Page 42 of Best Laid Plans

Which meant…

No.

No, no, no.

This didn’t mean she wasn’t pregnant, surely?

She’d been tense all week, alert to the tiniest signs in her body. But she hadn’t noticed any of the famous symptoms. No unusual tiredness. No breast tenderness. And now – she was having pre-menstrual cravings!!!

She couldn’t bear it if her period came. She so wanted to be pregnant.

Just this week she’d delivered five Dachshund puppies and two purebred Persian kittens and each time she’d handled a gorgeous newborn, she’d imagined her own little baby already forming inside her.

Heavens, she’d imagined her entire pregnancy in vivid detail. She’d even pictured the baby’s birth and Will’s excitement. She’d pictured bringing the little one home, watching it grow until it was old enough to play with Gina and Tom’s twins. She’d almost gone into Willowbank’s one and only baby store and bought a tiny set of clothes.

Shehadto be pregnant.

But now, on a rainy Friday night, she sat curled in a lounge chair with the bag of liquorice in her lap, aware of a telltale ache in her lower abdomen.

She was trying to stay positive. And failing miserably.

She’d had so much hope pinned on this one chance. She couldn’t risk another night in bed with Will, couldn’t go throughanother round of heartache. She really, really needed that one night to have been successful.

Time dragged for Will.

November, however, was a hectic month on a New South Wales sheep farm, so even though he couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy, he found plenty of ways to keep busy.

Now that the shearing was over, all the sheep had to be dipped and drenched, prior to the long, hot summer. It was time to wean lambs and to purchase rams for the next year’s joining. To top it off, it was also haymaking time.

Will found himself slipping back into the world of his childhood with surprising ease.

In his wide ranging travels, he’d seen breathtaking natural beauty and sights that were truly stranger than fiction, but it was only here at home that he felt a soul-deep connection to the land.

He supposed it flowed in his blood as certainly as his DNA. He’d always been secretly proud of the fact that his great, great grandfather, another William Carruthers, had bought this land in the nineteenth century.

William had camped here at first and then lived in the shearers’ quarters, before finally acquiring sufficient funds to build a substantial homestead for his bride.

Will found himself thinking more and more often about Josh, too. His brother was the family member everyone had expected to work this land as their father’s right hand man. The man who had won Lucy’s heart.

He remembered the fateful morning Josh had woken him early, proclaiming that this was the day he was going to fly the plane he’d worked on for so long.

It had been too soon. Will had known that the final checks hadn’t been made by the inspector from the aero club, but Josh had been insistent.

‘I’m not waiting around for that old codger. I’ve put in all the work on this girl. I know she’s fine. This is the day, Will. It’s a perfect morning for a first flight. I canfeelit.’

Will had gone with great reluctance, mainly to make sure Josh didn’t do anything really stupid. As they drove through the creamy dawn towards the Willowbank airfield, he’d conscientiously reread all the flying manuals, anxious to understand all the necessary safety checks.

‘I still don’t think you should be doing this,’ he’d said again when they arrived at the hangar.

‘Give it a miss, little bro,’ Josh had responded angrily. ‘Just accept that we’re different. I’m my own man. I go after what I want and I make sure that I get it.’

‘Is that how you scored Lucy McKenty?’ Will hadn’t been able to hold back the question that had plagued him ever since he’d arrived home.

Josh laughed. ‘Of course. What did you expect? In case you haven’t noticed, Lucy’s the best looking girl in the district. I wasn’t going to leave her sitting on the shelf.’

‘She’s not another of your damn trophies.’

‘For God’s sake, Will, you’re not going to be precious, are you?’

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