory thought of how much she was going to miss Byron.
Not just because of the past few weeks, though.
Emory was going to miss the way he always saved her fresh produce from the farm and eggs from the chickens.
She was going to miss seeing Clayton’s face light up every time he saw Byron’s farmhouse through the car window.
After Jaxon left, Byron was the first person to show Emory any ounce of kindness, and his generous nature hadn’t waned since.
He gave her everything he could to help her, comfort her, to make her feel welcome in a town that felt so far from home.
And after living with him through the flood, Emory saw something else in him, too.
Something she would miss just as much. Byron was still the broody, almost grumpy guy everyone in town knew him to be, but Emory had gotten to know the gentler, almost cheerful side of him.
She loved how he had opened up to her, and she loved the man she got to know.
It didn’t matter anymore that he was a little bit older or that he was Jaxon’s dad. It only mattered that he was hers. And she was his.
And fuck, she was going to miss him.
Leaving Byron was the hardest part of all. It made her dreams feel inconsequential next to her love for him. She wasn’t even leaving town yet, only leaving the farmhouse, and she felt like this. How was she going to cope when it really was time to move to the city?
That was why she had to move out.
Dropping to the ground, Emory pulled her knees to her chest and hugged herself as she let her tears fall.
She was so lost in her sobs that she didn’t hear the crunch of the gravel driveway under Byron’s large ute. She didn’t notice the shadow that moved over her as he parked next to her car, or the way the air shifted when Byron got out and stood over her.
She didn’t notice anything until he dropped to his knees in front of her and gently tugged her hands away from her face.
Emory tried to fight against it, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes and doing her best to lock her elbows in place, but Byron’s persistent yet soft force coaxed them down.
“Please don’t cry,” he said, dropping his head down to rest their foreheads together. “This will be so much harder if you’re crying.”
Emory sobbed. If her eyes had been a little drier, she might have noticed the tears beginning to well in the corner of Byron’s, but her vision was a blur. “It already is hard. Please don’t make it worse.”
“Fuck, Em, I’m trying to make it better.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I got carried away, and what was meant to be a little fun became so much more. It sucks, I know, I’m feeling it. But it was fun, Byron, and I’ll never be sorry for that. I’m only sorry that it can’t be anything more.”
“What if it could be?” Byron let go of her hands then, wiping her tears with his thumbs.
Emory opened her mouth to explain for what felt like the hundredth time why she had to leave, but Byron held his thumbs over her lips.
“And I don’t mean you staying in Gardner Creek.
But if there was a way for us to be together, would you want it? ”
Of course she wanted that, but there was no use dreaming and imagining. She had to face reality. Emory’s nod was feeble, barely there before she decided against it and turned her head to the side. “But we can’t.”
“Emory, listen to me. If we could, would you want that?”
“How!?”
He wasn’t listening to her, and it was only making the hurt worse, even though he said he wanted to do the opposite.
Emory flinched free from his tender hold and stood.
She slammed the boot of the car closed and dragged the second suitcase to the back seat.
If she turned it on its side, propped it up against Clayton’s car seat, maybe she could make it fit.
Okay, she’d have to push her seat forward, but that didn’t matter.
She needed to leave before she fell back into Byron’s arms again.
She was still wrestling the suitcase into the too-small gap between the seats when Byron’s hand covered hers. He spun her around, out of the way, so he could close the car door. Moving back, Emory pressed herself against the cool metal as he caged her in.
“You need to move to Sydney,” he said. His voice was low, and he leant close to her.
So close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her ear, but even so, he kept his body off hers.
“And I need to be with you, Em. There’s only one path here that doesn’t lead to either of us with our hearts broken or our dreams crushed. ”
Emory’s brow furrowed. This whole messy fling was going to end in heartbreak no matter what. She’d known it long before she was even close to falling, and she knew it innately now. Byron was talking nonsense.
“Please stop,” she pleaded. “Please.”
Byron groaned in her ear before pushing back.
The golden amber of his eyes was dark yet glistening with moisture.
“No, let me explain. Fuck, I’m no good at this Em and maybe I should let you go off to the city and live your life and find someone who knows all the right things to say, but I can’t.
I can’t let you do that without me. I’ve been lonely for a long fucking time.
Longer than I ever really knew. But you brought life back into me.
You melt away the cold facade I’ve kept up for so many years, and you make me feel like myself again.
You make me feel like everything is right, and I can’t let that go.
Without you, this town means nothing to me. This farm means nothing to me.”
Emory watched his Adam’s apple bob as he gulped back the sobs that threatened to take over his speech.
She closed her eyes, waiting for him to finish and trying, really trying, not to get carried away on the hope that was starting to bloom in her heart.
She said nothing, instead letting her head fall back against the window of the car.
Byron followed her, staying close but still not pressing his body against hers in the way she always seemed to crave.
“If you go,” he whispered, “there’s nothing left for me in this town. So let me come with you.”
He moved a little closer, standing with his feet on either side of Emory’s, so close she could feel her chest brushing against his with every rise and fall of her bated breaths. Leaning in, Byron kissed her salty cheeks.
“Please,” he added. “Let me come with you.”
“What about the farm?”
Byron cupped her cheeks with his hands and dropped his forehead against hers. She could smell the woodsy body wash he always used and the subtle smell of petrol that seemed to linger on his clothes after he came in from riding the quad bike around the farm.
“This old place? I was getting sick of mending fences anyway.”
A slight, almost laugh escaped between Emory’s sobs. “But you love it here.”
“Only because I had nothing else to love. Then you came and looked at me the way that you did. God, I thought how fucking inappropriate of me to want all the things I want with you. How selfish of me to hope you’d want someone as worn down as me.
But then we both started to fall—don’t look at me like that, I know you did. ”
She’d raised an eyebrow, but he was right. She fell right alongside him, and it was the best kind of freefall she’d ever experienced. “Okay,” she admitted, tilting her head towards him so their noses pressed together. She could feel the ghost of his breath along her lips. “I fell too.”
“And then we were falling, and I don’t feel like I have to love it here anymore, Em. I love you instead. I don’t want to be here on the farm, lonely again. I want to be with you, living life, chasing dreams.”
Emory let her lips press against Byron’s. The air between them was hot and heavy, and her chest pounded. “But moving to the city is my dream, not yours.”
“Right, but you are my dream.”
He spoke the words directly into her mouth, then sealed them with a kiss unlike any they had shared before.
The lust and passion was still there, it always would be, but this kiss was softer, slower.
It was laced with the love that poured between them.
Byron ran his tongue along Emory’s lips, and she opened her mouth for him, tilting her head to deepen the connection.
She swirled her tongue around his and nibbled gently on his lower lip.
“I love you,” Byron whispered when they broke the kiss.
Emory felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the sun spreading through her. It wrapped around her heart like a comforting hug. “I love you, too.”
Vaguely, she registered the sound of the screen door clanging, of footsteps along the gravel, and of Mya’s sharp gasp.
“Clayton, buddy, let’s … um … go back inside. We’ll show Mummy the picture later.”
“Papa!”
Underneath Byron’s mouth, Emory smiled. She’d always loved the relationship Byron and Clayton shared, even if he let her son watch too much TV and taught him how to climb over the back of the couch.
He’d adjust, she knew. And they would deal with the questions as he grew.
Nothing would be too hard, not when the love between all three of them was so strong.
Still, there were certain things a three-year-old didn’t need to see. She moved to the side, trying to wriggle herself free from Byron’s hold, but he pulled her back in place.
“He should see how in love his mum and Papa are,” he whispered.