Page 34 of Where the Wattles Bloom

It had hurt like the blazes, though, and there were few days that passed without him thinking about his mum and dad and that damn small plane they loved so much.

‘Where did you live before that?’

‘Cairns. My mum left here to be with my dad when she was twenty. He was an aerial surveyor in north Queensland. She met him there on holiday and they were married six months later. They eventually started their own business with their own plane not long after I was born. Mum used to love going up with Dad whenever she could.’

There was a beat or two of silence, as if she was deciding whether to ask any more or let it drop. Her empathy was still rippling off her in waves, but he could also sense her curiosity.

‘And you’ve been here since then?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I left when I was twenty for sixteen years.’

‘To see the world?’

Lachlan smiled. ‘Something like that.’

‘And did you?’

‘I guess. I became a cop.’

She stopped and gaped at him a little. ‘Really?’

He laughed as he kept walking and she caught up. ‘Yes, really. Police academy in Brisbane.’

‘You didn’t go to Sydney?’

Hell no. Sydney memories had been fresh and unpleasant for him. ‘I had a longing for my Queensland roots,’ he supplied.

‘And you stayed in Queensland?’

‘Yep. Ended up in accident investigation.’

Her raised eyebrow said it all. Yeah. He didn’t need a therapist to know why he’d taken that route.

‘But you left?’

‘Uh huh. I got pretty burnt out. And my marriage was on the rocks. It seemed like the right move.’

‘Was it?’

‘Occupationally? Yes. Matrimonially, not so much. Gabby was a city girl through and through, and living out here permanently is different to playing with cute baby lambs for a few days here and there.’

‘I bet.’

‘We lasted another six months before she ended it.’

‘That must have been hard.’

Lachlan shrugged. ‘It had been coming for a long time.’

‘Yeah. I know what that’s like.’

He realised she’d given him the perfect opening to ask about her marriages—hell, maybe she wanted him to. But they were at the bunkhouse now and her attention shifted.

‘Oh.’ She frowned at the corrugated-iron structure that looked just like a shed on stumps. ‘I thought it’d be bigger?’

‘We had an old shearers quarters back in the day. It’s about a kilometre that way, near the shearing shed.’ He pointed into the dark ahead of them. ‘But there’s not really huge teams of shearers that move around the country anymore. Most farms source locally and get a few mobile guys if needed.’

Lachlan walked up the three shallow steps that led to the side door and opened it, feeling for the light switch on the wall to the left. He gestured for her to enter ahead of him, following her into the relative warmth, silently thanking Reggie for insisting on insulation when it was being built.