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Of course, Joe had followed her out to the road and ruined her grand exit. She’d wanted to run and now she was trapped and her ute—which she’d have kicked if she’d been wearing boots—had let her down and Hogey, who she’d already called to give her a tow, could’ve driven just a little frigging faster to save her from this awkward moment, couldn’t he?
If only she could see something simple and easily fixable under the hood, like a battery clamp that had worked its way loose.Something that didn’t trap her here at Bangadoon. The spotty whatsits were back in her vision and she sniffed the air, cautiously.
Fuel leak? Could her own diesel engine have been the problem all along? Diesel fume poisoning was a thing, wasn’t it?
Because if it wasn’t fumes—she looked at her hands gripping the rubber rim of her engine housing and felt the tremor in them—if it wasn’t poison, or a brain lesion, or too much caffeine or too little sugar or any of the other fifty excuses she’d made up for herself, then perhaps her ute wasn’t the only thing having a breakdown.
All her excuses had another name, a real name, and it was time she acknowledged it.
Panic.
That’s what was going on with her any time something bad (plane crash), worse (arm gripping) or even freaking trivial (family jokes about marrying farmers) happened to her. She was experiencingpanic.
‘Kirsty? Are you okay, honey?’
Joe’s voice was gentle, which was kind of pissing her off. She needed him to remind her he was unreliable. That he had screwed up his life and gotten into debt and now—because ofhisfreaking problem—Bill’s legacy, the only thing she’d ever been proud of in her whole life, could be sold out from under her.
If he reminded her how wrong he was for her, then she could say:See! He may have had his adorable moments, but underneath he was a total arse! Bullet dodged!
‘Why don’t I give you a ride to town? Or see if we can jumpstart your ute? Or maybe … do you think you might need a hug?’
She shook her head and tried to say no, but her throat had become as useless as her ute’s stupid battery.
‘I’m sorry my brothers are such idiots. They were poking fun at me, not you.’
Being the butt of a joke stung. It was awkward, and embarrassing, and it was sad, too, because for a few days there she’d been floating along in a little Joey Miles daydream of her own. Her overreaction wasn’t their fault. ‘Was this some weird joke you’ve all been sharing? Because it did not seem to come as a surprise to you.’
Joe stood beside her and fiddled with the radiator cap. ‘Look, I did know, but only because Will knew, and you can bet your life on the fact that he heard it at the pub.’
She winced. Joe had already bet his life on stuff and lost. Big time, according to his ex-girlfriend. But that was the word she’d needed to hear to make her see sense. ‘You’d bet your life,’ she muttered.
‘Um … Kirsty? Is there something going on here? Something else?’
The rumble of another vehicle sounded behind her, and there was Gavin Hogan, her hero, in a great big ute with a tow hook dangling from its tray.
‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘It’s not important. I … have to go.’
He reached out to grab her hand but she was quicker. Even in stupid moron heels, she was over the muddy ground and into Hogey’s ute like a flash.
And even though Joe hung around to help Hogey hook her ute onto his tow hook, she stayed in the cab, and she looked at her hands and she concentrated very hard on what her next step had to be. The fight-or-flight mode that had fuelled her hasty exit had calmed down now and she was able to think rationally.
The habit of a lifetime was telling her there was an easy fix to being made fun of and feeling bitter that Farmer Handsome had turned out to be a dud … Leaving.
But she had something to be proud of now—her role in rescuing Bill’s plane—and Joe and his idiot brothers and the matchmakers of bloody Clarence were not going to chase her out that easily.
