Mr Right Now Read online

  ‘I hope you don’t expect me to be waiting on you hand and foot the way Mum does.’

  Ollie shrugged without lifting his gaze from the farming magazine he was reading as he ate. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

  Olivia narrowed her eyes at her brother. They both knew that their mother would be calling to make sure they were on top of everything, and seeing as her twin would plead ignorance about the workings of the washing machine or oven, she knew exactly who the majority of the housework was going to fall to.

  As a young child she’d liked nothing more than helping her dad, watching him fix a tractor or do an oil change. She’d begged him to teach her how to do stuff. Her mother had spilled her share of sweat alongside her husband, like most women who lived on the land, but her domain was the bookwork, the house and the garden. Sue took her responsibility to pass down the skills taught to her by her mother and grandmother very seriously, and looking back now, Olivia realised she probably felt cheated that her daughter had so little interest in learning to bake and sew.

  As an adolescent, Olivia’s reaction to her mother’s old-fashioned views on the roles the sexes played around the house had become part of her teenage rebellion. Why did she have to help around the house when Ollie didn’t? The fact that Ollie worked just as hard outdoors with their father hadn’t eased her outraged indignation. She was too busy being up in arms over gender inequality and forced domestic slavery. However, faced with the alternative of getting up before sunrise and working outdoors in the heat of summer, she’d grudgingly accepted her role indoors with her mum, just vowing that when she got married and had a son and daughter, they’d both do the laundry and housework.

  ‘So what’s the plan of attack for today?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m doing the last of the maintenance on the harvester, sealing up any cracks. I reckon another two days and we’ll be right to start windrowing.’

  The prelude to harvest was windrowing: cutting the crop with a swather and forming it into heaped rows across the paddock. The theory was the crop matured more evenly that way because the seeds dried faster. It also added a measure of protection against rain, hail or strong winds if the canola was laid on the ground rather than left standing in the field, but it had to be timed perfectly and when to do it was always a gamble.

  She knew this was a big year for her brother. Before their father’s accident things between father and son hadn’t been at their best. Ollie had made the decision to buy a header front and do their own windrowing. It was an added expense their father hadn’t been keen to invest in. Most farmers hired contractors to windrow the crop, but a bad experience last year had Ollie determined to make some changes.

  The window of opportunity to catch the crop for optimum yield was very narrow, about three or four days. Time it incorrectly and the losses would be substantial, both in terms of how much crop would be yielded and the oil content. Last year they’d cut that window very fine after having to wait on the contractor to get to them, and as a result a portion of their crop had been considerably poorer in quality by the time they’d finished.

  It was very much an exact science, and Ollie’s pride, as well as a great deal of money, was riding on his ability to make the right decision as to when to windrow. It was a lot of pressure. Once he started, he’d be doing round-the-clock shifts in order to get the windrowing done within the timeframe. They’d had a backpacker working for them for the last few months, Marty from the Netherlands, and he would be helping share the shift work. Olivia’s main job would be driving the chaser bin during harvest and helping out with the workload.

  When it came to harvesting, anytime from a week to a fortnight after windrowing depending on the moisture content of the crop, it would be all hands on deck. Olivia was already wondering how on earth they’d get through it all. She decided to worry about that later. One crisis at a time.

  In the meantime, she supposed she could take over some of the housework. Besides, if she were completely honest, she really didn’t mind cooking, and thanks to her mum she was good at it. There would be a lot of morning teas and lunches eaten out in the paddock soon, so having something to look forward to for dinner, prepared ahead of time, would be handy.

  After a big morning cook-up, Olivia went out to the shed to see if there was anything Ollie needed help with. The cool dampness of the machinery shed brought back a rush of childhood memories—of sitting on a tractor and watching her father fixing whatever had broken that day. There was always something that needed mending or maintenance, or a bit of both.

  With everything ready for the windrowing, Ollie had moved on to general work and it was good to be doing familiar chores with him once again.

  ‘Have you heard from Hadley lately?’ Ollie asked as they loaded hay onto the back of the ute to feed to the cattle.

  ‘Last week. She was about to head off to cover some kind of uprising or something. I don’t know. It’s hard to keep up.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about her?’

  Olivia frowned at him. ‘Sure, I worry about her, but it doesn’t do any good. She’ll never give up doing what she loves.’

  ‘You’d think after getting married she’d want to spend more time at home,’ he said, grunting as he heaved a bale onto the back of the tray for Olivia to push into position.

  ‘I swear you were born in the wrong century,’ she said, shaking her head.

  ‘I wasn’t being a chauvinist,’ he said. ‘I just don’t understand why you’d get married if you weren’t going to spend time together.’

  Olivia pushed the hay bale back against the pile. ‘They’ve always had a different kind of relationship, those two,’ she said of her best friend and new husband. ‘They’re perfect for each other—both workaholics.’ Olivia straightened and took a breather. ‘Sometimes it still feels strange to realise Hadley’s a married woman. It’s like she’s suddenly … I don’t know … a responsible adult.’ Olivia reached into her shirt and pulled out a prickly piece of hay. ‘I can’t even imagine being married. Can you?’

  ‘Hell no.’

  ‘Do you ever think about it, though? Like, wonder if maybe you should be married and having kids?’ she prodded.

  ‘I guess sometimes I think about kids. But I can’t think of anyone I’d want to wake up beside every single day for the rest of my life, so I guess that’s a sign that I’m not ready,’ he said, throwing another bale. ‘Never mind. If you end up a lonely old maid, you can come and take care of me in our old age.’

  She scoffed at that, but the image was more than a little depressing nonetheless. ‘You wanna hope you’ve learned how to cook and work the washing machine before then,’ she said.

  It was good to be spending time with her brother, Olivia thought as he drove the ute across the bumpy paddock towards the herd of black Angus cattle in the distance.

  Ollie was so much like their dad in looks. The thought sent a hollow feeling to the pit of her stomach. She’d stuck her head in her parents’ bedroom this morning to see if she needed to tidy it, but of course it was as neat as a pin. Her mother wouldn’t have got out of bed and left it unmade. The familiar smell had instantly brought tears to her eyes—a mix of perfume and Brut aftershave, of scented drawer paper and fabric softener. Olivia had sat on the edge of their high bed and sniffled as she glanced at the two pillows sitting neatly against the bedhead. She’d reached for the closest one and hugged it tightly to her chest. It had smelled like her dad. There had been no holding the flow of tears in check then; they’d run down her face and wet the pillow.

  Her dad was going to be okay. She knew that. But sitting in her parents’ bedroom, feeling them all around her, yet knowing they weren’t here, had brought home again how close they’d come to losing him. She couldn’t imagine never seeing her dad again. The thought was too painful and she pushed it away angrily. Stop it.

  ‘You okay?’ Ollie asked, glancing across at her as he pulled on the handbrake.

  ‘Just thinking about Dad.’

&nb
sp; ‘Me too. That’s where it happened.’ He nodded towards the long ditch across the paddock. ‘Scared the crap outta me,’ he said quietly.

  Olivia put her hand on his arm and squeezed. ‘You saved his life. If you hadn’t come out here, he would have died.’

  ‘That scares me even more. I almost didn’t come out here. I was on my way into town, but I just had this … feeling something wasn’t right. He hadn’t been gone long enough to miss him, it wasn’t as though we hadn’t heard him on the radio and got worried or anything … I could have gone into town and not got back till a few hours later and still not thought anything was wrong. He could have died, Liv.’

  ‘But he didn’t. He’s going to be fine and back here telling you what to do before you know it,’ she said, forcing a grin.

  Olivia was relieved to see a faint smile in return, but then they both settled into a comfortable silence as they stared out through the windscreen.

  ‘We’d had an argument that morning,’ Ollie said after a while. ‘About buyin’ the windrow front. He was deadset against it, but he told me to go ahead and waste money on it. That’s why I was coming back to see him before I went into town. He hadn’t let me get a word in edgewise earlier and I wanted to get across my side of it—make him listen. I was pissed off that he was bein’ such a stubborn old bastard about it all.’

  Olivia sent her brother a sympathetic smile. Clashing heads was like a professional sport between the two of them. Her father was old school, of the view that for men to show emotion was a sign of weakness. He was a man of few words, and Olivia felt sad that often the only communication her dad had with her brother was criticism or a terse order.

  ‘Now I wish I’d just let him win and hadn’t bought the bloody thing.’

  ‘Oliver Dawson, I know you better than anyone. You wouldn’t have gone to battle over something if you didn’t believe in it a hundred percent. Dad’s accident had nothing to do with that argument. The best thing you can do now is carry on with your plans. Everything will work out.’

  ‘I hope so, or I’m never going to live this down.’

  They drove on and were greeted by a mini stampede of cattle as they neared the herd, and the cattle caught wind of their food. For the rest of the afternoon, Ollie and Olivia were both kept busy tossing out hay and checking on water troughs.

  Six

  ‘I’m heading into the pub,’ Ollie said later as they cleaned out the back of the ute in the shed. ‘Probably be the last chance to get away before the work starts. You want to come?’

  Liv went to refuse, but then the old maid remark came to mind and she found herself agreeing. It was seriously the last thing she felt like doing right now. Her shirt was soaked with sweat, her jeans were filthy and her hair felt as though it hadn’t been washed in a week. What she really wanted to do was have a long shower and go to bed. However, nothing rallied the party-girl spirit like being called an old maid, so instead she opted for a quick shower and a change of clothes.

  ‘Took you long enough,’ Ollie grumbled as she slid into the passenger seat and closed the door.

  ‘I went as fast as I could. What? Have you got a hot date or something?’ Her brother’s scoff was apparently all the answer she was going to get. ‘You know, you really should take me up on that offer to set you up with someone. I think you need to broaden your horizons.’

  ‘And why would I want to go all the way to Sydney for a date with a woman when there’s no way she’d ever want to come out to this place?’

  ‘How do you know? Lots of women would be willing to move if they found the right man. You never know unless you put yourself out there.’ She’d been trying for ages to set her brother up; God knows there were no eligible women his age left in town.

  ‘I’ll be right, thanks. How about you just concentrate on your own love life. You’re not exactly in a position to hand out advice.’

  ‘At least I have a city of millions to pick from. I simply choose not to at the moment.’

  ‘More like even with a million men to choose from you’re still too picky.’

  ‘I am not.’ She frowned when her brother sent her a sarcastic glance. ‘It’s not fussy. It’s called making sure you find the right one.’

  ‘So they’re all wrong?’

  ‘I haven’t worked my way through all the eligible men in Sydney yet,’ she said haughtily. She leaned across and turned up the volume on the radio, putting a none-too-subtle end to the conversation and ignoring her brother’s annoying smirk.

  She was not fussy, Olivia thought indignantly. Just because she didn’t want to rush into the whole love and marriage thing didn’t make her fussy. It made her smart. She already knew two girlfriends who’d been married less than two years and were already divorced. Two years! What was the point? Why would you go to all the trouble of marrying someone if you were only going to realise two years down the track that they were the wrong person for you?

  It annoyed her, though, that she’d always harboured a secret desire to have a fairytale wedding. Ever since she was a little girl watching all those Disney classics she’d daydreamed of a white gossamer wedding dress billowing out around her as she danced with her handsome groom in a lavish ballroom … Okay, so she didn’t even like dancing, not since the year she’d been forced to do dancing for PE and had been partnered with Peter Sinclair. She gave a mental shiver of revulsion as she recalled wet hands and boy sweat as they were yelled at by a weary teacher who wanted to be there even less than the students.

  Why couldn’t love be as it was portrayed in the movies? Why did reality have to push its way in and make everything complicated? People changed. No matter how well you thought you knew someone, things just had a habit of falling apart.

  She knew when her cynicism about love had started. It had been after she’d made one of the hardest decisions of her life. Breaking up with Griffin Callahan. Her first heartbreak—and the one that still hurt the most.

  She’d had one more year of high school left when Griff went away to ag college. They’d known it was going to be tough to be separated, but it had proved worse than they’d anticipated. After practically being joined at the hip for two years, it was a huge adjustment to be apart. Griff struggled to fit in at college. He didn’t go out partying like everyone else because he had a girlfriend, so he hardly knew anyone. He was miserable and homesick and he told Ollie he was thinking of quitting and coming back.

  Olivia knew that if he quit college he’d always regret it. It was something he’d felt passionate about for a long time. And although she was ashamed to admit it, part of her desperately wanted him to experience life away from Rankins Springs. Even though he’d always said farming was going to be his life, Olivia secretly hoped he might discover there was a whole other world beyond Stringybark Creek.

  When she realised he was thinking about dropping out of college, she did something that to this day still ranked as one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. She broke up with him. Her plan, in her seventeen-year-old’s wisdom, was to break up so he’d stick out college, and then in a handful of months she’d be finished high school and able to join him. Sadly it didn’t work out like that, because he found someone else. And that truly broke her heart. In hindsight it was probably for the best. He’d kept his promise and moved back to Stringybark and she’d have never been happy back here then.

  It had hurt for a long time afterwards, but the relationship would have ended one way or another regardless. Still, a little part of her always wondered what might have happened if they’d stayed together.

  The pub was lit up like a beacon, welcoming its patrons as it had for years. Music spilled out the doorway and cars lined the street outside. It was good to see the place so busy. For a while the pub had closed down. There was truly nothing as sad as a country town without a pub. The locals hadn’t stood for it, though, and had joined together to buy the place. The pub had reopened with a massive street party complete with celebrities, putting the small town in the n
ational spotlight for the occasion.

  Olivia walked inside, following her brother as he made a beeline for a table. Her eyes widened when she saw who was sitting there. Griffin Callahan. She stopped abruptly, looking around for another familiar face, spotting one of the co-owners of the pub with a surge of relief and waving as she caught her eye.

  ‘Liv! What a surprise. I didn’t hear you were coming back,’ Terri said, before her voice softened. ‘How’s your dad?’

  ‘As good as can be expected, I guess,’ she shrugged. ‘It’s early days. It’s going to be a long road to recovery, but he’ll get there.’

  ‘If anyone can do it, it’ll be Bill Dawson,’ Terri smiled gently, and for a moment Liv felt her throat tighten as emotion threatened to overwhelm her. ‘How’s your mum? Has she come home too?’

  ‘No, she’s still in Sydney with Aunty Kay. I came home with Ollie to help out.’

  ‘It’s a busy time of the year, that’s for sure. But you both know that we’re all here to help. Anything you need, you just yell out, okay?’

  ‘Thanks, Terri,’ Olivia said, and her voice sounded a little husky. God, she loved this community. They never failed to support one another during times of need. She hoped they wouldn’t need to ask for help, though—Terri was right, this was a busy time of the year and everyone had their own place to tend to without the added workload of Moorbrook.

  Terri was called away and Olivia spoke with a few more locals, everyone keen to ask after her father. After a while it was exhausting, but it was better than the alternative, she thought, trying not to look across at the table where her brother and Griffin sat.

  She supposed it had been inevitable they’d bump into each other. She’d just been hoping to have a few more days to prepare, but that hadn’t been very likely, not in a town the size of this one anyway.