North Star (22 page)

‘What could possibly be more interesting than John Cafferty's—'

‘Mum, can we have something to eat?' Liam's call carried through the house and Kate grinned at Jenny. Saved by the bell.

After setting the kids up with afternoon tea, she went to her bedroom and retrieved her gran's diary, handing it to Jenny on her way outside.

As Kate washed the paint from the rollers, Jenny sat on the back step, her knees propping up the diary as she read, making excited little comments and gasping now and then as things clicked into place for her too.

‘Kate, this is . . . Oh my God. Your gran was supposed to marry Harry. I had no idea she'd been through all this. What do you think she was talking about when she said Henry was a murderer?'

‘I don't know. I'm so confused right now. Seeing those pictures of Henry when he was so young, looking happy, blew my mind. It's hard to picture him as some fun-loving, good-looking catch of the district in his younger days. The Henry I knew was a bastard, but could he murder his twin brother?'

‘Maybe your gran didn't mean it literally,' Jenny suggested, frowning down at the pages.

Kate didn't comment. Sometimes people could do things no one would have believed them capable of under normal circumstances, and she knew that better than most.

Georgia was unusually quiet when Kate picked the children up from the bus on Monday afternoon—she hadn't even snapped at her brother once. She went straight to her bedroom, turning down the pancakes that Kate had ready on the table for afternoon tea.

When Liam had finished his homework and run outside to play, Kate knocked on Georgia's bedroom door. She heard a sniffle then was told to go away. Pushing open the door in concern, she found Georgia curled up on the bed with a box of tissues beside her and quite a few used ones scrunched up on the floor.

‘What's wrong?' Kate asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed. ‘It must be pretty bad to turn down pancakes,' she tried for a smile, but Georgia was blowing her nose and clearly not in the mood to be cheered up. ‘Come on, tell me what's up.'

Lifting red-rimmed eyes to her mother, Georgia gave a mournful sniff and Kate felt a stab of sympathy for whatever turmoil was going on inside her. ‘I found out today that Amie and Snake are going out.'

Even though Kate was silently giving herself a high five that the dreaded Snake was finally out of the picture, the fact that her daughter thought her heart was broken silenced her initial instinct to tell her she was better off without him. Instead, she gave a wince of sympathy and handed Georgia another tissue.

‘I thought he really loved me. He was going to come and get me as soon as he got his licence back,' she sniffed.

Kate tried not to let the shock show on her face. Snake had been planning to come out here to take her daughter?

‘You'll find the right person one day, Georgia—Snake just wasn't it,' Kate said gently.

‘Please don't say you told me so—I can't handle that right now, Mum. You were right about Snake and you were right about Mick—okay? Happy?'

Kate shook her head and sent her a sad smile. ‘I wasn't going to say that. I don't like seeing you upset, no matter what the reason. Despite what you think, Georgia, I don't sit here all day and plan ways to make your life miserable.' Kate passed over another tissue and reached out to push her daughter's hair back from her face. ‘How about I go and make you a hot chocolate and see if that makes you feel a bit better?'

‘Do you think because your mother wasn't a good mother to you that maybe you're overmothering us?' Georgia asked as Kate stood up to leave.

‘Overmothering?' Kate asked sceptically.

‘Well, Jenny doesn't stress like you do.'

‘Jenny hasn't brought her kids up in the city. It's different for country kids.'

‘But you . . . smother us,' her daughter said, pausing as she searched for the right word.

Smother them?
The accusation made her stop in her tracks. Was she overcompensating for her own mother's neglect? Well, that was probably a given, but she'd never realised her kids had been feeling
smothered
.

‘I asked Jenny what you were like when you lived here before,' Georgia said quietly.

‘Oh? And what did she say?' Kate asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

‘She said I should ask you about your childhood.'

Kate felt her heart rate increase to a frantic gallop. She didn't want to talk to her daughter about her past.

‘I want to know what your life was like, Mum. Are you going to tell me or are you just going to pretend that I'm too young to understand and push me away like you always do?'

Georgia's words made Kate catch her breath. It was true, for as long as she could remember she had been pushing people away. As a child, she'd had no control over anything, so as an adult she'd learnt to stay in control by keeping everyone at a distance.

Kate sank onto Georgia's bed. Suddenly she saw her daughter for the young woman she had become.

‘I don't talk about what it was like here because it's too hard.'

‘Will you tell me, though?' Georgia persisted.

‘I already told you that I was left here with my gran and with . . . Henry, because my mother, Eve, couldn't take care of me properly,' Kate started, stumbling over the unfamiliar words.

Georgia nodded, easing back against the pillows on her bed, watching her mother avidly.

‘Eve didn't have an easy childhood herself. Henry could be a nasty man, especially when he was drinking. Eve ran away from home when she was about fourteen, and when she came back she had a baby with her—me. Gran hoped that she'd stay and bring me up on North Star and make the house happy again, but Eve was already hooked on drugs. She snuck out one night and didn't come back again until I was about three. When she did come back for me she'd only take me for a little while, until she found another boyfriend, and then he'd usually get tired of having a kid hanging around and she'd drop me back here just to keep him.'

‘I can't imagine a mother doing that,' Georgia said.

Kate shrugged. ‘Neither can I. I was lucky I had my gran. She's the reason I always wanted children of my own. I wanted to give all that love she gave me to my own kids. I wanted to make sure I was the best mother I could be.'

‘You are a good mum,' Georgia said, looking away.

‘That's all I've ever tried to be, George. I'm sorry things didn't work out with your dad. Believe me, divorce was not in my life plan. I wanted to make a safe, reliable life for you and Liam, but I ended up making a big mess of everything.' Kate blinked hard to fight off the sting of tears.

‘I think you did your best,' said Georgia.

Kate bit the inside of her lip. ‘I really did, sweetheart. I wanted your dad to stay so badly, for you kids.'

‘Yeah, I know.'

For a moment there was a comfortable silence between them.

‘I'm sorry I didn't include you and Liam in the decision to stay here,' said Kate eventually. ‘There are some decisions I believe need to be made by an adult, but I'm sorry you feel as though I trapped you out here. I just thought this was the best solution for all of us.'

‘I guess I didn't make it very easy for you,' Georgia conceded.

‘We were all going through our own pain,' Kate said gently.

‘For what it's worth, Mum, it's not so bad out here.'

Kate could have wept with sheer relief. Unable to speak for a moment, she gave a wobbly smile and crossed the room. Blinking back the tears, she turned the door handle. ‘I'll go and make some hot chocolate. That cures just about everything.'

It wasn't until she had made it to the kitchen that she allowed herself to surrender to her happy tears. ‘Oh please, please, let this be the turning point,' she whispered to the old house, as she warmed the milk, wishing every hurt could really be cured with hot chocolate.

North Star was certainly becoming a busy place again. Nathan had been working on the stockyards, making sure they were usable in preparation for the delivery of his precious Wagyu bulls next week. Rhythmic banging and the clatter of steel sounded in the background as Jenny and Kate caught up over coffee.

‘So what's the latest with you and the sexy cop?' Jenny asked.

‘It's proving to be somewhat of a challenge trying to find time to see each other,' Kate said, sipping her coffee.

‘Is he still sneaking in and out of windows at night?' Jenny asked innocently. ‘Oh, hang on, that was
you
—my mistake.'

Kate rolled her eyes.

‘Joking aside, have you told the kids that it's serious?'

‘
I
don't even know if it's serious,' Kate said.

‘Have you talked about it with John?'

‘Not exactly. We don't get much time to . . . talk,' Kate said, blushing. ‘It's difficult enough trying to find a spare few minutes for us to be alone.'

Jenny gave a hoot of laughter. ‘You're worse than a pair of sex-starved teenagers.'

Kate couldn't hide her smile. ‘Please don't even mention sex and teenagers in the same sentence—I have enough to worry about.'

Kate changed the subject; she didn't know where this thing with John was headed and it made her nervous when she got too happy. It didn't take much to get Jenny to talk about the Wagyu venture; in fact, it didn't take much to get Kate excited about it too.

‘We've been stuck farming the old way, the way Nathan's father and my dad did it, and even though we're running Goonda now, it's hard to make any drastic changes with land that's been in the family for so long. We just haven't been able to convince Nathan's parents that there are better ways to do things.'

‘I guess it's hard to let go of something they've been in control of for so long,' Kate pointed out gently.

‘I know,' Jenny sighed. ‘And we'll probably be exactly the same when it's our turn to hand the place on to our kids. But taking a risk with something on our own like this has given us a whole new lease on life. Nathan is excited. It's like he's fallen in love with farming all over again.' She took a sip of her coffee, staring out over the paddocks as though looking straight into the future. ‘There are so many things we want to do. This organic accreditation will be such a huge step.'

‘So what does Nathan's father think about it?'

Jenny gave a small shrug. ‘He's giving Nathan hell about it—he keeps arguing that the breed is too small and that the time it's going to take to establish from scratch isn't viable. He doesn't get that this is a specialised product. In the past, the size of the animal has always been the thing that counts—the bigger the beast, the more meat you make—but these Wagyu are different, and different doesn't take too well out here sometimes.'

Kate gave a snort of agreement. ‘It sounds really exciting Jen. I'm so happy for you both.'

‘Well, here's to a bright new future for all of us,' Jenny said, holding out her mug in a toast.

Ignoring the faint whispers of caution, Kate lightly touched her own coffee mug to her friend's and forced a carefree smile.