Chapter 31
Thirty-one
He’d been at it for hours, as Amara’s words vibrated against his back, as she yakked on about paperwork, what Lydia had told her at the ball, and other things.
Porter had no interest in talking about work, except to admire the soft tone of her voice against his back, as he carried Amara across the wilderness where crickets stirred in the dry grasses.
A curlew shared its eerie, mournful cry in the distance.
And a few wallabies stared at them from a safe distance.
Her arms were loosely looped around his shoulders, her breath warm against the back of his neck, and even though they’d both endured a dust bath and were fighting the grit and sweat, he still smelled her signature scent of subtle grandmother floral soaps and peaches.
‘Do you like peaches?’
‘Huh?’
‘You know, the fruit.’
‘I do.’ She sighed.
‘The fruit or the scent?’ He liked that scent on her.
‘Both. And their blossoms. You can’t grow peaches up here, can you?’
‘Dunno. Never tried.’ He wasn’t a farmer.
Sweat clung to his skin beneath her weight, while the effort kept the chill at bay as the night breeze whispered through the scrub.
The first sign of dawn had barely begun to creep across the horizon—just a shift of light ever so slowly lightening like a glowing purple bruise spreading in one corner of the sky. West ahead. East behind them.
Good. Even if they’d been dodging bushes, ant mounds, and ditches, he was still heading in the right direction. The waterhole.
Licking his lips, the coppery dust in the back of his throat was as dry as regret. His shoulders burned, as each step sent fresh protests through his calves and into his spine, while his head still throbbed.
But he wasn’t stopping.
No way in hell was he stopping.
This was pig country. Wild ferals and scrub bulls ruled this land, thanks to a cattle station left to get swallowed by saltbush and time.
And he was unarmed, carrying a woman on his back who was the most precious thing he’d ever carried, and she didn’t even know it.
‘Tell me something, Montrose,’ he rasped.
‘What?’
‘A secret.’
Her chin rested near his shoulder. ‘Why?’
‘We’re in the land of secrets,’ he said, shifting her weight with a grunt. ‘The place they go to die.’
‘We’re not dying out here, Porter.’
‘I know. Bad word choice.’ He huffed. ‘Just… I need you to talk. To keep my mind busy.’ To not feel the shin splints with each step, or the scratching of her gown’s diamantes rubbing against his back.
Truth was, he didn’t have secrets. What you saw was what you got. Scars and stubborn steps through too many miles. But if this was the road that broke him—he’d still carry her because she was the only thing that mattered.
But her?
She had layers. Entire worlds tucked behind that steady voice and rulebook calm. And maybe, out here, where the world felt ancient and vast, maybe she was ready to finally share something of herself.
‘That pink hat.’
‘What about it?’
‘You made that.’
‘I did.’
‘Do you wear it?’
‘No.’ She hesitated, shifting her weight on his back, her arms tightening.
He had to grip her thighs to lift her higher and keep a steady stride. ‘Why not?’
‘I made it for a fundraiser. An auction.’
‘You entered it into the auction?’
‘I did.’
He’d seen that pink hat hanging on his wall. Big and monstrously bright. It was the kind of pink that made him reach for his sunnies inside—and that was after coffee.
Hold on… ‘Are you saying, Montrose… you made the hat and bought it yourself?’
She gave a low laugh, but it didn’t reach her chest, that was pressed against his back. ‘Silly, huh?’
‘Gotta be a reason for it.’ Because you wouldn’t buy back a pink stockman’s hat, unless it was stitched with memories too painful to give away.
And maybe… that hat was pink for a reason, such as the colour of a charity.
Like one of Tanisha’s fundraisers—he had a few of those pink mugs sitting in the back of his cupboard at home.
They were for a charity to help women with cancer, not just breast cancer, but the specialised nurses and places built specifically to help care for those women.
Did Amara make that hat for someone who had cancer?
Then it hit him. ‘You made that for your mother.’ Because she’d already told him she made hats with her mother.
Amara didn’t answer for the longest time, as his boots crunched the soil beneath him as he trudged onwards.
‘Yeah… my mother.’
He felt the weight in those words. Even though he wanted to know more, he wasn’t going to push it, tucking away all his smart-mouth comments for a while.
Surprisingly, she held him tighter, as if in need of a hug. It happened so unexpectedly it stirred up some deep well of emotion inside, that spurred on his strength and desire to help her survive. He forgot the pain in his legs enough to even quicken his pace.
Amara didn’t speak for a while, just let the sounds of the bush fill the silence—the rasp of dry wind through the grass, the distant flap of wings, the steady crunch of his boots over the red dirt.
Then, just above a whisper, ‘I made it for Mum.’
Porter didn’t speak. Just kept walking.
‘She had a cancerous brain tumour. By the time they found it, it had spread everywhere. She didn’t want to tell me—didn’t want to distract me as I was going into the Nationals for polo. I was so consumed with myself, my fiancé, and the Nationals, I didn’t even know she was sick.’ Her voice wobbled.
He felt it in the way her arms tightened just a little.
‘You didn’t see her.’
‘No. I was interstate. But looking back, she’d been doing odd things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Mum would ring and shout at me in the middle of the night, complaining about something I did when I was a kid.’
Porter asked as gently as possible, ‘Like… dementia or something?’
‘I thought so. I mean, I even told Dad about how she’d forget she was talking to me, or how she’d have these mood swings. And Dad,’ she said with venom to her words, ‘he just brushed it off as her dealing with menopause. Said her hormones were acting up.’
‘But they weren’t, were they?’
‘No. The brain tumour was aggressive. It affected her memory, her moods. Her… sense of self. Some days, she didn’t know where she was. Other days, she was angry—at nothing. Or crying over something that had never happened.’
‘When did you find out your mother was ill?’ He’d be devastated if anything happened to his parents.
‘Not long after my horses were stolen.’ She sighed so heavily, he felt the burden of it, too. ‘With no chance of being in the Nationals, I came home to chaos. Mum… Mum was already gone.’
‘How?’
‘Suicide. When I got home, the search party had just found her…’ Her voice dipped, even softer now, but Porter caught the crack beneath it. ‘Out at her favourite rocky outcrop.’
The way she said favourite hit different, like the place mattered.
‘Mum called it her quiet place. That when the world got too busy for her, she’d just go there and enjoy it, you know?’
Yeah, he understood that, more than she’d realised.
Porter had special spots too. Places marked by seasons, by silence, and by something that settled deep into his bones.
He couldn’t explain it, but he’d felt it.
That bend in the creek where the barra bit best. The secluded waterfall, where the heated rock pools steamed warm in winter.
The ridge out near the border country—perfect for a beer at sunset and a moment to just breathe.
‘Makes sense,’ he murmured low. ‘Everyone’s got one. That patch of land that feels like home, even when nothing else does.’
Sacred ground. It didn’t need a church to be holy.
‘And your father?’
She huffed. ‘By then, Dad was nothing but a drunken gambler. Falling asleep in the pub, or the gutter in town somewhere. I had to hide the keys on him so he couldn’t drive.’
Just like she did with Finn. Always the one to drive him home from the pub, laying out water and painkillers like it was routine.
Deadset, Montrose.
His chest pulled tight. Amara wasn’t just a rule-follower—she was protecting people, reacting to the damage she’d already lived through. He saw it now, all the quiet ways she cared.
And didn’t it just make his foolish heart ache for her.
‘Because Mum hadn’t been on the ball to watch the office, Dad had ruined everything. The business ended up so poorly managed…’
Of course. That’s why she micromanaged everything in the Stock Squad office—every detail, every form, every bloody business card. It wasn’t about being uptight, with her uniform’s creases being impeccably straight, it was about control. About never letting things slip through the cracks again.
‘Dad was selling off everything that wasn’t bolted down—the properties, the livestock. Even the saddle Mum gave me. Said he had no choice. Everything had to go.’ Her laugh was brittle. ‘It was always someone else’s fault with my father.’
She shifted against his back, her breath warm against his neck. And he saw her—like really saw her without even looking at her, but he could—fully, deeply and so completely see her as if for the first time.
And she was so much stronger than he’d realised.
Not only did his care for her deepen, but it came with an extra layer of respect, along with a bucketload of need to protect and care for her. If only he had the bank account to do more.
‘Then my fiancé left me. Said it was too much work, that he didn’t sign up for that.’
‘Mongrel.’ His frown was low, as the heat curled in his chest. ‘You didn’t deserve that.’
Again, she shifted her hold on his shoulders. ‘I know he left because the family name had no power anymore. No more sheep stations or status. Just a pile of crippling debt and shame.’
‘Did you love him?’
She cleared her throat. He felt her straighten on his back, like she was bracing herself, as if trying to push for distance where there was none.
But he wasn’t letting her go, tightening his grip on her legs that wrapped around his sides.
‘No.’
‘Really?’