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She’d done exactly what he’d asked: left him alone.
17
GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN
DECEMEBER 18
Lena woke for the millionth time with a groan, her neck stiff and aching. She stretched and her back twinged in protest. Beside her, Copper sat up and let out a huge yawn that ended in a high whine.
“Well, last night sucked, didn’t it Coppy?” The dog just thumped his tail against the seat.
She checked her phone, some stupid hope still tugging at her.
There were no new texts.
It was one thing that Heath had turned his back on her and then completely ignored her the night before—he’d been beside himself. But he’d ignored her for—she tapped her phone to wake it back up, and found it still devoid of notifications—nearly ten hours. That hurt.
It wasn’t a betrayal in the way Zach had betrayed her, but she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t so naive as she’d been when she’d gotten on the plane bound for Australia. She knew what it meant when a man ignored her—especially if they were in the same time zone: she wasn’t important enough to bother communicating with. And yeah, she’d packed up her stuff and left, but she’d made it pretty clear in the note she’d left that she wasn’t mad at him. She hadn’t been, anyway. Not really.
She itched to text him again. Instead she send a message to Carissa. She’d already filled her bestie in, when she’d left Heath’s house.
Remind me what it means that he still hasn’t answered any of my texts.
The response was immediate.
You’re gripping too hard. The poor man’s probably asleep. He had a panic attack and maybe a flashback last night. Give the guy a minute or twenty.
Gripping too hard. That was her MO. She’d moved in with Zach on a promise that they’d stay together so long as they were having fun. She’d been the one disappointed when fun never turned into a proposal. She’d had a holiday fling with a man she barely knew and immediately started thinking she could build a life with the guy. She wanted too much, too soon. She wanted more than anyone else could ever seem to give her. She’d been too eager, her timing all wrong. She wanted the win, but in pursuing it, she ended up the loser. She kept betting on men who couldn’t put her in first place, even if it was for totally different reasons. Zach because he didn’t want to, Heath because he couldn’t get past his own demons.
She was done with that.
Done waiting on someone else instead of making plans for her life.
She’d risked everything, coming to Bindarra Creek, and if she was going to give the place a chance, it was going to be on her terms. She was making her own luck but this time she was doing it by betting on herself. She was going to put herself first—even if that meant waking to the sunrise, parked in the abandoned farm’s driveway after having slept in her car.
Truth was, the day before had been a good one, right up until the very end. She had leads for potential jobs—catch riding, galloping, exercising polo ponies—plus the caretaking offer that would give her time to get herself established. She just needed to convince Hunter Sullivan that getting someone responsible on the property was more important than it being a couple with “handyman and carpentry skills.”
With any luck, she’d have the keys to the house by the end of the weekend and could spend the night inside her own place. “Sleeping on the floor will be better than the car, huh Coppy?” Her dog’s tail thumped again.
As for Heath Fletcher, if everything went the way she hoped, he’d be her nearest neighbour. That was all she was going to hope for.
18
PEACE ON EARTH
It was supposed to be a relief, having his house back to himself and getting back to his normal life. Peace, quiet, calm, and order. Those were the qualities Heath relied on to keep his life on track. A five kilometre run each morning, the same breakfast every day, the same stretch of hours spent in his workshop. He needed routine. Craved it.
That’s what he told himself as he tied on his running shoes. He’d go for his run, it would clear the hive of buzzing tension that filled him, and then he’d focus on his work, put the finishing touches on the commissioned rocking horses so they’d be ready to deliver on Christmas Eve.
The part he could barely admit to himself was that he needed out of the house.
His cottage had gone from being a sanctuary to a trap, full of reminders. He missed Lena’s glittery star garlands and the felt advent calendar and each of her special ornaments with their memories attached to them. He missed the way she had entire conversations with Copper, and the way the dog’s tail thumped against the floor—a friendly greeting whenever Heath came into the room. He missed the scent of her shampoo wafting out of the bathroom after she’d taken a shower. Hell, he even thought of her every time he saw a spider or caught sight of the gum tree. He couldn’t help laughing at the memory of her flailing about wildly and then making him promise not to kill any of them. He’d have to move the gum tree somewhere he didn’t have to see it every time he went out to his ute.
The woman had been in his house, in his life, for all of five days and she’d managed to disrupt everything.
He put his run playlist on and slipped his phone into his pocket, forcing himself not to look at his messages. It didn’t matter though—he had Lena’s messages memorised. She’d begged him not to ignore her and she’d told him she was happy to talk any time, but what was the point? It would only prolong what needed to happen.
On auto pilot, he climbed his back fence and headed through the field, pushing himself harder than usual to keep the memory of Lena away. He was sweating, the morning already warm, when he crested the hill and slammed to a stop.
