Page 8 of Where the Wattles Bloom

The homestead was a big old sprawling construction built over a hundred years ago and added onto ever since. It rested on low stumps, had a corrugated-iron roof that extended out over a huge wraparound veranda, and an old wood stove in the kitchen that was currently pumping out the smoky aroma of ironbark via the chimney.

Lachlan strode over the well-tended grass and took the four steps up to the veranda in two strides. Stopping by the front door, he kicked off his boots and hung his hat on a hook next to two others, before leaning into the old wooden playpen they were using as a corral for five one-month-old puppies.

Blue, his four-year-old female cattle dog, thumped her tail at Lachlan as she lay on her side, patiently feeding her babies. ‘You’re a good girl, Blue,’ he murmured, scratching behind her ears. ‘Such a good little mother.’

She whined in appreciation. Lachlan knew when she was done she’d jump the pen and join Red in their beds on the other side of the front door.

His grandmother was bustling about inside the warm kitchen with the energy of someone half her age as Lachlan pushed the door open. ‘And what time do you call this?’ Reggie grouched at him in her good-natured way.

His grandmother had had a hard life, raising three kids and running the property after her husband—Lachlan’s grandfather (who had not been a nice man)—had died in his late twenties.

Sturdy of stature, her hands were rough and callused and her skin was tanned from decades of sun exposure. She could ride a horse bareback, heft a sheep or a bale of hay without blinking and string kilometres of fence in a single day.

‘Sorry.’ He grinned as he kissed her cheek on his way to the sink to wash up. ‘I got … waylaid.’

Lachlan nodded at Albert, who was sitting at the table in his usual seat. Albert nodded back, his shock of white hair emphasising the dark brown of his skin. The old stockman had been on Blairgowrie and at his grandmother’s side longer than Lachlan had been alive.

A member of the stolen generation, Albert had been taken from his mother as a baby and had ended up far from home in suburban Melbourne. Despite searching for years, he’d never found his ancestral Country, but as a teenager he’d escaped the city and slowly drifted north, working on a variety of farms before finally joining a shearing crew. About six months before Lachlan’s grandfather had died, Albert’s crew arrived on Blairgowrie and, when they’d left, he’d stayed.

Several decades later, Lachlan had come to live at Blairgowrie at the age of ten, after his parents had been killed in a light plane crash. Albert had had the patience of a saint with Lachlan, teaching him how to ride a horse, shear a sheep, muster a mob, catch crawchies in the dam, run a fence and fix a variety of mechanical engines around the farm.

And even though Albert hadn’t been living in the homestead at that stage, and nothing had ever been said, Lachlan had always known Reggie and Albert were together. It was pretty much obvious to anyone who had ever witnessed their incredible synchronicity, their mutual respect, and the way they looked at each other.

Anyone with two eyes in their head, anyway.

It had apparently caused some gossip back in the day. Gossip Reggie had shrugged off. She’d always scoffed at how some people had plenty to say about her living in sin with a black man but had been deafeningly silent in the face of her husband’s obvious physical abuse.

After decades of being together, she’d finally convinced Albert to move into the homestead—the day Lachlan had left for the big smoke.

‘You were supposed to be home ages ago.’ She grabbed a pot holder and opened the oven, bending to remove his plated-up meal covered in foil.

The aroma of her famous meatloaf filled the kitchen as she removed the foil and set the plate on the table, which was covered with its usual cloth. Tablecloths, which had been out of fashion for two decades, were apparently back in again, making Reggie some kind of trendsetter. Not that she gave a single toss about trends. Tablecloths were practical as far as she was concerned, which meant when they became passé again they’d have to tear that seersucker out of Reggie’s cold dead hands.

Saliva flooded his mouth and his stomach growled as he realised he was bloody starving. Too busy thinking about the accident and, well, her on the way home to pay the gnaw of hunger any heed. But all he could think about now as he slid into the seat was filling the hole in his belly.

He hadn’t been telling Rowena tall tales. Reggie was a bloody marvel in the kitchen and excelled at baking in particular. Cooking for crews of shearers all her life had given her mad kitchen skills.

Even Silvano Morelli recognised her talent.

She was generally acknowledged as the best show cook in the district, too. Her fruitcake and scones always placed in their categories at the annual Acacia Junction show, often taking out the coveted blue ribbon. Which she planned to do again in a few weeks’ time, because Reggie liked to win.

Something Madge Smyth—two years older than Reggie—knew only too well. The women had been locked in deadly rivalry for over half a century. Who knew show cooking was such a cutthroat business?

‘So?’ Reggie asked as she opened the fridge, festooned with sheep-inspired magnets, and grabbed a beer. Passing it to Lachlan, she sat and poured herself and Albert a well-steeped cup of tea out of the ever-present teapot. Its brown spout and handle poked out of a bright, knitted cosy. Several stray leaves floated on the top of the fancy china cups as Albert splashed in generous servings of milk.

No tea bags for Reggie. One steeped tea—they did not dunk.

‘Are you going to tell me what kept you so long, or is there some secret fancy lady you’ve got stashed somewhere you don’t want your old gran to know about?’

Lachlan was surprised she didn’t already know. Word travelled fast in this neck of the woods and Reggie usually had her finger well and truly on the pulse. She must have been down the paddock or riding Ace, her faithful chestnut mare.

‘No secret fancy lady.’

‘A secret fancy man, then?’

Lachlan almost choked on his meatloaf as he stared at his grandmother. ‘I’ve been married twice. To women.’

There were some things about himself of which Lachlan wasn’t always sure but, on this subject, he was one hundred per cent certain.