The Vet from Snowy River by Stella Quinn

CHAPTER

21

She had to get away. Being near Josh, especially now with that kiss scalding her brain so badly she could barely string two thoughts together, just reminded her how weak she was. How foolish.

All he’d had to do was lower his voice and get all warm and schmoozy, and she’d melted into a puddle of want.

She knew better. When her feelings were involved, she lost her objectivity. Her judgement. She couldn’t make that mistake again.

She’d resolved to tell him why she was a bad bet, but then she’d let pretty views and sun-warmed man smell override her prudence. And now here she was, acting like a monster, saying no to a simple request for help hunting through dusty filing cabinets and online databases.

Had Josh sent her a bill for helping with the cat? No. He hadn’t asked for one cent. And she’d repaid him by turning her back and trotting off into the distance like a teenager enjoying a sulkfest.

She had to stop. Literally. As in pull on the straps, or whatever the hell these leather things in her hands were called, and bring Calypso to a halt.

And she had to stop pretending she could live a normal life and go on horsey dates in grassy valleys with kind-eyed hot vets.

She couldn’t. She had a court case hanging over her head like a vat of boiling oil, and she couldn’t risk that oil tipping down and scarring anyone but herself.

Café, aunt, solitude … they were her goals and it was time she remembered them. She’d apologise for being a cow. She’d go home. She could spend the afternoon planning stuff she could do without screwing up: maybe a fun brunch menu, or a new lamb shank potpie. It would take her mind off the things she couldn’t do, like start a relationship. Help people. Spend one damn day without this awful weight of shame on her heart.

Calypso finally seemed to get the hint that she wanted her to stop moving and ducked her head down to nibble on the long grass by the side of the trail.

Vera twisted in her saddle and practised what she had to say while she waited for Josh to catch up. Oh, Josh, just in case you were wondering why I rode off like a crazy woman, here’s a few reasons: the last man I kissed betrayed me and I can’t put it behind me, because the betrayal led to a court case and I may end up going to prison and I can barely acknowledge that thought to myself, let alone to anyone else.

Was that too much all in one go? Because that wasn’t even the half of it. Oh, Josh, also, my state of mind is pretty dire and I could fall at any moment down into the black pit of not-coping. My aunt’s health failed because I chose a terrible aged care home for her, and then I became a vigilante and failed.

There were also mundane worries, like if she went to prison, what would happen to the lease she’d signed on the café premises. Her loan. And the new concern she had no room for but which had piled up anyway: who would feed one cranky grey cat and her umpteen kittens if she was in an orange jumpsuit in a cement building with bars on the windows and despair in the air?

She looked back up the trail. Whatever she was going to say, she’d better work it out fast, because Josh and his horse appeared through the trees, sunlight flickering over them. He had sprigs of lavender blooms tucked into his shirt pocket, and another posy of them in his hand, but his face was shadowed by the deep brim of his hat.

Heaven only knew what he was thinking.

She waited until he’d brought his horse abreast with her in the shade of an ancient grass tree.

‘Josh. I’m sorry about before.’

A dimple flickered on his cheek. ‘Which is the bit you’re sorry about?’

She pulled a lock of Calypso’s mane through her fingertips. ‘Getting huffy when you asked me for help.’

‘You want to tell me why you got huffy?’

‘I’m going to try. It’s not easy.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘You’re right, I am a journalist. At least, I used to be. But then I messed up my job and my life and my aunt’s security in a really bad way, and the thing is, Josh, soon, like in just a few weeks, I might have to go to pri—’

A buzz went off in her jacket pocket. The café had run out of milk, she thought. Or the fridge was leaking, or old Mrs Lim had wandered in wearing her pyjamas again and was asking for help finding her way home.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered as she checked her screen. The call wasn’t from the café, but the number was local. No reason to suppose the city journalists had followed her up here to harass her about the lawsuit.

‘Vera De Rossi,’ she said, bringing the phone up to her cheek.

‘Vera. It’s Wendy Boas from the nurses’ station at Connolly House. We have you listed as next of kin for Jill De Rossi.’

Oh no. No, no, no. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Your aunt’s had a fall. It’s likely she had a stroke, but we’ll let the doctor confirm that. I think you should come over if you can.’

‘Of course. I’ll be right—’

Crap. She couldn’t be right there. She was on some fool’s errand up a mountain on horseback, and she hadn’t travelled here in her own car.

‘I’ll be there as soon as possible.’ Back to Hanrahan; find car keys; roar down the highway to the outskirts of Cooma as fast as the speed limit allowed. ‘Maybe two hours, hopefully a bit less, I don’t know. How is Jill? Is she talking?’

There was a short silence, into which Vera managed to squeeze half a dozen ugly scenarios.

‘Not talking, no. She’s breathing well, and she has good colour, but she’s non-responsive. We’re keeping her warm and comfortable, and the doctor’s expected in the next few minutes.’

‘What about an ambulance?’

The nurse—Wendy, wasn’t it?—was kind, but firm. ‘The doctor will decide the next step. Now don’t rush here in a fluster; we have one of the duty nurses sitting with Jill, holding her hand. She’s not alone, so—’

Vera didn’t hear the next bit; her brain had stumbled on the nurse’s words: she’s not alone.

Jill wasn’t. But she, Vera, would be if this was to be Jill’s end. Alone. And lonely. And who would be there to hold her hand?

She choked back a sob. ‘Thank you, Wendy. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘We’ll be waiting for you.’

Her fingers felt numb as she stuffed the phone back into her pocket.

Josh was frowning at her. ‘Vera?’

She swallowed the numbness down. ‘That was the hospice calling. My aunt—I have to go.’

He reached over as though to touch her hand and she lurched away, Calypso snorting as she jerked on the leather straps in her hands.

His hand paused. ‘Come on. I’ll take you back down the mountain. You think you can canter on that old slug-a-bed they’ve given you?’

This morning, she would have said no. ‘I can do it.’

His outstretched hand closed into a fist and he gave her a friendly rap on the leg. ‘I’ll lead. Calypso will know to keep up. You ready?’ Yeah. She was ready.

Josh clicked his tongue and drove his heels into the sides of his horse, who grunted in surprise before obliging him by breaking into a run. Josh hauled on Calypso’s bridle as his horse sped past, urging the pony to keep up.

‘Keep the reins low,’ he said as they raced down the track. ‘Calypso knows what to do. We’ll be back in Hanrahan in no time.’

It wasn’t quite no time. It was about sixty minutes of time—racing helter-skelter back to the horse stud, rushing through Mrs LaBrooy’s efforts to hug Josh and force him inside to the tea table she’d set up, and waiting while she bundled him up a slice of apple pie. Josh had flung the lavender he’d collected at a startled groom and told him to tie it on a post in Buttercup’s stable, then they’d shot off out of the car park so fast gravel spit out behind the wheels of the truck.

Josh had tried to talk to her as they drove down the mountain. Kind words, comforting words, but she’d shot them all down. Worse, she’d been curt with him, and all he’d done was be a stand-up, all-round saint …

When had she become this horrid, bitter woman?

Forty minutes after Josh had pulled up outside her apartment block, she was clicking on the indicator of her battered little car and parking beside the sweep of lawn at the front of Connolly House. A young nurse sporting a retro hairdo and concerned eyes walked her through corridors that smelled of lemon cleaner and tea trolleys and into the quiet hum of a room set up like a hospital ward.

Jill lay there, still.

Frail as a bird—wasn’t that the phrase?—she hadn’t realised the truth of the saying until this moment. Her aunt’s thin frame lay beneath a pale mustard waffle-weave blanket, and the ridges that were Jill, the jut of hip bones and chest and thin feet, barely showed.

Where had her brave, ferocious, fun aunt gone?

A round-cheeked woman, nearly as wide as she was tall, stood by the end of the bed tapping figures into some sort of digital chart.

‘Dr Brown?’ said the nurse. ‘This is Jill’s niece, Vera.’

Vera stepped up to the bed and took one of her aunt’s thin hands in hers. A gauze bandage covered her aunt’s temple, but aside from that she looked as though she had fallen asleep, although—

Her eyes lingered on the set of Jill’s mouth: one corner drooped slightly, as though tugged down to her chin by some wry thought. Not asleep but unconscious.

‘Your aunt’s had a stroke, Vera.’

She nodded, as though she had some idea what that meant, when she had no idea. Not about this, not about anything. She asked the question bubbling at the top of her thoughts. ‘Is she dying?’

Dr Brown was blunt. ‘Not this minute. But Vera, this is a hospice. Your aunt has a complicated array of medical conditions, and she’s here because her doctors back in the city have determined medical intervention will not save her.’

‘I know. It’s just … I’m not ready.’

She felt a plump hand pat her on the shoulder. ‘Family is never ready. But maybe your aunt is. Does she look upset to you? Or does she look peaceful?’

Vera raised her eyebrows at the doctor, then turned to look at her aunt again. Jill did look peaceful. Pink bloomed in her cheeks, her grey hair was smooth and brushed. Other than the odd lilt to the corner of her mouth, her aunt could have been caught napping under a wattle tree on a lazy summer afternoon.

‘I’m going to sit with her a while. Just in case.’

‘You do that.’ Dr Brown smiled and slipped the digital chart back into its dock. ‘I’ll be doing rounds again in a few hours. The nurses will call me before if they need to. And Vera?’

She looked up.

‘Say your goodbyes. Let Jill hear them now, while she’s still with us, so she can take your words with her when she goes.’

Vera nodded, but on the inside her thoughts were rebelling. Jill couldn’t go now, not when she was finally safe at Connolly House. The café profits were steady, the nursing care was all that she’d hoped for and more. Jill had to live, so Vera could make up for sending her aunt to that terrible place near the city.

Jill had to live, so Vera wouldn’t be alone.

When the nurses finally persuaded her to head home and rest, hours had passed. A yowl greeted her as she opened the door of her apartment. For an old pregnant cat, who supposedly supported herself on an impoverished diet of dumpster scraps, she had a healthy set of lungs.

Kev’s favourite saying floated through her head. Hold your horses, love.

She’d have said it to the cat if she wasn’t so tired.

She turned the handle on the laundry door and an irritated eight-kilo lump of fur stalked past her into the living room.

‘And hello to you, too,’ said Vera.

She flicked the switch on the wall so white light flooded the narrow space, and braced herself for a scene from a horror movie: inch-deep gouges in the cupboard fronts, pillow-sized clumps of moulted fur, toxic waste where the kitty litter tray had been.

Hmm. The laundry was pristine. The bowl of water was perhaps an inch lower than it had been when she had left this morning, but other than that … okay. Perhaps that MISSING YOUR CAT? sign she’d been thinking about putting up at the shop could wait another day or two.

A tuna sandwich. She could share it with the cat. A glass of wine, which there was no way she was sharing. And then maybe a long, long sit in the armchair by the window where she could think of nothing at all for a while.

Not her aunt’s pale face propped amid hospital pillows.

Definitely not that lunatic moment up there on the mountain when she’d pressed her lips to Josh’s and felt the world shift beneath her feet. She’d been so sure of her goals when she’d moved here. How had she allowed herself to become so distracted?

She pulled her keys from her jacket pocket and tossed them in the basket on the kitchen counter. Her phone was next, but with it came a crushed and wilted sprig of lavender.

She held it to her nose for a long moment. If lavender could calm a racehorse the size of a ute, surely one average sized woman wouldn’t be a problem?

The aroma reminded her of her mother’s sweaters, folded in neat piles within the closet where Vera had hidden as a child, giggling her way through a game of hide-and-seek. And Sunday visits to her grandparents’ house, being allowed to play with the hairbrushes and trinkets on the old-fashioned dresser in the bedroom.

It had been at her grandparents’ home, on the faded velvet seat of the dresser, that Jill had found her after her mother’s funeral, so many years ago. I’m in charge of you now, her aunt had said. Now and always.

Vera took a last sniff of the bedraggled sprig in her hand. Maybe she could buy a pot. One pot of lavender to tuck into the windowsill where it would catch the northern sun.

Her phone gave a chirrup and she snatched it up, but the call coming through wasn’t from Connolly House. Crap. Of all the times for her lawyer to call, why did it have to be now?

‘Hi, Sue. You’re working late.’

‘Yeah. Busy week. Listen, Vera, the magistrate has scheduled your arraignment.’

She drew in a shallow breath then spent a long time exhaling it. Her trial was starting. Finally. Relief or dread … at the moment the two emotions were so intertwined she couldn’t tell which she felt the most.

‘Run me through that again, will you, Sue?’

‘Sure. We appear before a magistrate who reads out the charges, and you enter your plea. If you were pleading guilty, you’d be sentenced, but as it is, you’ll be committed to trial.’

‘Yay,’ she muttered.

‘Now, now, I’m pretty sure the contract you signed when you engaged my legal services gave me exclusive rights on sarcasm. Hang on, I’ll read you the relevant bit. Please be advised the arraignment for plaintiff Acacia View Aged Care versus the accused Vera De Rossi will be held at the Queanbeyan Courthouse, Thursday at ten am, presiding magistrate Carmel Grant.’

‘Thursday! Like this coming Thursday?’

‘Can you make it? I can delay if I have to, but I’d rather not. Sends the wrong message.’

‘What sort of message?’

‘Magistrates are apt to get snotty with people who waste their time. We want to be there, bright-eyed and blameless, letting her know we want this whole business behind us so we can carry on with our squeaky clean lives.’

She could make it, unless Jill’s condition worsened. She was on the late shift Wednesday, which meant the dinner-before-movie set, and the craft group in the back room, then the coffee-and-cake-after-movie set. Wednesday’s were busy, but they didn’t run late. She could be in the car by nine that night and in Queanbeyan before midnight.

‘I can make it,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’ll meet you at the court. I’ll be the one who looks like she’s had four hours’ sleep in a cheap motel.’

‘That’s my girl.’

‘Is there anything I can do to prepare?’ Not that any of it would matter a damn if Jill didn’t pull through.

‘Not unless there’s something you haven’t told me. We’re prepared. Just relax and be yourself, that’s all the magistrate needs to see. I’ll see you in a few days.’

Be herself. If only it were that easy. She’d lost her idea of who she was the day Aaron Finch rolled out of her bed and announced she was being sacked. And sued. And charged with a criminal offence.

Who was she now?

A miaow had her eyes dropping to the grey cat at her ankles. She was a tardy feeder of cats, apparently … that much was clear.

The rest was a work-in-progress.