The Road Home by Fiona Palmer

would not be chewed up and spat out by another city girl coming to the bush thinking she could cope. And Lara couldn’t run a bloody farm. All she knew was high heels and business suits. It pissed him off just thinking about it and it must have showed.
    ‘Look, I know you’re pissed,’ Noah said. ‘And I’m sorry, Jack. You know I am. I feel really bad, but she’s family. This is her home too and I have to give her this chance.’
    Jack studied Noah. He was the closest thing Jack had to a brother since the blow-up with his own family. He knew how much Noah loved Lara. He was torn and so was Noah.
    ‘I hope you’ll still be around to check up on her for me. You’re my best mate, and I really need you to be there if you can. I don’t want her getting herself hurt out here on her own. She’s my little sis. I mean, she can be a real pain in the arse sometimes and she’s stubborn —’
    ‘Oh, so you share that gene, then?’ Jack cut in. This was just getting better by the minute.
    ‘Dickhead,’ joked Noah as he put some bread in the toaster.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ said Jack with a sigh. ‘I’ll check on her for you, if you want.’ He knew he didn’t sound too enthusiastic, but right now he couldn’t give a flying toss. He was still fighting his anger and disappointment about getting passed over again. Had his last seven years in the district counted for nothing? All he’d ever wanted was his own patch of earth to call home, and he’d come so close … until Lara turned up and spoiled everything.
    ‘Thanks, Jack. It’s just that she’s been in the city longer than she’s been on Erindale and she’s not used to the dangers on a farm. I just …’
    ‘Worry, I know.’ Jack had two older sisters – Bec was here in Australia and Jude was in New Zealand with the rest of his family. Bec was the only one in the family he’d kept in contact with, and that was only after she’d promised him not to push for a familyreconciliation. But he wouldn’t hold Noah responsible for this. It was Lara’s fault Noah had let him down.
    Noah sighed. ‘You know, it was the best day when you arrived at Erindale as our new workman. It was like I knew instantly we’d be best mates.’
    Jack remembered it like yesterday. ‘Angie and David welcomed me like family. They were the most generous and kind people I’d ever met.’ In the short time he’d known Noah’s parents, they’d become like his own.
    ‘What was not to love about my mum … but she took extra special care of you, seeing as though your family was so far away.’
    ‘Yeah, well, I’m just glad I saw that job vacancy in the paper. It was coming to Erindale and you guys that saved me from myself,’ Jack said honestly. When Angie and David had both died seven months after he arrived at Erindale, it had hit him hard.
    Noah pushed the bacon around the hot pan. ‘Well, if you hadn’t kept me moving after the accident, I doubt I’d ever have begun to live again.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Jack looked at Noah carefully.
    With his head bent over the pan, Noah replied, ‘You don’t remember dragging me out of bed, telling me to shave and then carting me around the farm? Every morning I just wanted to die and every morning you were there, waiting, pulling me along and making me understand that I had to keep going.’
    Jack thought back to the funeral, to Noah’s devastation and the first time he’d seen Lara. It had been such a blur, even for Jack, who had spent most of the time running around behind the scenes dealing with stuff he knew Noah couldn’t handle.
    The whole community had attended the funeral and throughout it, Noah and Lara had never left each other’s side, propping each other up as if without the other, they’d fall.
    Noah had introduced them but there was no way she’d remember that – too much pain and sorrow. He would have just been another face in the crowd to Lara. Jack couldn’t even reconcile the Lara he’d seen then to the