Page 73 of The Vet from Snowy River
Definitely not that lunatic moment up there on the mountain when she’d pressed her lips to Josh’s and felt the world shift beneath her feet. She’d been so sure of her goals when she’d moved here. How had she allowed herself to become so distracted?
She pulled her keys from her jacket pocket and tossed them in the basket on the kitchen counter. Her phone was next, but with it came a crushed and wilted sprig of lavender.
She held it to her nose for a long moment. If lavender could calm a racehorse the size of a ute, surely one average sized woman wouldn’t be a problem?
The aroma reminded her of her mother’s sweaters, folded in neat piles within the closet where Vera had hidden as a child, giggling her way through a game of hide-and-seek. And Sunday visits to her grandparents’ house, being allowed to play with the hairbrushes and trinkets on the old-fashioned dresser in the bedroom.
It had been at her grandparents’ home, on the faded velvet seat of the dresser, that Jill had found her after her mother’s funeral, so many years ago.I’m in charge of you now,her aunt had said.Now and always.
Vera took a last sniff of the bedraggled sprig in her hand. Maybe she could buy a pot. One pot of lavender to tuck into the windowsill where it would catch the northern sun.
Her phone gave a chirrup and she snatched it up, but the call coming through wasn’t from Connolly House. Crap. Of all the times for her lawyer to call, why did it have to be now?
‘Hi, Sue. You’re working late.’
‘Yeah. Busy week. Listen, Vera, the magistrate has scheduled your arraignment.’
She drew in a shallow breath then spent a long time exhaling it. Her trial was starting. Finally. Relief or dread … at the moment the two emotions were so intertwined she couldn’t tell which she felt the most.
‘Run me through that again, will you, Sue?’
‘Sure. We appear before a magistrate who reads out the charges, and you enter your plea. If you were pleading guilty, you’d be sentenced, but as it is, you’ll be committed to trial.’
‘Yay,’ she muttered.
‘Now, now, I’m pretty sure the contract you signed when you engaged my legal services gave me exclusive rights on sarcasm. Hang on, I’ll read you the relevant bit.Please be advised the arraignment for plaintiff Acacia View Aged Care versus the accused Vera De Rossi will be held at the Queanbeyan Courthouse, Thursday at ten am, presiding magistrate Carmel Grant.’
‘Thursday! Like this coming Thursday?’
‘Can you make it? I can delay if I have to, but I’d rather not. Sends the wrong message.’
‘What sort of message?’
‘Magistrates are apt to get snotty with people who waste their time. We want to be there, bright-eyed and blameless, letting her know we want this whole business behind us so we can carry on with our squeaky clean lives.’
She could make it, unless Jill’s condition worsened. She was on the late shift Wednesday, which meant the dinner-before-movie set, and the craft group in the back room, then the coffee-and-cake-after-movie set. Wednesday’s were busy, but they didn’t run late. She could be in the car by nine that night and in Queanbeyan before midnight.
‘I can make it,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’ll meet you at the court. I’ll be the one who looks like she’s had four hours’ sleep in a cheap motel.’
‘That’s my girl.’
‘Is there anything I can do to prepare?’ Not that any of it would matter a damn if Jill didn’t pull through.
‘Not unless there’s something you haven’t told me. We’re prepared. Just relax and be yourself, that’s all the magistrate needs to see. I’ll see you in a few days.’
Be herself. If only it were that easy. She’d lost her idea of who she was the day Aaron Finch rolled out of her bed and announced she was being sacked. And sued. And charged with a criminal offence.
Who was she now?
A miaow had her eyes dropping to the grey cat at her ankles. She was a tardy feeder of cats, apparently … that much was clear.
The rest was a work-in-progress.
CHAPTER
22
‘Tell me why I’m here again, Josh.’
