Page 8 of Best Laid Plans

But then she’d met Will along with Gina, Tom and Mattie and she’d soon been absorbed into a happy circle of friends who’d proved that life in the country could be every bit as good as life in the city.

Okay, maybe her love of Willowbank had a lot to do with her feelings for Will, but at least she’d never let on how much she adored him. Instead, she’d waited patiently for him to realise that he loved her. When he took too long, she’d taken matters into her own hands and it had all gone horribly wrong.

But it was so, so unhelpful to be thinking about that now.

Even so, Lucy was fighting tears as she reversed the ute. And as she drove out of town, she was bombarded by bittersweet, lonely memories.

CHAPTER THREE

THE IMPACT of the explosion sent Will flying, tossed him like a child’s rag toy, and dumped him hard. He woke with his heart thudding, his nerves screaming as he gripped at the bed sheets.

Bed sheets?

At first he couldn’t think how he’d arrived back in the bedroom of his schooldays, but then he slowly made sense of his surroundings.

He was no longer in Mongolia.

He was safe.

He wished it had all been a nightmare, but that explosion had actually happened. He’d been conducting a prospecting inspection of an old, abandoned mine, when it had blown without warning. By some kind of miracle, he’d escaped serious injury, but his two good friends were dead.

This was the savage reality. He’d been to the funerals of both Keith and Barney – one in Brisbane and the other in Ottawa.

He’d been to hell and back sitting in those separate chapels, listening to heartbreaking eulogies and wondering why he’d been spared when his friends had so not deserved to die.

And yet here he was, home at Tambaroora…

Where nothing had changed…

Squinting in the shuttered moonlight, Will could see the bookshelf that still held his old school text books. His swimming trophies lined the shelf above the bed, and he knew withoutlooking that the first geological specimens he’d collected were in a small glass case on the desk beneath the window.

Even the photo of him with his brother, Josh, was still there on the dresser. It showed Will squashed onto a pathetic little tricycle that he was clearly too big for, while Josh looked tall and grown up on his first two wheeler bike.

Will rolled over so he couldn’t see the image. He wasn’t proud of the reaction, but he didn’t want to be reminded that his brother had beaten him to just about everything that was important in his life. It hadn’t been enough for Josh Carruthers to monopolise their father’s affection, he’d laid first claim on Tambaroora and he’d won the heart of Will’s best friend.

That might have been okay if Josh he’d taken good care of Lucy.

An involuntary sigh whispered from Will’s lips.

Lucy.

Seeing her again tonight had had unsettled him on all kinds of levels.

When he closed his eyes he could see the silvery-white gleam of moonlight on her hair as they’d stood outside the church. He could hear the familiar soft lilt in her voice.

Damn it. He’d wanted to tell her about the accident. He needed to talk about it.

He hadn’t told his family, because he knew it would upset his mother. Jessie Carruthers had already lost one son and she didn’t need the news of her surviving son’s brush with death.

Will could have talked to Jake, of course. They’d worked together in Mongolia and Jake would have understood how upset he was, but he hadn’t wanted to throw a wet blanket on the eve of his mate’s wedding.

No. Lucy was the one person he would have liked to talk to. In the past, they’d often talked long into the night. As students they’d shared plenty of deep and meaningfuls.

Yeah. He could have told Lucy what he’d learned at those funerals.

But it was probably foolish to think he could resurrect the closeness they’d enjoyed as students.

After all this time, they’d both changed.

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