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His mother. His brother. They’d left him behind and powerless.
Everyone found it easy to walk away from him. Only his grandparents had stuck with him, and it wasn’t like they had much choice. He’d walked away from them once, believing he could stay away, but Bonnie had let him know they needed him, so he’d come back and kept coming. He owed them, but he tried not to need them. Tried not to need Bonnie. No matter how his chest hurt when she’d walked away from the car when he dropped her at the inn.
He turned up the Appleton driveway and cursed at the sight of the bright yellow machinery up past the house. In his distraction, he’d forgotten about the road works. He would have thought this late they might be finished for the day, but the backhoe was working, the sound invasive in the peace of the rural setting. At least it gave him an opportunity to talk to Ewan Tolley about the driveway for his own block of land.
There was a bare patch of dirt close to the homestead and he pulled over and sat with his chin resting on his arms over the top of the steering wheel. He could turn around and leave, but he had nowhere he wanted to go. Ewan would finish before dark and then he could talk to him.
It must have been ten or fifteen minutes later the front door of the homestead opened. Briar appeared on the verandah with a brightly patterned beach towel wrapped around his waist and long enough to cover his knees. His chest and feet were bare, water droplets catching the late afternoon sun and his hair was loose around his shoulders and chest.
Xander could see why the more conservative of the townsfolk considered him unusual. The last of the despised hippies. Briar could have decided to conform after his mother’s death, but if anything he’d become more eccentric. The only conformity he’d chosen to embrace had been making the organic farm viable, and even that had his own unique touch.
Briar raised his voice over the rumble of machinery. “Are you coming in?”
Xander locked the car and followed him inside, tracking down the long hallway to the kitchen, built as a separate annex at the back of the heritage building from the days when kitchen fires were frequent.
Putting the kettle on the wood stove, Briar brushed his hair back. “I’ll get dressed and be back in five. We can have a cuppa while we talk.”
The range of herbal teas in a thoroughly modern, carefully labelled, plastic set of drawers was astonishing, but Xander didn’t know enough about them to choose. He’d leave that to Briar. Instead he went to the window on the back porch and looked out over the yard where he’d been with Bonnie only last week. Bonnie would probably know about herbal teas. He’d seen some in the kitchen at the inn and on the tea and coffee buffet in the dining room. He leaned his forehead against the glass, grateful for the cool touch on his skin. Always Bonnie. Everything always came back to Bonnie.
“Any preferences?”
Xander whirled around at the inquiry from Briar. “Whatever.” He didn’t really care but it would give him something to do with his hands and mouth. He wasn’t in the mood for chatting about generalities.
Briar’s choice of clothes were a bright yellow long-sleeved skivvy and faded purple brushed-velvet pants. He seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of the vintage clothing. Xander always assumed he got them at the op-shops, but maybe it was the genuine article left behind by his mother and grandmother and her commune cohorts. It would explain the selection of feminine jumpers and jackets he wore when going into town.
They sat across from each other at the old, scrubbed timber kitchen table, the tea in two mismatched mugs. Xander’s cup had a florally scent to it. It reminded him of the lavender fields near the car park with another undertone he couldn’t recognise. It didn’t taste awful, just different.
Briar spoke first, after a long draft of the fragrant brew. “What brought you tearing out here in a hurry?”
For a moment, Xander wondered if he’d known of his flight from the Highland Inn and all it contained. “I forgot about the track being cut off. I wanted to test the new wheels.”
“Sweet.”
The word hung in the air, tempting Xander to add more. “I needed to get away for a while. Things are awkward.”
“With Bonnie? Did you have another fight with her?”
“Not really a fight. We figured out there was no future for us.” It didn’t occur to him until he’d spoken that Briar obviously knew about his on-off relationship with Bonnie. “How did you know?”
“It’s not rocket science. You’ve been hanging around with her since you were kids. She doesn’t date, but she lights up like a Christmas tree when you’re in town. Then after her gran died she left town for Canada while you went to the US, and she didn’t come back. She wouldn’t have stayed away if she’d been hoping for more from you. I figured you must have had a fight.”
“Does everyone know?” Xander hated to think people were talking about them, maybe feeling sorry for her.
Briar shoved his mug onto the table. “I imagine her girlfriends know. Girls tend to talk amongst themselves.”
Guilt twisted his stomach about his reaction this afternoon. Maybe she was right that he wasn’t mature enough to handle the ‘worse’ part of ‘for better or worse’ in the marriage vows. Hadn’t he done the equivalent of running when faced with another potential loss in his life? No wonder she thought he lacked staying power for the tough stuff.
“She agreed it wasn’t on, anyway. It was a mutual decision.”
The look he got from his friend was sceptical, which drove him on.
“There are things she wants I can’t give her. She said she understood.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I thought you’d give up on her eventually. She deserves more than what you’re capable of. The only thing that surprised me was her coming back to the Crossing and letting things start up again. She’s not usually so daft.”
That twinge of guilt tightened his gut again. He’d been the one pushing. She’d held back until he’d pressed her on the physical side of things. Not that friends-with-benefits was wrong when both of them were consenting adults. Giving her the idea it meant something permanent was where he’d gone wrong. Though he’d meant it at the time, until she told him the risks. Whether he deserved Briar’s scorn was another thing. “You don’t have much of an opinion of me.”
“Hell, Xander, I like you. You’re a decent bloke. I wouldn’t want to rely on you long term, though. It’s not like you’re good at sticking at things.”
