The Start of Something New Page 3

  ‘Busy night?’ Morgan offered up a friendly smile to the same barman who’d kicked him out repeatedly at seventeen.

  ‘What’ll it be?’ The man jutted his chin towards the taps. ‘Tooheys?’

  The lack of friendliness was dead opposite to Morgan’s memories of the town.

  ‘Two, thanks.’

  Tapping his foot against the floor while he waited, Morgan watched the guy pull his beers and dump them on the counter. He handed over some cash then closed his hands around the damp glasses, nodding in thanks before turning away from the scowling barman. Perhaps the guy had a long memory. As he manoeuvred past wild conversations full of flailing arms and loud voices, Morgan smiled at people he’d come into contact with during the past few days. Most knew what he was about, but just in case he made sure to mouth ‘hi’ to those he hadn’t reconnected with as well.

  The bloke from the picket lines was lifting a near-empty glass to his lips when Morgan dumped the two schooners on the table and dropped into the armchair opposite him. Buying beer for the locals wasn’t something he’d like his boss to see him doing, but it was an act of kindness these men would understand. And that might just win them over.

  Morgan slid one of the drinks towards the other man, who on closer inspection was much younger than he’d first thought. A wiry mop and overgrown beard hid the majority of the bloke’s face. Between all the hair and hat, he was merely eyes.

  ‘Hey, mate.’ Morgan tipped his chin towards the man’s cap; a frizz of wild hair skirted its base. ‘Think they’ll make any headway with these protests?’

  ‘Not likely.’ The fellow dropped his empty onto the table and pushed it aside. ‘If the place turns out to be broke … not much can be done.’

  Nodding, Morgan raised his glass and savoured that first sip, sweet with a heady froth. ‘True. Although it could impact the way the administrator acts. Speed up certain processes …’

  The bloke rubbed at his beard. ‘Not gonna get anyone their job back.’

  ‘You work there?’ Morgan asked.

  ‘Not anymore.’

  Morgan struggled to keep his draw at a sip. It may have only been a Tooheys New, but the beer out here was better than the fancy shit that filled the taps back in the city. Balancing the schooner on his jeaned knee, he let the moment stretch. People often filled silence if you let it breathe. Sure enough, the bloke shuffled his seat back a little so it was actually wedged in the corner and spoke up. ‘Dunno what I’ll do now. There aren’t a hell of a lot of jobs around.’

  Morgan nodded to the tabled beer, making it clear he’d shouted this round. The bloke swiped the glass off the table and slugged down his New. Morgan watched him slump back into his maroon chair. His eyes looked familiar, as did the shape of his face, though Morgan couldn’t place him.

  ‘There might be some work going on one of the farms—’

  ‘Shut the hell up!’ The shout broke through the hum of the voices, silencing them all at once. Morgan swivelled in his seat to see what was going down. All eyes had turned to the screens that covered three of the four brick walls. The volume buzzed at an indecipherable mumble, but he didn’t need sound to recognise Cooper Burton’s face filling every last TV. A Channel Seven logo was pinned on a bottom-of-the-screen banner that read: small town, big loss.

  ‘Speaking as one gives the people a louder voice.’ Cooper looked right down the camera. ‘And I’m calling on the people of Mindalby to pull together. What Mindalby Cotton did is wrong and they won’t …’ He paused, his dark eyes boring into every soul in the room. ‘We won’t—’ he repeated with more force, ‘—allow it.’

  The room erupted into a cheer, and Morgan wondered if Cooper were here now, at the Ace in the Hole. He had to catch up with Jase … and Hannah … Morgan glanced around the pub, as if she might be there. She wasn’t.

  Glass clanged against wood and Morgan’s attention shifted back to his companion, who’d already downed the entire schooner.

  ‘Look, mate,’ the guy said. ‘I appreciate the drink, but …’

  Morgan reached into his front pocket and rummaged up yet another card, which he held out to his drinking buddy. ‘There’s a free service operating out of the community centre to help folk get back on their feet. Find work. That kind of thing.’

  After giving Morgan a quick once-over, the man’s downtrodden look morphed into a scowl. ‘I don’t need a shrink.’ He pushed himself out of the chair, bumping the small table with his knees.

  Morgan forced a smile, but the bloke didn’t notice—he’d already turned his back and begun walking away.

  This sure was shaping up to be trickier than either he or Trinity had imagined. It was one thing to want to provide a service. Getting people to take it up? Well, that was a different kettle of fish.

  Chapter 5

  Hannah’s grandfather belched then dropped his fork against the porcelain plate, creating quite the clang. Her mother omitted a soft squeal, somewhat like the piglets Jase had raised last summer, and sighed before dabbing at her forehead with the back of her hand. It had been a tense family meal, what with neither Coop nor Jase present, and Pop sprouting on about the gin’s closure, then Mum arguing for sending their crops to Bourke for processing, and Pop pulling rank with his it’ll-open-soon philosophy. The only thing missing was an argument about who was in charge around the place, Pop or Jase. Hannah closed her eyes in an attempt to stop her head pounding and swallowed hard. It had been quite the evening.

  The television hummed from the other room, the nightly news playing without anyone watching.

  ‘They sold out of papers!’ Pop proclaimed for the millionth time since Hannah had returned without his usual Saturday-morning read. He massaged gnarled fingers against his chest, right above his wonky heart. It had almost failed him last year, but thanks to the Royal Flying Doctors and a double bypass performed in Sydney, the eighty-two-year-old was as good as new. Almost.

  ‘Not a single one left.’ Hannah shovelled mashed potatoes into her mouth to cover the white lie. One look at her and he’d know she hadn’t been entirely honest. There had been nearly none left.

  A scoff accompanied Pop’s predictable head shake. She may not be looking at him right then, but he’d done it every time he’d mentioned the shortage of weekly news.

  ‘Wouldn’t have happened back when I was mayor.’

  Yeah right, like the town’s head had any control over paper runs.

  Blessed silence fell over the room, and Hannah’s thoughts wandered back to this morning and her blasted brothers. What had Cooper been thinking to make such a spectacle? And Jase!

  As if summoned by her thoughts, Cooper’s voice wafted in from the next room. It didn’t sound right though—kind of … tinny. As if it was coming through a small speaker.

  Oh no!

  Hannah shot to her feet, knocking her chair over in the process, and darted into the living room. Sure enough, her twin’s image filled the television. Frantic, she foraged for the TV remote, but the darn thing seemed to have run away. Her heart beat hard and fast at the thought of Pop seeing the debacle that was Cooper on … no—primetime news?

  She tossed hand-embroidered cushions off the lounge, shoved a pile of outdated Country Living magazines from the coffee table, but still couldn’t find the darn thing.

  ‘Is that Cooper?’ Pop hollered from the other room. ‘What’s going on?’

  Hannah dived for the power point and flicked it off. Blackness consumed the image on the screen with a whoomp. ‘Just the TV,’ she bellowed. ‘Something I wanted to see. Missed it though.’

  From the other room came a harrumph so loud Jase could probably hear it from his place by the river. She flopped back on the leather couch, her heart all aflutter from the race. Those boys needed to pull their heads in before they caused Pop’s heart to fail for good. The old man couldn’t take any stress.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’d try to talk to them again. Make them understand. Her arms cradled her belly and something sharp j
abbed her inner elbow.

  Morgan.

  Hannah’s hand slipped inside her jacket pocket almost before she’d finished thinking his name. Her thumb instinctively found the edge of the thick card he’d given her and glided around its edges. She’d been caressing the thing all day. All those years she’d spent dreaming about Morgan-Unattainable-Harris, and now here he was, making a pass at her. Her. The girl he’d always called ‘Sis’ as if he were her brother too. Her stomach flittered like a butterfly gone hyper, but she tamped that dumb feeling right down. Down to the depths of her being, where feelings like that belonged. Girls like her didn’t … well, they just didn’t.

  She pulled the card out of her pocket and read: Morgan Harris, BA (SocSc), Grad Dip Psych, Dip Counselling.

  The butterfly turned to lead, sinking in her stomach. He wasn’t asking her out on a date—he was offering his counselling services. Duh. She’d heard the talk about town that the liquidator had brought someone in. Morgan showing up now, when he hadn’t returned to town since leaving high school—she’d have known if he had; news travelled fast—couldn’t be a coincidence. He had to be the crisis counsellor on hand. She was such an idiot to think him giving her his number meant anything else.

  She sank even deeper into the couch and pressed her fingers against her temples. At least Pop hadn’t heard about the boys. That thought didn’t make her smile as much as it would have if she’d had a date with Morgan on the horizon.

  ***

  Hannah swung her white one-tonner into the back paddock. Red dust billowed around them, so she turned to Jase while it settled, ignoring her brother’s blue heeler, Spud, barking in the back.

  She sighed. ‘Pop’s delusional. That place isn’t opening back up anytime soon.’

  Jase turned to her, resting his back against the passenger-side window. ‘I called Bourke today. Didn’t get anyone on the line that could really help since it’s a Sunday, but the bloke heading up the factory floor said they’re bracing for a backlog. They’ve already been contacted by a number of the cockies out here who were left high and dry. I’m gonna call back and talk to someone in the office, but I may have been wrong …’

  ‘Wow.’ She shot her brother a grin. ‘Did those words just fall off your tongue?’

  Jase smiled half-heartedly. ‘The old fella’s wrong too.’

  ‘That may be so,’ Hannah said, ‘but we have to play our cards in a way that makes him think he’s still leading things. You can’t just go acting out, and Cooper …’ She shook her head. ‘If Pop had seen that stunt he pulled the other day. Geez, Jase.’ Hannah’s throat clogged and Jase slid along the faux leather bench until he was smooshed up against her.

  ‘I know, bub. None of us want to see him laid out like that again.’ He pulled her in for a side-hug. ‘We’ve got to think about the business though.’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ She pushed away from his bulky arm. ‘We need those modules from the gin too. Their shipping date’s not getting any further away.’

  She threw open the car door before climbing out into the settled dust. The paddock looked good. Mere stems remained of the once knee-high cotton plants. Some sticks littering the ground were their only waste, along with a few rogue bolls, a stark contrast against the red ground, like fluffy white clouds in a bright sunset. She eyed off the plastic-covered modules of harvested cotton standing in a long row against the fence line. Spud took off, nosing around the furrowed dirt, his grey and black coat collecting a reddish tinge.

  ‘Wasn’t a bad year,’ Jase said, appearing by her side. ‘This’ll pull in a decent profit.’

  Hannah walked towards the modules, her feet dodging clods of earth. Upon reaching the first plastic-coated cylinder, she ran her hand over its curved side. It was something she did every year—almost like a ritual. The huge roll towering above her head made her feel good. Somehow it drew her back to earth, dwarfing her memories and problems with its sheer size. Also the fact it had come from the land. She’d grown it. Her and Jase and Pop.

  ‘If the mill closes for good …’

  ‘Then we’ll need somewhere else to process our crops,’ Jase finished. ‘But don’t fret about that. I’m on it. Besides, it’s pretty unlikely that it’ll stay closed.’

  Hannah laughed. ‘Now you sound like Pop.’

  Jase winked at her. ‘The blood runs thick in this family.’

  Spud ran back to them, brushing himself against Jase’s leg. Hannah turned to lean her back against the sun-warmed plastic as she glanced up at the clouds above. ‘Maybe it’s time we looked at something else. Something different. A crop that’ll put us back at the top of the game.’

  ‘Like hell. Cotton is what Burton Park’s all about. Always has been. Always will be. That’s the sort of talk that’ll really roll the old fella. You know he made his fortune in growing cotton.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. First family to grow it out here on the western plains …’

  ‘And from that first small crop we built an empire,’ Jase recited the words Pop had been telling them since before they were old enough to care.

  Hannah pushed off the module and checked the seal. Clouds had been building all day and even though the harvesting process was foolproof, she didn’t trust that the plastic was watertight. She ran her hand along the join, then over the exposed end. It felt okay, so she moved on to the next module.

  ‘Don’t you have to work tonight?’ Jase shouted from back near the ute, where he’d retreated to examine the furrowed dirt. They needed to decide if it was time to rotate the field.

  ‘Shit.’ Hannah cursed under her breath as she checked her watch. She needed the little bit of cash that side job brought in. ‘We’d better go.’

  Chapter 6

  Morgan pulled back the door that separated the main room of the pub from its bistro. The chick on reception at his motel had raved about this place when he’d been in earlier that day. So far he’d either eaten most meals at the Chinese restaurant or made do with the mini kitchen in his room back at the Great Western, but there was only so much toast or sweet and sour a bloke could take. Right then, he was craving a good steak—the exact smell which hit him as he walked into the bistro, leaving the bar behind.

  He’d eaten at the Red Diamond years before, and the place hadn’t changed a bit in the time he’d been gone. A fire roared in the open fireplace. The room was cosy with a dozen tables, which at that moment all stood empty. He spun back around to look at the door, hoping to check the opening hours. Maybe the place was closed already. The country was funny like that—most businesses shut at lunch on Saturday and didn’t reopen until Monday morning. Maybe it was a product of a bygone era, or maybe it was a matter of slow trade. But he’d smelt steak, so Morgan made his way to the tiny bar at the back of the room and pulled out a stool by the empty keg adorning the wall. On the wooden barrel sat an ugly vase holding a huge cotton stem and a pile of menus. Morgan plucked one off the pile and opened it up.

  The scuttle of feet behind the bar drew his attention, and Morgan smiled at the sight of Hannah Burton wearing black and white with an apron wrapped around her narrow waist. She halted mid-step, her curved eyebrows rising in surprise. ‘Morgan Harris.’

  ‘Hi is fine.’ He winked. ‘Or just Morgan.’

  Her face flushed and her lips set in that expression he and Jase used to get a kick out of provoking. She slid the tray of glasses she’d been holding onto the stainless-steel bench then retrieved a rag from under the counter, which she flung over her left shoulder.

  ‘So you’re a counsellor now?’

  ‘Yup.’ He spent a moment studying her eyes—hazel in the warmth of the soft lighting—which didn’t give anything away. Was she pissed at him? Happy to see him back in town? He couldn’t tell.

  ‘You work here?’

  ‘Yes.’ She finally broke their eye contact. ‘Are you ready to order?’

  ‘Sure. Give me the best steak on the menu.’

  She turned to walk away too soon.

  ‘Hann
ah …’

  Frowning, she looked back over her shoulder.

  ‘Where’s your smile?’

  ‘It’s hardly a smiling time.’ Yet a tiny one toyed with the corner of her lip. Her hips swayed as she disappeared from his sight for the second time in as many days. Hot damn, that girl had grown up. Not that she’d been a kid when he left, but she’d always been Jase’s sister and now … well, now she was all curves and eyes and Hannah to the power of ten.

  She reappeared and picked up a glass from the tray which she proceeded to polish until it gleamed. Morgan couldn’t help staring at her as she lavished the glass with her undivided attention.

  After a while, he said, ‘This is the quietest I’ve seen this place.’

  ‘Yeah, well, people are wary of spending money when they don’t know if there’ll be a next pay cheque.’

  ‘It didn’t seem that way in the bar all week.’

  Hannah’s head shot up. ‘You’ve been here all week?’

  Morgan smiled at her keen interest. ‘Since Thursday.’

  ‘Oh …’ She focused on the glass again, rubbing the clear surface with her fingertips. Fingers that moved with mesmerising care, as they would if caressing someone’s skin. Shit. Where had that thought come from? He propped an elbow on the counter and reached over the bar, grabbing the warm glass as she placed it on the bench. Her mouth firmed into that stern look again and Morgan extended the object towards her. ‘Coke?’

  She raised the soda gun and spurted cola from the nozzle into his glass. Once it was full, she holstered the thing into its spot on the counter and slipped away again, this time leaving the bar behind her as she flitted to a table by the fireplace where an elderly couple had seated themselves. As she spoke to them, the flames licking at a half-consumed log cast Hannah’s face in a warm glow. She looked like she had …