Chapter 16
CHAPTER
How could he have been so stupid? He should have known that people would stare at Anna’s face.
Just because the colour of her eyes and the brightness of her smile and the sexy note to her voice made her beautiful to him, it did not mean others didn’t see the scars.
He’d seen her raise a hand to touch that scar so many times.
How could he not have realised how much she still suffered because of it?
He’d made her feel bad and he wanted to kick himself for it.
Instead, he prised the lid off the takeaway container. ‘I hope you like egg fried rice.’
‘I do, actually. And sweet and sour chicken.’ Anna opened another container.
‘I’m glad. There wasn’t that much choice.
’ He’d been lucky to find the Chinese takeaway.
Without that, he might have been reduced to finding a truck stop or a servo that did food.
He would have made it work, because he was not taking Anna back to another restaurant where she might be stared at again.
All he’d wanted was for the two of them to be somewhere quiet. Alone. So he could try to make amends.
‘This is a nice spot. How did you know about it?’
Anna was right. It was a nice spot. The creek in front of them was quite small, but it bubbled along fast, adding rippling noises and flickering moonlight on the water to the stillness of the evening.
The sky above was clear and the starlight painted the scene with a gentle hand.
The bank of the creek was grassy, but the grass was short and green thanks to the attention of grazing animals.
All they’d needed was a blanket from the emergency equipment locker on the back of his vehicle and they were comfortably set up for a takeaway dinner.
‘When you’re with the RFS, you get about a bit. You find places. Some of them you want to share.’
He looked at Anna, but she had her head down, liberating chopsticks and tiny bottles of soy sauce from a brown paper bag.
‘How long have you been with the RFS?’
‘Pretty much since leaving school. Both Ben and I have.’ He didn’t want to bring his brother into the conversation, but it wasn’t easy to leave him out.
From the moment they were born, just minutes apart, Ben had always been such a huge part of Justin’s life.
His twin. His shadow. They had always been there for each other.
If there were times, and now was one of them, when Ben was more a source of concern than anything else, wasn’t that part of what being brothers was all about?
But he didn’t want Ben intruding on tonight.
‘Try the vegetables.’ Anna passed him a container with chopsticks ready to use.
‘Thanks.’
They both started to eat. The food was nothing like as good as the restaurant food would have been, but Justin could feel Anna beginning to relax. And that was better than all the fancy food in the world.
‘We should have stopped at the drive-in bottle shop for some beer.’
Anna pulled bottles of water out of another bag. ‘Which do you want—the plain water or the touch of lemon?’
‘Either is fine for me. You take the one you want.’
She handed him the plain water and they sat in silence until the meal was done. Anna started to gather the empty food containers, but Justin put his hand on hers to still them.
‘I am sorry about tonight,’ he said. ‘It never occurred to me that people could be … Well, like that.’
‘Why should you? Have you looked in a mirror recently? You’re never going to scare small children on the street.’
‘And neither are you. You’re a beautiful woman, Anna. Don’t you believe that?’
‘Despite the scar?’
‘The scar is part of who you are. When I look at you, I see nothing but beauty. Inside and out.’
Anna didn’t reply. He wondered if she believed him.
***
‘It’s my own fault, you know. The scar.’ Her own words caught Anna very much by surprise.
She didn’t talk about that day. She did her best to not even think about it.
When people asked, and some did, she brushed their curiosity off with a few practised lines that gave no hint of the pain that lay behind them.
But tonight, wrapped in the warm darkness by the river, and the comfort that came from Justin, the words she had never really spoken were hovering on the tip of her tongue, filled with pain and the regret she seldom allowed into her heart.
‘You don’t have to tell me unless you want to.’
She did want to. She didn’t know how much of that day she wanted to tell him, but the words would come, or not.
‘I was in South Australia. Only a year out of uni. I’d been working at a large animal clinic, mostly dealing with cattle, which was new for me.
I hadn’t grown up on a farm, and I found working with cattle to be exciting and interesting.
I was learning so much. Not as much as I thought, and not as much as I needed, as it turned out. ’
She took a swig from her water bottle. Justin said nothing. She didn’t look at him, but kept her eyes fixed on the sparkling moonlight on the water.
‘There was an accident. A truck carrying rodeo bulls. I was the only vet at the surgery when the call came through, so I went. It was horrible. The truck had rolled down an embankment. There were two animals in the back.’
As the memory rushed back, Anna forced her eyes wide open, because she knew if she closed them, she would see all the horror as clearly as she had that day.
‘One of the animals was already dead. It was so badly injured, the police had put it out of its pain. The other one, though … it was hurt, but I thought there was a good chance of saving him. I was still very new at this. I’d never had to put an animal down and I didn’t want to do that to the bull.
Another of the vets, one with more experience, was on his way to join me.
I was sure between us, we could save it.
But the animal was bleeding and in so much pain.
Between the shock and fear and pain, and the dead animal lying next to it, the bull was panicking.
It kept thrashing around, and each time it did, it made its injuries worse.
I looked in my kit, but I didn’t have any tranquilliser.
I decided I could somehow give the poor creature painkillers without tranqing him. I was an idiot.’
‘You were trying to help.’
‘But I didn’t. I made matters worse. He was still for a short time and I thought I could get close enough to do it.
Just as I was about to stick the needle in, he went berserk.
Not at me, as such, at everything. I was trapped for a few seconds, crushed against the side of the trailer.
His horns had been tipped, but that didn’t save my face.
I had other injuries too. The driver and police pulled me free.
They could have been hurt too. All because of my stupidity and pride. ’
Her hands were shaking. She longed to reach out to Justin to help them steady. But she couldn’t. She had to finish. Just a few more words …
‘They destroyed the bull. I heard the shot as I was being loaded into the ambulance. Even now, I think, if I’d made better decisions, perhaps that animal might have survived. So maybe this scar is here as a reminder to me not to be so arrogant and thoughtless.’
‘I don’t see it that way.’
She risked a glance at him. His eyes were fixed on her face, not on the scar, but as his eyes met hers, she looked away again.
She hated seeing pity in the eyes of others.
She’d seen it in the doctors and nurses at that hospital.
In her boyfriend’s eyes, in the days before he left her.
And in her parents’ eyes too. That was one of the reasons she’d moved so far away.
She couldn’t stand seeing that pity every single day.
If she saw it in Justin’s eyes too, that would be the worst part of this whole sad story.
‘Now I know what happened, every time I see that scar, it will remind me of your courage in trying to save that poor creature. Your strength in dealing with what followed. And how much you feel for the creatures in your care.’
Anna held her breath as Justin’s fingers cupped her chin and turned her to face him. There was no pity in his eyes. Just … admiration. Or was it something more? He leaned closer and gently touched his lips to the scar on her cheek.
The tightness that had wrapped itself around her all those years ago loosened.
Just a little. Like a stiff knot that was beginning to unravel.
For the first time she began to hope that, if she tried, it might loosen a little more.
Then a little more. And maybe one day, a few weeks or months from now, she would open her eyes in the morning and the knot would be gone. She wouldn’t avoid mirrors any more.