He lay back down, feeling restless and staring out at the moonlight shining on the barren landscape.

Maybe a miracle would bring answers before he left.

Maybe when he saw her this morning, it would all come back in a deluge.

Maybe pigs might fly.

Chapter Forty

Hana

Hana was thinking of Jock and the loving way he’d left her this morning. She knew Zac was leaving soon and she felt for Ava’s loss. She glanced at the clock again. Jock should be back. He’d left early, said he wanted to check the cattle he’d moved closer to the east troughs, but it was after morning tea and he usually would have checked on her by now. Plus, they’d be going together to say goodbye to Zac.

The uneasy feeling she’d woken with this morning gnawed at her gut and even her baby wriggled more than usual, as if feeling her tension.

Damn this drought.

Damn this fear that was creeping over her skin, making her cold.

Damn her husband’s state of mind, which had skewed his normal rational thinking so that he’d turned all the blame on himself.

It had been financially devastating when Setabilly had lost the international beef market, like so many others, right after Jock had ordered the expensive improvements. They’d been critically overstocked at the wrong time, through no fault of Jock’s, in a glut as everyone had tried to downsize their herds in the local market. They’d seen more than one family fall straight into bankruptcy, and now the viciousness of this drought on top of a few lean years had affected them all. Nobody could have done more to care for the infrastructure, the innovation and the monitoring of the feed and water levels than Jock.

She rang the house and Mim answered. ‘No, Jock isn’t here. You coming over to see Zac off soon? Want me to ask Stella if she knows?’

Hana murmured ‘No’ quite quickly, because her mother-inlaw had been almost overwrought, something Hana hadn’t seen in the time she’d been here, when Ava had suggested Jock might be depressed. Stella would instantly worry. ‘I’ll be over soon.’

Hana took down the spare satellite phone and clipped it to her jeans as she walked to the shed. The Polaris was gone, which wasn’t surprising, but the quad bike was there. She glanced in the direction of the house and contemplated calling Ava, but then shrugged. Her sister-in-law had enough on her mind.

Hana clambered onto the tall quad bike, swinging her legs and belly awkwardly, and settled herself. She knocked it into neutral, started the engine and pushed into low gear. She’d go slowly. Poke along until she saw Jock, who would rant and rave about her riding the bike, but perhaps next time he wouldn’t leave her to worry.