Chapter 31 #2
‘No,’ she again said flatly. ‘It was… a society match. A family-approved union.’
‘Sounds cold.’
‘It was. Cold and practical. Like a business merger over sheep stations and silverware.’
‘Doesn’t sound like you.’
‘Didn’t feel like me either… I just didn’t realise how much I’d let them choose for me. All of it. Until it all fell apart.’
‘So, the need to be perfect, always perfectly dressed, hair back, the rigid rules, the micromanagement…’
‘All because of my family.’
Porter took a slow and even breath. That had to be big for Amara to admit—especially to him.
But then she added, sharply, ‘What about you? Tess, wasn’t it?’
He stumbled slightly, just enough to kick a puff of red dust from the path.
‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘That was a lesson in being someone I’m not.’
‘What happened?’
He huffed. ‘Nothing.’
‘Excuse me? Surely something must have happened?’
‘Nope. Nothing. We didn’t even get physical, not even a kiss.’ Not like he’d done with Amara.
‘But… you fell for her, didn’t you? To get so hurt and nearly lose your job over her.’
‘I made a damned fool of myself over her, is what I did.’ The anger made him walk harder. Each step steady and sure, even with that damned monkey on his back—and he wasn’t talking about Amara either—it was Tess and all she’d represented.
‘How? Go on, I told you. Your turn. How did you make a fool of yourself?’
‘You know how you dressed, spoke, and even agreed to marry that guy, because of following other people’s rules?’
‘Were you the same?’
‘Kind of. You see, I thought Tess was the one for me. I wanted it all. You know, the family, the house with the lawn you mowed on weekends, the white picket fence, all that crap they force-feed down your throat.’
‘You no longer want that?’ Her voice was quiet—surprised, maybe even a little hurt—it was enough to make him hesitate.
Only for a moment.
His scowl returned, with his eyes fixed on the skinny wallaby track cutting through the scrub towards the waterhole. The heat of his past, the shame and failure, lapped at him like sunburn. ‘I was a fool.’
The bitingly sharp words echoed back. A cruel reminder to never get involved.
‘What did you do?’ she asked softly.
‘I tried to change for her…’
‘Rule number five of the Not-to-Love List: No one who wants me to change. If he doesn’t like me the way I am, he’s not the one.’
‘I approve of that rule.’ Now he understood why she had it—her family, her ex, all of it.
‘What did you do for Tess?’
‘Shaved my beard. Quit smoking. Stopped fishing—she wasn’t a fan.’ He huffed.
‘I don’t like fishing either,’ she muttered. ‘And smoking’s bad for you anyway.’
‘I know that. But I even read her favourite romance novels, so we’d have something to talk about.
’ Porter gave his head a slow shake. ‘Deadset, they were boring. Felt like I was trapped in some horror movie spin-off of high school English class. You know, the kind where you search for the movie just so you don’t have to read the book. ’
Amara giggled.
Sweetest damn sound he’d heard all night—even if it came wrapped in a little Montrose smugness.
‘Glad one of us is entertained,’ he muttered, adjusting his grip as her weight bit into his arms. ‘Here I am, baring my soul like some daytime talk show guest, and you’re laughing at me.’
‘Sorry… but, please, do go on.’
He blew out a breath, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. But fair’s fair—she’d spilled, so it was his turn to rip off the bandage.
‘I gave up everything I liked for Tess. Swapped hunting trips for bloody brunch dates with foods I couldn’t pronounce, wearing clothes I didn’t like, and wasting weekends sorting through her never-ending pile of mail at the post office.
’ His jaw tightened. ‘And I hated it. Every second of it. Because it wasn’t me. ’
‘And now?’
‘I’m happy. I’ve got my house, my mates, my job, my hobbies—and I don’t mind wearing the odd Armani suit now and again.
But there’s space for you too, Amara—not as a girlfriend, just as a mate.
You could deck out the stables into whatever you want.
You can turn it into a hat studio or she-shed, like I’ve got my man cave.
And we can find you another horse, so you can go riding again and do what makes you happy. ’
Again, adjusting her weight, he was surprised by her silence, instead of her need to interrupt and defend herself. He took it as a sign that for once she was truly listening.
‘If there’s anything I’ve learned, Montrose, is that people don’t make you happy. You’ve got to find that for yourself. Then, if you’re lucky, the right person might walk through the door…’ He grinned as he said, ‘Even if they’re carrying a pink stockman’s hat.’
Deadset, didn’t he just put his foot in it?
Or did he?
‘You didn’t make that hat to remember something bad, did you?’
‘No. When I made that hat, it was a reminder to live. To be loud. To say: hey world, I’m still here. Not as a Montrose, but me.’
She let out a breath, soft and hollow. ‘It was the end of the worst year of my life, which started with my horses getting stolen… then Mum was gone, my fiancé dumped me, Dad turned to the bottle, and the bank foreclosed on the station. I was one step away from being homeless.’
She paused, again the weight of her words pressing down, as he carried her forwards.
‘I’d just packed Dad off to a flat on the coast—to drink and fish his life away...’
Fish his life away.
No wonder she hated fishing.
‘I was standing in the kitchen of the old house—our home—while the removalists loaded up anything we hadn’t already lost to the bank.
’ Her voice dipped even quieter as she said, ‘The walls were bare. And the place that had held generations of our family’s laughter…
echoed nothing but silence between the remaining boxes. ’
She paused as Porter kept on walking, listening to her story, not hearing the crunch under his shoes or feeling her weight on his back.
‘I don’t know why I did it, but I sat at the kitchen bench and pulled out the material.
I shaped it like a proper stockman’s hat.
Used steam, an iron, the whole deal. It took me ages to get the crown right, and how that bend to the brim teased me.
I kept burning my fingers like an idiot, working with shaky hands and ugly tears, but I didn’t stop, and worked throughout the night. ’
She paused as if to smile faintly at the memory, her grip tightening a little around his shoulders. ‘In the end I had a bright, hideously pink felt hat. Too loud for the bush, too bold for a Montrose. But that was the point of it.’
There was a soft laugh, but it fell short as she continued.
‘I stitched on the hatband last—hand-plaited leather from one of Mum’s old reins I’d managed to save.
And then as the sun rose that morning, I put it on, and walked out of that house with my head held high, and never looked back…
’ Her voice dropped to a faint whisper, ‘Even if I didn’t quite believe it at the time, I needed some hope. ’
Again, she gave a soft laugh, this one tinged with something gentler.
‘I put it up for auction, you know? Thought it was symbolic—like letting go of the name and the history. All of it.’ She paused.
‘But then I stupidly bought it back… Maybe I wasn’t ready to let it all go, after all,’ she admitted. ‘Pretty weak, huh?’
‘No, not weak,’ he said, his voice low. ‘That pink stockman’s hat you made was a sign of hope. For choosing to keep the good parts and to walk away from the rest. That hat’s got a home with me for as long as you want, Montrose.’
‘But it’s all…’ She glanced out at the wilderness, and he knew what she was going to say, that their situation was hopeless.
‘Hey, you’re still here. Even if it we’re in the middle of bloody nowhere, we’re not giving up without a fight.’ Deadset. If he had to carry her all the way to town, he’d do it.
The silence fell again, but this time it was that easy silence you only got with someone you were comfortable with. It was nice, and it wasn’t empty. It was just time shared, even if it was against their wills.
Then, softly, she asked, ‘Did you mean it, when you said I looked beautiful tonight?’
He huffed, as a ghost of a smile tugged at his cracked lips.
‘Montrose, I’ve never seen anything like you. Beautiful doesn’t even come close to how I’d describe it.’ He could almost feel her smile from behind his back.
He wanted to turn and look at her, but he knew she’d hide it, which was a crime itself.
‘How about I build a hat rack—one that does that pink thing justice?’ He took a breath, another step, as the dirt crunched under his boots, sweat dripping off his nose, but he kept up the pace.
Head down, one foot after the other and up a slow incline, but with the weight on his back, it may as well had been a mountain.
‘We’ll put that pink hat somewhere, so it can be that symbol of hope, for both of us. ’
And hope is what they needed right now.
Just as he said it, his boots carried them over the small rise…
From there, stretched out before them, shimmering faint and silver under the night sky, was a body of water. Smaller than a dam, bigger than a puddle—the waterhole.
Relief cracked through his chest and trembled down his tired legs.
‘We made it,’ she said.
The first part of the journey, sure. He just didn’t have the heart to tell her the next part was a killer.