Rekindled

By S. A. McManus

Having had enough of the city life, Sarah Mackenzie quits her job, packs up her car full of her belongings, says good-bye to her best friend, and heads out west to outback New South Wales, back to the small town of Carringborough.

Growing up, Sarah had spent all of her school holidays at her aunt Elsies farm on the outskirts of town. Over those many years, Sarah had formed friendships in town. She also found her first love, her only true love.

Even though those days were long ago, Sarah felt the need to return to the comfort of Carringborough and the loving arms of Aunt Elsie.

Elsie was quick to enlist her nieces help to turn her home into a farm stay before Sarah found out that Connor Johnson, the man behind her first broken heart, had also moved back to town.

It had been nine years since they had last seen each other, but it took only seconds of Sarah and Connor being together before sparks of passion and anger fired between them.

Would they be able to get through the hurt of the past and rekindle their romance, or would they avoid each other at all costs?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Sep 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524517670

S. A. McManus

S. A. McManus lives near the coast in New South Wales, Australia. While her days are kept busy with her children, she enjoys creating characters and their lives in her free time. She believes that dreams do come true, anything is possible, and that everyone has a story to tell. Rekindled is her third book to be published with Xlibris.

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Copyright © 2016 by S. A. McManus.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 09/27/2016

Xlibris

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER ONE

As the Welcome to Carringborough Shire sign appeared in the distance, Sarah Mackenzie felt a smile warm the corners of her lips, the first smile to appear there in a long time.

It felt like years ago when she had hugged her life-long friend, Katie, goodbye outside the house Katie shared with Jake, but it had been only that morning.

But it is all so sudden! Katie had exclaimed as Sarah had pulled up in the driveway with her medium sized sedan car packed to the hilt with everything she could manage to fit inside its silver doors. Don’t you at least want to think it over for a while? Katie’s big brown eyes had filled with concerned tears as she pulled Sarah in for a long tight hug.

Sarah thought of the last few weeks and of all she had been through. It had been a tough couple of months, gradually getting worse and worse and then the last few weeks had hit hard. There was no way she wanted to continue living that way. It meant a quick, clean break, but it was what she needed to do. I’m sure Katie, Sarah had replied, gulping back the tears. This is what I need to do.

At least wait until Jake gets home from work so you can say goodbye to him. Katie begged, doing her best to prolong Sarah’s departure.

An intense ache filled Sarah’s stomach, weighing her down. Katie and Jake were the only people she would miss. She loved them both. Katie was just like the sister she had never had.

She couldn’t wait for Jake to get home. Sarah was worried that if she did, she might change her mind and stay. Besides, she didn’t need to hang around and face the reminder of what she couldn’t have. Katie and Jake were soul mates, destined to be together. Katie was his princess, his goddess, his life and Jake was everything in the world to Katie. Seeing them together would make anyone jealous. Theirs was the type of romance that one would only read about in romance novels. It was the type of romance every woman wanted, the type of romance that Sarah wanted with all her heart, but the type of romance she now knew she would never have. She thought she had a shot at the chance of true love and happiness once before, but that had been a long time ago. She had been young, a teenager and naive, and she had found out the hard way that he had meant more to her than she had meant to him. It had taken her a long time to get over her first true love and at times she wondered if she ever truly did.

Then, several years after her first broken heart she had met Jeremy. She had fallen for a man again, she had given him her heart and again she had been hurt.

After Jeremy, Sarah never wanted to risk her heart again and just figured she would be spending the rest of her life alone. That’s part of why she had decided to leave.

I can’t wait Katie, I have to go.

But Sarah, how will I get through the next few weeks without you? All that wedding planning I have to do. Katie’s tears fell freely now, dampening spots on her white shirt.

I can still help you with everything; I’ll just be doing it over the phone instead of face to face.

It won’t be the same! Katie sobbed.

There’s also Facebook, skype and e-mails, you won’t even know that I’m gone.

Oh Sarah you’re really leaving! Katie exclaimed pulling Sarah in tight for another bone crushing hug. Sobs had shaken the women’s bodies as the sister like friends clung to each other.

I’ll call you tonight. Sarah promised her friend, her voice laden with tears, sorrow and regret filling her heart. The two friends had clung in a parting hug, holding each other tight while their tears darkened their shoulders and smeared mascara down their cheeks.

And now here she was, only forty kilometres away from Carringborough, a small Australian country town with population of two thousand. Situated west of the central tablelands of New South Wales the small town endured extreme heat in the summer and a crisp cold in the winter. Everyone knew everyone else’s business and friends were always on hand when they were needed, or so her Aunt Elsie had told her whenever she had bragged about her hometown, which had been often.

Carringborough had over time begun to feel like Sarah’s home away from home. When she was younger and still at school, school holiday after school holiday had been spent at Carringborough with her Aunt Elsie. She had lived for the end of the school term when her mum and dad would pile her into the old family station wagon and begin the six hour long drive away from the strict and cold life in the city to the warmth and loving arms of Aunt Elsie and Carringborough. Elsie was the youngest daughter of Elizabeth and Edward who had, in traditional old Australian country life style, had eight other children. Elsie was only six years older than Jessica, her niece and Sarah’s mother. Sarah had always felt a special bond with her, and had quite often rung her Aunt Elsie with the many problems a teenage girl faces from school work to friends to boys. Whether or not her mother Jessica had known about the secrets shared between the aunt and niece Sarah could only guess. Aunt Elsie would not have betrayed a confidence, but there was no telling what Jessica would have done to find out her daughters secrets.

When she had rung Aunt Elsie to ask if she could come and stay in ‘her’ room for a while, Sarah knew exactly how Aunt Elsie would have reacted. Sarah was sure that her aunt had fallen into the small seat that she just knew would have been placed next to the telephone on the small table in the hall of the grand house she owned. The antique chair and telephone table had been in the exact same position for as long as Sarah could remember.

Of course dear, Aunt Elsie had answered wisely, not asking any questions. The wise Aunt Elsie knew her favourite niece would tell her everything that was obviously bothering her when the time was right.

I’ll be leaving here as soon as I have packed. Sarah had gushed out in relief.

Sarah knew the only way for her to get on with her life was to completely pack up and move on as soon as possible. She needed to leave her job, her apartment and sadly her close friends Katie and Jake. She had to go, it was the only way she would be able to move on from the last few months. She felt the move to the country was the way she could clear her head, to find herself again, to find peace and happiness. She had to leave Sydney. She needed to be at Carringborough.

Her job as a customer service consultant for a bank in the city had not been a very rewarding job, it was simply a way to pay her bills. The hours were okay, the working conditions were terrible. Her boss was rude, arrogant and determined to make Sarah’s life a living hell. It had given her great satisfaction to walk into his office and throw her resignation letter on top of his desk.

You can’t quit missy! he had yelled at her, You need this job.

I’m sorry Mr Crowe, I don’t think you understand, I quit. That letter in front of you is my two weeks’ notice.

Hmpf! he snorted at her, his aging oily face screwed up, anger emanating from every pore on his creased cheeks. I’m not going to give you a reference you ungrateful girl, walking in here and quitting with no warning. How the hell do you think you are going to get another job in this city?

Sarah thought about his comment while she stared at the man who had given her her weekly wage for the past five years. He was short, fat, balding, oily, angry and basically unhappy with life in general. She briefly wondered who or what had happened to make him this way. Had he too had an unrequited love break his heart? Does he see her every day? Is this how she, Sarah Mackenzie, would turn out if she stayed in Sydney?

She shook her silky curls and smiled to herself. Either way, she knew without a doubt she was making the right decision.

I don’t plan to Mr Crowe.

Don’t plan to what? he barked back at her.

I don’t plan to get another job in this city.

If you’re going to be smart with me you can just leave now.

Fine. Good bye Mr Crowe. Sarah had calmly replied and gently closed the office door on the tirade of verbal abuse he was throwing at her. All the way back to her desk she could hear his cursing and screaming about how ungrateful she was. Turning off her computer monitor, she gave the screen a little pat, looked around her at the sixty odd staff she had shared the large office space with and drew a deep breath.

She didn’t even know most of the names of the people she shared the large room with. The turnover of staff in the customer service division was the highest in all the bank’s offices throughout the country, and the boss was the main reason for that. Sarah was one of the longest serving employees there. She went to work, did her job, smiled at the other staff as they walked by but never did she huddle behind the separating screens to gossip about the hated but endured Mr. Crowe.

The sound of the telephones ringing filled the air, people hunched over their desks staring at a monitor, their faces illuminated with the soft electric glow of their work on the computer screen. No one was smiling. No one was happy.

No, she wouldn’t miss this place at all.

She had given a brief nod to the few staff that she knew by name and without any explanation she had walked out of the office door without any regrets.

Amazingly, she had suddenly felt free, as though a huge weight had suddenly lifted from her shoulders.

And now here she was, driving back into wonderful Carringborough, the place filled with wonderful childhood memories.

The large farming properties she was driving passed began to appear closer and closer together, the properties becoming smaller in size as she neared the town.

Train tracks sprang up on her left, starting a warm homecoming feeling to spread from deep within her belly and throughout the rest other body.

She was getting close.

A small street sign appeared stating simply, Carringborough. Advertising signs for local hotels and other businesses flashed by as she turned off the highway and headed south of the town. After ten more minutes she slowed the car right down and pulled into a long dirt driveway. Then after a few minutes the dirt turned into a pebbled driveway which led to a beautiful grand house.

Sarah had always loved her Aunt Elsie’s house. It wasn’t huge and ostentatious, it wasn’t small and cluttered, it was serene, warm, welcoming.

It was perfect.

The four bedroom split level cladded home had always been full of warmth, love and happiness when she was a child. Every school holidays Sarah would travel out west to Carringborough and spend the holidays with her aunt. Elsie had taught Sarah all she knew about farming in special ways in which Sarah hadn’t even known that she was being taught until it was time to put her lessons into practice. Sarah knew all that was to be done; when it would need to be done and how long each chore would take her. Over the past thirty years of Sarah’s life, if she wasn’t spending time on the farm with her Aunt she was learning about what was happening through the hundreds and hundreds of letters and phone calls that they had exchanged.

Maybe that was what she could do now maybe she could help Aunt Elsie run the farm.

All Sarah’s friends at school had longed for the school holidays to roll around so they could go to the beach, the movies, amusement parks, the beach and go to Queensland. Sarah had always counted down the remaining school days for her trip out west to Carringborough.

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Sarah and her Aunt Elsie held a special bond, a bond that was unbreakable, a bond that was incredibly rare to find. The rest of the family seemed to think of Elsie as eccentric and slightly crazy but to Sarah she was a rock, someone to turn to, someone to learn from. Some town’s folk used to assume that Elsie and Sarah were mother and daughter. The local gossip mill had gone completely crazy one year with assumptions running left right and centre over Elsie and her estranged daughter. The gossip mongers had stretched the story to the point that Elsie had had an affair in her younger days and the result of that affair was Sarah. The father was a wealthy married man in the big smoke who would only allow Elsie to see her own daughter on the holidays.

That had been Elsie’s and Sarah’s favourite gossip version of their relationship.

Pretty soon the whole town realised that Sarah was simply Elsie’s niece and then they moved on to torment someone else’s life with their gossiping.

Sarah turned the ignition off and sat in the remaining air conditioned coolness of her car staring through the hundreds of splattered dead bugs and dust smudges taking up space on her windscreen and smiled at the house standing before her. A verandah wrapped itself lovingly around the house, with cosy chairs inviting you to sit in the comfort of their plump, faded cushions. Flower pots hung from hooks placed here and there, each growing different herbs.

They think I’m crazy growing my herb garden in hanging pots! Sarah remembered her Aunt Elsie telling her down the phone line one day many a year ago. Stupid people can’t see that there really is no difference between a pot sitting on the ground or a pot hanging from a hook. Let them think I’m crazy! I’ll show them how it is done. Bunch of fuddy duddies they are.

And show them she did. There was never a shortage of fresh herbs to be found.

The screened front door creaked open as Aunt Elsie walked out onto the verandah.

A wide smile appeared on Sarah’s face as she flung open the car door.

She was greeted by a blast of hot, dry air. The heat from the ground burnt through the soles of her shoes, warming her feet. The leather straps of her sandals grew soft in the short time it took for her to mount the front steps.

Aunt Elsie smiled warmly as she placed a slightly wrinkled hand on each of Sarah’s shoulders.

My dear angel she softly spoke, tears glistening in her eyes. You are finally here again.

I’m here to stay Aunt Elsie, Sarah replied, her voice thick with emotion at being here again.

Elsie knowingly patted a soft hand against Sarah’s cheek and turned to walk back into the house, her feet shuffling softly against the aging wooden verandah. Bring your bags in dear, and we will sit down and have cup of tea and a chat.

Sarah smiled. She knew that joining the tea pot on the old kitchen table