Patrick stared at her. An invitation? To a party? After what he’d said, the fool he’d made of himself?
‘I’ll be filming,’ Tash continued, her words rushing out in a breathy stream, ‘so you’ll have to sign a release form but it’s nothing to worry about. Just a legal thing to say that you’ve given permission for me to use your image. You don’t have to sign but it helps. Otherwise I’ll have to edit you out and that’s not always easy. Editing is really time consuming, even with good software …’ She trailed off, cheeks flushing rose pink, avoiding his gaze.
Maddy used to comment that Tash didn’t believe in her own prettiness. Patrick hadn’t thought much of it—by the time he was having those kinds of conversations with Maddy he was too caught up in their love, with keeping the amazing, frightening, encompassing feel of it alive forever. But Tash was pretty, even with helmet hair and dust sticking to her skin.
‘Okay.’
‘Okay?’
‘Yeah. I’ll be there. Thanks for asking me.’
‘Right. Good. That’s sorted then.’ She pointed at the flat. ‘I’d better get on. Things to organise.’
She bustled towards the sliding door. Patrick’s gaze slid over her body, lingering on its hourglass sweep and the way her breeches cupped the mounds of her bum. His fingers twitched with the urge to touch and he clenched his fists against the wrongness of it.
As if asking if he could soap her back wasn’t humiliating enough. It wasn’t the asking so much as her horror at the suggestion, which was fair enough. He was engaged to her best friend. But the thought of Tash in the shower had connected his mouth to his jocks, bypassing his brain.
His thoughts had already been drifting that way, thanks to catching her dancing and singing in the garden. She was sunshine to his darkness and the sudden need to get close, to touch some of her light, had poured out of him like sweat. He’d driven on quickly but the need had lodged. Then it had turned to sex.
Not that that was new—Patrick was a healthy man after all, plus it felt like forever since he’d last done it. What disturbed him was that he was thinking about sex specifically with Tash. A lot. Next thing he knew he was back at Wiruna, fetching the washed containers and driving back to Castlereagh. For what, he didn’t know. To touch a bit of her sunshine? Fat chance of that. Tash had regarded him like a cockroach she’d discovered in her cupboard. Which had only made him act like even more of a tool with that clumsy cover-up and stupid wave.
He waited until she slid the door closed before returning to his ute. Tash’s containers were stacked on the passenger seat. He stood with the door open, undecided. He glanced at the flat. There was a little window he assumed belonged to the bathroom, slid ajar to let out steam. He tapped his fingers, debating, and heard the unmistakable pound of a shower.
She’d be naked by now, waiting for the water to get to the right temperature, luscious and golden skinned.
Patrick looked at the containers.
The order came on a breath. ‘Don’t.’
She wasn’t interested and neither was he. It was a thing, that’s all. A weakness. He’d get over it.
With a last glance at the window, he lowered himself into the car.
‘Where have you been?’ asked his dad when Patrick wandered into the shed. They were servicing the old seed drill, ready for their autumn renovation program. Patrick wanted to replace it with a modern model, one with easy calibration and better depth control. His dad said it had done them well and was determined to make it last another year.
‘Checking on Khan.’
Derek grunted. Patrick’s ‘moment’ with Khan was now common knowledge, as was his soreness about the Handrecks passing the horse along to Tash. Castlereagh Road wasn’t a place where you could keep secrets.
‘How’s Tash going with him?’
‘House on fire.’
Derek made another tyne adjustment. ‘Best thing for everyone.’
Patrick didn’t answer. He was sick of hearing those words. ‘I’m going to check the ewes in paddock nine.’
Derek stood and wiped his hands on a rag. Patrick and his dad were alike—same athletic build, same dark hair and blue eyes. Derek had been a champion footballer in his time, winning the league’s Best and Fairest twice. Everyone claimed Patrick had been on track to win his first the year Maddy had her accident. He’d missed the rest of that season and it was only at the urging of the Handrecks and his mate Clipper that he played the next year. Whether he’d put his name down this year was still undecided. These days Patrick felt so weary in his bones it was as if his dad was the younger man.
‘Your mother and I had a chat last night.’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘We were thinking a holiday might do you good. One of those cruises everyone seems to go on. Been a while since you had a break.’ When Patrick remained silent he went on. ‘Footy training’ll be starting soon, then the break and calving. Good a time as any to get away. Your mum and I can manage.’
He knew his parents meant well, that they were worried about him and what his life had shrunk to, but this was his choice. ‘Not really my thing, cruises.’
‘Only a suggestion. Plenty of other things you could do. Bali. Everyone goes there. For fun.’ Derek’s gaze turned meaningful.
They both understood that fun wasn’t what he meant. Out of the country no one would know what Patrick got up to, no one would know if he cheated on Maddy.
‘Your passport’s still valid, isn’t it?’
‘I’d have to check.’ It would be. He’d organised one three years earlier to travel to New Zealand with Maddy, when she’d made the trans-Tasman eventing team.
‘It’d do you good, Pat.’
Maybe it would. Maybe it would get Tash out of his head. But it wouldn’t get Maddy out. He’d spend the entire trip feeling like shit and worrying about her. And Grant and Nicola.
‘I can’t.’
‘Pat …’ His dad was about to start on one of his ‘talks’.
Patrick turned on him. ‘What would you do, Dad? What would you do if this was Mum? Would you go off to Bali, get hammered and shag some girl? Would you think it was all right because no one would know?’
‘Your mother and I are married. You and Maddy never were.’
‘What difference does it make? So we didn’t have the church and the dress and all that shit. I still made the commitment. It still matters.’
‘What about us?’ Derek thumped his own chest, his blue eyes turning suspiciously rheumy and his voice hoarse. ‘What about us who have to watch you throw your life away on a vegetable.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Patrick was storming now. That’s what people called her behind his back, behind the Handrecks’ backs—a vegetable. He hated it. It was a disgusting way to describe someone, like they weren’t human but a deformed plant of no worth, good only for tossing aside to rot.
He turned away, both fists gripped in his hair, trying to stop himself from bellowing in pain and frustration and fury.
Inside, somewhere, in the undamaged parts of her brain, the Maddy of his heart still existed. She might not ever emerge again. The odds, as he’d been told so many times, were against it. But as long as she lived, his commitment remained alive and valid. Patrick might be a conflicted mess, and he sure as hell wasn’t perfect or free from shame, but he wasn’t a man who walked away from an oath.
A firm hand landed on his shoulder and shook it a little. Man comfort. Dad love. ‘No one will think badly of you if you let her go. I won’t. Your mother won’t, and neither will the Handrecks.’
‘What about me, Dad? How am I supposed to live with it?’
‘You will.’ Another little shoulder shake, this time of reassurance. ‘You’re young, resilient. You’ll find someone else.’
Derek was right. The odds were Patrick would recover, would fall in love with someone else. That didn’t make it right. His throat felt thick and infected with sorrow and want and confusion. ‘And Maddy?’
‘It’s hard to take, I know, but you need to realise she’s lost to you. To all of us.’
He shook his head, not wanting to accept what was happening to him—what had happened. The dark, hollow thing he’d been experiencing lately had a name: the death of love. Against the warmth of the day the revelation felt cold. He stared at the sky, electric blue and throbbing with vibrancy, but its radiant reflection was like ice on his skin.
Patrick had known it would happen. He was even amazed his feelings had lasted this long, stayed this intense, but the last few months they’d been fading fast and he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. His attempt to shoot Khan had been a symptom of his anger at losing his love for Maddy. He already blamed the horse for her condition. Why not blame him for that too?
Love had gone—there was no denying it—but his promise, his bond, remained.
‘I can’t do it.’
‘Pat, come on.’
He forced himself to ease from his dad’s grip rather than jerk away. ‘I can’t.’
‘What about a break then? A trip away somewhere? You don’t have to,’ Derek’s face reddened a little, ‘you know.’
‘I know.’ Patrick forced a weak smile for his dad’s benefit, anything to prove he was okay. That his failure wasn’t breaking him into a million fragments. That he hadn’t worked out what it meant for the future, that he might never work it out. ‘I can’t go anywhere anyway.’
‘Why not?’
‘Tash is throwing a party. I’m invited.’