some time. ‘It’s only one year out of my life,’ she’d said with a shrug.
‘But you’re going to need support.’
‘The baby’s parents will come to Sydney for regular visits,’ she’d responded with jaunty confidence. ‘And my friends and family are only a phone call or an e-mail away.’
She’d wisely avoided announcing that she hadn’t asked for support, but the truth was that Matilda Carey made a habit of giving support to others, rather than receiving it. Her impulse to help and rescue had begun so far back in her past it was as vital to her nature as her heartbeat—and that wasn’t going to change in a year.
It was past midnight when Mattie heard the front door open and the sound of heavy footsteps on the terracotta tiles. She expected the murmur of voices or laughter, but all she heard was a thump and a muffled curse, as if someone had tripped, then more footsteps and, eventually, taps turning on in the bathroom.
The footsteps continued on to Jake’s bedroom and Mattie pulled a pillow over her head. If those sheets were going to be tangled again tonight, she didn’t want to listen to the sound effects.
She was washing up her breakfast things when Jake stumbled into the kitchen next morning, bleary-eyed and unshaven—like a bear with a sore head, her mother would have said.
‘Morning,’ Mattie said breezily, flashing a careful smile over her shoulder.
He replied with a grumpy monosyllable.
‘There’s tea in the pot and it’s still hot, if you’d like some.’
Jake shook his head and scowled at the sparkling clean kitchen benches. ‘What’s happened to the coffee plunger?’
‘Oh, it’s up here.’ Mattie reached into the overhead cupboard where she’d put the plunger pot after she’d washed it last night.
She handed it to him and he scowled at it as if he didn’t recognise it. ‘Did you wash this?’
‘Well…yes.’
He scowled some more. ‘And you’ve cleaned up the kitchen.’
‘I didn’t mind. It didn’t take long.’
He shook his head and winced and she wondered if he had a headache. She thought about offering to cook bacon and eggs. Most guys seemed to find a big breakfast the best cure for a hangover.
But this morning she had the distinct impression that Jake Devlin would bite her head right off if she made such an offer. And, anyway, he had Ange to fuss over him, didn’t he? She supposed his girlfriend was still in bed, sound asleep after her late night.
‘I’ll get out of your way,’ she said. ‘I’m going into town. I have an appointment this morning.’
Jake flashed a brief, keen glance in her direction. ‘So have I.’
‘Right.’ Mattie inhaled sharply, surprised that he’d shared even this much about himself. ‘I…um…hope it goes well, then.’
He looked faintly amused and, for a moment, she thought he was about to smile and say something friendly, but then he shrugged and turned his attention to the kettle.
Mattie hurried away and told herself that she didn’t care if he was unsociable. He would be gone in less than a week and it didn’t matter if he never smiled. His grumpiness was his problem, not hers.
But, as she went past the open bedroom door, she caught sight of those sheets again. She quickly averted her gaze—she didn’t want to spy on Ange. Except…
She couldn’t help taking another hasty glance and she realised then that she wasn’t mistaken. The bed was empty. Clearly, Ange had not come home with Jake, which perhaps explained his bad mood.
CHAPTER TWO
THE woman at the nursing home smiled at Jake. ‘Come this way, Mr Devlin. Roy’s up and dressed, ready and waiting for you. He’s very excited about your visit.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ Jake replied, but a small coil of dread tightened in his stomach as he followed her down a narrow hallway. This place was as bad as he remembered from his last visit. It smelled like a hospital and the walls were lined with pastel paintings of butterflies, flowers and fruit bowls. Roy wouldn’t like them. Not a horse or a gum tree in sight.
As Jake passed doors, he caught glimpses of white-haired old folk in bed asleep, or nodding in their armchairs, and his feeling of dismay settled like cold stones in the pit of his stomach. He hated the fact that a great man like Roy Owens, who’d spent his entire life on vast Outback cattle stations, had to spend his twilight years shut away in a place like this.
His throat was already tight with emotion even before he entered Roy’s room. But then he saw his old friend.
It had been six months since Jake’s last visit and the changes in Roy were more devastating than ever. The tough and wiry hero Jake had idolised throughout his boyhood had all but vanished and had been replaced by a pale and fragile gnome. Jake tried to swallow the fish bone in his throat but it wouldn’t budge.
Throughout Jake’s childhood, Roy had been the head stockman on the Devlin family’s isolated Outback cattle property in Far North Queensland. Until a few years ago, Roy had been a head taller than Jake’s father and as strong as an ox. He’d taught Jake how to ride a horse and to fish for black bream, how to leg rope a calf, to fossick for gold, and to follow native bees back to their hives.
At night, around glowing campfires, Roy had held young Jake entranced as he spun neverending stories beneath a canopy of stars. No one else knew as much about the night sky, or about bush lore, or the adventures of the early Outback pioneers. By the age of ten, Jake had been convinced that Roy Owens knew everything in this world that a man ever needed to know.
Roy could turn his hand to catching a wild scrub bull, or leading a search party for a lost tourist, or baking mouth-watering hot damper in the coals of a campfire. Most miraculous of all, Roy had endless patience. No matter how busy he’d been, or how hard he had to work, he’d always found time for a small lonely boy whose parents had been too occupied raising cattle, or training their racehorses, or pursuing their very active social lives.
When Jake had questioned his parents about Roy’s transfer to a Sydney nursing home they’d claimed that they hated that he had to go away, but they had no choice. Roy needed constant care and regular medical checks.
‘But have you visited him down there?’ Jake demanded. ‘Have you seen what it’s like?’
‘Darling, you know how terribly busy your father and I are. We will get down there, just as soon as we can spare the time.’
So far, his parents hadn’t found time.
But Jake’s affection for Roy had never wavered. It pained him that the old stockman, who’d been like a second father, was now a frail and lonely old bachelor with no family to support him. It tore at Jake’s guts to see him waiting docilely in his postage-stamp-size room. He was fighting tears as Roy’s face broke into an enormous smile.
‘Jake, how are you, lad? It’s so good to clap eyes on you.’ With a frail hand Roy patted a chair. ‘Take a seat, son. They’ll bring us morning tea in a minute. Come and tell me all about Mongolia.’
Roy’s body might have betrayed him, but his mind was still alert and, unlike most people who asked Jake about Mongolia, he was genuinely interested. He knew that horses were as important to the people there as they were in the Outback. And in the same way that many Outback kids learned to ride when they could barely walk, so did children on the steppe.
Roy was more than happy for Jake to retell the same stories he’d told last time. But, as Jake talked, he was painfully aware of the reversal of their roles. Now he was the one spinning stories and Roy was the grateful listener.
Two hours later, however, as Jake