Anna was twenty-two when CJ was born. Cameron was only eighteen, but he stepped in and supported his sister. Even though she now has a partner and another child, he’s still like a father to CJ.

  This is what families look like.

  It’s too early to cry, but I sniff and blow my nose. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ I ask Keith Urban. ‘Cameron’s family is here, and he loves Summerfield as much as Summerfield loves him. He said he wants on. He also said he wants serious. But how could we have a future together?’

  On my first day in Summerfield, Anna told me that Cameron was the first port of call when dealing with the primary school’s livestock, but if there was a veterinary concern, the school would call me out. The deputy principal phoned early this morning.

  ‘Caesar is lame,’ she said. ‘I’m told he needs antibiotics.’

  The school is smaller than I remembered. Because I’m larger than I was? Because I’m not shoving glasses onto my nose or into my bag when I should be wearing them because I fear they draw even more attention to my face? As I walk along the shaded bitumen path between the school hall and a classroom block, memories filter through. A group of chattering children, ten, eleven, twelve years old, run out of the hall and onto the path. Heart rate spiking, I flatten myself against a wall. With curious looks, the children walk around me but one boy, tall and with a gap between his teeth, turns back.

  ‘Are you lost, miss?’

  ‘Can you tell me where the sheep are kept?’ My voice squeaks. ‘I’m Amelie, the vet.’

  ‘We can show you.’ Another student, a girl wearing reindeer antlers, also doubles back.

  ‘Don’t you have to go to class?’

  ‘We’re getting ready for the Christmas concert.’ She calls out to another child. ‘Dean! Tell Miss Winters me and Charlie are taking the vet to the farm.’

  Miss Winters. Surely not. ‘Has your teacher been at this school for long?’

  The girl grins. ‘She’s been here forever.’

  I thought Miss Winters had been at the school forever too. I also thought she was old, but if she’s still here now, she might only have been in her fifties. When she was my teacher in grade five, there was a delay in getting new lenses in my glasses and I had to go back to wearing an eye patch. Ahoy there, Pirate Peterson! The pharmacist gave me a patch that was black and held on with hat elastic. Even before I left the pharmacy, I’d hidden it in my school bag. Did I wear it when I rode Atticus? Possibly. I wore it in the classroom because Miss Winters insisted on it. But she must have worked out I was self-conscious because she kept me back one lunchtime and presented me with adhesive skin-coloured patches that fitted directly onto the skin. Even without trying them on, I knew they’d be impossible. I knew what they’d say. Cyclops.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Amelie …’ She spoke gently. ‘Would you like to spend lunchtime in the classroom until you have your new glasses?’

  I could have hugged her. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Will you wear the black patch or these new ones?’

  I put a hand over my eye. Then I took it away and closed my eye. ‘This works just the same.’

  Charlie and the girl, Bronte, walk either side of me as they escort me to land at the rear of the school. The paddocks are small and the fencing is varied as if it’s been cobbled together in a parent working bee. An enclosed run keeps the chickens safe.

  ‘When I went to school here, this land was used to grow sunflowers.’

  Bronte’s eyes widen. ‘I didn’t know a vet came out of this school!’

  Charlie points. ‘Caesar is in the yard with Mr McLeod.’

  I jerk to a stop and my heart thumps. Cameron, the sun on his hair lightening it to gold, is wearing the blue checked shirt he had on last time I saw him when we—

  ‘Mr McLeod!’ Bronte stands on the lower rung of the fence and waves. ‘How’s Caesar going?’

  Cameron glances at the large merino sheep standing in the middle of the yard before doubling back for his hat and walking towards us. ‘Not great.’

  ‘We found the vet for you,’ Charlie says.

  Bronte straightens her reindeer ears. ‘Her name’s Amelie and she went to this school.’

  After the children, yelling goodbyes, have raced across the grass to the bitumen, I turn to Cameron. ‘Hey.’

  I can’t see his expression because his hat is tipped low. ‘Thanks for coming.’

  ‘Did you get a call too? Why does the school need both of us?’

  ‘Because he’s a bastard to catch.’

  I’m reasonably certain Cameron could wrestle Caesar into a corner and flip him onto his back, but whether in deference to me or to a pampered sheep hobbling on three legs, he holds back until, finally, with my murmured endearments and Cameron’s cursing at the stupidity of sheep, we herd him into a makeshift pen. Sheep don’t squirt dung in the same way cattle do, but we’re both hot and dusty.

  ‘I’ll hold him down while you look at his hoof.’ Cameron wipes a hand across his face.

  ‘You don’t get paid for this, do you?’

  Another curse. ‘Christmas charity.’

  ‘Maggie Bates isn’t a fan of that expression.’

  He drops the scowl. ‘Thank you for helping her.’

  ‘Rocket’s leg is no longer painful. That’s a good sign.’

  ‘Was it hard to come back here to the school?’

  ‘Yes, but …’ I look over my shoulder to the outline of buildings. The hall and classrooms haven’t changed much in sixteen years, but there’s a covered play area now and a new block where the demountable library used to be. ‘Charlie and Bronte were helpful.’

  ‘They’re good kids.’

  I run my hand over Caesar’s soft and springy wool. ‘When the mine was in operation, a lot of itinerant workers came to Summerfield. It must have been hard for their children to move around all the time. They looked for someone even less settled, less happy, than they were.’

  ‘That never made it right.’

  ‘The school was under resourced, the mine was struggling, my parents were weird. What the kids did was wrong, but coming back to Summerfield has helped me understand why it might have happened.’

  ‘They don’t deserve forgiveness.’

  ‘Kids—ten-, eleven-, and twelve-year-olds—aren’t inherently bad. There were ringleaders. The rest were followers.’ I open my fingers, thread them through the fleece. ‘Did you know Miss Winters is still here?’

  ‘Is she a problem for you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Am I?’

  I could so easily love you. That’s how you’re a problem. ‘I’d better look at this sheep.’

  As Cameron holds Caesar down, I clamp his front hoof between my knees, cleaning and disinfecting before carefully paring with a hoof knife.

  ‘He’s got an abscess on his heel.’

  ‘Can you get at it?’ Cameron asks.

  ‘I think so.’

  We’ve been chasing a recalcitrant sheep, but when Cameron leans over to take a closer look and his shoulder presses against mine, my increased heart rate has nothing to do with heat and dust and exertion. Does he feel it too? If he does, he gives no indication.

  ‘Bingo.’ A dribble of pus slides down Caesar’s hoof and drips onto the ground.

  When Caesar throws up his head and dislodges my hat, Cameron, as if it’s something he’s done a thousand times before, pushes back my fringe and plonks the hat back on my head.

  I glance up. He searches my face.

  I tear my gaze away.

  After the abscess has drained and the pressure has been released from his foot, Caesar is barely limping. I give him antibiotics before releasing him into the paddock.

  ‘You could have done this on your own, couldn’t you?’

  Cameron slaps dust from his jeans. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Julia told me you did a year of medicine. Why did you leave?’

  He’s frowning as he picks up his bag. ‘Come to the pub tomor-row night.’

  ‘What for?’

  He huffs. ‘A country pub. Friday night. It happens.’

  ‘Who will be there?’

  ‘Me, Julia and Jimmy, maybe Anna if she can get out. You might know others.’ He takes off his hat and pushes back his hair in the same way, only thirty minutes ago, he pushed back mine. He’s experienced in relationships. He knows who and what he is, where he wants to live and what he wants to do with his life. He’s clever and popular and confident.

  ‘Thanks, but I won’t make it.’

  He walks past the toilet block and I bravely walk alongside him. Today, I remembered about the patch and the pirate jibes. I faced them and put them behind me. That’s enough for now.

  When we reach the car park, he follows me to my ute and opens the door. ‘If you change your mind about—’

  ‘I won’t.’ When I grab the door to close it, our hands touch. Technically, I’m trapping his hand because mine is on top, but he’s taller and stronger and there’s no question that if he wanted to take his hand back, he could. The school bell rings. Clang clang clang. And then he walks away.

  Chapter 14

  Since returning from the school, I’ve seen two dogs and a cranky Siamese cat called Treasure, but now, besides me and Keith Urban, the waiting room is empty. Keith, lying flat on the tiles to keep cool, lifts his head when someone raps on the door.

  ‘Come in!’

  The woman, well dressed in a smart linen dress, is well in her sixties. Intelligent. Reserved. Grey hair pulled into a bun.

  ‘Miss Winters.’ I stand back. ‘Come in.’

  ‘I thought you might not recognise me after all these years.’

  I might not have recognised her so quickly if Bronte and Charlie hadn’t mentioned her this morning, but in sixteen years, she’s changed very little.

  ‘My appearance would have altered more than yours.’

  ‘When Bronte told me she’d met a pretty vet that used to attend Summerfield Primary, I hoped it would be you.’ She sits on a chair in the waiting room and I sit too. ‘You’re taller of course and …’ She smiles uncertainly.

  ‘Things turned out okay with my eyes.’

  ‘You should never have been moved to the senior classes.’ She folds her hands. ‘That has always sat uneasily with me.’

  ‘There were a lot of factors at play. Anyway, I survived.’

  ‘You were not only clever, but resilient.’

  ‘I liked being in your class.’

  ‘I did some online research, Amelie. You have outstanding credentials.’

  ‘Working with domestic and farm animals in Summerfield is different from what I usually do, but I’ve enjoyed it.’

  A small smile. ‘Caesar is as thick as a plank and a devil to catch.’

  ‘I couldn’t have treated him without Cameron’s help.’

  ‘Now that you are adults, you can work with Cameron rather than against him. Intelligence and decency. You had far more in common than either of you recognised.’

  ‘We were in the same classes, not much else.’

  ‘I don’t believe that was Cameron’s experience.’ She sits forward in her chair. ‘He was not only older, he was mature for his age. He was concerned about you.’

  ‘People thought we competed, but I don’t know that we did.’

  ‘It’s not in your nature. Either of you.’

  ‘I must have known, deep down, that he’d been kind. It’s why I was hurt when I thought he’d let me down.’

  ‘He always wanted you to be safe.’

  In the same way I would have done in Miss Winters’ class, I link my hands in my lap. My hand isn’t tingling now, but it tingled when I touched Cameron’s hand this morning.

  ‘I misjudged him.’

  Standing stiffly, Miss Winters puts a hand on my arm. ‘Christmas is getting close. Do you have plans?’

  ‘I don’t do much at Christmas.’

  ‘I assist Audrey at the community centre on Christmas Day. Would you care to join us?’

  Does she still see me as vulnerable?

  ‘Thank you, but Keith Urban and I are planning a quiet day at home.’

  Chapter 15

  ‘G’day, Amelie!’ I’ve become accustomed to the sounds of building work at the back of the practice, and also the way that Frank, the builder, pops his head around the door to the surgery. As today is Friday and his men clock off early, Frank, who takes pride in his team’s workmanship, is on his own. ‘Do you want to have a look around?’

  ‘Sure.’

  When Jimmy told me the living area of the terrace would be gutted, he wasn’t exaggerating. But now Frank and his crew are putting things back together. Thankfully, there’s no hint of the old kitchen and dining area, which will be replaced, Frank has told me, by sleek cupboards, a pantry, space for a coffee machine, a cooktop and oven and an integrated fridge.

  ‘Nothing like the old one,’ he says with a wince.

  ‘Good to hear.’

  ‘This …’ He stands in the middle of the room and swings his arms in parallel lines like an air traffic controller, ‘is where we’ll install the island bench.’

  ‘It sounds great.’

  ‘Upstairs is coming along too. One bedroom, only small but cosy, a bathroom and a snug little study. You’ll be set.’

  ‘I’m only here for another few weeks.’

  ‘Where’s your next job?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘Look how busy you’ve gotten here.’ He smiles. ‘Why were you late in this morning?’

  ‘I was making house calls. Laura’s Pekinese, Enid and Barry’s labrador and Ruby’s chooks.’

  ‘I bet you fixed them all.’

  ‘Ruby’s prize-winning chicken died last night, so she wanted me to check her other birds.’

  ‘Summerfield needs a vet, no doubt about that.’

  ‘Julia is only supposed to work two days, but she’s working three. What Summerfield also needs is another doctor.’

  ‘It clear went out of my mind!’ Frank slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘Did the doctor find you?’

  ‘What doctor?’

  ‘Good-looking bloke.’ Frank’s brow furrows. ‘Dr Ferguson? Dr Finnigan? A medical doctor, he was a hundred percent clear about that, not a vet.’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘Amelie!’

  Technically, Dr Alex Flanagan and I were together for almost two years, but I was working on my first PhD, he was preparing to sit yet another set of surgical exams and we both worked full time. When I refused to go to a function where he’d network with senior doctors and proudly squeeze my hand whenever anyone complimented my face or dress, he claimed that, in bed and socially, I held back: ‘You’re not present.’

  As I’d been trying to behave in ways I thought a regular girlfriend would, his words hurt and we broke up. Almost immediately, he started going out with someone else. We had mutual acquaintances and I’ve seen him occasionally in the past few years. Are we friends? Only in a limited way, but he hugs me warmly and kisses both cheeks.

  ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Frank holds up a thumb and grins as he closes the door behind us.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Amelie.’ Alex is worryingly sincere.

  ‘Is this in response to my email about Julia McLeod, the GP next door?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘You’re not a GP.’

  He smiles. ‘Granted.’

  ‘So why are you here?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I’ve missed you.’ He takes my hand. ‘We can discuss how much over dinner.’

  Even though I don’t want to kiss Cameron again because kissing him and leaving him left an ache in my heart that gets worse every time his name comes up, I don’t want to kiss Alex or anybody else.

  ‘I send out invoices at night and—’

  ‘We can also talk about my thoughts regarding the GP you’re looking for. A mate from England, Jack Breckinridge, is one possibility—he’d only be short term but is keen to see something of country life. A colleague who’s decided orthopaedic surgery isn’t what she’d hoped it would be is the second option. She’s a country girl herself.’

  ‘They both sound good.’

  Alex smiles. ‘I didn’t tell Jack that the hot vet next door is only here short term.’

  How often have I said I’ll be here until the end of January? A lot of times. But now the words make me feel unhappy and lonely and—

  ‘I’m staying at the motel just out of town,’ Alex says. ‘Name your time.’

  I have no interest in having dinner with Alex. But I don’t want to let Julia down by turning away possible candidates.

  ‘Julia doesn’t work Fridays, but she’ll be at the pub tonight. I could introduce you to her.’

  ‘A restaurant might be more intimate.’

  ‘As the only doctor here for thirty years, Julia is an expert in pretty much everything and you’ll be able to hear that for yourself. She’s skilled, hardworking and respected, and there’s plenty of work in this town. Also, there’s food at the pub.’

  He laughs. ‘If meeting the GP gets me over the line with you, I’ll do it.’

  Chapter 16

  I jump when, shaking out the dress that’s been folded in my bag since I arrived, Alex sends a message: I’m here already. See you at the bar.

  After booking a table in the pub’s beer garden, I’d arranged to meet Alex on the footpath outside. We’d likely see Julia while walking through the pub to our table or in the beer garden, and they could have a chat about the GP role and what would be involved. Then we’d leave Julia and her family and friends in peace.

  Family and friends. Should I have let Cameron know I’d be at the pub after all, and why? Or would that be making too much of his invitation? He’d asked me to join Julia and the others for dinner. It’s not like he asked me out on a date.

  The foggy bathroom mirror blurs my edges as I brush my hair. I always wear sunblock and a hat, but my skin has more colour than usual. A brush of mascara to darken my eyelashes. Pale pink lip gloss. My sleeveless dress with buttons down the front is neat but not dressy.