‘What’s going on?’
He turned as Barb walked in, her knowing glance telling him she’d read the tension in the room. Good. Maybe she could help him deal with it. ‘Aaron’s a bit upset that he won’t be able to go outside and play with the kids.’
Barb sat on the couch next to Aaron and patted his knee. ‘I know it’s a bit shitty, Aaron, love, but it won’t be forever.’
‘It’s not fair.’
‘I’m sure Carter and Tilly will stay inside with you.’
‘They will.’ Flynn remembered what Prita had said. ‘Carter is going to bring his new Star Wars DVD and watch it with you. I’m sure Tilly will as well if you ask her.’
‘That will be nice.’ Barb tousled Aaron’s hair. ‘Won’t it, A-man?’
Aaron didn’t say anything, just continued to stare at the TV.
‘Aaron, don’t be rude. Answer your gran when she talks to you.’
Aaron’s lips pressed more tightly together.
‘It’s okay, love. He’s in pain and is out of sorts. I understand.’
Flynn sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He had no idea what to do with his ever increasingly sullen son. Maybe Barb was right—he should take Aaron on a holiday, and not one where he took him to visit Anna’s parents in Melbourne and left him there while he went out to conferences or horse sales or to visit other studs to chat to friends in the industry about breeding techniques and stock management. A proper holiday. Maybe to a beach somewhere.
He shuddered at that thought. Anna had always loved the beach. So probably not the beach. But somewhere other than the usual.
Before he could open his mouth to suggest it, his phone rang. Pulling it out of his pocket, he saw it was Mac. He sighed. Mac would be calling him about only one thing at this time of day. It had been a summer of stupid idiots going too fast down Old Mine Road at night, losing control on the corner and smashing through their fence, sometimes damaging the jumps course they’d set up there after Prita mentioned she’d done some gymkhana when she was younger. She didn’t often have time to go on bush rides, but she did like to come down and hop on Sherlock and put him through his paces. For all that she hadn’t done it in years, she was pretty good and hadn’t baulked at all when Reid and he had given her some tips.
‘Don’t tell me someone’s smashed through the fence line again on Old Mine Road.’ Mac was always the one to find the damage as he drove up from his property via that back road every day.
‘No. But someone’s set a camp fire out that way and left it still smouldering.’
‘What?’ His hand tightened on his phone as the word rang in the air around him. An untended camp fire was what started the big fires six years ago.
‘What is it?’ his mum asked.
‘Nothing.’ He managed to turn away and walk into the kitchen, fully aware of Barb’s scowl following him. He didn’t want to worry her or Aaron with this. When the heavy wood door swung closed behind him, heart racing in his chest, dread a thick heavy lump in his stomach, he asked, ‘Tell me?’
‘It’s okay. Ben and I saw the smoke from our window this morning and went down to check it out. Someone set up camp next to the brush jump but moved by the time we got there.’
It wasn’t the first time they’d caught campers using the jumps to tie a flat canvas to as a temporary shelter and usually he didn’t mind as long as they tidied up after themselves. But to set a camp fire in this heat and not look after it, especially with the fire danger warnings on high? ‘What’s the damage?’
‘The brush jump is gone but thankfully there was that spot of rain and no wind last night, so apart from some scorching of the grass around it, there’s no further damage. We got lucky.’
They had. So incredibly lucky. ‘We need to report it.’
‘Already done. Constable Bruce is on his way.’
‘I’ll just ask Mum to stay with Aaron and then I’ll be down too.’ He ended the call and only just managed to shove his phone back in his pocket before the avalanche hit him. ‘Shit.’ He leaned against the bench, a cold sweat prickling his neck and down his back, his fingers white where they clutched the edge while the world swung around him.
His legs disappeared from under him, but he held onto the bench, holding himself up, clenching his teeth against the panic and grief threatening to rise over him like a horrible black wave. Sweat ran down his temple, his neck, soaking his t-shirt as he tried desperately not to remember. Dragging in a breath, then another, he filled his head with hay bale count and the lists he made every day of the things he needed to do just to get through another one without Anna. ‘Stop, stop. Just stop.’ His whisper, a weak plea, made him so angry. Mercilessly, he roped in his control, eye on the door as breath shuddered in and out of his lungs. If he was gone too long, his sticky-beak of a mother would come in to see what was up. Please, don’t come in. Please. He couldn’t let Barb or Aaron see him like this. She couldn’t know that he was still affected this way. It had been six years ago, for Christ’s sake. He should be over this by now. When the fuck was he going to be over this? It was just so bloody ridiculous that the mention of a fire could drive him to memories that would make him so weak. He wanted to teach his son how to be strong, but how could he do that when this fear of bushfire turned him into a slobbering mess every single time?
Finally, the trembling and dizziness left and his breathing returned to
