‘She needs headlights,’ Max called as they pulled up beside Angus’s tractor. ‘I might know a source where I can find some.’

‘Yeah?’ Angus said.

‘Leave it to me,’ Max said, and then, offhand, ‘You want to meet your niece?’

The elderly farmer stared at both of them in apprehension but Maggie didn’t move, didn’t speak, and Max didn’t either.

Slowly Angus ventured down from the tractor. Max flicked the switch of the sunroof so it slid back, exposing Rose in her cocoon in the back seat, swathed in pink, gazing in astonishment up at the sky.

Angus edged nearer. Neither Maggie or Max said a word.

Nearer.

He put a hand on the car-and then cautiously, cautiously put a finger out to touch.

Rose’s little hand was just there. He touched her fingers and they curved and held, and Angus stared down at her in incredulity.

No one spoke but Max felt a knot of emotion in his chest that had lots to do with the expression on Maggie’s face-but also something to do with Angus himself. With this farm. With the night of Betty and the calves in the haystack.

Family.

And the ideas that had been drifting since Rose’s birth became more than ideas. An ambition?

No, a certainty. If he could pull it off.

He must.

And then there was a whoop from the house and Sophie and Paula were tearing along the driveway to meet them. Angus backed away, but only as far as his tractor.

‘You’ve met her first, Angus, not fair,’ Sophie yelled, and then Margaret and John were outside, too, and Maggie and Rose were enveloped.

Max could go now.

Only Maggie clung to him, and he had no intention of leaving until he must. In truth, all he wanted was to bundle Maggie and Rose back into his car and take them back to Sydney. To leave them here seemed wrong-but there were plans to make. If he could do it in three months… He must. He needed to get back to Sydney and get things moving right now.

But still he stayed and had dinner with them, knowing he’d been a fool for not accepting dinner the night of the funeral. One dinner missed was one too many. Then Maggie walked him out to the car and it was entirely logical that he take her into his arms and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her.

‘I love you,’ he whispered into her hair, for it seemed impossible not to say it.

‘I love you right back,’ she whispered. ‘Max, three months is crazy.’

‘It is,’ he said ruefully. ‘But I need to sort stuff out. Can you bear to be patient?’

‘What do you need to sort out?’

‘A happy ever after,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘How can you doubt it?’

‘Then be patient,’ he said, and kissed her again-but then as Rose’s indignant wail sounded from inside the house he put her away from him.

‘I need to go and so do you. Go feed your daughter.’

‘You’ll come back?’

‘Soon.’

‘That’s not soon enough,’ she said, distressed. ‘Max…’

‘Hush,’ he told her. ‘Hush, my love. Let’s take this one day at a time. Let’s figure out where we go from here.’


She went back into the house to feed her baby, feeling bleak. Empty. Lost. That he was returning to Sydney without her…

He was giving her room to make her decisions. He was being honourable.

She didn’t want honourable. She wanted Max.

And why had she made those promises to Betty?

The promises were closing in on her now. Back in Sydney she’d thought she could break them. It had seemed possible. But here, with echoes of Betty all around her, it seemed less so. For her to walk away from Angus, and the farm, and the community…

Oh, but to walk away from Max…

Inside the house Margaret met her, holding Rose out for her to take. When she saw Maggie’s face she hugged her.

‘Oh, my dear, he’ll be back.’

‘Will he?’

‘Of course he will,’ Margaret said stoutly.

But for how long? Maggie thought, but she didn’t say it.

Max seemed to have faith in their future. Maybe she should, too.


He stayed away for almost a week and that was long enough. Then he made a mercy dash back, to give Angus his headlights, and bonnet badges he’d found for his 1949 Newman WD2. That was a good moment. Angus almost smiled. Maggie did.

Then he found someone to take over part of his role in Sydney so he could work reasonable hours. His car soon seemed to know the route back to the farm all by itself, and the more he visited, the more sure he was of what he felt. His thoughts were finding a centre, a purpose, but three months might not be long enough to finalise his plan.

Would she agree? Once the emotion of the birth had faded would she still feel the same? He daren’t ask, not yet, but he rang, twice a day, sometimes more, and the pleasure in her voice said she might, she must.

‘Your grin’s getting fixed,’ Anton told him. ‘It’s stretching your face.’

‘Yeah,’ he said.

‘Don’t do it,’ Anton said morosely. ‘Three kids and it’s the end of life as you know it.’

‘Would you want your old life?’

‘Hell, I can’t remember my old life,’ Anton said. ‘It’s in the bottom of my wardrobe with my blue suede shoes. Figuratively speaking, that is. I’m not quite that old. I just feel it.’

‘But for all the whinging…’

‘Yeah, I wouldn’t give it back.’ Anton said, smiling at his friend. ‘And if you take that final step, neither will you.’


She loved him, she loved him, she loved him. She wanted him here. That he wasn’t next to her, seeing Rose’s first smile, waking in the night next to her, loving her, felt wrong.

The promise she’d made to Betty seemed more and more impossible. To stay here for ever when the man she loved was in Sydney… How could she?

But Max wasn’t asking her to go to Sydney. His phone calls and visits were all about now, all about what Rose was doing, how the farm was going, what was happening with the ancient Sift TD4 diesel Max had found and had shipped to the farm.

‘So who’s the tractor fanatic?’ Maggie teased.

‘Just taking a polite interest,’ he said innocently. And she laughed to think of him, her swish Sydney surgeon, now with a secret passion for tractors… Max. Her man.

He wouldn’t keep coming unless he wanted her. And she knew that she’d go with him. Despite her promise.

But the promise still lay heavy on her heart. The problem was that she’d become part of this community. Betty was gone but her ghost lingered through the house, a gentle, approving presence Maggie felt as a blessing all around her.

Betty had manoeuvred this into a happy ending, for the farm, for the community and for Angus, and in a sense Maggie had her happy ending as well. She had her precious daughter who was already gurgling her delight at her world. She was surrounded by people who loved her.

She and Rose had their own part of the house. The apartment Betty had built was large, sun-filled and lovely, but Sophie and Paula were constantly in and out, fascinated by Rose, bringing the house to life with their chatter and laughter. And John and Margaret were wonderful. They were looking to buy their own home but there was no rush. No rush at all.

This situation could extend indefinitely, Maggie thought. If not for Max.

Three months. He was gently patient, but she knew now that patience disguised steady purpose. He loved her, he wanted her and he was making her fall more and more deeply in love with him at every visit.

A couple of months after Rose’s birth Maggie started doing two clinics a week-morning sessions, with no house calls. It took some of the load from John, and it felt good. She was back to serving the little community of Yandilagong that had been such an important part of William’s past. The reason she was here.

The farm-the second reason she was here-was great as well. The tractors were like benign spirits, with Angus as their leader. His calves were half-grown now, and friendly. Maggie watched Angus and the calves, and Sophie and Paula with Bonnie, and she started to think maybe a pup of her own would be fun.

But if she was to move to Sydney… Max had a hospital apartment. A pup? No.

How could it matter? How could she put a pup above Max?

He loved her. There was no doubt about that, and every time she saw him she knew deeper in her heart that this was the man she wanted to share her life with.

So what was the problem?

She could sell the farm to John and Margaret. She knew that. They’d take care of Angus and she could visit constantly.

She’d done the best she could for Betty, for Angus, for the farm, for William’s beloved community. It was only…only…

No. She loved Max and every time he phoned, every time he visited, she knew that her love was returned and more.

She was his woman. His gaze lingered on her, his kisses told her he wanted her, that he was waiting only from some misguided sense of chivalry. The wait didn’t mean he didn’t want her-the warmth of his voice on the end of the phone confirmed it. He’d said three months and he was sticking to it, but after that… She belonged to him as he belonged to her.

So she knew how this must end. At the end of three months she knew he’d come to claim his own.

And she knew what her answer must be.


And three months to the day he came. He’d rung the night before. ‘Tomorrow,’ he’d said, in a tone she couldn’t mistake. He’d hardly said anything about three months for…well, for three months, but here it was and of course he’d remembered.

‘I’ll be there at lunchtime,’ he said. ‘Wear something pretty.’

So here she was, at lunchtime, wandering the house feeling like…

Like she’d made her decision and it was the right one, even if it did involve a sense of loss.

Rose was asleep in her little pink crib in her bedroom overlooking paddocks that swept down to the sea. Maybe they could find a house by the sea in Sydney. Maybe her longing to be a country girl had been irrational.