‘Which is?’
‘That we swim back through that waterfall, we get ourselves dry and then we think about kissing.’
There was a moment’s pause. ‘You mean we have an agenda?’
‘I think it’s more than an agenda,’ she told him, and smiled and smiled. ‘Agendas can be changed. The time for agendas is past. Consider the kiss a promise.’
‘Then one for the road,’ he told her and he tugged her forward and kissed her, as long and as deeply as two people treading ice-cold water could manage.
And then they turned to the sheen of white water that marked the entrance to their tiny piece of paradise and swam right through.
Back to where the horses were waiting. Back to where their picnic was waiting.
Back to the promise of a kiss and so much more.
* * *
Matt produced a towel and insisted on drying her. He rubbed her body until she could feel her toes again, until her body was glowing pink, until the feel of his hands rubbing her dry started sending messages to her brain she had no hope of fighting.
Who’d want to fight?
Then he gathered her to him and he kissed her as she’d never been kissed before.
His skin was still damp, but out of the water the sun did the drying for him. And who was worried about a little damp? He felt almost naked and her tiny wisps of lace hardly seemed to exist.
She melted into him. His mouth claimed hers, her body moulded to his and the kiss lasted an eternity.
But of course it couldn’t.
‘Dammit, I should have...’ he said at last, putting her away from him with what seemed an almost superhuman effort.
‘So should I,’ she told him, knowing exactly what he was talking about. ‘I packed sandwiches, cream puffs, wine, chocolate. I can’t believe I forgot the After-Picnic essentials.’
‘It wouldn’t have been After-Picnic,’ he told her and tugged her forward again. This kiss was even better. Longer. Deeper.
This was a kiss that had a language all its own. It was a kiss that promised a future.
It was a kiss that sent her senses into some sort of orbit.
But finally sense prevailed—as did hunger. They attacked the picnic basket as if there was no tomorrow—indeed, for now it seemed as if tomorrow wasn’t on the horizon. And then they lay back on the moss and gazed up through the canopy at the sky above.
We might just as well have made love, Penny thought dreamily. She was held close in the crook of Matt’s arm. They hadn’t bothered dressing—with the warmth of the sun there was no need, and to put any barrier at all between them seemed wrong. She was warm, she was sated, the ride and the swim had made her sleepy...
‘Penny?’
‘Mmm?’ It was hard to get her voice to work.
‘How heartbroken are you about Brett?’
Brett. He seemed a million miles away. Part of another life.
If it hadn’t been for Felicity, she’d be married by now, she thought, and it was enough to wake her up completely. She shuddered.
Matt tugged her tighter. The warmth of him was insulation against pain, but then she thought: There’s no pain.
Humiliation, though, that was a different matter.
‘There’s no need to be jealous,’ she told him.
‘Hey, I’m not jealous.’ She could hear the smile in his voice. ‘I’ve got the girl. Whoever Brett’s holding now, he’s welcome. No one can match the woman I have in my arms.’
It took her breath away, even more than the icy water had. The statement was so immense...
And it was the truth. She heard it in his voice and part of her wanted to weep. Or sing. Or both.
Instead, she twisted herself up so she could kiss him again. He kissed her back but then tugged her close, held her tight and said again, ‘Talk about Brett.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Because he’s important,’ he told her. ‘Because he made you run. Because your family’s important to you and I figure if they’re important to you then maybe I need to know about them. So Brett seems a way in.’
And there was a statement to take her breath away all over again. He wanted... No, he hadn’t said wanted... He needed to know about them.
He was talking of the future?
So tell him.
‘It was dumb,’ she told him. ‘I was dumb. I’m a people pleaser. My family’s nothing if not volatile and my father’s a bully. My half-sister’s an airhead but she also has a temper. My mum...’ She hesitated. ‘She might seem like an airhead too, but she’s not. Maybe underneath she’s like me. She tries to keep us all happy. But she won’t stand up to Dad. She never has. She just tries to smooth things over, to present the perfect appearance to the outside world. And somewhere along the line I learned to go along with her. Keep the peace. Make them happy.’
‘So... Brett?’
‘I was cooking in London,’ she told him. ‘I seldom went home—to be honest, as little as possible because Dad hates what I do and he gives me a hard time. But Mum rang me every night. Things seemed okay. But then Grandma died—Mum’s mother—and I hadn’t realized how much Mum needed her. Like she needs me. It’s weird but being needed seems to be hardwired into us. Grandma supported Mum any way she could, which gave Mum the strength to stay in an awful marriage. When Grandma died she fell apart.’ Penny sighed.
‘Anyway, I came home and Dad pushed and pushed me into the PR job and I was so scared for Mum that finally I said yes. And what a disaster. I must have been depressed too, or at least my radar for slimeballs was depressed because Brett found me easy pickings. I was the daughter of the man he wanted to schmooze. Only, of course, he misjudged. He hadn’t figured the family dynamics until it was too late—that Felicity is Dad’s favourite. But then Felicity came home and he figured it out and the rest is history.’
‘He’s an idiot.’
She thought about that for a while. It was odd, but lying here on the moss, held hard against such a man as Matt...her perspective changed. Somehow the fog of humiliation that had been with her since that appalling dinner suddenly cleared, vaporising into the filtered sunlight and the shadows of the gums above her head.
‘He’s not an idiot,’ she said softly. ‘He’s a lying, scheming toad who thinks he can get near Dad’s fortune by marrying into the family. And maybe he can, and yes, he now has the beautiful daughter, but what he hasn’t reckoned on is Felicity’s temper. Felicity’s hysterics. He doesn’t know what it’s like to live with Felicity. I wish him joy.’
‘Punishment enough?’
‘You said it,’ she said softly. ‘And now...I’m here with you. I still worry about Mum but, as you said, there’s no way I can fix her problems for her.’
‘Not when there’re cream puffs and waterholes and sheep...’
And there it was again. That suggestion of a future.
‘No indeed,’ she said and smiled, because how could she not? She kissed him again because there was no choice in that either. ‘Brett and Felicity are no longer in my world. I think, right now, I could even face their wedding. But you’re right, I won’t.’
And then Samson, who’d been sleeping on the edge of the clearing in between Matt’s two dogs, suddenly decided he needed a little of his mistress’s attention. He edged forward to wiggle between them, and suddenly they were both laughing.
‘Right now my world seems to smell of sheep,’ she said happily, even joyfully. ‘And eau de rabbit burrow and damp dog. And is there horse dung in the mixture as well? And you know what? I love it. Just for now, Matt Fraser, I am a very happy woman. Brett and Felicity can have my old world. For now I’m happy in this one.’
CHAPTER NINE
THE NEXT WEEK passed in a blur of hard work and happiness. Matt was pressuring her to s
low down, to give herself a break after the exertion of shearing, but why would she?
She made the house pristine. The orders for the new furniture were coming in, to be admired, placed, enjoyed. She was still cooking but there were only four men to cook for. She could do it with her hands tied.
Matt was outside working, so she was too.
She was getting pretty good at riding Maisie now. She could round up the mobs of sheep with him, listening to his plans for building his bloodlines, or explaining how this ewe had triplets last lambing and all of them survived, or introducing her to Roger the Ram, whose bloodlines were suspect but who’d been having his way with the ladies for so long that he didn’t have it in him to get rid of him.
His pride in his land and his flock was contagious. Penny found herself starting to decipher individual differences, knowing what to look for in the best breeding stock, looking at the signs of capeweed in the top paddock and frowning because Matt had told her the effort it was to keep the pasture lush and healthy.
Then they started drenching, and working in the house disappeared from her agenda. They lived on soup and sandwiches because Penny was out there, learning how to deal with a drenching gun to make sure the sheep would be pest-free, learning how to encourage the dogs and herd a mob of sheep into the yards, how to be a useful farmhand.
She came in at night tired and filthy—she smelled the same as Samson—and every night she fell into bed exhausted.
She fell into bed with Matt.
On the night of the picnic he’d taken her to his bed and she’d melted into his arms with joy. It felt right. It felt like home.
It was as if she hadn’t lived until now. He smiled and her heart sang. He touched her and her body melted into his.
This wasn’t forever. She was sensible enough to know those demons were still out there. She was still Matt’s housekeeper, being paid the exorbitant wage she’d demanded. He was still her boss.
But he wasn’t her boss at night and the nights were theirs. Their nights were a time for no promises, no thought of the future and no looking back on the past.
Here, in Matt’s arms, she could pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. She could forget her father’s scorn, Brett’s betrayal, her mother’s needs.
Here she could pretend she was loved and, for the moment, it was all she asked.
And as for Matt’s demons? She wasn’t asking questions and neither was he. For both of them the future seemed too far away, too hard. There was just the oasis of now.
Old resolutions were put aside. She knew they were still there—for both of them—but for now why ask questions? Right now was perfect.
If this was all there was, she’d take it.
* * *
So would Matt, but in the dawn light he was awake, staring at the ceiling, seeing trouble.
There’d been a couple of phone calls from Darrilyn, hysterical ones—calls that reminded him of times past.
‘She’s impossible!’ Darrilyn had practically screeched it down the phone. ‘She’s a thirteen-year-old witch. Ray’s starting to say he won’t have her in the house. All she does is sulk and listen to her appalling music and throw insults at Ray. If it gets any worse... You’ll have to cope.’
You’ll have to cope.
His mother had used that line. He remembered her getting ready to go out for an evening with her latest boyfriend. He must have been about seven.
‘You’re a big boy now, Matt. There are cold sausages in the fridge and cola. If I’m not back by morning you know where your school uniform is. Make sure you brush your hair before you walk to school. And make sure you’re not late or I’ll have teachers asking questions.’
‘I don’t like being by myself.’ He could still hear his childish plea.
‘Nonsense,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t be stupid, Matt. I’m entitled to have fun. You’ll just have to cope.’
He did have to cope. Somehow.
But this woman in his arms? This woman who trusted absolutely? Penny, who wore her heart on her sleeve...
She was the best thing to happen to him, he thought. She was someone he’d never thought he could meet.
He was a loner. He’d learned not to need anyone. But he lay with her in his arms and he thought it’d be okay. He could love her.
His life was changing. His life right now was better than okay.
But Penny looked at him with love and a voice inside his head was telling him that love came with strings.
If she needed him... If he admitted he needed her...
What was wrong with that?
Nothing, he told himself as she woke and he held her close. As her body melted into his, as the dawn dissolved in a mist of love and desire, the problems of the past seemed far away.
What was wrong with needing this woman?
Nothing at all?
* * *
They were at the end of drenching—squirting stuff on the sheep’s backs that’d protect them from internal parasites. Penny was having more fun than she’d ever had in her life.
There’d been a mishap. A tree had fallen over a fence. It meant one mob of sheep already drenched had surged through and mingled with the final mob. So Penny was now in charge of drafting.
The sheep were being herded into the yards by the dogs—with Samson helping a lot! Penny stood at the gate separating the runs.
She had to hold the gate, check the markings and direct the sheep either way by opening and shutting the gate.
Ron and Harv stood beyond her in the drenching run, and Matt stood beyond that, doing a fast visual check of each animal. It meant that not only were they drenched but any problems left from the shear, nicks and cuts that hadn’t been picked up and hadn’t healed, were picked up there and then.
She was part of a team. The sun was warm on her face. Samson was having the time of his life, and so was she.
In an hour or so the final drenching would be done. She and Matt would head to the house and clean up, and the evening would be theirs.
She felt like singing—though maybe not, she thought. Her nice, calm sheep might decide not to be so calm.
‘What’s funny?’ Matt asked and she glanced along the run and saw him watching her. She smiled at him and he smiled back, and Harv groaned.
‘Leave it off, you two. You’re enough to curdle milk.’ But he was grinning as he said it.
Matt and Penny. The men were starting to treat them like a couple.
It felt...okay.
‘I was just considering a little singing to work by,’ Penny said with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Like sea shanties. Heave, ho, blow the sheep down.’
‘You’d have the sheep scattering into the middle of next week,’ Ron told her but he was grinning too, and Penny felt so happy that even a sea shanty wasn’t going to cut it.
In deference to the sheep she was singing inside herself, but still she was singing.
She glanced back at Matt again and saw his smile which was a mixture of laughter and pride and something else.
Something that took her breath away.
And then his phone rang. The moment was broken.
Interruptions happened often enough to be mundane. The line slowed. Harv continued with the drenching and Ron moved to do the checking. Penny slowed letting the sheep through. The team worked on, but Matt disappeared behind the shed to talk in private.
And when he returned...he didn’t say anything. Work continued, but Penny saw his face and knew that things had changed.
* * *
With the drenching finished, Matt excused himself and took Nugget up to the top paddocks to check the flocks. He did it every night, but tonight he took longer and went alone. ‘I need some time to think,’ he told Penny and she headed inside feeling worried.
>
She showered and changed, made dinner, waited and eventually ate hers and put Matt’s in the warming drawer.
She sat on the veranda as she always did, but tonight she sat with a sense of foreboding.
She’d seen Matt’s face when he’d returned from the call. She knew trouble when she saw it.
She knew this man by now.
Finally he came. He snagged himself a beer, brought his plate from the warming drawer and came out to join her.
‘All’s well,’ he said briefly.
She didn’t comment. She knew a lie when she heard one.
She hugged Samson while he ate. She’d washed him while she was waiting and he was fluffy and clean on her knee. He looked almost normal, a little white poodle instead of a sheepdog.
And with that word normal came another thought. What was normal?
Her life before, where Samson was clean all the time?
Life before Matt.
‘That was great,’ Matt said, and Penny looked at his empty plate and knew something was seriously wrong.
‘Sausages and chips that have been in the warming drawer for over an hour? I don’t think so.’
‘Your cooking’s always great.’ He shrugged and tried to smile. ‘You’re great.’
‘What’s wrong?’
He didn’t answer. He hadn’t come to the edge of the veranda to join her as he usually did. He was sitting on the cane sofa, back in the shadows.
The silence stretched. It felt as if something was hovering above their heads, Penny thought.
Something fearful?
‘Matt?’ she said again, and it was a question.
He rose and walked to the edge of the veranda. For a couple of moments he stayed silent, staring out into the night. Finally he spoke.
‘Penny, Lily’s coming.’
Lily? His daughter.
‘That’s good? Isn’t it?’
‘The timing’s appalling, but it is.’
‘Why is the timing appalling?’
‘I never thought she’d come so soon.’ He hesitated. ‘To be honest, I never thought she’d come at all.’
‘So why now?’
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