Page 10 of Wings Above the Mallee

Amelia glanced at Sean, who was frowning, then hurried after Heath. Fortunately, where he’d needed to squeeze between the shrubs, she could pass easily. Heath was kneeling, his back to her. To his left was a dirty cream-coloured mound, clearly a dead sheep. But that’s not where his attention was focused.

He stood and turned, the tiniest lamb Amelia had ever seen easily cradled by his forearm. ‘Guess his mum didn’t forget him and go to the trough.’

Sean bent over the dead ewe, then stood, shaking his head. ‘She’s not been gone a day, so that one’s only a few hours old.’

Amelia had already stepped forward, stroking the lamb beneath its chin, hoping it would respond with an attempt to suckle on her fingers. Instead, it let out the tiniest mewling noise, as though it had used the last of its strength to call for help. ‘What will you do with him?’

Heath’s glance flickered over her and his mouth twisted bitterly. ‘Not much to be done. He’s fox food out here. Won’t last an hour now the sun’s down.’

‘So you’ll take him home?’

Heath gave the merest shake of his head. Lifted his rifle. ‘No point. They never survive.’

‘What? Wait—that’s not your call to make!’ Amelia blurted. She wasn’t an idiot, she understood farm life, but to not even give the animal a fighting chance? That was inhumane.

Heath flinched as though her words had been far stronger. ‘I don’t have a choice,’ he ground out. His jaw worked, lips curled in anger.

Amelia wanted to take a step back. But she wouldn’t. She held out her hands. ‘Give him to me.’

6

Heath

What the hell was his dad thinking, inviting strangers back to the house? Had Sean forgotten Heath had moved here to get away from small-town interest? Besides, he needed time to deal with the flashback he’d experienced in the scrub. His brain’s insistence on reliving the past in unguarded moments was exactly why he didn’t sleep during the day. Or much at night.

Instead, there was now a bloody procession of them heading across the yard: him limping along like Quasimodo; Sean blathering on like a leprechaun; and the pilot woman—magpie now perched on her shoulder, peering interestedly at the lamb she carried—while ahead of them the lights of what he assumed to be the doctor’s car illuminated the homestead. Despite his leg, anger kept Heath a couple of metres in front of Sean and Amelia, who were cooing over the lamb like it was a baby. He slowed his pace as he realised he’d have to greet the doctor before Sean got there.

‘Doc,’ his father hailed from behind him, and Heath saw his second mistake: he’d missed his chance to reach the house and slam the door, making it clear he rescinded Dad’s invitation for tea. ‘Nice timing, we’re all headed in for a cuppa.’

‘Hello, Sean,’ the woman said as she climbed from the car.

Heath hadn’t met her before. Dressed in ripped jeans and a light pullover, her dark hair in a ponytail, she didn’t look anything like a doctor. At least not those of his too-recent experience.

‘Amelia!’ she shrieked, destroying any semblance of professional bearing as she rushed toward the other woman and flung her arms around her. ‘I can’t believe you’re finally here. What on earth do you have there?’

If the doctor was surprised by the magpie or the lamb, wait until she discovered the possum Amelia had left in the plane when they rolled it into the hangar, Heath thought sourly. The woman was evidently a pied piper, hoarding animals.

Not waiting to hear more of their reunion, he snatched at the wood-framed screen door and yanked it open.

His respite was short, as Sean immediately ushered the women in after him, directing them through the closed-in back porch to the kitchen. Heath frowned as he noticed a bottle of Beam on the table, although it was tightly capped. Sean liked to test himself by keeping alcohol in the house; he maintained there was no need for the world to change to accommodate his disease. But usually the bottle stayed in a cupboard.

Sean whisked the bottle away, stashing it and busily pulling out mugs, all the while refusing to meet Heath’s gaze. Hackles of alarm lifted along Heath’s spine. Christ, like dealing with Charlee wasn’t enough, now he had to worry about Dad again.

Sean banged the cups down, keeping up a steady stream of inane, cheerful conversation as he filled the kettle under the dribbling kitchen tap.

‘We really can’t stay,’ the doc ventured in the face of his father’s suddenly consuming hospitality. ‘I’ve got to get home and rescue my husband from a fifteen-month-old who’s currently as clingy as all you-know-what.’ She rolled her eyes and a heavy breath—either parental exasperation or exhaustion, both of which Heath remembered well, even almost twenty years down the track—lifted her fringe. ‘Apparently, separation anxiety is a real thing. Who knew?’ She turned to Amelia. ‘But tell me you didn’t swoop down on someone’s paddock and steal this little critter?’

Like her friend, Taylor didn’t seem able to keep her hands off the lamb. Under the harsh glare of the kitchen light, its wrinkled pink skin shone through the sparse wool. Probably premature as well as orphaned, the poor little bugger.

Amelia looked directly at him. ‘Heath rescued him a few minutes ago.’ He wasn’t certain whether her tone was admiring, or if she was teasing him by making him out to be a hero. ‘There are foxes prowling and the mother’s dead.’

‘Ah.’ Taylor winced. ‘That explains the gun. I’d wondered whether it was some kind of less-than-neighbourly greeting.’ She sent Heath a grin, which he returned mechanically. He still remembered how to be polite, how to act normal. Most of the time he simply didn’t bother. ‘So this little one’s a newborn? Doesn’t even want to open his eyes yet.’

‘Is that normal?’

The tremor in Amelia’s voice disconcerted Heath and he looked away from her probing stare. ‘Sheep are Dad’s business, not mine.’

Sean lifted one shoulder. ‘Wouldn’t say so much of a business as a hobby. Got to exercise the old noggin. Can’t justthrow in the towel.’ Heath suspected the last part was directed at him. ‘So, truth to tell, I don’t rightly know. Last season’s lambs all had their eyes open, and that one’s the first of the autumn lambs. Little earlier than I was expecting. I’ll have to get in the share farmer to tell me what’s what.’

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