Page 35 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
She nodded. ‘That’s exactly it. I got some help. I was suffering from depression. I switched courses to one closer to home—vet school—and opened my own practice here when I was done, and here I’ve stayed ever since. So, you know, I’ve been okay. Mostly. Other than the whole afraid-to-leave-town thing.’
‘You never leave Hanrahan?’
Hannah picked up a broken chunk of biscuit from the tin. Broken bits didn’t have calories, did they? ‘I’m working on that. Baby steps, you know?’
‘Baby steps like the Dalgety Showgrounds?’
‘Well. That was the plan.’
‘I’m sorry about all this trauma you have to live with.’
Yeah. She was, too. ‘I guess I wasn’t as ready to get back out into the big bad world as I thought I was.’
‘Hence the right hook to the camera.’
‘Yep.’
The sergeant sighed. ‘Here’s my suggestion. You apologise to Donny Hay and offer to pay for any repairs to his camera. I’ll let him know you had your reasons, which are too personal to go into, and maybe he’ll be satisfied with that.’
‘You think he will be?’
‘We won’t know until we try.’
‘Thank you, sergeant. Really.’
‘Don’t thank me until you’ve made things right with the photographer. And Hannah? You damage someone’s property again, I’ll arrest you without blinking.’
‘Yes, sir. I mean, sergeant.’
There was almost a smile on the woman’s face. ‘My name’s Meg.’ She stood to leave, picking up her biscuit and cradling it in her hands like it was precious cargo. ‘So, what changed, Hannah? What made you step out of your safe place?’
Hannah gave in to temptation and reached into the tin for another biscuit. ‘I was …’ Kissed, she realised. Kissed by Tom and somehow discovered her quiet little existence was not enough. He must have woken up her hormones, damn it; wound up the cogs and set off thetick tick tick.She just hadn’t started hearing the tick until New Year’s Eve. ‘I, er, decided I wanted more for myself.’ No need to mention the specifics.
‘And how’s that going for you?’
‘Not well.’ She sank her teeth into the golden goodness. Tom was to blame for this mess. She should have known.
‘You going to give up?’
‘Nope.’
The policewoman gave her a nod. ‘Good to hear.’
CHAPTER
13
‘You didwhat?’
For a bloke who’d shrunk into something scrawnier than a string bean and who had an oxygen canister strapped to the side of his wheelchair, Bruno could find some volume when the mood struck. Like now.
Luckily Tom had had the foresight to wait until Mrs LaBrooy was away from home before firing his first shot off the bows. She’d taken off for the giddy delights of an afternoon’s shopping in town in her little SUV, then he’d tracked his father to the ramp at the back of the house, where Bruno liked to take his coffee and sit in the sun to inspect the state of the grazing paddocks.
It actually felt good to abandon the don’t-poke-the-snake strategy he’d settled for since he came home. He’d been drifting along, letting Bruno say what he pleased without arcing up, and where had it got him?
Nowhere.
He’d let Hannah drift along ignoring him after she’d had a meltdown in the stables and where had that got him? A ringside seat to her having meltdown number two in Dalgety, that’s where.
