CHAPTER THREE

      THE next morning Ryan knew better than to park his car beneath the flowering banksia in front of Kardinyarr House. The day before it had dropped spiky red petals all over the roof of his car, leaving a horrible sticky residue it had taken him a half-hour to clean away.

      He parked his car beside the house, got out, and, stretching his arms over his head, walked the last few metres to the edge of the yard, until he could see over the rise to the gully at the rear of the property.

      Kardinyarr: two-hundred hilly acres of grazing land that had grabbed his brother so tight he had been willing to give up a very different sort of life for it. And for her.

      Clouds brushed large patches of shadow across the huge, dusty green parcel of land. Ghost gums collected in majestic pockets on the hilltops. Hardy lantana and sturdy low-lying scrub wound in a curling thick mass alongside a meandering creek in the gully below. It was so quiet he could hear leaves skittering across the roof of the house, the windows creaking against the buffeting breeze. What he could not hear was traffic, or televisions, or barking dogs.

      It was picturesque, just as Will had described in his e-mails to Sam, just as he had tried to tell Ryan on the telephone that night in Rome. But Ryan needed more. He wanted to understand. Needed to understand. Because it seemed that until he could reconcile Will’s decision to stay, he couldn’t let him off the hook, couldn’t let him go.

      Ryan headed back to the car and pulled a couple of bags of groceries from the passenger seat just as Laura drove up the driveway in her old grey hatchback. She skidded to a halt at an angle in the middle of a patch of grass, leapt from the car, and stormed towards him. Today’s cotton sundress was white with ripe cherries. Today’s ponytail was tied back with a proper red ribbon. Today she wore flat white sandals that kicked up clouds of dust as she raged over to him.

      ‘What? No purple pants?’ he asked.

      She ignored him, just as he’d expected her to. ‘I just ran into Cal Bunton, dropping his daughter off at Chloe’s school, and he told me what you’ve done.’

      And there he’d been, wondering how he would tell Laura the good news, when he should have guessed she would know before the ink had even dried on the contracts. He hitched the grocery bags onto his hip, shut his car door, pressed the remote lock, reminded himself he really didn’t need to do that any more, and then headed towards the house.

      ‘I have been pleasant,’ Laura raved, stamping along behind him. ‘Heck, I haven’t made nearly as much of a fuss at your landing on my doorstep without any warning as I could have. Now you have gone and bought Kardinyarr and you’re moving in? Just like that?’

      ‘Well, not quite just like that,’ Ryan said, balancing the groceries precariously as he reached into his jeans pocket for the front door keys. ‘A quick settlement suits both buyer and seller, so Kardinyarr should be mine within the fortnight. Until then I’m leasing the place from the Callaghans.’

      ‘But how could you?’

      ‘It seems that I had to. I will have a good chance of actually meeting your daughter this way. Unless, of course, she’ll be at school, or slumber parties, or busy with super-important first grade homework for evermore.’

      Laura blithely ignored his sideways barb. ‘Cal Bunton also said you were asking his advice on running livestock. Are you seriously thinking of working this place?’

      Nice move, he thought. If you can’t win the argument, change the subject. ‘I seriously am.’

      ‘But what do you know about running a farm?’

      Without looking over his shoulder, he opened the door and headed inside his empty house. ‘I know a lot about agriculture. In fact, the paper I was brought to Australia to present focused on the importance of the cotton industry in South East Queensland to the Australian economy. Nothing like harnessing the best natural resources the world has to offer to keep our economy chugging along nicely.’

      Only once he’d reached the kitchen and placed the groceries on the empty bench did he realise she hadn’t followed. He poked his head into the hall to find her fuming out on the grass. He threw his keys onto the bench and walked back to the doorway.

      She threw her arms out in frustration. ‘Well, so long as you can learn what you need to know from a chat with a bunch of cronies around a conference table, you’re laughing!’

      ‘I’m also about halfway through reading Running Livestock for Dummies, and I am finding the cartoons and pie charts most helpful.’