Izzy knew what Hannah said was true. She had let things drift along for too long, raising everyone’s hopes and expectations in the process. Her parents were still a little touchy on the subject of her split with Richard, whom they saw as the ideal son-in-law. The stand-in son for the one they had lost after a long and agonising battle with sarcoma.
Her decision to come out to the Australian Outback on a working holiday had been part of her strategy to take more control over her life. It was a way to remind her family that she was serious about her career. They still thought she was just dabbling at medicine until it was time to settle down and have a couple of children to carry on the long line of Courtney blood now that her older brother Jamie wasn’t around to do it.
But she loved being a doctor. She loved it that she could help people in such a powerful way. Not just healing illnesses but changing lives, even saving them on occasion.
Like Jamie might have been saved if he had been diagnosed earlier...
Thinking about her brother made her heart feel like it had been stabbed. It actually seemed to jerk in her chest every time his name was mentioned, as if it were trying to escape the lunge of the sword of memory.
‘Maybe you’ll meet some rich cattleman out there and fall madly in love and never come home again, other than for visits,’ Hannah said.
‘I don’t think that’s likely.’ Izzy couldn’t imagine leaving England permanently. Her roots went down too deep. She even loved the capricious weather.
No, this trip out here was timely but not permanent.
Besides, with Jamie gone she was her parents’ only child and heir. Not going home to claim her birthright would be unthinkable. She just needed a few months to let them get used to the idea of her living her own life and following her own dreams, instead of living vicariously through theirs.
Izzy’s phone buzzed where it was plugged into the charger on the kitchen bench. ‘Got to go, Han. I think that’s a local call coming through. I’ll call you in a day or two. Bye.’ She picked up her phone. ‘Isabella Courtney.’
‘Zach Fletcher here.’ Even the way he said his name was sharp and to the point.
‘Good evening, Sergeant,’ Izzy said, just as crisply. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I just got a call about an accident out by the Honeywells’ place. It doesn’t sound serious but I thought you should come out with me to check on the driver. The volunteer ambos are on their way. I can be at your place in two minutes. It will save you having to find your way out there in the dark.’
‘Fine. I’ll wait at the front for you.’
Izzy had her doctor’s bag at the ready when Zach pulled up outside her cottage. She got into the car and clipped on her seat belt, far more conscious than she wanted to be of him sitting behind the wheel with one of those unreadable expressions on his face.
Would it hurt him to crack a smile?
Say a polite hello?
Make a comment on the weather?
‘Do you know who’s had the accident?’ she asked.
‘Damien Redbank.’ He gunned the engine once he turned onto the highway and Izzy’s spine slammed back against the seat. ‘His father Charles is a big property owner out here. Loads of money, short on common sense, if you get my drift.’
Izzy sent him a glance. ‘The son or the father?’
The top edge of his mouth curled upwards but it wasn’t anywhere near a smile. ‘The kid’s all right. Just needs to grow up.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Eighteen and a train wreck waiting to happen.’
‘What about his mother?’
‘His parents are divorced. Vanessa Redbank remarried a few years ago.’ He waited a beat before adding, ‘She has a new family now.’
Izzy glanced at him again. His mouth had tightened into its default position of grim. ‘Does Damien see his mother?’
‘Occasionally.’
Occasionally probably wasn’t good enough, Izzy thought. ‘Where does she live?’
‘Melbourne.’
‘At least it’s not the other side of the world.’ She bit her lip and wished she hadn’t spoken her thoughts out loud. ‘I’m sorry...I hope I didn’t offend you.’
He gave her a quick glance. ‘Offend me how?’
Izzy tried to read his look but the mask was firmly back in place. ‘It must have been really tough on you when your mother left. England is a long way away from here. It feels like everywhere is a long way away from here. It would’ve seemed even longer to a young child.’
‘I wasn’t a young child. I was ten.’ His voice was stripped bare of emotion; as if he was reading from a script and not speaking from personal experience. ‘Plenty old enough to take care of myself.’
Izzy could imagine him watching as his mother had driven away from the property for the last time. His face blank, his spine and shoulders stoically braced, while no doubt inside him a tsunami of emotion had been roiling. Had his father comforted him or had he been too consumed by his own devastation over the breakdown of his marriage? No wonder Zach had an aura of unreachability about him. It was a circle of deep loneliness that kept him apart from others. He didn’t want to need people so he kept well back from them.
Unlike her, who felt totally crushed if everyone didn’t take an instant shine to her. Doing and saying the right thing—people-pleasing—had been the script she had been handed from the cradle. It was only now that she had stepped off the stage, so to speak, that she could see how terribly lonely and isolated she had felt.
Still felt...
When had she not felt lonely? Being sent to boarding school hadn’t helped. She had wanted to go to a day school close to home but her protests had been ignored. All Courtneys went to boarding school. It was a tradition that went back generations. It was what the aristocracy did. But Izzy had been too bookish and too shy to be the most popular girl. Not athletic enough to be chosen first, let alone be appointed the captain of any of the sporting teams. Too keen to please her teachers, which hadn’t won her any friends. Too frightened to do the wrong thing in case she was made a spectacle of in front of the whole school. Until she’d met Hannah a couple of years later, her life had been terrifyingly, achingly lonely.
* * *
‘When I was ten I still couldn’t go to sleep unless all of my Barbie dolls were lined up in bed with me in exactly the right order.’ Why are you telling him this stuff? ‘I’ve still got them. Not with me, of course.’
Zach’s gaze touched hers briefly. It was the first time she had seen a hint of a smile dare to come anywhere near the vicinity of his mouth. But just as soon as it appeared it vanished. He turned his attention back to the grey ribbon of road in front of them where in the distance Izzy could see the shape of a car wedged at a steep angle against the bank running alongside the road. Another car had pulled up alongside, presumably the person who had called for help.
‘Damien’s father’s not going to be too happy about this,’ Zach said. ‘He’s only had that car a couple of weeks.’
‘But surely he’ll be more concerned about his son?’ Izzy said. ‘Cars can be replaced. People can’t.’
The line of his mouth tilted in a cynical manner as he killed the engine. ‘Try telling Damien’s mother that.’
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