Legacy of Hunters Ridge Read online

  Whatever that meant.

  The radio was playing an old INXS favourite, and Cam had it turned up loud. Trees whipped by as he cruised along the winding road, windows down, enjoying the warmth of the day and the knowledge he and Lee had just secured another property at a kickarse price. He already had some solid ideas for turning the reasonable property into something exclusive, something that would slide it right up there with the other places on that stretch of road. They were going to make a killing. All in all, it was turning into a pretty damn good day.

  He approached the turn-off to Montrose, wondered if Alissa was taking care of the place. He didn’t have a lot of confidence in her. The spooky little city girl who’d locked herself in the bathroom probably needed all the help she could get. Not that he particularly felt like playing knight in shining armour. But he should have mentioned there wasn’t much feed left, that Ian would be out any day with more. And he should have explained it all for the animals’ sake.

  So he took the turn down Mavis’s driveway, intent on making sure she had it straight. Alissa’s car wasn’t in the drive, so Cam climbed out and went over to the shed. No, the feed hadn’t been touched since he was in here yesterday. Would they have been fed at all if he hadn’t showed? With a shake of his head he got to work, and by the time he was done, Ian’s truck was pulling up with the feed delivery.

  ‘Ian, how’s it going?’

  Ian Turner walked with a limp; coming off a thoroughbred at the local races back in his thirties had left him with a broken leg that hadn’t healed quite straight. Otherwise his jockey days had been pretty successful and he liked to talk about them over a beer or two at the pub when the mood struck him. Which was just about every Friday night and some Tuesdays, when he popped in for the members’ draw. His small frame was still wiry and strong, though he looked a few years over the seventy he was fast approaching. His oversized, worn-out overalls were as creased as his face was weathered. He gave Cam a friendly grin.

  ‘Not bad, mate. The lady’s not here?’

  ‘No. I’ll give you a hand and catch her later.’

  ‘Mavis okay?’

  ‘She’s getting good care.’

  ‘Nice of you to step in and play solicitor like that, ’specially with that new business of yours taking off.’

  ‘No one else was going to do it for nothing.’

  Ian’s laugh was little more than a wheeze. The cigarettes had taken much of his breath and unloading feed took the rest of it.

  ‘Now you’re helping out the daughter-in-law. What’s she like?’

  ‘Seems nice enough. A little out of her depth here, I think.’

  Ian nodded. ‘That’s what Clint said. Not what he was expecting with a husband like that. Pretty little thing, apparently. She’s done the right thing turning up.’

  ‘She’s not a big fan of Mavis.’

  ‘Don’t mean to be hard on Mavis, but you can’t fault the girl for having a bit of taste.’

  The men grinned at each other, chatting as they worked side by side to unload the rest of the feed.

  ‘Appreciate the help, Cam. You know if you’ll need any more deliveries?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  The phone rang inside the house and Cam considered whether or not he should answer it. It was still more likely to be for Mavis than Alissa at this stage. There weren’t too many who wanted to know how she was getting on, but there were a few. ‘I’ll go get that. Nice to see you, Ian.’

  ‘Take it easy. Tell … Alissa? I’ll do another run in a couple of weeks.’

  Cameron’s ute was parked in her driveway as she pulled in. So, she hadn’t scared him off. Handy. She could ask him where this Gus lived, possibly head over there this afternoon. As she got out of her car, the slap of the screen door drew her attention to the veranda, and the sight of Cameron’s long muscular frame as he strode from it and across the grass towards her made her breath catch in her throat. She actually felt a bit schoolgirlish. Then she noted the clenched jaw, the pissed-off expression.

  ‘Hi.’ She shut the car door, frowned when his expression didn’t lift at her greeting.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  The abrupt tone threw her off balance. ‘Ah, I went to see Mavis.’

  ‘Did you? Why?’

  ‘She wanted to see me. Like you said. But she was … difficult.’

  ‘You upset her?’

  What was his problem? ‘Upset her? Are you kidding?’

  ‘Your phone rang. I answered it.’

  ‘You – I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I answered it.’

  ‘You do realise you can’t just keep letting yourself in and out of my house, right?’

  He shrugged. ‘Your real estate agent said to let you know the contracts have gone through. The new owners wanted to thank you for the quick settlement. They’re moving in in two weeks.’

  ‘They had to be out of their house quickly.’

  ‘I suppose this is why Mavis was difficult?’

  Ally straightened to her full height and managed to draw herself level with his chin. She pretended she wasn’t starting to shake. ‘Mavis has been difficult as long as I’ve known her, and whatever arrangements I make to sell my own property have nothing to do with her.’

  He stared at her as though seeing her for the first time. ‘You’re something, aren’t you? What did you tell her you’re going to do with her animals?’

  ‘I have no idea what I’m going to do with the damn animals! I asked her. She wasn’t helpful.’ And then it clicked: they weren’t talking about the same property. ‘I’m not talking about this –’

  ‘No? Then how about you listen. Mavis might not be particularly likeable, but knowing what condition she’s in, I think it’s pretty damn callous to go in there and upset her. I realise you’re in a hurry to get out of this, but that’s low, Alissa.’

  The implication took a moment to register, and when it did, her mouth fell open in shock. After everything she’d put herself through to get out here and deal with this, he was going to stand there, jump to conclusions and make judgements? Tell her she was low? Screw that. She took a step back. ‘Are you actually suggesting I’d deliberately upset her in the hope she would die?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think. Why couldn’t you have just told me the truth? I told you I’d help you handle it.’

  ‘I don’t want your help. I don’t want you letting yourself into my house, answering my phone or providing me with any more enlightening insights into my character. It’s none of your business. Get the hell off my property.’ Breathe, breathe …

  She watched his fists curl at his sides, and warily – and she thought, sensibly – took another step back.

  ‘You’re right. Full points for the little drama you pulled off in the kitchen though. Those big wounded eyes are a real asset.’ He slammed into his car. It roared to life and took off down the driveway.

  Shaken, angry and a little hurt, she watched until the last of the dust kicked up by his tyres settled. She should have explained. But he had no right to say those things. If he wanted to think the worst of her, so be it. Why did it matter?

  She remembered exactly why it mattered the following day as she sat on the veranda, listening to the riot the animals were making. Lunatic puppy had brought her another little wooden figurine. The young woman looked unhappy, with slumped shoulders and a melancholy expression. Ally couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would make something so beautiful, only to make it so sad. And it looked like Ally – too like her for comfort. But that really wasn’t the problem right now. Because right now it was feed time.

  She desperately tried to convince herself she could do it, but she was already a wreck just at the thought of it. No amount of breathing or relaxation exercises were making a dent. Even the steady rain that seeped into her light coat as she stepped onto the lawn went unnoticed.

  She’d taken some pills, and was giving them a few minutes to work while she faced the shed as thoug
h preparing to front a firing squad. ‘Think about what you have to do,’ she told herself, just like Dr Jackson would have. ‘Step by step. Remember to breathe. Focus on performing each small task. Every step is a victory. Breathe. Focus. Relax.’ She hesitantly walked across the grass, opened the shed door.

  Four large pens, a stack of farm equipment, several bags of animal feed and a mountain of hay.

  Breathe. Focus. Relax.

  The smell hit her – the sweet scent of lucerne.

  Breathe.

  Her eyes zeroed in on a horse halter and lead hanging from a hook on the wall. Her chest tightened.

  Focus.

  The sights, the smells, the sounds – the memories slammed into her: the hay, the warmth of the animals; the cool of the early mornings; the contented horses chewing on breakfast; the occasional whinny as one called to another; molasses, leather, saddle soap, hay, horse.

  Relax. Relax. Relax.

  The strength in her legs dissolved. She was breathing through wet cement. The panic ripped through her veins like liquid nitrogen. Her vision blurred and the shed melted into her stables, bursting into flames. The screams of horses echoed from every direction. Her hands cradled her head to shut it out. Panic, pain, helplessness, the grip of the fireman’s arm around her middle, the shattering explosion of heat. The smoke, the inky blackness of the sky.

  Shudders racked her as the images began to clear. With them came the pain, and it hurt too much. A shadow moved across the doorway. David.

  ‘No.’ Scuttling back, she blinked, blinked again. ‘No. You’re not real. You’re not real!’ She was still hallucinating, had to calm herself down. She closed her eyes, willed herself out of it. When she opened them, the image had disappeared.

  Sobbing, struggling for air, she ran for the house, fell, crawled, staggered to her feet. She pushed the heel of her hand into the pressure in her chest as she reached the door. She upended her bag, scattering its contents, desperate for the pills. As she broke them open with shaking hands, most joined the contents of her bag on the floor, but she swallowed a few.

  The images were still fading in and out, the screams were still echoing in her head. Why weren’t the drugs working? She accompanied them with a generous swallow of the brandy Mavis had left in the pantry. She needed to knock herself out.

  What could she possibly have been thinking? Coming here, doing all this. She really had lost her mind. This was all too much. Too much. She dropped her head onto the table and within moments, went under.

  Cam hung up the phone and stared out his office window. Another property sold for a good price. It was satisfying, and it would fund yet another. He’d have to call Lee, let him know the details. Lee had done a top-class job on the outdoor room of that project and it had pushed the dollars up dramatically.

  His eyes slid over to Mavis’s property and his mood took a quick dive. What was going on down there? Maybe he had no right to feel proprietorial. Alissa was right – it was her property. If he was honest, he had to admit that part of his anger was that he’d missed an opportunity to make an offer before she’d sold the place. But the lack of empathy she’d shown to Mavis was something he couldn’t fathom. He’d told her how the old woman felt about her animals and she’d charged straight down to the hospice and upset her.

  His fingers tapped an uneasy beat on the windowsill. He still hadn’t explained the feed routine. Did she know about cattle? Pigs? The goat? The chickens were pretty straightforward, weren’t they? It was all pretty straightforward, once you knew the general routine. She didn’t.

  She’d freaked out over the mention of an old horse.

  Maybe he’d just write it all down, leave it on her doorstep. He hadn’t spent weeks looking after everything so she could just walk in and neglect it. Feeling justified, he grabbed his car keys and headed down the hill.

  He saw her car as he pulled up. The animals began to make a racket and he had a suspicion they hadn’t been fed. Again. Anger stirred in his gut.

  Stuff leaving a note. The woman had to be told.

  The puppy appeared at the door and jumped, her claws scratching their way along the mesh as she came down. Leaving the pup roaming free in the house definitely wasn’t a good idea. He’d learnt that lesson the disgusting way.

  ‘Alissa?’ Cupping his hands on either side of his face he pressed his nose against the screen. He saw her bag first, upended on the floor. A purse, a packet of tissues, some loose change, something the pup had been chewing – a sunglasses case? Tablets? Craning his neck, he followed the mess to the kitchen table. She was slumped over the table, more tablets and their containers strewn around. An open bottle of brandy stood nearby, as though she’d swigged it straight from the neck.

  ‘Alissa!’

  The door swung violently back with a crack as he slammed through. Fighting back a sick wave of panic, he pressed two fingers to her neck, checking for a pulse. Did he even know how to find it? Yeah, he could feel it, then felt a little silly when he noted she was breathing – heavily. He guessed she probably wouldn’t be doing that without a heartbeat. But what had she taken? He quickly examined the bottles. They were prescription, and they had warnings all over them.

  Shit.

  ‘Hey, wake up.’ Feeling a little awkward, he tapped her face. ‘Alissa, wake up!’ He pulled out his mobile phone to call emergency services, then lowered it as she mumbled and stirred.

  Something inside him took a big sigh of relief as her eyelids fluttered a few times, and she began to come to. He sank into a chair, poured himself a generous shot of the brandy to calm his nerves, and swallowed it. The pup’s claws against her legs as it tried to climb up had one of her arms slowly straightening to pull her into her lap. Once there, the squirming ball got straight to work, licking ferociously, pushing her head into Ally’s neck, demanding attention. Ally’s hand lifted and stroked the pup’s back while her other hand dropped to her stomach. If she felt anything like she looked, it was like death warmed up.

  As the pup snuggled closer, he thought Ally might have blinked back tears. Their unexpectedness, the sight of her, so flat, so sick, so dejected, stabbed him with a sympathy he still wasn’t sure he wanted to feel. Her free hand supported her head and she sighed heavily.

  ‘I have to do this. I have to function.’

  ‘That would be good.’

  She jolted, her head snapping around as she noticed his presence for the first time. Putting the pup down, she swiped at the single tear that had escaped down her cheek, her expression hardening.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’

  ‘I didn’t run through everything with you yesterday. I thought you might need some clarification on the feeding.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Sedatives, antidepressants and alcohol, the contents of your bag scattered all over the floor, you passed out at the table surrounded by more pills. “All right” was not what I was thinking when I walked in here.’

  Colour flooded her pale cheeks. She stared at the table, at her things. ‘You had no right to go through my stuff.’

  ‘I needed to see what you’d taken so I’d have known what to tell the paramedics if you’d stopped breathing.’

  ‘That’s not funny.’

  ‘I’m not laughing. You woke up quickly, otherwise I would have already made the call. Were you trying to kill yourself?’

  She stared, before shaking her head. ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Then what the hell is wrong with you? Why are you even taking these things?’

  There was colour in her cheeks now, all right. Her eyes had cleared and they flashed.

  ‘That would fall under none of your business.’

  ‘You say that a lot, but if this is your idea of how to function, it has to be someone’s business. You need help.’

  ‘I don’t need help!’ She raked a hand through her hair and pushed to her feet. He noticed the slight sway, even if she didn’t. ‘God, I have an endless number of “helpers”, all wanting
me to do this, take that, try this, work on that. You have no idea, so please, please, just – don’t start.’

  She walked to the door, stood by it. The message was loud and clear.

  ‘I’ll manage – thanks. I have animals to feed.’

  Expelling a long breath, he got to his feet, didn’t bother to mask his disbelief. ‘Somehow I don’t think you’re up to it.’

  He left her there, in the doorway, and fed the animals himself, his mood alternating between pissed and sympathetic. It wasn’t his job to look after some city girl with more medication than sense. He finished with the cows, tossed scratch mix to the chickens. Didn’t she know she could kill herself by ignoring the warning labels? He had every right to be pissed that she’d unwittingly dragged him into her drama. He put some pellets in a bucket, headed over to the pigs.

  But why did she have the pills in the first place? Were they part of the reason she had to sell quickly? The pigs’ excited squealing and snorting distracted him from his thoughts for a moment, then he headed for the hay to feed Violet, tossing some to Chester on the way. That haunted expression of hers, that fragile vein of strength he’d seen in those eyes, should have told him she was battling something. He’d been too wrapped up in how pissed off he was to see it. He gave the horse a quick pat and slipped her breakfast hay through the bars of the small yard. Still, she wasn’t his problem. She obviously didn’t belong out here. She sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to take care of the place.

  When he reached the house again she was still standing in the doorway. She definitely looked more pissed off than sick now.

  ‘I said I’d handle it.’

  He looked her up and down, shook his head. ‘Why don’t you just go back to the city? I’ll make sure the animals are gone before the new owners arrive.’