The Vet from Snowy River by Stella Quinn

CHAPTER

22

‘Tell me why I’m here again, Josh.’

He looked at the wall of cushions in front of them, colour-coded like a stadium wave. Hundreds of fringed, corded, spotted, checked, frilled cushions. Wasn’t it obvious? ‘My living room’s painted, floor sanded, architraves gleaming whiter than celebrity teeth. It’s time to pack the camping chairs away and choose real furniture.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Hannah. ‘And I get to choose your cushions because I don’t have a Y chromosome?’

He clasped a hand to his chest as though he’d been pierced by an arrow. ‘Would I be that sexist? Out loud? To a woman who owns scalpels?’

She nudged him with a hip. ‘Come on, Josh. I saw your place in Sydney, it was lovely. You could do this blindfolded. Tell my why I’m really wasting my morning coffee time here with you.’

Yeah … like there was an easy answer to that question.

He snagged two velour cushions in duck egg blue and another two in taupe and tossed them in the trolley. ‘Okay. You got me. I need your advice.’

Hannah smacked his hand away from a beige throw rug and pointed to the navy and ruby red one. ‘We didn’t have to drive forty minutes into Cooma at seven am on a Wednesday morning to talk. I see you, like, eight hours a day.’

‘Driving clears my head.’

She frowned up at him. ‘Okay, then. So spill the beans, big brother.’

He cleared his throat. He’d wanted her help, hadn’t he? He just wasn’t in the habit of asking his baby sister for advice about his love life. Of asking anyone if it came to that. ‘It’s Vera.’

Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘Umm. Okay.’

‘You know how long it’s been since I had a love life, Han?’

His sister winced. ‘Josh. You’re my brother. And my business partner. Telling me about your sex life is strictly a no-no. In fact, why don’t I add it as a clause to our partnership agreement? Clause 16B: no icky stuff.’

He ignored her. ‘And I sure don’t have time. Now Poppy’s gone back to Sydney for the school term, I’ve started the community hall ceiling, which may take forever if Marigold keeps popping her head in and finding new “favours” I can do for her. I’ll be starting on the exterior of our place as soon as the council approvals come through. This heritage reno stuff takes time, right? A guy juggling a stethoscope and a toolbelt can’t handle a love life as well.’

Hannah picked up a three-pack of towels and tossed them in the trolley.

‘I don’t need those,’ he said, momentarily distracted.

‘Yes, you do. I have seen the ones in your apartment and they were woven by cloistered monks in the thirteenth century. They’d struggle to dry a hairless cat.’

Fine. Whatever. ‘Problem is, Han, there’s a little something here’—he tapped his chest—‘that I can’t get unstuck.’

She frowned at him. ‘A crust of toast? A hiatus hernia? An apology for flogging food from my fridge?’

He nudged the trolley into his sister’s annoying butt. ‘None of the above, Hannah. And I’ve got a hunch this thing is the real deal.’

She turned to face him in the aisle. ‘Josh, you barely know Vera. She’s been in town, what, two months? You can’t fall in love with someone in that time.’

He sighed. ‘Tell that to my heart.’

Hannah’s usual look of snark had softened. She leaned in and gave him a hug. ‘Okay then, let’s workshop this. What is it about Vera that speaks to you?’

Hannah had cut straight into the core of it: this was a question he’d asked himself more than once as he’d driven the mountain roads on his way to horse foalings, snake-bitten pigs, cows stuck in freezing ditches.

He’d seen something that first time he’d laid eyes on Vera, something he’d recognised. She’d been alone behind her counter, and she’d looked damn near crushed by some unknown burden, but she’d also looked valiant. Defiant.

There had been a time he had longed to be alone. To be a man no-one knew, who could get on with his life without feeling every move he made was under scrutiny from family, from friends and neighbours and his old rugby coach … even the damn ticket collectors at the local cinema.

He’d pushed through that.

He’d had to push through his need to be left the hell alone. For Poppy’s sake, and for Beth’s and, he’d realised much, much later, long after he’d felt pressured to leave Hanrahan, for his own sake.

Community mattered. Having family and friends and neighbours at your back mattered.

And he’d taken one long look at Vera De Rossi, braced like a lighthouse on a lonely coast determined to withstand any storm headed her way, and he could see she had no idea how the storm would sweeten into spring if she let a few people in to share that coastline of hers. Her aunt falling ill while they were on the trail ride had brought that home to him.

‘Josh? You’re wool-gathering, mate.’

‘Sorry, Han. Okay, did you know her aunt’s taken a fall? She’s elderly, a resident at Connolly House. I was with Vera when she found out.’

‘I didn’t even know she had an aunt. Is she a local?’

‘I don’t think so. I think they moved up here together.’

‘You don’t know?’

He shrugged. ‘Vera’s not exactly Miss Chatty. Thing is, Han, I’ve called her to ask how her aunt’s going … being neighbourly, you know … and she hasn’t returned my call.’

‘Joshua Cody, ignored by a female. Remind me to buy a lotto ticket.’

‘Very helpful. Thing is, if Vera really didn’t like me, I’d know. I wouldn’t bother her. I’m not a total stalker.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘But she does like me, I know it.’

‘You sure that’s not your ego speaking?’

‘Han, my ego hasn’t had a say in what I do since Poppy was born.’

‘That’s true. I’m sorry, Josh, sometimes I’m a little too snarky.’

He grinned. ‘You think?’

‘Maybe this isn’t about you. Maybe she’s got stuff of her own going on, and she doesn’t have room for a handsome daddy-vet hero from Snowy River in her life. We both know people keep secrets about themselves. Especially in a small gossip-hungry town like this one.’

Yeah. He did know. ‘There’s definitely something going on. She almost told me on the trail ride the other day, before she got the phone call from Connolly House.’

‘She almost told you?’

‘Yep.’

Hannah took a breath. ‘Persevere, then, Josh. If she wants to tell you, she will. Maybe it’s just taking her a while to build up the courage. Although, I gotta tell you, she still doesn’t seem your type to me.’

Hannah was so wrong. Vera was the only type he wanted. ‘When I look at her, I recognise myself.’

‘No way. You’re such a sunny person, Josh. So … happy. Vera seems a little, I don’t know, stiff? Aloof? Cold? Are you sure she’s the one?’

Talking this out with Hannah had been the right thing to do, he realised. Because he was sure, and Vera was so not cold. He’d had his lips on hers, and the heat of that moment had spiked at about a thousand degrees Celsius. No, Vera may look cool and aloof on the surface, but there was an inferno of need and loneliness and vulnerability boiling away beneath the surface, and that’s what called to him. That’s what spoke to his heart.

Being sunny and happy was a strategy he’d mastered over the years to cover his regrets and salve his pride. He turned to it now. ‘And boy,’ he said, ‘she’s easy on the eye, isn’t she?’

Hannah made a small gagging noise. ‘Point of order. That was a clear contravention of Clause 16B. Icky stuff.’

‘Legs that never end. Eyes the colour of up-country moss after the spring rain. And when she wears that plum-coloured sweater? With the V-neck that plunges just a little low in the—’

Hannah dragged two of the cushions up out of the trolley and pressed them to her ears. ‘La la la la la la,’ she said.

He grinned. ‘Yeah. Okay. Good talk.’

His sister pursed her lips. ‘Can we get coffee now? And we should be heading back to the clinic. We can’t both go AWOL just because you’ve got yourself a bad case of the unrequiteds.’

He dragged the cushions off her, then started pushing his trolley down to the check-out. ‘You’re such a romantic, Han.’ He’d convinced himself he knew what he wanted. Now all he needed to do was convince Vera.

Josh pulled the last tray of instruments into the autoclave and set the timer to cook, then picked up his final patient for the day and headed out to the reception area.

He was beat.

‘Letter for you, Josh.’

‘Thanks, Sandy,’ he said. He gave the ancient terrier he was holding a final pat and then handed him back to the owner waiting on one of the chairs. ‘Monty will be fine, Mrs Singh. We’ve removed the cyst, and pathology came back clean. Pop back in a week from today and we can nip those stitches out for you.’

‘Thank you so much.’ She turned her attention to the little guy who was clearly thrilled to get away from the big scary vet and back to his indulgent owner. ‘Who’s my brave little man?’ she gushed. ‘You are!’ She bestowed a flurry of affection on the dog, and Josh smiled as he turned back to the receptionist desk. If hugs and kisses cured pets, he’d be out of business.

‘Looks official,’ Sandy said.

Josh weighed the letter in his hand, his eyes on the logo of the Southern Snowy River Regional Council in the top corner. ‘This is either bad news, as in another fool complaint has been lodged by our mystery vet-hater; or it’s good news and my approval permit to restore the front of the building has come through. Which, I wonder?’

Sandy finished swiping Mrs Singh’s credit card, then waited until the lady had made it out the front door before turning to Josh and grimacing. ‘You-know-who isn’t in the right frame of mind for bad news today, Josh. Maybe open it on the down-low until you know for sure.’

‘Hannah? Why, what’s up? She was fine this morning.’

‘Been out since lunch at a foaling down near Dalgety. Foal hadn’t developed properly and she had to send it over the rainbow bridge. She’s pretending she’s totally fine, but she was out in the back office when she got home, filing.’

‘Hannah Cody, my younger and stroppier sister, was filing?’

‘Uh-huh. You can see why I’m worried.’

‘Might be time to crack the secret stash of chocolate biscuits, Sandy. Just let me know where you keep them and I’ll take one in to Han.’

‘Nice try. The location of the secret snacks is a mystery that I will take with me to the grave.’

He sighed. ‘It was worth a shot.’

‘Besides, she’s gone. Walking her sad off down by the lake would be my guess.’

‘It’s never easy losing a patient.’

‘Mmm. Listen, Josh, I have to run. The kids have soccer practice and they’ll give me grief if they’re late.’

‘Sure, no problem. See you tomorrow.’

Quiet settled over the clinic as Sandy locked the front door behind her. The pets tucked up in the sleepover room were behaving for once, Poppy was four hundred kilometres away and Hannah was out finding some peace by the waters of Lake Bogong.

Shoot. This alone thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Shrugging, he ripped open the envelope, and studied the contents within.

Applicants: Joshua Preston Cody and Hannah Celine Cody

Land to Be Developed: Lot 36 DP 129334 – 36 Salt Creek Flats Road, Hanrahan.

Proposed Development: Removal of 1970s window bay and store front and reconstruction.

Determination made under section 3.16 Land and Heritage Management Act.

Determination: APPLICATION REFUSED

What? His gaze stumbled over the words a second time before his brain comprehended their meaning. Refused? What on earth?

Reason(s) for Refusal: Council has received submission from the public contesting the compatibility of the proposed reconstructions with the character of the local area, pursuant to blah blah blah…

He stopped reading. This was nonsense; the character of the local area was currently being totally disfigured by the tacky seventies-era ply-and-glass shopfront. Which anyone with a particle of knowledge about Federation architecture would know.

Surely he could object?

He frowned down at the letter, brooding for a moment. He was out of his league dealing with bureaucracy and Land Management Acts and bullshit … but he knew someone who delighted in grinding up bureaucratic nonsense and sprinkling it on his cereal for breakfast: his old boss, Frank Gullo, loved and feared by building apprentices all over the southern outskirts of Sydney.

He looked at his watch. Perfect time to call: jobs done for the day, Frank was probably sitting in his ute on his long commute home … just one of the things about Josh’s past life in Sydney which he in no way missed.

‘Mr Millimetre,’ he said, when the builder’s gravelled voice said hello. ‘How’s the hard worker?’

‘Josh, mate,’ said Frank, drawling out the word mate so long he must have covered a good hundred metres of freeway. ‘How the bloody hell are you?’

‘Good, mate, you?’

‘Busy. You ever get sick of shoving your hand up cow butts, you’ve got a job waiting for you here.’

‘Thanks, Frank. Me and the cows appreciate that. Listen, I need a favour.’

‘Here it comes,’ his former boss said. ‘Do I need a beer in my hand before you hit me up?’

He grinned. ‘No, Frank, I don’t need a loan or a truckload of steel girders on the cheap. I need advice about a planning application.’

‘Yeah? You come to your senses and strapped on your old toolbelt, Josh?’

‘Sort of. My sister and I inherited a Federation three-storey building up here in Hanrahan. It had a bodgy storefront tacked onto the ground floor that I’m wanting to rip out so I can restore it to its former glory.’

‘Brick?’

‘Stone. The original quarry where the stones came from a century and a half ago isn’t far from here. I’m hoping I can match them.’

‘Sounds like quite a project.’

‘Yeah. Could be. Thing is, council just knocked me back.’

‘Typical. What’s the reason?’

‘A submission from someone who claimed the restoration wasn’t in keeping with the street.’

‘Sounds like a typical first salvo across the bows, Josh. Who was the objector?’

‘It doesn’t say.’

‘Go into council. That’s a matter of public record; they have to show you the objections submitted.’

Huh. Well, that would be interesting.

‘Step one, mate,’ said Frank, ‘is make sure you object to their refusal by the due date. Step two, you send your original application to me and I’ll put some flesh on its bones. These desk jockeys in council like their steak cut up and their spuds mashed for them … I’ll give it a rewrite for you, use the lingo they’re used to.’

‘Frank, you’re the man.’

‘Yes I am. You take care, okay?’

‘You too.’

Crap. What next, he wondered, would arrive to piss him off some more? Thank heavens for old mates with expertise.

He peeled off his lab coat, gave his hands a sniff, and grimaced. Still bad. No-one needed to smell where his hands had been today. He stood at the sink letting hot water and antiseptic run over them while his thoughts settled.

He wanted a beer, and food that had more love and care poured into it than a sixty-second whirl in a microwave. And—he could admit it—he had a weak-but-to-hell-with-it yearning to rest his eyes on Vera. What better time than now to start convincing her that he was the one? Besides, he hadn’t seen her since her aunt’s fall. It was his neighbourly duty to go and ask after her aunt, wasn’t it?

Lucky for him, the woman he had the hots for worked in a café that offered dinner, so he could do all those three things at once. It was just a matter of maths, and he loved maths.

‘Or it’s a matter of desperation,’ he muttered to himself in the mirror as he washed up.

Yeah. He had it bad for Vera. So what? It was his life, and if he wanted to have it bad for a prickly woman from out of town who barely seemed interested, then that was his choice, wasn’t it? Besides, after the kick in the teeth from the council rejection, he needed to see her more than he even needed that beer.

He pulled his jacket off the coat hook and then heard the scampering claws of a dog on the floor.

‘Jane Doe.’

She looked at his jacket, then she looked at the row of hooks on the wall where the dog lead was hanging.

‘Girlfriend, I’m sorry. They don’t allow dogs in The Billy Button Café. I’m going for a meal, not a quick drink. You’ll have to stay here.’

Jane Doe sat down expectantly and extended her neck to let him know that slipping the catch onto her collar would be no trouble at all.

Josh rolled his eyes. Now he was being guilt-tripped by a dog. ‘Did Poppy teach you that trick?’

The dog’s tail beat a steady rhythm on the floor.

‘I don’t make the rules, Jane. What about a high-priced, organic roo-jerky treat instead?’

He made his escape while Jane Doe hunkered onto the floor with a generous chunk of jerky between her front paws, and thought, not for the first time, how relieved he was that seven-year-old Parker hadn’t turned up yet to reclaim his pet.

The park that separated the clinic from the café over on Paterson was quiet, and the breeze kicking up off the lake hadn’t got the memo that summer was only a month away. He stuffed his hands deep into his jacket pockets and kept his eyes on the lights of the café glimmering a golden welcome through its ornate windows.

Marigold was floating about the inner room, her arms waving about as though she was conducting a symphony orchestra. Of course, Wednesday was craft night. Mr Juggins was there, and Vonnie from the supermarket … and was that Vera tucked into a corner stitching? He smiled. The babble of people relaxing together at the end of the day in a gracious old room that looked like a fancy parlour from an olden-day movie sounded exactly like what he was in the mood for. He eased his way in the door and was pounced on by Graeme.

‘Dr Handsome, welcome back. Dinner? A takeaway beef bourguignon pie? Or have you finally succumbed to the lure of Marigold’s Wednesday night craft group?’

‘Woah.’ He threw his hands up. ‘I’ve done my share of stitching today already. Dinner. A table for one.’

Graeme looked at him as though he’d just shot the last Tasmanian tiger in captivity. ‘Josh, you disappoint me.’

‘I do?’

The manager shook his bald head. ‘Single men never ask for a table for one. It’s a rule.’

‘Whose rule?’

‘It’s a law of the jungle type rule. Come. Sit at the counter.’

The counter was perfect. He could see into the craft room and keep an eye on Vera there, and maybe start up a little conversation if she wandered over to the till. ‘Lead the way. Hey, I thought you didn’t work Wednesday nights.’

‘Roster changes,’ said Graeme. ‘For Alex, I mean. He’s on call nights this week.’

Josh took a seat. A menu was propped up on the counter between a stone trinket box filled with Himalayan salt and a miniature pepper grinder, and on it he spied the magical word, beer.

‘What do you fancy?’ said Graeme.

‘Lasagne. Beer.’

‘The dinner of champions, excellent choice, mate.’

‘Make it a generous helping, would you? I’ve been living off my own cooking and it—’

‘Sucks?’

Josh snorted, and grabbed the copy of the Snowy River Star tucked in amongst the serviettes and sauce on the end of the counter. Vera swished by behind him and he let his eyes rest on her for a long, wistful moment as she disappeared into the kitchen. ‘Does that sort of comment get you tips in the big city, Graeme?’

‘Everything gets me tips, Josh. I’m an operator.’

‘That’s the truth. How’s the house building coming along? You need a hand again, you let me know.’

‘Only if you promise to wear a toolbelt and strip down a few layers.’

Josh laughed. ‘Does your boss know you flirt with customers in the café?’

‘Like you’re not a customer who’s come over here to lurk about in the hopes of having a little flirt with my boss,’ said Graeme, waggling his eyebrows in the direction of the kitchen doors Vera had just walked through.

He lifted the stubby of lager Graeme had uncapped for him, and saluted with it. ‘Fair point.’

Graeme tapped the dinner order into the tablet on the counter then lifted his head as the door opened to let in a guy dressed head to foot in motorcycle leathers. ‘Is that—’

‘What?’

‘Do you smell smoke?’ Graeme’s nose was lifted into the breeze like a goanna who’d smelled a roast chicken.

‘No, I—’

Wait. He did smell smoke. ‘Not the kitchen? That better not be the last of the lasagne burning. My need is great.’

Graeme’s voice was grim. ‘Our kitchen’s not across the street out front. Something’s on fire. Let’s go, handsome. That’s building smoke, not food smoke.’

Josh turned his thoughts away from dinner and headed out into the street. ‘Coffee king and smoke whisperer. You’re quite the expert, Graeme.’

They stood on the corner of Paterson Street and Curlew and stared out into the night. Lights glimmered behind the upper storey windows in the old brick buildings. The moon was up, but hung low in the sky, sending silver rivers rippling down the mountains.

The breeze that usually swept up off the lake and over the town had stilled but … there was something in the air, more of a taste than a smell.

‘Kids burning something in an alley?’ he muttered.

A dull pop sounded above the moving cars on the street and the chatter reaching them from the busy café at their backs. A pop, then the unmistakable sound of shattering glass.

‘That way,’ said Graeme.

That way was the way to the clinic. Josh stepped off the kerb and a fist of unease settled around him. He shook it off, but put a jog in his step. The clinic was barely two hundred metres from The Billy Button Café, but set back in its lot—he couldn’t see the building for the ancient alpine snow gum spreading its limbs in the park.

Shit. Now he could really smell it, and the closer he got to home, the stronger it became. ‘Call 000,’ he said, and broke into a sprint.

‘I’m on it.’

He covered the last fifty metres at a speed he’d not managed since Year Twelve, and what he saw when he reached the clinic had his fist of unease powering up to a sucker punch.

A shattered plate glass mess covered the footpath and inside the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic’s reception room, blazing bright, roared a fire the size of a bull.

Had Hannah returned from wherever she’d disappeared to and gone up to her apartment on the top floor?

Jane Doe and her pups were in there. So was Harry Newell’s pet snake, a guinea pig called Porpoise, and an old and bitter cat with an attitude problem and more health problems than could fit on a standard Cody and Cody patient chart.

He heard the whoop-whoop of sirens as he bashed his way in the side door to the back office, then frantic barks from Jane Doe in the sleepover room. Sisters first. Animals second. Thank heaven Poppy was in Sydney.

‘Hannah!’

He roared out her name over and over as he pounded up the stairs. ‘Hannah! Hannah!’