Chapter 26
She did it again. She let her emotions take over all sense of logic and she kissed him. No, he kissed her and she let him. Then she kissed him back. At least she had the self-control to stop it at that. She’d asked him to take her home before he had a chance to ask her back to his place and she was certain he’d been thinking it. It crossed her mind too, but she knew that spending another night with him was going to be a mistake. The longer she stayed, the harder it was going to be to leave.
Her phone beeped, then started ringing. She recognised the number. Work was calling. She answered it and after a three-minute conversation, hung up. Then she packed.
At first sunlight,which was around half past six in late June, Harper quietly made her way out of the house leaving a note for Georgia, Zoe and Leo. She didn’t want to explain her sudden departure — there’d be too many questions she couldn’t answer. She could have made an excuse for work, but maybe the call was the excuse she needed to leave before things got too complicated with Brookes.
After grabbing a coffee in town, she was sitting in the car hesitating as she turned the ignition key. She should have been pulling into the New England Highway by now; she should have told Brookes, called him and explained, but she’d left a note for him, too. They needed her back in the office. She didn’t have a choice. Mathers Vineyard crossed her mind. There was still so much work to do and she was leaving Brookes in the lurch. No, she could come back. She’d go, sort out whatever mess there was, and come back. It would take a day or two. Who was she kidding? The moment she returned, she’d get stuck in the grind and not give the vineyard a second thought.
The drive back to Brisbane would take about three hours; depending on traffic, she’d be back in her inner-city apartment by lunchtime. There was a knock on her side window. She looked to her right and saw Lisa standing there. Harper opened the window, letting the fresh country air in.
‘Is everything okay?’ Lisa said. ‘You look a little lost.’
‘Just on my way home.’
‘Home? To the city?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, that’s too bad. I thought you were staying with us longer.’
Harper smiled. It was a forced smile. No matter how friendly Lisa was, she was glad to be seeing Harper leave. Brookes may have said there was nothing going on, but she knew that Lisa was attracted to him. She wasn’t going to get in her way. Maybe if she was gone for good, Brookes would move on.
When Harper didn’t say anything, Lisa continued, ‘I suppose you have your life in the city, big job, big career. Are you planning on coming back soon?’
‘I might make my visits more frequent,’ Harper said.
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t worry. I don’t plan on getting in your way.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Sure you do.’
‘Well, it was good to see you, Harper. All the best.’
Harper waved and pulled out of the parking lot. In the rear-view mirror she saw Lisa still standing there until she turned and then followed the road towards the highway, towards home, but deep inside she wasn’t convinced she’d made the right decision.
The musicusually helped forget her woes, but as Harper tried to sing to everything from pop tunes to hard rock, the words strained to come out. There was no beat, no love, no passion in it, her tone remained flat. So she switched the music off. Only when she stopped at Aratula for a bathroom break and another coffee did she glance at her phone and notice the three missed calls. Two were from Brookes, and the third was from Leo. She’d put her phone on ‘do not disturb’ by accident. She was paying for her coffee when the phone rang again. This time, it was Zoe. She contemplated ignoring it, but that would just be avoiding the inevitable.
Harper put the coffee cup on the roof of her car and opened the door. She answered it as she sat down in the driver’s seat and turned on the ignition.
‘Finally,’ her sister’s voice came out on the other end. ‘Harper, where are you?’
‘On my way home. Aratula. What’s going on?’
There was a pause. She heard some voices in the background, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. ‘It’s Georgia,’ Zoe said. ‘She’s gone into emergency.’
‘What?’
‘She collapsed this morning. The ambulance took her to Stanthorpe Hospital. They’ll assess the situation and determine whether she needs to go into Warwick or Toowoomba.’
Harper didn’t have to think twice. She shut her door, turned the key and pulled out of the parking lot and merged onto the highway, heading back towards Stanthorpe. It was only when the coffee spilt across her windshield that she’d realised she’d forgotten the cup from the car roof.
She stuck to the speed limit mostly, speeding up in sections where traffic was light, and the road felt good. When she turned towards the centre of town she slowed and followed the signs towards the local hospital.
It was an older brick building. From afar, it could have been one of those old school country clubs with the main entrance part of a taller, three-storey building, and then on each side, a single storey stretching out.
Harper pulled into the guest parking, ignoring the smudges of coffee now all over not just her roof and windshield but the door as well. When she reached the front entrance of the hospital, Zoe was already waiting for her.
‘Is she okay?’
‘Stable.’
‘What happened? She was fine last night,’ Harper said as they entered the foyer of the hospital and Zoe led the way towards the ward where Georgia was being monitored.
‘They’re still running some tests. She collapsed in the kitchen. I had stepped outside to get something from the cellar door and when I got back, she was on the floor. I don’t even want to think about what might have happened if we weren’t there.’
‘She’s here now. They’ll take good care of her, and she’ll be home in no time.’
‘I don’t know,’ Zoe said. ‘She’s getting older. She’s zany and full of energy most of the time, but there the occasions when no one is looking that she looks weathered and just exhausted. I’m going to be afraid to leave her alone.’
‘Georgia is stubborn. She will not want anyone babysitting her.’
‘Did you know it’s rude to talk about people behind their back?’ Georgia’s voice, a little raspy, brought relief to Harper.
‘It’s only behind your back when you can’t hear it,’ Zoe retorted.
Harper moved closer towards the bed and took Georgia’s hand as she leaned towards her and gave her great aunt a kiss on the cheek. ‘You had us all worried.’
‘Don’t worry about me. It’s going to take a lot more than a little pain in the chest to get me down. We need to get home. There’s so much work to be done. We have a vineyard dinner to organise.’
‘The only thing you are organising is which channel you watch on this old television set,’ Zoe said, handing over the remote control. ‘Does it even have Netflix?’
‘I don’t have time for that rubbish.’
‘Steel Magnolias, that should do it.’
‘I’d much prefer some gripping true crime. Don’t worry, my heart can handle it.’
‘It’s not your heart you should be worrying about,’ the doctor announced as he entered the room. ‘The EKG came back perfect. You’ve got the heart of a girl ten years your junior.’
‘Must be something in the wine,’ Georgia murmured. ‘I keep telling them I’ll outlive them all.’
‘That wouldn’t surprise me at all,’ the doctor said, giving Zoe a once over. ‘You’re the daughter?’
‘Niece. We’re both nieces.’
‘Does Miss Georgia have any direct family, children, partner?’
‘No.’
‘How do you know I don’t have a partner?’ Georgia rebutted.
Harper raised an eyebrow. ‘No one in residence, anyway.’
He cleared his throat. ‘Well, I’m glad we established that.’
Harper really had no idea what Georgia did in her spare time and whether she had a lover or not, her aunt could have had many, and good on her if she did. She deserved all the happiness she could get.
The doctor continued, ‘We still have a few tests to run, just to be on the safe side and to eliminate any nasties that might be hiding. We’ve ruled out heart issues, which is great news for you. I’d like to schedule you in for an MRI as well. Unfortunately, we’re all booked out today, but first thing in the morning.’
‘I have to spend the night? No, no, I can’t do that. There’s so much to do. We have important visitors arriving tomorrow.’
‘Doctor’s orders, Georgia. If he says you’re staying the night, you are staying the night. If it’s going to be a week, then ditto that too.’
‘When did you get so bossy, Harper?’
She felt herself going red, but she wasn’t going to cower. ‘Since I found out my favourite aunt landed herself in hospital.’
‘It could have been stress related,’ the doctor said.
‘See,’ Georgia said. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re staying,’ Harper said. ‘I’ll take care of whatever has to be done at the house.’
‘But you’re going back to the city.’
‘Not anymore.’
And that’s how she found herself driving back to the family vineyard, trailing behind Zoe, and wondering what any of this meant. Georgia needed her, and she had to set her personal feelings aside. She was coming back for Georgia, nothing else. She’d call work and deal with whatever fires she had to from here. Family had to come first.