“But what Darcy?”
Another silence and Brandon clenched his teeth to stop himself from demanding an answer. He had no right to demand anything.
“The Ridge hasn’t been doing well for the past five years.” The words were quiet like a confession.
Brandon frowned. “Define not well.”
“Another poor season and we’ll be bankrupt.”
Shock hit him. “What? How?”
“More sheep are being slaughtered by wild dogs and dingoes,” Darcy said. “I’ve been trying to convince Dad to switch to cattle for years, even found a company this year who could supply at a reasonable price, but he refused. The money from the campgrounds is keeping us afloat for day-to-day things.”
Brandon wanted to be sick. They both knew why their father had been so against the cattle. “Mum never mentioned it in her emails.”
“She didn’t know. Dad swore me to secrecy.”
“Then you should have said something.”
“When?” Darcy demanded. “During one of those chatty phone calls or emails we had? Oh, that’s right, you never answered any of my attempts to contact you. You wanted to be as far away from your family as possible.”
Inwardly Brandon cringed and he tapped his thigh. “I had my reasons.”
“Bullshit. You just stopped giving a shit.” Brandon opened his mouth to dispute this, but Darcy continued, “It doesn’t matter anyway. You wouldn’t have been able to get Dad to change his mind. He was a stubborn git, that’s where you get it from.”
Brandon exhaled, squeezing his hand to stop tapping it against his thigh and went back to the purpose of this conversation. “So the farm was in trouble, a company was offering Dad a lot of money for it and he kept saying no, despite the financial troubles he was in.”
“Right. I found a couple of emails while I was going through his papers and they were offering double what the farm is worth.”
“Why do they want it so badly? There are other stations around.”
“That’s what I wanted to know, but Dad refused to speak with them. When they came around a couple of weeks ago, the guy mentioned something about having a connection with the Retribution.”
The ship that started it all. “I guess that makes sense.” Their connection to the land came through the ship as well.
Darcy snorted. “I offered to show him the site of the wreck, take him out to the island, but he made excuses not to go.”
“That’s odd.”
“Yeah.”
“So what happened next?”
“Dad got angry, kicked him out and told him not to come back. Said he’d never sell the property while he was alive.”
They glanced at each other and both swore. “You should tell Dot,” Brandon said.
“Yeah.”
The glistening blue ocean appeared to the right of them like a mirage in the red dusty plain. He jolted. This land was such a contrast of harsh conditions and eye-watering beauty. “It never gets old,” he said.
“What?”
“The awe of seeing the ocean after kilometres of red plains.”
“Do you miss it?”
Something in his brother’s tone made Brandon study him and answer honestly. “Every single day.”
