Page 113 of Where the Wattles Bloom

What the what?

‘I mean, you’re obviously crazy for each other and you’re having a baby together. I know he’s been divorced twice but we reckon you’re a keeper.’

There was so much to unpack in that statement Rowena didn’t know where to start, so she went for the lowest hanging fruit. ‘We?’ she asked faintly.

‘The family. We have a pool going.’ Lisa grinned, completely oblivious to the hot rocks of trepidation sinking to the pit of Rowena’s stomach. ‘I have a Christmas Day proposal so, if you guys have been talking about it, maybe convince him to hold off until December twenty-five, yeah?’

Right then, one of the smaller kids tried to climb up on Shirley’s back and Lisa vaulted to her feet. ‘Hey,’ she called, ‘don’t even try that, buddy,’ and she scurried over to sort the situation.

Which left Rowena reeling on the rug.

The family were betting on Lachlan proposing? It should have been a terrifying thought and it was.

But … it wasn’t?

Because she could see that life being played out in front of her now. Their daughter giggling in the yard with a pet sheep. Lachlan teaching her how to play the bagpipes. It was beautiful and real and so very tempting and that made it the most terrifying thing of all.

Because she was leaving in two weeks. For the city. Back to her job.

And that’s when Rowena realised she had to leave—now. Not in a fortnight. Now. As soon as she could arrange it. Because sitting here watching the kids laughing and playing with Shirley, watching Lachlan patiently tutoring, made her want things—different things—and a hot surge of panic rose like bile in her throat.

For the first time in weeks, the urge to vomit returned. She was a NICU nurse. A proud NICU nurse. That’s who she was. She thrived on the high-tech environment. On the bells and whistles. On the challenge.

And even if none of those things were true, she still had to leave.

There was this internal kind of … imperative that demanded she go back and face the music. She’d screwed up—she had to go and repair the damage. To her reputation. To the person she’d always prided herself on being.

Until she did that, she couldn’t move forward with anything in her life. It was a stubborn mental roadblock to her priorities. One she couldn’t go around or over or under.

The only way to the other side was through it.

Her heart heavy as a stone in her chest, Rowena stood, grabbed her phone from her back pocket and dialled her boss as she headed for the homestead.

Twenty-Eight

An hour later, after a short search, Lachlan found Rowena in his room. In their room. He was smiling as he leaned his shoulder into the door frame, Tasmin’s teenage outrage at her inability to master the bagpipes in one afternoon still making him want to laugh out loud.

His smile didn’t last as he took in Colin, who’d been turned to face the wall, then the two open suitcases on the bed. Beside them, piles of clothes, pairs of shoes and a tangle of coat hangers were strewn across the coverlet.

What the fuck?

The thump of his heart was like cannon fire through his head as he asked the obvious question. ‘Ro? Are you leaving?’

‘Goddamn it, Lachlan,’ she snapped, looking up from folding a piece of clothing. ‘It’s Rowena.’

Her green eyes blazed at him and Lachlan almost took a step back. An entire cauldron of emotion bubbled in her gaze.

Whoa.

He wasn’t sure what was happening right now but he didn’t think it had anything to do with her name. His eyebrows beetling, Lachlan stepped into the room and shut the door.

‘Are you leaving?’ he repeated, his voice calm despite the sudden squall of emotions lashing his insides.

‘I’m staying at The Stockman,’ she said, her movements jerky as she picked up a shirt from a mound of clothes. ‘I’ll be there for two days before I head back to Sydney.’

Lachlan stared at her, trying to figure out what had gone wrong between her laughing with his cousin on the grass and now. She was leaving town? With two weeks left on her contract?

Unless … Oh god. Was something wrong with the baby?