Page 12 of In Full Bloom
I stand and watch them for a long moment. When I finally turn away it’s to find Katie watching them too.
“What’s your phone number?” She asks me, out of the blue.
“What?” I ask, caught off guard. She definitely said last night was a one off. Why would she need my number?
“I’ll send you some pictures I took.” She flashes her phone in my direction, a shot of Sadie and the lamb on the screen.
Oh. The type of thing I always forget to take photos of. I rattle off my number and a few moments later my phone is bleeping as a bunch of messages zing across the kitchen.
Violet feeds us an early lunch before we head back out to check the cattle. Katie finishes hers first and loads her dishes straight into the dishwasher. She’s so comfortable in this house and around Violet, who keeps staring at Katie with a look of contentment on her face, like her long-lost child has returned home.
“I’ll just clean the lamb goo off my jacket and I’m good to go,” Katie says, grabbing the garment off the back of the chair whereI’d put it.
“I’ve done it,” I say. “Your jacket. Hopefully it’s dry by now.”
“Oh,” Katie says, flipping it open and running her hand across the clean lining. “Thank you,” she says, her voice quiet. “You didn’t have to do that.”
I shrug. “Seems like the least I could do. You let Sadie help you with the lamb.”
“Of course I did.” Her expression is puzzled, like she can’t figure out what I’m getting at.
“Not everyone would,” I say, then push back from the table. “Come on, this work isn’t going to do itself.”
“Not the actual tonne of it that you have to do, no it won’t,” Katie says, that sarcastic smirk back on her face.
I grit my teeth so I don’t say something I’ll regret to her, in front of my boss, and more importantly my daughter.
7
KATIE
By the timeDallas and I are finished with the day’s work I’m hot, sweaty, filthy andexhausted. My top has gone crusty with lamb afterbirth and I cannot wait to have a scalding hot shower to wash the day’s grime off. We just have one more job to do on our way back to the house.
I’m pretty sure I’m being tested. Maybe Dallas is hoping I won’t come back tomorrow.
He’s wrong. It doesn’t matter how much my entire body hurts.
I’ll be here, working my ass off to help Olivia.
Henry Austin, Olivia’s dad, died suddenly four months ago. It was so shocking—so out-of-the-blue—that I still haven’t processed it. He was fit and healthy, still in his prime.
His passing has left a massive hole in both the family, and the running of the farm. A hole Olivia is desperately trying to fill.
When finances became an issue in the city,coming back to Wildflower Ridge made the most sense for me. I have a house to live in and a job I can rely on.
I didn’t come back for Henry’s funeral and I regret not being there for my best friend. I had my reasons, but I still have regrets.
I’m determined I’ll never let her down again though, so regardless of what Dallas thinks of me, regardless of whatever shit jobs he gives me, I’m not going anywhere.
I don’t know what Olivia told Dallas about me, but it can’t have been much, which is unlike her. I can tell she’s told him next to nothing about me because he picked tasks for today to gauge my competency and show me the property—obviously not realising I already know it like the back of my hand.
A little bit has changed over the years, but not very much. The only thing that’s really new to me is the function venue which was once a barely standing old barn.
Now, it’s fully refurbished and already has a full booking calendar for this coming summer.
I haven’t seen it completed, only in its early stages of the renovation on my last visit back. The visit that caused me to make my now-broken vow.
We’ve been using the side-by-side this afternoon and I climb out of it as it rolls to a stop in front of the building.
