Free The Road Home by Fiona Palmer

brother?’
    ‘Come on, Mel. He’s twenty-three and believe it or not, he’ll survive without you. It’s time to cut the apron strings. Let him move out to his own place and let him deal with his own studies. He’s a big boy.’
    Mel rolled her eyes. ‘I hear you, but —’
    ‘Just not yet,’ Lara finished for her. It was always the same reply.
    ‘So, what are you going to do now?’ said Mel, steering the conversation back to Lara. ‘Wanna be my assistant?’
    ‘Ha. I don’t think Doreen would like that. No, I’ve realised I don’t want to be in the city any more. Being back on the farm made me see what I’ve been missing. I think I want to go back, and besides, I have some stuff to sort out for Noah.’
    ‘Oh, yeah?’ said Mel, taking a big breath. ‘Tell me how that all went? How’s Noah?’
    ‘Still getting married,’ Lara replied sympathetically.
    ‘Bugger.’ Mel grinned. ‘Find any other guys worthy enough for me?’
    ‘Jack.’ Lara said his name before she thought about him.
    ‘Noah’s mate?’
    ‘Yeah. How’d you know?’
    ‘Come on, Lara. You told Noah to ring me with any vet problems. Don’t you remember pimping me out after I graduated? He rang late last year, when Jack’s dog had been run over.’
    ‘Really? What happened?’ Lara sat forward, grasping her nearly empty cup.
    ‘His dog was in a bad way. Jack ended up putting him down.’
    ‘Oh, how sad.’ Lara thought of Roy and Dippa and longed to see them again.
    ‘So, is Jack as sexy as he sounds on the phone?’
    ‘Yeah, he’s all right. All dark and mysterious. Got a real badboy look about him,’ said Lara. A flush ran under her skin to her cheeks as she remembered his electric winter-green eyes.
    ‘Jeez, he’s certainly got you all flustered.’
    ‘Ha ha. The coffee’s hot, you know. Why don’t you have the aircon turned on? Its thirty-eight degrees outside.’
    Mel smiled. ‘So, what did Noah want to talk to you about? It sounded important.’
    Lara felt her body tense with a weird sense of sadness. ‘He wants to sell the farm.’
    ‘What! Oh, no. That is big news. He can’t do that! What are you going to do?’
    A bird flew past the window and Lara’s mind went back to Erindale and all the wildlife, the space. ‘I don’t know, Mel. I don’t want to lose the farm but I can’t see myself coming up with a way out of it unless I run it myself,’ she said with a snort.
    ‘Why not do that, then?’
    ‘I’d love to, but it’s ridiculous. As if I could.’
    ‘Sure you can. You grew up on that farm. God, I’d kill for an opportunity like this. If that was my farm, I’d never have left.’
    Lara tried not to let Mel’s words irk her. She knew Mel wasn’t having a go at her, just stating the truth. ‘Yeah, well, I never really had a choice. That’s just how it was. Anyway, it’s all too hard at the moment. I need to go back to my house and unwind.’ She wonderedif Noah would even let her come back and run the farm. Would he think it was a stupid idea?
    ‘What about Nic?’
    ‘Nic who?’
    ‘Poor Lara. You’ve just copped the bloody lot, haven’t you?’ Mel took their empty cups to the sink before putting her hands on Lara’s shoulders and giving them a rub. She had long, strong fingers, pale like the rest of her, with the odd freckle. But it was Mel’s round face that Lara cherished the most, with her massive smile and two little dimples.
    ‘Go home, have a long hot bath and open some wine.’
    ‘Hmm, now that sounds like a plan,’ Lara murmured, starting to relax at last.
    Nic’s Holden Statesman came into view as Lara pulled up at her house. The long hot bath was looking like a fizzer.
    She headed for the door with her key at the ready, all set to barge past him, get inside and shut the door without speaking a word. Simple as that, she told herself between deep breaths.
    She found him sitting against the cream bricks by the door, his head resting in his hands. Not looking like such a