Morgan's Law (33 page)

‘May I help you?' the woman said. ‘Do you have an appointment with someone?'

Sarah summoned a bright smile. ‘It's okay, I'm Sarah Murphy. You must have started here while I was away.'

The woman's gaze narrowed suspiciously and, without taking her eyes from Sarah, she reached down for the phone. ‘I'll just have to check with Celeste,' she said in a superior tone that instantly grated on Sarah's nerves.

‘You do that. Meanwhile, I'll be in my office,' Sarah said, ignoring the young woman's protest. Swallowing a sigh at the less than promising start to her first day back at work, she promised herself that it was bound to get better and headed up the hallway.

As she walked into her office, Tamara stood up and gave a cry of relief, throwing her arms around Sarah and almost knocking her off her feet. ‘Oh, thank God you're back! You have no idea what's been going on around here while you've been gone. Celeste has been having kittens and clients are threatening to walk left, right and centre— it's been a nightmare.'

Sarah barely had time to take off her coat when a stack of files were plonked down before her. The phone began to ring and she was back in the thick of it all, placating ruffled clients and doing her best to wade through the mountain of work on her desk, and all without her first cup of coffee for the day.

Things were winding down for the holiday season, but as usual there were the inevitable last-minute hiccups to be attended to. As she sat in the boardroom and tried desperately to focus on the meeting taking place, she found herself wondering what on earth she was doing there. The chatter and endless ringing of the phones jangled her nerves and a headache pounded behind her eyes. What was happening to her? She was supposed to be in her element here . . . If not here, then where? Certainly not Negallan—she wasn't the gumboot-wearing, horseriding, round-up-the-cattle type of girl either . . . So where did that leave her?

When Tamara stuck her head around the door of the boardroom and asked what she wanted for lunch, her first instinct was to say she wouldn't bother, but then her stomach rumbled and she realised she was, in fact, starving. ‘I'll have a hamburger, thanks, Tamara.'

Her assistant blinked in surprise. ‘A hamburger?'

A smile spread across Sarah's face as an image of Edith flashed before her eyes, giving a sniff of approval. ‘Yes please, Tamara. A hamburger—with the lot.'

‘Oh. Sure. Okay,' Tamara stammered, backing out of the office uncertainly.

Sarah didn't even bother to leave her desk when it arrived. Sinking her teeth into the large bun she gave a small contented sigh and then polished the entire thing off in record time. She was grateful her appetite had returned— she hadn't felt like eating in the week since she'd left Negallan—and with it came a sense of renewed hope that things would be okay. She looked out of the big window onto the busy streets below and watched as the snow fell from the bleak sky. It would just take a little time . . .

Three months after taking over Celeste's job officially
,
Sarah had reached the pinnacle of her career. She had the title she'd always wanted, and life should have been perfect . . . only the satisfaction she'd always imagined feeling whenever she pictured reaching her goal just wasn't there.

Arriving home late one Friday evening, Sarah put down on the sideboard the large portfolio she'd brought home to work on over the weekend, dropped her house keys in the bowl, and kicked off her shoes with a grateful sigh. It had been a particularly long day, full of meetings and phone calls and last-minute emergencies—and she should have loved every minute of it. She was back. This was her dream career. This was where Sarah Murphy was in her element—there were no frogs in the bathroom, or cattle on the road. Here, she didn't make a fool of herself at every turn. She was in control and living the life she'd always wanted. Only, as she looked around the spotless interior of her flat, that looked as though it belonged in the pages of a home beautiful magazine, all she felt was . . . lonely.

Had it always been this quiet before?

This would be the first weekend she'd spent at home in months. As part of her new promotion, Sarah had also decided it was time to turn over a new leaf. Being too focused on her career had shifted her life out of balance, and she wasn't about to make that mistake again. Calling upon a long-neglected list of old friends, Sarah slowly got her social life back into action. There were cafés with real coffee, elegant restaurants with menu prices that would have cost the average Negallan gin worker half a week's wages. Nights at the theatre and after-work drinks at authentic English pubs—hundreds of years old, steeped in history, but none of which came close to having the same atmosphere as the Royal. Somehow it all seemed just a little too hard to work up the enthusiasm she'd once had for this amazing place.

Sarah wandered over to the phone and checked the messages, but only a big fat zero stared back at her. She should have given up any hope that he'd try to call her, but a small part of her still held her breath each night when she came home, just in case. Heading down the hallway towards her bedroom, she threw off her work clothes and dug out from her wardrobe a pair of tracksuit pants and a T-shirt. As she headed into the bathroom for a long hot soak, she figured it was a good thing she'd brought home work to do this weekend . . . anything was better than listening to the tick-tock of the clock on the wall as she tried to convince herself how lucky she was to be living her dream.

The phone rang as she was climbing out of the bath and Sarah swore under her breath as she kicked her toe on the way to answer the call.

‘Hey, it's me,' Tash said.

Hearing her friend's voice on the other end of the line when she'd been feeling sorry for herself caught Sarah off guard and brought on a wave of unexpected tears.

She still phoned Tash regularly and continued her PR work with Cott & Co on the side. She often called from the office around lunchtime, catching Tash at the end of her day's work.

Hearing the sniffle in her voice, Tash diagnosed Sarah's problem quickly. ‘You're homesick.'

‘Yeah. I am.' Sarah reached across the desk to grab a tissue and blew her nose. ‘It shouldn't be this bad—it's been six months.'

‘You've been in denial since before you left, you idiot,' Tash told her bluntly.

‘Excuse me?' Sarah said, a little taken aback.

‘Blind Freddy could see you'd changed during the time you spent at Negallan. The only person who couldn't see it was you!'

‘But I had to come back—I have a life here. I couldn't just ring up and say I wasn't coming back.'

‘Why not? It's just a job.'

‘You're sounding more like Adam bloody Buchanan every day,' Sarah muttered and tossed the used tissue in the general direction of the bin.

‘Do you want to know how he is?' Tash asked slyly.

‘No.'

‘Liar,' Tash chuckled softly. ‘He's miserable. Does that make you feel any better?'

‘Why would that possibly make me feel better, Tash?' Sarah tried to ignore the small voice that said maybe this meant he still had feelings for her—even if he did, she didn't deserve them.

‘Just thought you might want to know, that's all.'

Sarah could picture Tash's smug little smile as she sat in the courtyard, unwinding after her busy evening behind the bar, and a fresh wave of longing for the place washed over her once more.

‘So tell me what's happening with Cott & Co.' Sarah hoped a change in topic would put an end to her fruitless pining. ‘Did you get the new vertical flow drier?' She was very impressed with her new-found knowledge of ginning equipment; most of it came from Tash patiently explaining it all to her so she could try to get her head around the whole process. The engineers had been waiting on the delivery of the large tower-like pipes that sucked the cotton up for the first-stage drying process where most of the moisture was removed, ready for the next stage of pre-cleaning.

‘Yep, all delivered and installed. Shouldn't be long until we're able to fire it up. We missed this season, but next March we'll be up and running.'

‘You've really outdone yourselves on this, Tash. You should be so proud of all you've achieved.'

‘You know what?' Tash said. ‘I am proud of us. The whole town has a new bounce in their step, you know? And it's got everything to do with how everyone has united to stand up and do something about our situation, instead of sitting back and whingeing about it. I've been approached by a council down in South Australia to come and talk to their progress committee about how we got Negallan on its feet.'

‘Tash, that's great!'

‘Yeah, but I told them not to get too excited yet. We need to get a few seasons under our belt before we can say that Negallan is out of trouble . . . there're a lot of things that can still go wrong for us.'

‘Yes but, like you said, you've
done
something about it.'

‘All the talking in the world isn't going to change Mother Nature's mind if she decides to send us a few seasons of drought or, worse, flood!'

‘Jeez, you sound like a farmer!' Sarah teased, trying to lighten her friend's anxiety.

‘Jeez, you sound like a city slicker! It's about time you came back here for a reality check.'

A half-chuckle, half-sob escaped from Sarah's chest at her friend's words and she had to breathe out slowly to remain in control.

‘I'm serious, Sare. You've got nothing left to prove to anyone. Come home.'

‘I can't just pack up and move.'

‘Why not?'

‘Oh, I don't know, maybe the small matter of not having a job to go to!'

‘You could always work in the pub.'

Sarah actually considered it for a moment. Why not? She'd climbed the corporate ladder and could freely admit to herself that it had lost a great deal of its shine for her. Why not make a career change?
Because you love what
you do
. Maybe not all the pressure and politics that went along with her present job title, but she'd loved working on the Cott & Co project. Maybe she could start her own PR business back in Australia. She had the experience and credentials to do it, but could she really make a leap like that?

‘Tash, this is where I should be—doing what I'm good at. I made the right decision. It's the only thing that makes sense.'

‘Seems to me, for a
right
decision, it's making you awfully bloody unhappy.'

Well, there was that, Sarah conceded, but sometimes life was like that—the right decision wasn't always the easiest one.

It was October, and definitely time to pack away the summer clothes. She couldn't believe she'd been back in London for ten months. Sarah struggled into her coat and grabbed her umbrella. A faint smile touched her lips as she recalled her gran making sure she always had one in her bag. ‘How right you were, Gran,' she murmured as she opened the umbrella and stepped out into the heavy drizzle that hadn't let up all night. Her thoughts went back to the conversation she'd had with Tash only the day before.

‘The first crops have gone in,' Tash reported with pride.

‘Seriously? Will the gin be up and running by the time you're ready to harvest?'

‘The crops should be all in the ground by the end of the month, ready for harvest around Easter.'

Sarah did a quick count in her head. ‘So it takes six months, give or take? Wow, it's gone so fast.'

‘Things have been really moving along. They're forecasting this year to be a record-breaking harvest, and everyone wants in on it.'

‘Well, that's great. I'm so glad it's all working out for you.'

It sounded like the dream was well and truly becoming a reality.

Still thinking about the cotton gin, a car horn blared as she went to step off the footpath and Sarah found herself being grabbed by the elbow and pulled back away from the road. With her heart pounding at the near miss, she turned to thank her rescuer.