Ellie’s heart expanded. ‘I feel the same about you. I’m seriously feeling pretty lucky right about now that I met you.’
He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Me too. You had me the very first moment I saw you in Amy’s shop.’
She giggled as she remembered what a blithering idiot he had reduced her to. ‘I could barely speak when I first saw you. I was so flustered. I’ve never had an instant attraction like that before. It messed with my head. It’s still messing with my head.’
‘In a good way, I hope.’
‘So far, so good.’
He reached for her, rubbing his thumb against her cheek, and looked into her eyes. ‘Ellie, in the future, please don’t worry about telling me … anything. I’d prefer if you just came straight out and said it.’
She nodded, trying not get lost in his earnest brown gaze. ‘I’ll try to remember that.’
‘There’s no other dark secret you have hidden in there?’
She smiled and shook her head, her shoulders so light because there wasn’t anything else. The past had been cleared away, opening the way for their future.
He kissed her, with all the warmth she had come to crave, all the warmth he had withdrawn earlier.
After a moment, his lips curled into a cheeky grin. ‘Now, I don’t know why, but I have a real hankering for curry. How do you feel about whipping some up?’
Ellie playfully slapped his arm. ‘You’re a tease.’
‘Yeah, and you can’t cook. Kinda makes us even.’
‘How about we go out for dinner?’
He reached under her arms and pulled her onto his lap. She straddled his waist, facing him. ‘I’d much rather spend the night alone with you.’
She tilted her head to the side and studied him. ‘I’m starting to get the impression you’re not a huge fan of social outings?’
Sam looked away, an expression on his face that said he wasn’t comfortable with this line of questioning. ‘I guess I’m more of a homebody. I do so much travel and social events for work; I just like a bit of time to myself when I’m home.’
He kissed her lips, ran his hands over her shoulders, down her arms, to her hands where he threaded his fingers with her fingers. He kissed the back of her hand. ‘Although, since meeting you, I much prefer to spend time with you than alone.’
She arched a brow as she grinned. At heart, Ellie was very much an introvert herself, so didn’t feel at all deterred by this insight. ‘Takeaway it is.’
He shrugged. ‘Or we can take a ride up to Coles, grab a few things, and I could cook?’
She leaned in and kissed him hard now because everything this man said ignited her feelings for him more. ‘Okay, I’m just gonna say this one more time, but, right about now, you’re pretty perfect.’
Chapter 26
Sam was sitting on the ride-on mower, ready to clean up the yard surrounding the admin building and restaurant. The less glamorous side of viticulture, but essential.
He actually liked it: he didn’t have to interact with anyone, just listen to the monotonous drone of the motor as he ran laps across the expansive lawn.
‘Do you want to swing by my house with that and give it a clean-up too?’ Mitch asked as he strode past, hands full with two buckets of soapy water. He was to clean the barrelling shed’s walls.
‘Yeah, no worries. I’ll do mine too.’
Mitch rested his buckets on the ground and came to him. ‘How’d you go last night with Ellie? Tom said there was some drama. He said Ellie needed to talk to you, and you were freaking out.’
‘It’s all good. She just had something she wanted to get off her chest.’
‘So it all worked out?’ Mitch asked.
‘Yeah, mate.’
‘And you’re good?’
Sam laughed. ‘Yep. I’m doing great.’
Mitch grinned, slapped Sam’s shoulder. ‘Good to hear.’
And that was that. What more could be said really without dragging the whole mess back up again, replete with emotions?
Besides, he wasn’t sure if he wanted Mitch to know the full details. Sam couldn’t predict how Mitch would react. Best just to leave that nugget of information between himself and Ellie.
Mitch picked up his buckets and disappeared into the sheds.
Sam put his headphones on but paused before he started the lawnmower’s engine. It worried him now why he chose not to tell Mitch.
Was there something about what Ellie had confessed that he found unpalatable?
Or was he ashamed on her behalf if people were to find out?
He shook his head and started the engine. No. He was looking for excuses to sabotage this. He knew who Ellie was now. It didn’t matter what she had done or hadn’t done. And she told him this snippet of her past in confidence, so that’s where it would remain.
After lunch, Sam drove the ride-on mower onto the back of his ute and hauled it down to Mitch’s place. He made a quick stop upstairs to check that Sophie wasn’t asleep and would be woken by the mower. But she was bright-eyed, playing with her toys in the living room. She ran to him the moment she saw him, and he scooped her up in his arms.
‘Hello, my gorgeous girl. How are you going?’
‘Sam,’ she said and wasn’t it the most adorable way his name had ever been spoken.
‘What toys are you playing with?’
She threw her body forward. Luckily, he was used to this type of performance, so he caught her in time and lowered her safely to the ground so she could run and grab her toys to show him.
This was what they did. He would take a seat on the carpet while she brought him over every toy she had and called it ‘Dat’.
And he would tell her the real name for it, and she would go and grab another toy, bring it over and call it, ‘Dat’. And on it went.
It was relaxing. Zero pressure. And it didn’t matter what he said or what she said, it was the interaction itself that mattered.
Ten minutes into the game, his phone rang with a message.
‘Dat,’ Sophie said, pointing to his mobile as he grabbed it out of his pocket.
‘This one is mine,’ he said, clicked answer and brought it to his ear. ‘Mitch, what’s up?’
‘You have a visitor …’
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Um … you might just want to come back up to the admin building. It’s Tamara’s parents.’
‘Tamara’s parents?’ he shouted. Sophie flinched, so he forced a smile and ran a hand down her arms.
‘Yeah, mate.’
‘Why are they here?’
‘Don’t know. They said they want to talk with you.’
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. ‘All right. I’ll be up in five minutes.’
Saying goodbye to Sophie, leaving the house and driving up to the admin building happened in a blur. His mind couldn’t make sense of why Tamara’s parents would be here. Maybe they didn’t realise that he knew she had passed away, and they wanted to tell him face to face.
But she had committed suicide eight months ago. Why would they leave it this long to tell him? Unless they needed to be emotionally strong enough to be able to do so.
Or perhaps they were in the area and thought they should stop in, out of some bizarre courtesy.
He pulled into the car park and drew a few deep breaths. His heart was racing. Anything to do with Tamara and his body went into overload. He squeezed the steering wheel hard. He hated himself in these moments—so weak.
Pull yourself together. You’re getting worked up over nothing.
He climbed out and strode to the barrelling shed where Mitch was standing with Tamara’s parents. They looked happy enough, smiling at whatever Mitch was saying.
Dean was a short man with grey hair and a protruding belly. He was quite old when he fathered Tamara, Sam remembered. And seeing him now, skin wrinkled with age, hair thin, and the slight tremble and rheumy eyes that came with old age, he looked it.
Fenella was a littl
e taller than Dean or perhaps just more upright. Her silver hair was tied into a bun on her head. She wore red lipstick and was dressed in a blue dress the style the Queen would wear.
‘Good afternoon,’ Sam said when he was in hearing distance.
They turned to face him.
‘Hi, Sam. How are you?’ Dean asked.
‘I’m good. Hi, Mrs Talbot, good to see you again.’
‘You too, Sam. You’ve grown up. Quite a man now,’ she said.
He smiled, though he’d much rather have flat-out asked what the hell they were doing here. But the fragility of their age brought out his ingrained respect for those who were older than him, and his social politeness. ‘Thank you. I’m really sorry about Tamara.’
The couple passed a looked between each other and were both frowning when they met his eye again. ‘We didn’t realise you already knew. Yes, it’s been a very tough year for us. No-one should ever have to experience the pain of burying their own child.’
Mitch touched Sam’s shoulder. ‘I might leave you all to it. Great to see you again, Mr and Mrs Talbot.’
They nodded at Mitch, managed a shaky smile before he strode away.
‘Did you want to come into the restaurant? We could have some afternoon tea while we chat?’
Again that look passed between them. ‘Actually, is there somewhere more private we can go?’
Sam baulked. The gravity of this visit was dawning on him. ‘My house is just up the path. I can drive you both there?’
They nodded. ‘I think that’s best.’
A quick drive and Sam was leading them through to his living room. ‘Please, take a seat. I’ll make us some tea or coffee?’
‘Tea please,’ said Fenella.
‘Tea for me too, please. Both white with one sugar.’
Sam had never made tea more quickly. He wanted this visit over and done with, then he could get back to work, get back to his life. A life that their daughter had already stolen so much of. A life he had only just started to get back on track after all these years.
As he dunked teabags and spooned sugar, he wondered if he would forever hold a grudge against Tamara. Surely, it was time to let all this go. She was no longer alive for Christ’s sake.
But it wasn’t that simple. He’d lived with this anger and regret and resentment for seven years now. They sat dormant in his body, waiting, biding their time until something like this happened, and they took control of him again.
When all he wanted was to have control back.
Every action undertaken since he left Tamara had been a move to regain control. But there was still this part of him that he could never quite reclaim. The part of him that made his heart race, that made his hands shake, that made his breaths short. And at times, that part of him that overwhelmed him with panic attacks.
‘You’re a grown man, Sam. Come on, start acting like one,’ came his father’s words in his ear.
He was a man. He was strong. He could handle whatever Dean and Fenella were about to say.
Sam carried their cups of tea on a tray. He placed each of their drinks on the coffee table.
The Talbots muttered their thanks attached to warm but nervous smiles.
Dean picked up his cup with a trembling hand and had a sip, then lowered it clumsily to the table. ‘I’m not going to beat around the bush anymore, Sam. It’s best we let you know why we’re here today.’
Sam’s mug, almost at his lips, stopped in mid-air. He lowered it to the table, waiting.
‘As you already know, Tamara passed away last December. Just after Christmas.’
Sam’s stomach sunk. His ribs squeezed his heart.
‘I’m not sure if you know, but she committed suicide,’ Mrs Talbot said, eyebrows arched in Sam’s direction. He could see in the set of her mouth the strength she mustered to say that; heard the slight crack on the last word.
‘I did know that.’
‘She was very unwell. For many years. Of course, we didn’t really know what it was back when she was a teenager, but, with her profession and the awareness of mental illness, we know she suffered from depression for most of her life. In the end, she couldn’t … hold on.’
Sam’s throat was aching. His eyes were smarting. The pain in Fenella’s voice moved through him, stirring his sympathy. He swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sam, you see,’ Dean said leaning forward. ‘Tamara left behind a daughter. Olivia. We have been taking care of her full-time since Tamara passed.’
How horrible. The depths of Tamara’s illness must have been cavernous to end her life and leave her child without a mother.
Mitch lived for Sophie, loved her with all his soul, but he had also witnessed how his brother’s grief got in the way for a brief time.
‘It must be a very difficult time for you all.’
Fenella reached into her purse and rummaged around for a small photo album. She flipped the cover open and handed it to Sam. ‘This is Oliva.’
Sam took the album and glanced at the picture of a beautiful girl with long dark hair and big brown eyes staring at the camera. Joy and light were bright in her eyes. How could Tamara leave this gorgeous little girl behind?
He handed it back. ‘She’s very sweet.’
Dean edged closer still, elbows on his knees. ‘Sam, she’s your child. Olivia is yours.’
Sam blinked, not quite knowing if he heard him right. ‘Pardon?’
‘You are Olivia’s father.’
Sam laughed. ‘Oh, come on. Please. Didn’t I get enough of this from Tamara?’
‘Sam,’ Dean said as firmly as an elderly man could. ‘Don’t get into all that again. Not now. Not after … That’s done with—’
‘Done with?’ Sam barked. ‘You think after the way Tamara mentally abused me for three years that I’m just going to forget that? And now you come here with some other hairbrained scheme of hers and expect me to just accept it. She already pulled this trick on me if you don’t remember. I’ve already ‘supposedly’ fathered a child. A child that then didn’t make it past the first term of pregnancy. And I was left grieving only to discover later that she’d made the whole thing up.’
Dean closed his eyes and sighed. ‘I remember. I know this is difficult—’
‘We’re just asking that you put your past aside for a moment, so we can discuss Olivia. She is an adorable, loving …’ Fenella stopped as tears filled her eyes and her words were choked. ‘Olivia deserves your time without the anger, please. That’s all we ask.’
Sam leaned back in the chair, exhaling noisily.
Dean grabbed the photo album from Fenella and held it out to Sam again. ‘Just take another look, Sam. The album is filled with photos of Olivia. She is the spitting image of you. Now we’re here in person, that’s even more obvious. When I saw you outside earlier, the likeness was the first thing I noticed.’
Sam reluctantly took the album. He opened it to the first picture again. Flipped it to the next. Olivia was smiling for her school photo, her front two teeth missing. No doubt, she was a sweet girl. She had Sam’s colouring. But that proved nothing. He flipped to the next photo: a picture of Olivia when she was a toddler, maybe two or three years old.
Then another picture, younger still. One or two. She had a nappy and a pink ribbed singlet on, arms up in the air wanting to be picked up.
His heart thudded, tingles spread over his face. She looked very much like Sophie. He flipped to the next photo, the next, the next, then he slammed the album shut.
His breaths were coming short. ‘How old is she?’
‘She is six. Her birthday is the twenty-fourth of September.’
He lowered his gaze to his lap, running through the time frame. He was almost twenty-one when he left university to escape Tamara and came home to the vineyard. If she were pregnant then … it fit. The date’s fit.
Fenella pulled another couple of documents from her bag. ‘Olivia’s blood type is O negative. Tamara’s was A positive.’
> Sam lifted his gaze to meet hers. His blood type was O negative. Fenella handed him the official medical document showing Olivia’s blood type along with her birth certificate.
He glimpsed them, then handed them back. ‘I want to do a DNA test.’
They both nodded. ‘Of course. We’d like you to. Just to ease your mind.’
‘We’re staying in a hotel in town until Sunday,’ Dean said. ‘We’d like you to meet Olivia.’
Sam scrubbed a hand down his face. His brain was telling him to not believe them, but he couldn’t deny how much this girl looked like him. How much she resembled Sophie. The shape of her smile in one of the photos reminded him of Tom. The same blood type. The time frames working. He didn’t want to believe it, but it was overwhelmingly possible that this child was his.
His mind moved to seven years ago. He had come to Tamara’s apartment after class. He had his own key, so he let himself in. He didn’t call out to let her know he was there; something inside him, a big part that distrusted her, told him to remain quiet, tread carefully. He moved around the apartment on tiptoes.
A crinkling, crackling noise sounded from her bedroom. He snuck up to the door and looked in. She was on the bed, a box of condoms spread out before her. She held a little square packet of foil, unopened. And in her other hand was a pin. She stuck the pin into the foil, placed the foil back into the box. Then did the same with the next condom.
He hadn’t thought about that moment for many years.
‘Why didn’t she tell me earlier?’ he asked. ‘If Olivia is mine.’
They passed that look between each other. Fenella said, ‘We agreed at the time, considering how strained things were, and the DVO you had on Tamara, along with your absolute objection to even speaking with her, that it was best for Olivia if you weren’t told.’
Pain shot through his chest. Hurt burned up his throat. If she was his, regardless, he should have been told. He should have been given the option to be in her life from the beginning. He hated it, felt a fool when tears pricked his eyes.
But he had to see this from their angle. He had to see this from the perspective of how it was back then. It was messy. So ugly. And they were right; he did put a DVO on Tamara after she continued to stalk and harass him, was even violent, coming at him one afternoon in the vineyard with a baseball bat.
The Sweetest Secret Page 22
