Outback Dreams by Rachael Johns Page B

everything for you, but I’m fed up. You need to learn how to look after yourselves.’
    Tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, Faith gathered up her piece of paper and her pens and stormed to her bedroom.
    She let the things in her arms fall to the floor then collapsed onto the bed as the tears spilled freely. How unfair that she should be made to feel guilty for doing something for herself. She rolled over and stared at the photo of her gorgeous mum on her bedside table. In many ways, Faith looked like Cassie, although her mum had always managed to seem more glamorous—one of those farmers’ wives who could make checked shirts, Levis and cowboy boots look feminine. Cassie rarely wore Blundies, preferring to order her boots from a catalogue, where she could ‘get a bit of style’ as she put it.
    Faith sighed. ‘Did you ever feel like this, Mum?’
    Maybe she had. Maybe that’s why she’d been so gung-ho about Faith studying something other than agricultural sciences. Maybe she’d wanted more for her than to end up a farmer’s wife. Damnit, why hadn’t she listened?
    â€˜And damnit, why did you have to go and get sick?’
    Of course there was no answer to this question, and before Faith could remember this, a knock sounded on her bedroom door. Ryan didn’t wait for her to reply, but the look of concern she saw on his face surprised her.
    â€˜You okay, sis?’ He hung back awkwardly in the doorway. ‘Dad’s gone back out to work, but I wanted to check on you first. I’m sorry if we’ve been jerks. We didn’t think.’
    She didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or throw something at him. Maybe the trifecta. ‘How many times have I asked if I could help with seeding or harvest, help muster sheep, fill water tanks? How many times?’
    Ryan looked confused. ‘Dad pays you well enough, doesn’t he?’
    Faith felt a quick stab of guilt because yes, he did pay her reasonably well, but… ‘It’s not about the money. I want to do more with my life than house duties, milking and collecting eggs.’
    â€˜Right.’ Ryan scratched his head like a confused puppy and then came to sit down beside her. ‘So what do you want to do?’
    That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it ? .
    For as long as Faith could remember, she’d assumed she’d work the land. It was why she’d ignored Cassie’s plea that she do something like teaching or nursing or even PR at uni and gone to ag school instead. She’d loved being at Muresk—being one of the blokes, working hard, getting dirty, drinking hard too. She loved being outdoors, could even remember a time when her father used to let her ride in the tractor with him during harvest or seeding. She couldn’t imagine any other life. Faith sat up slightly and hugged a pillow to her chest.
    When Cassie was diagnosed with cancer the world had shifted. She’d been summoned home with only six months of her degree to go—not that she’d wanted to be anywhere else, but she’d had to grow up fast. By that time her mother was already a tiny shell of the woman she’d been. It was heartbreaking. She’d fought the cancer courageously at first, going through chemotherapy and every alternative therapy under the sun, but once the disease finally took hold, she stayed close to home. None of them had liked the idea of Cassie spending her last days in a hospice, so Faith had nursed her at Forrester’s Rock till the end. She’d been there when her mother had taken her last breath, and somehow that had made the pain easier to deal with.
    She’d always been grateful for those months together. They’d talked about everything under the sun, laughed and cried as they’d reminisced about the past and spoken about a future only Faith would have. Cassie had never once complained, and Faith tried to remember that now, when