Zoey

Five years later

Early mornings were no longer a challenge, especially now that we had the rooster. The kids had insisted on calling him “Drumstick”, which seemed like an odd choice at first, but suited him after a few days. He strutted around the henhouse, his tail feathers high, and bellowed cock-a-doodle-doo at all hours of the day and night. 

“Time to get up,” I said, as I reached across Logan to check the time on my phone. 

Now that Carter wasn’t running the dairy farm, we didn’t need to be awake quite as early — but the cows he’d kept still needed to be milked, and Dan liked to start work at the same time as the farmers, in case there were emergencies. 

As for me… I liked to be awake at the same time as the kids, and I could already hear them clanging around in the kitchen. 

I was nestled between Logan and Dan, with Carter on Dan’s other side. The easiest way out of bed was to climb over the blankets to the foot of the bed, where I turned back to see all three guys naked and loosely covered by the bedclothes, looking at me like they were the luckiest guys on earth. 

“What are you three looking at?” I asked playfully, as I pulled my robe over my shoulders, leaving the front untied for a few moments, enjoying the view I was giving them. 

“What do you think?” Logan said as the blanket over his lap shifted. 

I chuckled and tied my robe, checked it briefly in the mirror and padded down the hallway in bare feet to the kitchen. 

Amelia and Ollie were already there. Amelia had planted herself in front of the television, her legs crossed, and was flicking through the channels, looking for something to watch. 

“There’s nothing on,” she whined. 

“That’s because it’s early,” I said, as I took the remote and tucked it back in its holder. “Let’s eat breakfast now, and you can watch cartoons later.”

“Okay,” Amelia grumbled, although she forgot her annoyance when she saw Carter coming down the stairs wearing his farm uniform. “Daddy!” she squealed, and ran to him. Ollie followed, tottering on less steady legs. 

We decided when I was pregnant that the kids would call all three men “Daddy”. I didn’t know which man was the father of each child, and I didn’t want to know. 

But I had my suspicions. 

Amelia’s pale hair didn’t come from me — while I’d been dying it blonde for years, my natural hair color was brown. As Carter hugged her, their heads briefly touched and aside from a difference in texture, their hair color was almost the same. 

Everything about Ollie was dark — his hair, his eyes — and I couldn’t help wondering if perhaps he’d inherited them from Logan.

And Theo, our baby, was still in his cot and starting to fuss, so I picked him up and gave him a cuddle. He needed changing, so I did that while Logan and Dan came downstairs. The guys were helping Amelia and Ollie make French toast, judging by the smell, and I smiled as I heard Amelia squeal with delight. 

Dan was in charge of the skillet and the spatula, and he passed me a hot slice on a plate as I came into the kitchen holding Theo with one arm. 

“Who wants to help Daddy milk the cows?” Carter asked, as he collected his Akubra hat from the hook on the wall. 

“Meeee!” both kids said as they followed him.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked, and they looked at me blankly. I gestured to their clothes — they were still wearing pajamas. 

“Oh!” Amelia said and grabbed her brother’s hand to pull him back upstairs. They re-emerged more or less dressed, although I had to help her with the buttons on her cardigan and find a warmer pair of shoes than the sandals she’d picked out. Carter kissed me and they disappeared out the door. 

Dan stayed to wash up the dishes while I ate, and then it was time for us to go to work, too. 

“There’s breastmilk in the fridge,” I said to Logan as I gave him a quick kiss goodbye. Theo watched us from his bassinet with wide eyes. He was reaching the age where separation anxiety was becoming an issue, and he knew what it meant when I picked up my handbag. 

“I’ll be back,” I promised him, and gave him a quick kiss on his warm forehead. Sure enough, his cries followed me as Dan and I walked out to the van, but hushed within a few minutes. 

Logan, it turned out, had a strong, comforting presence that I’d never expected to see. He still drove his truck and did repairs, but he and Carter took turns working, so one of them was always there to watch the kids. I’d always expected Carter to be a good father, but to see Logan doting on them so lovingly had been a wonderful surprise. Any time one of the kids was upset, all it took was a few soothing words from Logan to make them settle down. 

Dan’s clinic already had a car out the front. I wasn’t disappointed — time passed quicker when we were busy. I was good at my job, and Dan and I worked together like a well-oiled machine. Half the time, I knew what he wanted me to do before he’d even asked. 

His first patient of the day was a baby goat who had injured its leg by climbing on a damaged fence. I passed Dan the iodine solution and a cotton swab and he cleaned the wound with just as much care as he had when I’d brought in the kangaroo. 

“I’ll give you some antibiotics,” he told the goat’s owner, a burly woman named Pauline, “just to make sure it doesn’t get infected.” 

Our next job was a callout to a dairy farm out past Carter’s, and I smiled when I saw the cows. They were a different breed – Carter’s were Holsteins, and these were Jersey cows — but they still had the same wonderful placid nature. 

“How are you going?” I asked one of them, as I scratched her between the ears. She mooed, and I laughed because it sounded like she’d understood my question and was trying her best to answer it. She mooed a second time as the farmer led her into the crush, and Dan began his inspection. 

“Passed with flying colors,” he said after about ten minutes, and scribbled notes on his clipboard that I’d enter into the computer when we returned to the clinic. Once all those cows had been checked, I brought up Dan’s booking system on his phone to see where our next job was. 

“Shit,” I said, and looked at him with weary anticipation. “It’s Gary’s farm.”

Dan rolled his eyes. 

“I’d be tempted to skip it, but that’s not fair on the sheep,” he said. We drove past the imposing black fence in silence and turned into the driveway. Gary’s car accident had left him with a permanent limp and a serious painkiller addiction, and while I wouldn’t wish that kind of life on anyone, it was hard to have a lot of sympathy for him. Especially when I found out that the accident had been his fault — he’d been drunk and speeding, and drove head first into a tree. 

He had fewer workers now, and he’d finally stopped trying to expand his empire. He’d become almost a total recluse, and when we saw him every now and then at trivia nights, he left us alone. 

Dan knocked on his door and I stood back, waiting for the sound of Gary’s walking stick hitting the tiles. But instead, a woman opened the door. It took me a few moments to recognize her as Gary’s housekeeper. 

“Maryam!” I exclaimed. As far as I’d known, she’d left town after Gary’s medical bills meant he could no longer afford to employ her. 

“Are you the vet?” she asked, and Dan nodded. She led us down to the part of the farm that looked so dark the last time I was here, but was now bathed in sunlight. “The cows are here.”

I’d expected them to look sad and emaciated, but to my surprise, the cows looked as healthy as Carter’s.

“What’s going on?” I asked, as Dan led the first one into the crush. “I didn’t realize you were back. And I wouldn’t expect you to return after the way Gary treated you.”

Maryam looked back at the house.

“He’s a different person now,” she said. “He’s six months sober, and a much better person. He sent me an email asking me to come back, and I said no, but then he flew out to see me.”

She cradled her stomach in her hands. There was a tiny bump there — she must have been three months pregnant. 

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “After everything he put you all through…”

“People can change,” Maryam said with a smile. “Look at you.”

I took in a deep breath, inhaling the scents of the countryside: cows, freshly cut grass, fresh air. It was a far cry from the city, where I was a completely different person. Sure, I had the family I’d always dreamed of, but with three partners instead of one, and my day-to-day life was nothing like I’d imagined. Instead of being miserable and burned out, I was happy.

It was a thousand times better. 

“That’s true,” I said. 

“I have a favor to ask,” Maryam said, as Dan moved on to the next cow. She took my hand, and I blinked, wondering what she could need from me. “Gary and I are getting married next month,” she said. “Nothing big, just a small ceremony on the farm with a few guests. And we’d love you to be our photographer.”

I squeezed her hand. My photography was selling well on the stock website, and my skills had only improved since I’d taken the picture that ended up on the billboard. Even though we didn’t need the money, I still sometimes took photographs on commission. 

“I’d love to,” I said. 

*

I felt a strange sense of peace as Dan and I drove back to the house. Somehow, knowing that Gary had changed his ways made the world feel somehow complete. 

“You’ll never guess who we saw today,” I said, as I made my way into the house. Amelia and Ollie raced over and each of them grabbed one of my legs. I smiled and bent down to kiss them, not seeing the extra people in the room. 

“I don’t know, but it can’t be as exciting as the person we saw,” Logan said, and when I looked up, it took me a few seconds to recognize Charli with Pete standing behind her. She looked exactly the same, but seeing her was such an unexpected surprise that my brain glitched for a few seconds. 

“What are you doing here?” I asked, as I eased Amelia’s hands off me so I could walk over for a hug. 

“Pete and I decided to take a holiday for a few weeks,” she said. “We thought we’d copy your idea and travel around in a motorhome. Get out of the city and see how the world works.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “I could have given you some tips.”

Charli winked. 

“Because that would have spoiled the surprise.”

“I don’t think she needs tips from you,” Logan said as he pulled me into a hug from the side and kissed my ear. “She doesn’t want to end up in a ditch.”

I slapped his ass playfully. 

“Are you still giving me shit about that? After all these years?” 

“Why not?” Carter said with a grin. “I think it all turned out well.”

Charli glanced back at Pete, then leaned close to me like she was about to tell me a secret. 

“If I give you a hundred bucks, can you leave one of your cows out on the road?” 

I shook my head.

“Why not?” she protested. “I love Pete, but I could always use two more guys.”

“No way,” I said with a laugh. “I got lucky. Very lucky.” I paused for a moment to look at each of them in turn — Carter, Dan, Logan. “If we tried to orchestrate it, you’d probably just end up meeting someone like Tim.”

“Tim?” Charli asked, looking confused. 

“Let’s just say he’s a good person to know if you like beer,” Carter said. “For breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

Charli sighed and went back to Pete, wrapping her arm around his waist. 

“Oh well, I suppose I’ll stick with the one I’ve got,” she said. 

We had dinner around the firepit, sharing food and drink and catching up on everything we’d missed. I had Theo in my arms, Amelia and Ollie were looking for sticks they could throw into the fire, and all three of my guys looked relaxed and satisfied. 

“How’s work going?” I asked Charli. 

“It’s fine,” she said. “We’ve got a steady stream of clients, even though property prices are going up. But…” she sighed and leaned back into Pete’s shoulder. “This is such a nice change of pace.” She smiled at me. “I think you’re onto something.” 

Logan was sitting next to me and squeezed my knee. Carter came around to rub my shoulders. And Dan was kneeling with the kids, making sure they didn’t burn themselves as they threw sticks into the fire. 

I smiled and squeezed Logan’s hand. 

“I really think I am.” 

 

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I hope you enjoyed this bonus chapter of Stranded in the Outback! If you would like to read more of Becca’s books, please click here.