There’d been a sugar plantation here once, but not now. Straggling lantana grew wild almost right to the door. There were a few cows in the paddocks around the house. As Ryan turned up the drive poultry scattered in all directions, and a red-headed toddler was pedalling a tricycle along the verandah, scattering hens and feathers in the process.
As the car drew to a halt the toddler stared openmouthed, bolted inside and reappeared, clutching the hand of someone who had to be his grandma.
The lady he’d produced was in her seventies, still with traces of the child’s red hair but bent and weathered with age and Queensland’s fierce sun. The woman came down the verandah steps slowly, hobbling with the aid of a walking stick and clutching the small boy to her side in the manner of someone expecting disaster.
This woman had seen disaster, Ryan thought fleetingly as he watched her face. The suffering he saw there was a deeper version of what he saw behind Abbey’s eyes. Who was she? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember anyone living on this place when he was young.
The expression on the woman’s face had given way now to open fear. Ryan turned off the engine, but Abbey had the door of the car open before Ryan could move.
‘It’s OK, Janet,’ she called urgently. ‘I’m OK. I dislocated my knee but it’s fine now.’
Ryan was right. The woman had been expecting trouble. The elderly woman’s face cleared, as though she’d just won a reprieve, and she limped the last few steps to the car with a tread that was as close to a bounce as someone who obviously had a damaged hip could manage.
‘You’ve what?’
‘I dislocated my knee.’ Abbey grinned up at both the woman and the little boy at her side, and only Ryan-who knew how much pain Abbey must still be in-could know what that grin was costing her. ‘Hi, Jack. Look what Mummy’s done.’ Abbey pointed to the bulky bandage which made her leg look three times its size. And then she turned back to the woman. ‘Janet, you must remember Ryan Henry. He just knocked me off my bicycle.’
‘Ryan Henry…’ Janet stared and then her elderly face creased into a smile. ‘Of course. Sam’s son, Ryan. I remember you as a youngster. You were a bit older than my John. Welcome home. Though…’ She looked doubtfully down at Abbey’s leg. ‘Did you say Ryan knocked you off your bicycle, Abbey?’
‘I did.’
Janet frowned. ‘Then I’m not sure whether we should welcome you or tar and feather you and drive you back out of town.’
‘There’ll be no driving him anywhere,’ Abbey said firmly, hauling herself backwards to the edge of the seat ‘Ryan’s offered us his honeymoon. Can you give me a hand inside?’
‘He’s what?’ Janet Wittner took a step back. Ryan promptly moved forward and lifted Abbey effortlessly out of the car.
She really was ridiculously slight.
He straightened, holding Abbey in his arms, the hot sun blazing down on them. At their feet the chooks cautiously returned, squawking and fussing in the dust.
‘I can’t work until this blasted swelling’s gone down,’ Abbey told Janet from the safety of Ryan’s arms. ‘Ryan’s offered to work for me instead of taking a honeymoon.’ She grinned up into Ryan’s face and then her smile slipped a little. It felt very strange to be carried against this man’s chest. This man whom she’d once known so well. This man whom she’d wept over for months when he’d left her.
‘Well, that’s very kind of you, Ryan,’ Janet told him. ‘But won’t your wife have something to say about that?’
‘He hasn’t got a wife yet,’ Abbey told her. ‘He’s left his bride in Hawaii. Ryan, put me down. I can hop.’
‘You can’t hop anywhere. Except over very flat ground when you can use your crutches, you’re to be carried everywhere you need to go for the next few days. Where’s your husband?’
Silence.
And Ryan knew that Abbey’s husband wasn’t in Hawaii. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
Abbey’s next words confirmed he’d just put his foot, right in it.
‘John’s dead,’ Abbey said wearily, her brave front suddenly disappearing entirely. ‘Thank you, Ryan. If you could just carry me inside then we’ll be right now. Thank you for your help.’
CHAPTER THREE
JOHN WITTNER…
Ryan carried Abbey into a house which was as shabby inside as it was out and, as he did, he forced his mind through lists of kids he remembered from his school days. There’d been a few Wittners.
In the end, it was the toddler’s red hair that helped. Ryan remembered a boy two years his junior-a big, goodnatured youth who’d been great at football and cricket. He’d had brilliant red hair. That was all he remembered of Abbey’s husband, but it was enough.
‘John Wittner?’ he said slowly, as he laid Abbey on her bed. The old lady had stopped out in the living room. Her face had shown her distress as Abbey had said the word ‘dead’ and she was clearly working at getting her composure back. The toddler, shy of Ryan, had stayed with her. ‘Big guy. Six feet three or so. Great at sport.’
‘You remember him?’ Abbey’s eyes showed pleasure as she settled down on the bedcovers. Bed felt just wonderful. And, with luck, she could stay here for half an hour before she needed to start milking.
‘Only a little,’ Ryan confessed. He sat down on the bed beside her and looked down at his friend. She was so thin! Her short, dark curls were matted with dust and her finely boned face was stretched thin with exhaustion.
But her clear blue eyes looked up at him and she was still the same Abbey.
Abbey… Seventeen years of absence and she was still his friend. It distressed him unutterably to know she’d been in trouble and he hadn’t known. Abbey lay there, dirty, bruised and way too thin, and he remembered just how he’d felt about her all those years ago.
He’d loved her.
‘Tell me about John,’ he said quietly. ‘When were you married?’
‘After I graduated.’ Abbey shrugged. ‘John… well, John had the biggest heart. After you left…’ She caught herself remembering how she’d felt when Ryan had left, and she couldn’t stop the pain washing over her face. Let Ryan think it was just her leg…
‘Well, I needed a friend,’ she managed. ‘And John… well, he sort of became it. Then my mum died…’
‘Your mother died?’
‘She died of cancer when I was twelve. And the Wittners took me in. Janet treated me like her own, and John and I… well, we just drifted from friendship into marriage. It was like it was meant. Only…’
‘Only?’
Abbey took a deep breath and closed her eyes. ‘While I was away at medical school John’s dad died. Janet didn’t cope very well. She’d depended heavily on John’s dad and she lost interest in everything. John kept on farming but suddenly every decision was his. The transition was too sudden.’
‘He got into financial trouble?’ Ryan’s voice was intent. He was watching the pain wash over Abbey’s face, and part of him didn’t want to hear the end of the story.
‘The Wittners had a lovely farm. They grew sugar cane and ran cattle,’ Abbey said bleakly, as if telling a story that still had the power to hurt. ‘The farm was prosperous, but John didn’t have much of a head for figures. He made a few investments that weren’t very wise and he gave loans to people he shouldn’t have trusted. By the time I finished medical school and came back here to marry him he was in real trouble.’
‘So you sold up and moved here.’
‘It wasn’t quite as simple as that,’ Abbey confessed. ‘John… Well, he was proud and he wouldn’t let on to either Janet or me just how much trouble he was in. I galvanised the community into building the hospital, my medical practice started paying and then I found myself pregnant. I was delighted and I thought John was, too. With the farm and my medicine, there seemed to be heaps of money. But…’ Her voice faltered and Ryan found himself covering her hand on the bedclothes.