Chapter 24 Hamish
Hamish
He was lost.
Jemma couldn’t be more wrong for him if she’d shown up in sequins and ten-centimetre heels. More importantly, he couldn’t be more wrong for her.
He’d tried his damnedest not to kiss her, knowing he wanted so much more than that, yet aware it could never be.
Logic had demanded he take all that she was offering; as always, she’d been forthright, perfectly clear that he should come up to the apartment and spend the rest of a lazy Sunday getting to know one another more intimately.
And he’d refused.
He pounded the palm of his hand on the steering wheel.
He’d bloody refused because he had this ridiculous notion in his head that there could be something more to their relationship, something he’d never had before.
Yet Jemma had made it clear that her career meant everything and men were nothing but accessories.
He didn’t fit in her world and she had no interest in fitting into his.
Although the drizzle had truly set in as he navigated out of the city, once he’d crossed the ranges and hit the plains outside of Settlers Bridge, he was well into the rain shadow and the ground was disappointingly dry.
Despite the chill, he wound down the windows, letting the familiar smell of earth and plants into the ute.
The tight, bright bursts of yellow wattle along the sides of the dirt roads meant that, with the tailing of the lambs finished the previous week, it was time to get the sprayer out and cover every inch of the crops.
Maybe it would act as the farming equivalent of doing the washing and bring them some decent rain.
Fortunately, the hectares they’d recently taken on sharefarming for Roni and Matt Krueger came with some pretty sweet equipment, so he and Lachlan would be able to go at it when the heavens finally burst.
His priority was checking in with Ethan, though. And, more circumspectly, with Tara.
He was surprised to see Ethan’s car in the driveway; his mate hadn’t answered either calls or texts since their brief conversation the previous afternoon.
‘Honey, I’m home,’ he called, slinging his backpack into the first bedroom as he made his way along the hall. The house was silent, and he realised Ethan must have headed down the street. Not that he’d find much open on a Sunday in Settlers Bridge.
He flicked on the kitchen light and immediately stiffened. ‘Jeez, mate, scared the life half out of me. You trying to turn into a mushroom sitting in the dark, or have Lucie and Jack been on at you about saving the environment?’
Ethan looked up from where he sat at the table and the words dried in Hamish’s throat. Years of drug abuse had aged Ethan and he always looked weathered and tired. But today he was ravaged. Deep channels crevassed his cheeks, his skin was pasty, his eyes bleary and unfocused.
Their recent conversations, in which Ethan had briefly mentioned the shit at his work, how it was impossible to escape the ramifications of being labelled a druggie, no matter how many years since he’d used, flooded back into Hamish’s head.
‘Jesus, mate,’ he muttered, slumping onto a chair. ‘What happened?’ Disloyally, he briefly hoped no one else had seen Ethan come into his place looking like this. If Dave Jaensch got wind of it …
‘You’ve heard already?’
‘Not heard. I’ve got eyes, man.’
Ethan shook his head, the movement short and angry. He opened his mouth, no doubt to make some kind of denial, but a knock sounded at the back door. He seemed to fold in on himself, as though he was hiding. ‘I’ve fucked up, Ham.’
Hamish quashed an urge to fabricate an excuse and quickly leave. ‘Well, no worries. You’ve been here before. We’ll work through it, man.’
‘What?’
So much for Ethan being a functioning addict—he wasn’t even able to follow the conversation. ‘Is there someone we can reach out to? I mean, is it like an AA thing? Do you have a mentor who knows what to do?’ Hell, he was floundering. But he was accustomed to Ethan being cool, assertive, in control.
Ethan scowled. ‘I mean I fucked up with Tara and Charlee.’
Hamish’s blood ran cold. Jesus, this was going from bad to worse. Ethan was decades older than either of the women. Hamish shoved himself up from the table. ‘What the hell? Is Tara okay? If you’ve bloody laid a finger on her—’
‘Ethan?’
Hamish didn’t recognise the female voice that called from beyond the door.
‘Charlee,’ Ethan supplied.
‘You can’t let her see you like this, man.’ No matter what he’d done, Ethan was Charlee’s mentor, her hero; seeing that he was using again would have to be bad for her own progress.
‘Like this?’ Ethan looked bewildered, then scowled. ‘Jesus, man, I’m not on anything,’ he snarled, as though Hamish’s suspicions were a betrayal. ‘Sober as a damn judge, clean as a cop. In the kitchen, Charls.’ He raised his voice and the bang of the front door answered him.
‘Tara’s with me,’ Charlee announced as she entered the kitchen. ‘Which is just as well, as I didn’t know which was Hamish’s place. Pretty wild in a place this small, right? Tara knew, though.’
‘Imagine,’ Ethan said dryly, though the humour sounded forced.
How the hell could he act as though everything was normal? Yet—
Hamish frowned. Tara was neither paying Ethan overt attention nor avoiding him. In fact, she seemed exactly like she usually did: eager to catch Hamish’s eye, flipping her hair over one shoulder, tugging on the hem of her sweater so it pulled a little tighter.
‘Of course I know where his place is,’ she said. ‘Hamish and I’ve known each other forever, haven’t we?’ She managed to sound both suggestive and shy, although the flush in her cheeks gave away how deliberately her words were chosen.
‘Sure,’ Hamish said mechanically. ‘You, Chloe, your brother. We’re all mates.
’ As always, he tried to gently reinforce the boundaries, rein in her infatuation.
His attention switched back to Ethan, who gave him a short nod, which seemed reassuring, as though the older guy was taking charge once more.
Whatever was going on, Ethan wasn’t using and he’d clearly not laid a finger on Tara. Hamish blew out a relieved breath and took his seat again. It was ridiculous that one night away left him feeling so out of the loop.
‘Take a pew,’ he said, sweeping one hand wide to invite the women. He desperately wanted to know what Ethan’s issue was, but it wouldn’t be fair to flag it in front of their friends.
‘Did you see the post?’ Ethan asked the young women.
Charlee grinned. ‘Sure did. Awesome, right?’
Ethan looked appalled. ‘Awesome? How so?’
‘Publicity,’ Charlee said. ‘Exactly what we need.’
Hamish threw up a hand. ‘Hang on, someone want to get me up to speed?’
Tara leaned closer. ‘Charlee heard that the piggery out near Copramilka keeps their animals in really shit conditions. So we went out there last night.’
‘And we got footage!’ Charlee exulted. She pulled out her phone and slid a finger across the screen.
The jerky, shadowy video showed two people dressed in black, their faces covered with balaclavas.
Almost impossible to distinguish in the gloomy background were sties.
More obvious were the angsty squeals of hundreds of pigs.
Hamish screwed up his face. The reality of farming was never pleasant, but while Charlee and Ethan were from the city, Tara should have known the truth of raising animals for food. ‘So you’re all turning into, what, ecowarriors?’ he asked.
Tara lay her hand on his arm. ‘Animal rights activists,’ she corrected.
Yeah, whatever. Plenty of girls felt the need to dabble in animal advocacy. ‘Hang on, that reminds me—ducklings. Tara?’
Tara’s forehead creased. ‘Ducklings?’
‘Jemma mentioned last night—or this morning—that Evie Schenscher has a brood you rescued.’ He kind of hated himself for throwing Jemma into the conversation, but it might help make Tara cool it a bit.
Plus maybe he wanted to brag a little—particularly if his night with Jemma was destined to be a one-off.
Besides, this way he could test the waters, see if anyone else immediately jumped in about the lawyer being as unsuitable a match as he knew her to be.
Thing was, if anyone tried to tell him that, chances were he was going to argue.
Although she scowled—presumably at the mention of Jemma—Tara seemed perplexed. ‘That kind of rings a bell, but …’
‘It was that day you were crook,’ he offered. ‘You said something about ducklings …’ Rambled, more like it. But perhaps now Tara could fill in some of the blanks from that day.
‘When I slept here, you mean?’
He started to set the record straight, but realised there was no point; Ethan, and, by extension, probably Charlee, knew the truth.
Tara’s face tightened. ‘Anyway,’ she said, drawing the word out, ‘do you reckon our footage will go viral?’
‘Hell, I hope not,’ Ethan blurted.
‘How come you were involved, mate? Seems a bit of a—’ Hamish had been going to say girl thing, but realised his error just in time. ‘A bit radical for a uni lecturer.’
Ethan snorted. ‘Activism of any kind would probably make me more acceptable with that crowd.’ He nodded toward Charlee and Tara, who were watching the video again. ‘I figured they should have some company.’
‘Good call. So what’s the drama?’
‘The piggery posted on their Facebook account that they were broken into.’
‘Ah.’
‘Yeah, but that’s good!’ Charlee exclaimed. ‘They wouldn’t have reacted if they didn’t have anything to hide. Now they’re running scared. And that’s before they even know we took videos of how they’re mistreating those animals.’
‘Problem is, we’re not the only ones with footage.’ Ethan lifted his eyes to meet Hamish’s. ‘Their post said they have security footage of the offenders.’
Hamish groaned. ‘Shit, man. Still …’ He took the phone from Charlee and replayed the video.
‘I can figure out that the ninjas are you and Tara. And I guess you’re doing the filming, Charlee?
But no one else would be able to identify any of you under that get-up.
’ He used his free hand to draw an imaginary balaclava over his own face.
Ethan raked his hands through the short dreadlocks. ‘I hope that’s the case. I can’t afford anything on my record.’ He meant he couldn’t afford to have anything added to his record.
‘Providing none of you post this video, there’s a good chance the security footage won’t identify you. Besides, did you actually break any law?’
Charlee had both hands pressed to her mouth, as though she’d not considered the legal ramifications for her friend.
Ethan shrugged. ‘Place wasn’t even locked up, so we didn’t break in, if that’s what you mean. I don’t know … trespass, maybe?’
‘But we have to post the footage,’ Tara said. ‘That was the whole idea of going out there: to get evidence. Look at how these animals are treated. You’ve no idea how disgusting it was in there, Hamish. There were so many piglets crowded in the stalls that the sows had squashed their own babies.’
Actually, he had a fair idea. Not everyone ran their farms along any kind of ethical ideology. The importation of pork products had taken a lot of the money out of the piggery business, and a bad farmer might try to increase his profits by cutting his expenses. That led to neglect.
‘Then you need to work out a way to get footage legally, Tars. Something you can use, without getting Ethan—or you—in the shit.’
Charlee pushed her phone into her jacket pocket. ‘Hamish is right, Tara. We have to keep Ethan out of it.’
‘Hey,’ Hamish interjected, ‘Hamish actually said do the thing legally, not just “keep Ethan out of it”. You won’t win any fans by breaking laws.’
‘Works well enough for Greenpeace,’ Charlee argued.
‘Hardly. Do you have millions in your back pocket? Because I reckon that’s what they’ve been fined for illegal activity.’
‘Except what they did wasn’t illegal,’ Tara interjected.
‘I know a lawyer who would probably argue otherwise.’ He could imagine Jemma wading into the argument … and he realised he’d welcome her take on it. Didn’t matter that she wouldn’t necessarily agree with him; her opinion would always be entertaining.
This time, Tara definitely rolled her eyes.
‘So you’ve checked out this piggery’s socials?’ he asked, directing the question to Ethan.
His friend nodded. ‘So far they’ve only put up a post saying they have footage.’
‘They’re probably bluffing, then.’
‘Yeah, because they’re hoping we don’t have anything on them that we can put out there,’ Tara said. ‘Which, apparently, we don’t.’ She sounded sulky, but at least she’d realised the potential seriousness of the situation.
Hamish got up to check the fridge, to see if, by some unlikely chance, he had something to offer around.
‘Well, as long as you keep your nose clean, everything should be all right, Ethan.’ He was unspeakably relieved that the situation wasn’t as dire as he’d first imagined.
‘Ah, Tara, Jemma said that Evie Schenscher reckoned there was a ute involved in that duckling story. Does that jog your memory?’
A flicker of something crossed Tara’s face, then she shook her head, but the movement was more confused than adamant. ‘Utes aren’t exactly in short supply round here, are they? Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Does Evie still have the ducklings?’
‘Far as I know. She said you were going to hand them over to Charlee.’
Tara turned to her friend. ‘You’re still taking in animals for the travelling farm, aren’t you?’
Charlee nodded. ‘Amelia has her wildlife carer’s licence, so we’re expanding from farm animals to pretty much anything. I’ll head out to Evie’s later today and pick them up.’
‘I’ll come with,’ Tara said, pushing back from the table. ‘No point hanging around here,’ she added, with a dark look in Hamish’s direction.
He tried not to chuckle; he could definitely shoulder the rejection.