Kylie opened the jelly snakes and shoved three in her mouth. ‘I’m ready to listen. Any detail you’ve got, no matter how insignificant it may seem.’
Hannah closed her eyes. She just wasn’t ready to make a joke about it. About any of it. Her doomed life as a woman. Her even more doomed life as a mother. Her unrequited love.
‘Do you mind if we just watchThe Notebookagain?’ That way she could bawl her eyes out like nobody was watching.
CHAPTER
42
By the time her hangover from her night with Kylie had gone, Hannah was feeling slightly less grim, so when Kev rang her and suggested they take Skippy and the new horse he was stabling out for a gentle trail ride, she was keen. Fresh air and horses could cure pretty much anything, couldn’t they?
At least, that’s what it felt like once they’d saddled up and the horses had picked their way through the scrub out the back of Kev’s place.
‘Snow’s coming down lower each night.’ Kev had brought a battered set of binoculars with him and was scanning the mountains in the distance.
She’d smelled the snow during the night. Had spent a few precious hours when she should have been sleeping curled up on the chair by her window, watching the inky blackness of the night sky, knowing that every missing star had been replaced by heavy, leaden cloud.
‘Yep,’ said Hannah. ‘Saw the forecast. We seem to have jumped straight from summer to winter and missed out on autumn.’
There was nothing fun about getting called out by an anxious farmer in the dead of winter. The backroads had precious little in the way of lights and railguards. The animals she was called out to were often kept in barns with no heating, and the shock of getting out of her warm bed and her warm pyjamas in the dead hour before dawn was something she wouldn’t miss if winter never came again.
‘Winter’s the season I love best in the mountains,’ Kev said.
‘Really? I’d’ve thought you’d have loved spring and summer, when you can work outdoors with your roses.’
Skipjack’s hoof crunched through a decaying log and she took in a big breath of clean, lovely mountain. Okay. She loved it too, who was she kidding? She wouldn’t give up Hanrahan for any amount of sunshine.
‘We might see some pockets of snow if we can get some altitude. Where’s the new horse from? He seen snow before?’
‘The banker in town just brought him from Queensland, so I’m guessing no. His daughter’s keen to get into dressage and such, but this fella may be a little long in the tooth for learning.’
Kev gave the horse under discussion a nudge and they headed up a narrow track. His green corduroy cap got caught on a branch and Hannah retrieved it for him as she passed through.
‘You know, a helmet wouldn’t get snagged, Kev. Maybe you should think about wearing one.’
‘This old codger’s not going to throw me. Besides, Marigold bought me this cap. She says it makes me look dapper.’
‘Really? Dapper? There’s a word you don’t hear much.’
‘I hope that’s not your smart mouth telling me I’m old, pet.’
She giggled. ‘Never.’
‘It’s true though. If I was younger I’d still be able to go for a gallop, but I know my limits. My glory days racing up and down these mountains are over.’
‘Sometimes the glory isn’t in the gallop. It’s in just showing up, Kev.’ At least, it was for her.
‘True enough, love.’
That’s what she’d determined to do. Disappointment could only provide so much motivation. Hope … that was the real motivator. She’d lived without it long enough to know.
But somehow, and despite the disappointments of the past month, she had a little hope burning in her breast, and she figured the best way to keep it burning was to show up every day in her own life. Live every day like she deserved to be in the here and now. Mistakes would happen and she’d deal with them. Mistakes and setbacks weren’t going to send her into a dark place, not anymore. Mistakes and setbacks were going to make her invincible.
Especially a setback called Tom.
Kev grunted. ‘Don’t tell Skippy that.’
‘Er, sure.’ She’d drifted so far along in her own thoughts that she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about.
