Chapter Twenty-Two
Cameron paces in front of my ute as I collect pyjamas, toiletries and clothes from the cabin. When I double back, he groans.
‘What’s the matter?’
He looks at his phone. ‘It’s after eleven. I have less than an hour to give you your present.’
‘You said it wasn’t a present.’
‘It is and it isn’t.’
‘It’s only Christmas Eve. Why can’t you give it to me tomorrow?’
‘I don’t want to ruin all our Christmases by pissing you off on our first one.’
I look past the cabin to the golden moon that hovers above his house. ‘As this will be our first Christmas together, I want to go back for my ornaments.’
His eyes narrow. ‘Run!’
It only takes a minute but when I return, he’s standing at the open door of the ute. Clearly, he wants me to jump in immediately, but when I hold out my hand, he stills. ‘You like them?’
The dove, the cow, the rosella and the glass ball. ‘It didn’t feel right to leave them behind.’
With a fingertip, he traces one of the snowflakes on the ball. ‘You drew these in class.’
‘You remembered that?’
‘You’d be shocked at how much I remember.’
‘Where did you find it?’
‘At the gift shop in town. As soon as I saw you, I knew how I felt.’
I flatten my hands on his chest, feel the beats of his precious heart. ‘I don’t want you to feel guilty about the roundabout—that’s something else important to get out of the way before Christmas. I know you wouldn’t have been involved, and what you said after-wards doesn’t matter.’
My hands rise and fall as he takes deep breaths. ‘What do you remember?’
‘I was too shocked to feel much pain, but I was dizzy and nauseous. I stood up and fell down again, so I stayed on the ground. I heard the boys leaving, but when I looked up, you were there.’
‘I helped you to your feet and walked you to the bench.’ He puts his hands over mine.
‘Your hands were skinned, so were your elbows and knees. You were bleeding, dirty, crying. When I told you I’d take you to Julia, you screamed that I should leave you alone.
I backed off. I found your library bag and glasses and brought them back to you. ’
‘I didn’t understand why you were angry.’
‘It was only luck that I was there, but that wasn’t the first time that’d happened. It was starting to play on my mind that one day I wouldn’t find you in time, I wouldn’t be there to help you.’
‘I didn’t want you to feel responsible for me. It made me feel childish.’
He opens his mouth like he wants to argue but pulls the words back. He lifts my hand and smooths my palm with his. ‘You didn’t communicate that.’
‘I liked it that you were clever. Like every other girl, I thought you were good looking and sporty and a leader. As to the rest …’ I free my hand and trace the bumpy ridge at the base of my thumb. ‘I was confused.’
‘You went from crisis to crisis. Shit kept happening to you. And you weren’t wearing your glasses. I lumped the two together.’
‘You knew the consequences.’
‘Julia drew diagrams. You’d lose sight in your eye.’
‘You told me my face looked better with glasses. I hated that you were like the others—you thought my eyes were ugly.’
He kisses me, short but possessive. ‘On the day you came back, when I saw you standing here in the garden …’ Putting a finger under my chin, he examines me closely.
‘I always thought you were pretty and I couldn’t understand how others didn’t see that.
As an adult, you were not only smart, but beautiful in a way everyone could see. It scared me.’
‘I only want you.’
‘Alex came here to get you back.’ He hesitates. ‘I’ve never been jealous before.’
‘You worked out he didn’t know me.’
‘He’s likeable,’ Cameron grumbles. ‘You wrote to him.’
‘Only as a favour to Julia.’ I squeeze Cameron’s hand. ‘Being a GP wouldn’t suit him, but he admired Julia and her commitment to Summerfield. He’ll do his best to help.’
‘What about your work? Does being a country vet suit you?’
‘I can research and write papers here. Occasionally, I’ll go to conferences.’
‘I love how smart you are.’
When I wrap my arms around his neck, he pulls me close. ‘Maybe we should have worked things out earlier.’
‘You mightn’t have had the career that you have. I mightn’t have found the farm. Nothing wasted.’
‘Now we know what we want.’
He wants to kiss me. And I sure as hell want to kiss him, but after running his hands down my sides to my hips, he takes a giant step back. ‘I have to give you the present.’
‘The present that isn’t a present?’
He strides to the ute and stands by the door. ‘We’re running out of time.’
After parking out the front of the house, dumping my bag in the porch and finding a torch, we walk to the post and rail yards and paddocks I’ve admired from the window every morning. Cameron is holding my hand even more tightly than he was when I showed him the shingle.
‘Cameron?’
He looks at me briefly then looks straight ahead again.
‘Are you nervous?’
‘I should have made you come earlier. I’m sorry I didn’t.’
‘Why?’
He stops on the track and faces me. ‘You’ll see.’
When the black thoroughbred trots to the fence, I stroke his neck and scratch under his mane. ‘I’ve been watching you for weeks.’ The horse puts his head over the fence and nudges my hip as if I might have a carrot in my pocket. ‘You don’t ride him often.’
‘He was raced young and broke down. Light work is all he can tolerate.’
I squeeze Cameron’s hand, not easy, as he’s hanging on so tightly. ‘What’s his name?’
‘Odin. I bought him as a companion horse for the grey.’
‘I’ve never seen you on the other horse.’
A brief hesitation. ‘He won’t let me saddle him.’
‘Why not?’
It’s only when Odin turns his head that I notice the grey coming out of the shadows. He’s not a thoroughbred like Odin, he’s a mishmash of stockhorse, quarter horse and who knows what else. He’s far from beautiful but—
‘Atticus?’ My breath hitches. ‘No …’
Cameron isn’t looking at the horse, he’s looking at me. ‘We were in drought the year your family left. I couldn’t watch him starve.’
Swallowing hard, I hold out my hand. ‘Atticus?’ The horse I took for my own, the horse I learned to ride on, is now more white than grey.
Curious but cautious, he stops short of Odin.
No one knew Atticus’s exact age, but going by his teeth and the long list of owners who’d given up on him, he would have been eleven or twelve when we left.
At a minimum, now he’d be in his late twenties. ‘Do you remember me?’
A few more cautious steps and he puts his head over the fence. He places his nose against my outstretched hand and nuzzles. Then he rubs his head against my arm.
‘He remembers,’ Cameron says quietly.
‘Your family lived in town.’ Tears track down my face. ‘How did you look after him?’
‘I had a job at the service station. I paid for agistment.’
‘Could you ride him back then?’
‘I couldn’t get near him most of the time.’
‘Sixteen years …’ I tug Cameron around to face me. ‘You saved him.’
‘There were things about you I couldn’t let go.
’ He frowns in remembrance. ‘I liked how you were younger and smarter than anyone else in the class. I liked the way you sat on your hands to stop yourself answering every question first. I liked how you looked at me across the room in the hope I might understand what the teachers were talking about in the way that you always did. I valued those moments but didn’t know how to express that. ’
‘I …’
When no words come, he cups my face and keeps talking.
‘I was too young to know what I was feeling, but I had to look after your horse. And as soon as I saw you again, I worked out why that was. I wanted to know where you were. I wanted to know you were safe. I cared about you. Keeping Atticus was a way of keeping you.’
‘When we left—’ I pull back, wipe my face on my sleeve, ‘—I didn’t cry for Summerfield. I cried for Atticus.’
‘At night, I’d lie in bed and make up stories.’ His voice breaks. ‘One day, you’d come back for your horse. That’s when you’d find me.’
I lift my face and kiss his mouth. A tender kiss, a salty kiss. Our tears are all mixed up.