‘I do.’
She stared at him. ‘Well, I want it more.’ She returned to the paperback, only to have it wrenched out of her hands. ‘Hey! Give it back!’
Rick was scowling at her, the book having disappeared somewhere over his shoulder. ‘What do you want? Why are you really here?’
There was such an urgency to his tone. Why was he so worried?
‘I told you – I broke down, as you can very well see by the state of my car. I was on my way to Lakes Entrance to buy a cafe but I’ve now bought one here instead. End of story.’ She paused, then burst out, ‘And why is that any of your business?’
Rick sat back in his chair. ‘You’re a journalist.’
‘I’m not.’
‘So you say.’
‘I think I should know!’
God! He had become the most cynical, suspicious person she’d ever met. Besides her late father.
‘Why all the appointments with the local press, then?’
‘That doesn’t concern you.’
She gasped as he leaned forward and slammed his hands on the table. ‘Too right it concerns me. If you so much as report one word about –’
Julia sprang to her feet and yelled over the top of him, ‘I am not a journo. I’ve never been a journo!’
And the reason she hadn’t was all his fault! Tears pricked as she sucked in a heaving breath. Her fingers gripped the table edge as if it was the only thing holding her upright. So many emotions swirling around inside her.
He was staring up at her, shocked. She couldn’t hold his gaze so she looked at the sky above his head instead. She would not cry in front of him. She would not.
Somewhere inside the pub a door slammed. The roar of a truck, the crunch of a gearbox along the street; noises accentuated by the fragile silence now hanging over the beer garden.
Finally, his voice devoid of emotion, he said, ‘Why not? You told me you were going to be a journalist. It was your dream.’
Julia perched on the edge of her seat, her body ready to flee, her mind in a whirl. What to say? She stared up at the sky and its drifting white fairy-floss clouds, as if they might hold the answers to all the whys and what-fors of her life. Opposite her, Rick waited impatiently for an answer, fingers drumming, big feet shifting.
Eventually she said, ‘You say a lot of things in your teens that you don’t mean.’
‘The way I remember it, nothing was going to get in your way.’
That was what she’d thought too.
‘Circumstances change,’ she mumbled. Dear God, how they changed.
Rick grunted.
The man was unbelievable. Why had she wasted so much time mooning over him and what she’d found out about his amazing life on the internet? She should have been having fun with Rupert instead. Although her late husband hadn’t had many interests beyond his work.
‘What are you then?’ Rick asked.
A woman. A widow. A lost soul trying to find her way.
‘Do you mean my profession?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘A law clerk.’ She looked down at her interlaced fingers and saw they were shaking.
‘A law clerk?’
He sounded so flabbergasted it made her cross. ‘It’s not that bad! In fact, law clerks sometimes know more about the legal system than solicitors.’
Damn him for making her defend herself. It was hard enough confessing her pedestrian life to someone as talented and well-known as Rick Halloran the sculptor. She gathered up her sunglasses case and her empty glass and went to stand. Only to find herself gently pushed back into her chair by a large hand.
He was frowning and shaking his head. ‘What happened? You were so certain about what you wanted to do. I’ve never heard anyone be that sure in my entire life.’
Julia sighed. ‘I told you, things changed.’
‘Like what?’
Seriously? He was going to go there? But then he didn’t know he shouldn’t, did he? She sat back, despite wanting to run as fast as she could back to Melbourne, to erase from her life every single mistake she’d made. But that wasn’t possible because she’d just bought a cafe.
Julia pulled out her sunglasses and put them on, hoping they’d hide some of the emotion she knew would be evident on her face. How much should she tell him?
Rick was still frowning at her. ‘I looked for you, you know. Spent days trying to find you. No one knew where you’d gone. The Nortens had no idea.’
Ha! More likely they were embarrassed to admit they’d run her family out of town.
‘My father decided on the spur of the moment to move.’
Why, so many years on, was she still too afraid to tell the truth? Why protect the man who’d abused her and flung her out of home? Because you’ve always lived a lie.
‘I don’t get it. Didn’t he tell you beforehand you were shifting?’ The questions came as fast as bullets from a Gatling gun. ‘Surely your mother knew? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you contact me?’
Silence stretched out with the late afternoon shadows while Julia wrestled with her reply. The memories were as vivid as if it had all happened yesterday. Finally she found some words.
‘I had no idea until the morning we left. I had no way of letting you know.’
She remembered sitting in the back seat of her father’s Holden, angry and rebellious, crowded in by the suitcases and seething emotions. Her father, rigid with ferocious rage at being thrown out of town; her mother, cowering in the passenger seat. Henry Gunn had soon flogged all the rebellion out of his daughter, using his fists to transform her defiance into acquiescence.
‘My father …’ She stopped. It was so difficult to put into words what she’d spent so long hiding. But now there was no reason not to tell the truth. Wasn’t this change all about starting a new life that had no resemblance to the old one?
She took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t tell you at the time, but my father was a tyrant.’
There, she’d said it out loud to someone other than Rupert and her counsellor. It was a start, a simple statement, but with such emotion roiling behind it.
‘Was?’ Rick raised an eyebrow.
‘He’s dead now. As is my mother.’
That was the sad part. Julia’s mother might have had a chance to live a normal life after Henry Gunn died of an aneurism in his brain, but a heart attack had taken her all too soon afterwards. Julia had only seen her mother twice after her father’s death. They’d had stilted conversations on the phone, but Horsham and its country lifestyle had been a world away from her life with Rupert in Melbourne. Or perhaps that was an illusion she’d created so she didn’t have to face a mother who hadn’t protected her.
‘So he just upped and left, dragging you and your mum with him?’
Julia nodded. ‘Pretty much.’ She’d come this far, why not just say it how it was? ‘The community kicked him out. Actually, it was Ben Norten’s father who did it. He was a bigwig in town if you remember. He told my father to leave and never come back.’
‘Whoa,’ said Rick, whistling.
‘When Norten told him about you and me, my father was apoplectic.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. What was wrong with it? We were just having fun.’
‘He’d been preaching in his church that the town’s adolescents were out of control. Wild parties and so on. Ben Norten’s father told him about me being on the boat at Ben’s eighteenth. Told him to take his hypocrisy and shove it down another town’s throats.’ She shrugged. ‘We left pretty quickly after that.’
‘Damn straight,’ said Rick. ‘One minute I had you in my arms, the next you were gone.’
His gaze caught hers. Held it. She wondered at what she saw in his eyes. Flickers of sadness, regret, confusion … and perhaps a shadow of interest? A quiet thrill gripped her heart.
‘Why didn’t you ring me?’ he said. ‘Surely you had access to a phone?’
Julia shrugged again. ‘I didn’t know your number. Plus,
I thought it was just a summer fling for you. I mean, you didn’t seem to stay with any one girl for long.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Watching, were you?’
Julia wriggled uncomfortably in her seat. ‘I’d seen you around.’
‘I hadn’t seen you until that night on the boat.’
‘It wasn’t easy to get away from my parents.’
‘You managed it that night and for the whole week afterwards.’
‘That was different.’
‘How?’
Julia stared at him. He really had no idea how hard it had been. And why should he? She’d made it seem so simple, meeting him out at Eastern Beach or at Jemmys Point or over on Bullock Island, anywhere far from prying eyes. Places her parents would never go. All the lies she’d told them – the extra work shifts, cinema nights with a girlfriend, shopping days. She’d used them all. Until it had all blown up in her face that Sunday morning. Her father had been so full of rage …
She swallowed hard. ‘Let’s just say it was tricky.’ Twenty years on and her memories of that day and those following still sickened her.
‘If I’d known you were going to leave me, I probably wouldn’t have let you go,’ he said, his eyes dreamy, as if he were reliving that amazing week. The words were as sweet as maple syrup, until he added, ‘Then again, I was young, stupid and led by my hormones. I wouldn’t have known what I’d lost until it was gone.’
Did he mean he’d missed her? Or not?
Rick narrowed his eyes. ‘That still doesn’t explain why you have appointments with a bunch of journalists this week.’
And there they were, right back at the start. Julia shook her head. She was kidding herself. Any feelings he might have had for her were long gone, eroded by time, cynicism and suspicion.
‘Well?’ he said, raising that damned eyebrow again.
Now she was going to sound a stickler but why should she care?
‘I was – am buying a cafe. I have a marketing plan and those appointments were to set up some advertising and hopefully editorial pieces, too. I need to suss out the best way to promote my business and make a mark.’
Rather than be the girl whose family were run out of town twenty years ago. She’d been hoping there wasn’t anyone left in Lakes Entrance who’d recognise her, or care if they did. Ben Norten’s father was dead – she’d checked. Ben himself had disappeared into the corporate world of New York. But there was this man. She could see that was a road strewn with sharp rubble.
‘Right,’ he said.
Did he believe her?
An embarrassed flush flared across his face, right up to his ears. ‘I believe I owe you an apology.’
‘That’s okay,’ she said automatically, before realising that it wasn’t alright. Rick Halloran had been suspicious the minute he’d laid eyes on her. Hadn’t her new plan for the future included being more assertive? Why let him get off scot-free?
‘Actually, no,’ she said. ‘You’ve been rude and suspicious despite my best intentions to reassure you. I think I deserve some recompense.’
Rick sat back in his chair, seemingly stunned, then a slow grin transformed his whole face. A faint dimple appeared on his right cheek and the laughter lines around his eyes crinkled. His heavy brow lifted, and even the air seemed lighter. His good humour was infectious. Julia couldn’t help but smile right back. Which was annoying because it meant losing the moral high ground.
‘I deserve significant recompense,’ she added, sounding pompous even to her own ears.
‘Spoken like a true lawyer … or law clerk. Alright then, what’s it to be?’
Julia fumbled for an answer. ‘Um, I guess fixing my car ought to do it. I’ll also need some work done at the tearooms so maybe you could advise me on who to get?’
He gave a nod. ‘Charlie and I might be able to help out there, depending on what you want done.’
‘You must be very good with your hands.’
From memory, in more ways than one. Julia clamped down on that train of thought.
‘And I’d like another drink,’ she said quickly. ‘A Pimm’s and lemonade will do.’
‘Geez, you drive a hard bargain.’
‘That I do.’
Rick laughed. ‘Pimm’s is a bit old-fashioned for a woman like you, isn’t it?’
Julia gave a wry grin. ‘You have no idea what a woman like me might like.’
‘I wouldn’t mind having a go at working it out.’
‘Really? You’ll have your work cut out for you.’
‘I reckon I could manage it.’
‘I’d like to see you try.’
‘You’re on.’
Oh my God, they were bantering!
Rick seemed stunned too. He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.
‘You know, you’re as beautiful as I remember when you smile like that,’ he said softly.
And fairly plain when I’m not, said that critical voice in her head. But she shut it down, just like her counsellor had taught her. ‘Don’t let it get the upper hand,’ the woman had said. And she wasn’t going to. She couldn’t if she wanted this new life of hers to work.
‘Thank you,’ she said, accepting the compliment with a grace she didn’t feel. In reality, she felt completely out of her depth. It had been a long time since she’d flirted with a man, which just showed how dull and boring her life had become! But things were about to change. Clearly.
‘Would you like that drink now?’ asked Rick, eyebrow lifted in invitation.
She pursed her lips and pretended to consider the notion. Realised she was being flirtatious again, which made her smile. ‘I don’t mind if I do.’
‘I could grow used to seeing that smile.’
‘You’re going to have to now I’ve bought my cafe.’ And she grinned again.
Chapter 10
‘So, this is the Grange,’ said Rick. ‘Your new next-door neighbour.’
After their drink he’d suggested a drive to visit his farm and check out the general layout of the area she’d so hastily bought into. Julia thought he probably also wanted to suss out her motives further, to reassure himself beyond all doubt that she was who she said she was. But she preferred to think he was simply enjoying her company.
She stared at the large, impressive gateway that marked the entrance to Rick’s family property. Twin grey-black stone walls stood either side of the ornate, black ironwork that spelled out ‘The Grange’. A solid wide cattle-grid led onto a long bluestone metal track that meandered over a hill. She couldn’t see the homestead, but if the gateway was anything to go by, it would be impressive.
Rick’s ute rattled over the grid and along the track, between paddocks studded with grazing cattle. The solid black beasts barely paused in their chomping as the vehicle drove past.
‘How’s your farm going?’ Julia asked, not entirely sure what terminology to use.
‘It’s been a mild winter.’ Rick gazed in satisfaction at his herd. ‘We got good rain and haven’t been overstocked. We really only had to feed out hay to give them something else to chew on.’
‘Right,’ said Julia. ‘I haven’t had much to do with cattle.’
Or any livestock at all. She hadn’t even been allowed a goldfish when she was growing up.
He glanced at her. ‘You might want to get a few head to graze those acres of yours. Clean it up for summer.’
‘Um … clean it up?’
She’d thought the land looked pretty good when she was there yesterday with Montana. All lush and green, and no sign of fallen tree branches or rubbish anywhere.
‘Bushfires. Got to keep the grass down to make it safer around the cafe. You’ll need to keep the paddocks around the cottage either green or short. And seeing you don’t have irrigation up here, green isn’t really an option over summer, unless we get rain.’
‘Right,’ said Julia again. Her heart started to beat faster. She was clearly going to need a lot of farming guidance to run this new property of
hers.
‘You only need a few head to keep the grass down. We can help you, you know,’ he said. ‘We all look out for each other out here.’
Julia, hoping her sudden panic hadn’t been obvious, gave a half-laugh. ‘So you guessed?’
‘What?’
‘That I haven’t thought about anything beyond that gorgeous cafe. Certainly not how I’m going to manage the land that comes with it.’
‘You’ll be right. It’s only twenty acres.’
‘Only? It’s a whole lot bigger than anything I’ve owned before.’
Try forty times bigger. What had she done?
‘Try managing a few thousand acres and then you’ll see it from my angle,’ said Rick with a grin. ‘Twenty will be a doddle, and Charlie or I can help you get some cattle if needs be.’
Julia tried hard not to look impressed or pathetically grateful. She simply gave a small nod and said, ‘That would be lovely.’
Inside, however, the panic that had erupted like a volcano at the words ‘bushfire’, ‘acreage’ and ‘cattle’ subsided into something slightly more manageable. The new Julia was supposed to be strong, determined to cope with anything that came at her. Rick’s kind offer of assistance made her feel reassured, but also ashamed she hadn’t looked beyond her enchanting new home’s garden gate.
‘Just around this bend and we’re there,’ said Rick.
Another set of stone walls and an iron gate appeared ahead. It looked much the same as the first except without the ornate lettering. The ute rattled over another cattle grid and a rise, and then there it was, the homestead.
‘Oh. My. God,’ breathed Julia.
‘Yeah. It has that effect on me too if I’ve been away a while.’
His tone was wistful but wary, she thought, as though he couldn’t decide whether he loved his childhood home or not.
As they drove around the large oval-shaped roundabout in front of the magnificent yet austere building, Julia took in more details. Two imposing storeys built from grey-black stone formed the main house, with single-storey wings extending each side. Verandahs ran the full length of the mansion, providing shade on both the eastern and western aspects, while to the north a balcony extended from the second storey. It looked like an add-on, and obviously gave a panoramic view of the lake, which lay beyond the house like a spectacular silver blanket. The balcony had a grey wrought-iron balustrade, which seemed out of place with the symmetry of the rest of the house.
Lake Hill Page 8
