and they both exchanged a brief wave before they climbed into their respective vehicles.
Lucy heard the elderly truck’s motor rise in a harsh rev, then die down into a throaty lumbering growl. Will backed out of the parking spot and drove down the street and as she turned the key in her ute’s ignition, she watched the truck’s twin red tail lights growing smaller.
She remembered the times she’d driven with Will in that old truck of his father’s, bumping over paddocks or down rough country lanes. Together they’d gone fossicking for sapphires, hunting for specks of gold down in the creek. At other times she’d urged him to help her to search for a new sub-species of fish.
They’d been great mates back then, but those days when Lucy had first moved to Willowbank with her dad after her parents’ messy divorce felt like so very long ago now.
She had been sixteen and it was a horrible time, when she was angry with everyone. She’d been angry with her mother for falling in love with her boss, angry with her dad for somehow allowing it to happen, and angry with both of them for letting their marriage disintegrate in a heartbeat.
Most of all Lucy had been angry that she’d had to move away from Sydney to Willowbank. She’d hated leaving her old school and her friends to vegetate in a docile country town.
But then she’d met Will, along with Gina, Tom and Mattie and she’d soon been absorbed into a happy circle of friends who’d proved that life in the country could be every bit as good as life in the city.
OK, maybe her love of Willowbank had a lot to do with her feelings for Will, but at least she’d never let on how much she’d adored him. Instead, she’d waited patiently for him to realise that he loved her. When he took too long she’d taken matters into her own hands and it had all gone horribly wrong.
But it was so, so unhelpful to be thinking about that now.
Even so, Lucy was fighting tears as she reversed the ute. And, as she drove out of town, she was bombarded by bittersweet, lonely memories.
CHAPTER TWO
THE impact of the explosion sent Will flying, tossed him like a child’s rag toy and dumped him hard. He woke with his heart thudding, his nerves screaming as he gripped at the bed sheets.
Bed sheets?
At first he couldn’t think how he’d arrived back in the bedroom of his schooldays, but then he slowly made sense of his surroundings.
He was no longer in Mongolia.
He was safe.
He wished it had all been a nightmare, but it was unfortunately true. He’d been conducting a prospecting inspection of an old abandoned mine when it had blown without warning. By some kind of miracle he’d escaped serious injury, but his two good friends were dead.
That was the savage reality. He’d been to the funerals of both Barney and Keith—one in Brisbane and the other in Ottawa.
He’d been to hell and back sitting in those separate chapels, listening to heartbreaking eulogies and wondering why he’d been spared when his friends had so not deserved to die.
And yet here he was, home at Tambaroora…
Where nothing had changed…
Squinting in the shuttered moonlight, Will could see the bookshelf that still held his old school textbooks. His swimming trophies lined the shelf above the bed, and he knew without looking that the first geological specimens he’d collected were in a small glass case on the desk beneath the window.
Even the photo of him with his brother, Josh, was still there on the dresser. It showed Will squashed onto a pathetic little tricycle that he was clearly too big for, while Josh looked tall and grown-up on his first two-wheeler bike.
Will rolled over so he couldn’t see the image. He didn’t want to be reminded that his brother had beaten him to just about everything that was important in his life. It hadn’t been enough for Josh Carruthers to monopolise their father’s affection, he’d laid first claim on Tambaroora and he’d won the heart of Will’s best friend.
That might have been OK if Josh had taken good care of Lucy.
An involuntary sigh whispered from Will’s lips.
Lucy.
Seeing her again tonight had unsettled him on all kinds of levels.
When he closed his eyes he could see the silvery-white gleam of moonlight on her hair as they’d stood outside the church. He could hear the familiar soft lilt in her voice.
Damn it. He’d wanted to tell her about the accident. He needed to talk about it.
He hadn’t told his family because he knew it would upset his mother. Jessie Carruthers had already lost one son and she didn’t need the news of her surviving son’s brush with death.
Will could have talked to Jake, of course. They’d worked together in Mongolia and Jake would have understood how upset he was, but he hadn’t wanted to throw a wet blanket on the eve of his mate’s wedding.
No, Lucy was the one person he would have liked to talk to. In the past, they’d often talked long into the night. As students they’d loved deep and meaningful discussions.
Yes, he could have told Lucy what he’d learned at those funerals.
But it was probably foolish to think he could resurrect the closeness they’d enjoyed as students.
After all this time, they’d both changed.
Hell, was it really eight years? He could still feel the shock of that December day when he’d been skiing in Norway and he’d received the news that Lucy and his brother were engaged to be married. He’d jumped on the first plane home.
With a groan, Will flung aside the sheet and swung out of bed, desperate to throw off the memories and the sickening guilt and anger that always accompanied his thoughts of that terrible summer.
But, with the benefit of hindsight, Will knew he’d been unreasonably angry with Josh for moving in on his best friend while his back was turned. He’d had no claim on Lucy. She’d never been his girlfriend. He’d gone overseas with Cara Howard and, although their relationship hadn’t lasted, he’d allowed himself to be distracted by new sights, new people, new adventures.
He’d let life take him by the hand, happy to go with the flow, finding it easier than settling down.
The news that Josh was going to marry Lucy shouldn’t have upset him, but perhaps he might have coped more easily if Lucy had chosen to marry a stranger. As it was, he’d never been able to shake off the feeling that Josh had moved in on her just to prove to his little brother that he could have whatever he desired.
Unfortunately, Will had chosen the very worst time to have it out with Josh.
He would never, to the end of his days, forget the early morning argument at the airfield, or Josh’s stubbornness, or the sight of that tiny plane tumbling out of the sky like an autumn leaf.
If
