by Anne Ashby
“Yeah.” Robby rubbed his jaw looking around all they’d achieved. “At first it seemed like we had so long to do all this work, but it’s taken months to get this far. I can’t take time off work.”
“I know you can’t. And anyway, there’s so much else we can do when we come up here. The garden, for instance.”
Her look challenged Robby. A challenge he deftly ignored, she noticed. “It’s important the whole place looks cared for. Let’s get it done quickly. I’ll ask Kirk if he can recommend anyone local to give us a quote.”
Ignoring the darkening look her brother threw her, Leath hurried on. “And I guess it’s time to think about finding a cleaner as well. I’ll ask Mary if she knows anyone.”
“You’re getting all-mighty chummy with those Buchanans.”
Aware Tristan was close by, Leath shot Robby a warning glare. “They’re nice people, Rob. You’ll see tonight.”
“Yeah, right!” Robby grasped the yellow-handled wheelbarrow and wheeled its load out into the open.
Leath followed, Tristan tagging at her heels. “I have to go into town,” she warned as he started throwing rubbish into her boot.
“I know.” Robby had the audacity to chuck a grin over his shoulder at her. “You can get rid of this bit on the way.”
As a growl began deep in her throat he argued, “You go right past the tip.”
“Oh, all right,” Leath mumbled ungraciously. She turned to Tristan. “Would you like to come into town with me?” It would be nice to have his chatter.
The boy’s gaze flicked from Leath to Robby and back again. “Can I stay with Robby? Please?” He joined Robby near the car boot. “I won’t get in the way or anything. I could help you get all the stuff. I’m real strong.”
Leath hid her disappointment as Tristan’s beseeching eyes begged for Robby’s support.
She frowned at Robby’s off-hand response. “You’re not gonna get in my way, or whinge and whine or anything?”
Tristan’s eyes were bulging. “No.” He shook his head emphatically.
“I don’t want any slackers on my gang.”
“I won’t be a slacker, I promise. Look, I’m strong. I can lift that.”
Leath grimaced as Robby dropped a piece of car innards into the small waiting hands. She bit her lip as those hands dropped almost to the bottom of the wheelbarrow under the weight before he struggled the load up. With a grunt of relief, he tipped it into the boot.
Hiding a smile at Robby’s surreptitious wink, Leath realised this test was male bonding.
“I guess if you can handle that, you must be stronger than you look. You know, I could do with some help. And you don’t want to go shopping, do you?”
Left standing and staring after them as Robby wheeled the empty barrow back toward the garage, his little shadow dogging his steps, Leath heard derision in her brother’s voice. “No self-respecting man wants to go along with women while they shop. Too boring, aye?”
“Yeah, boring.”
Hurrying into the house before laughter escaped, Leath busied herself checking what she needed for tonight’s barbeque.
Inviting the South Seas couple to join them had been a spur of the moment thing yesterday but repeating the invitation to their new arrivals this morning had been a much more calculated decision. She hoped they’d feel comfortable joining in. From now on, word-of-mouth publicity would be worth so much.
She refused to acknowledge having extra people attend—people she felt duty-bound to entertain—would limit the time she would have to spend with Kirk. Until she had time to figure out his true motives, Leath intended keeping a safe distance from his alluring presence.
Calling at the supermarket, the bakery, and the green grocer took longer than Leath anticipated. Or perhaps it had been the time she’d used emptying the car boot at the tip.
Speeding home, preparation plans roamed around inside her head. She wasn’t going to be stuck in the kitchen once her guests arrived. Robby could just stop what he was doing and help her make the salads. Grinning, she swung into their driveway, imagining her brother’s reaction.
The car had barely stopped when Tristan was beside it, opening a door and grabbing supermarket bags without even being asked. He passed Robby on the front steps.
“You did get ice, didn’t you?”
With a nod Leath turned a bemused face toward the boot.
“Great. Tris and I found an old tub in one of the sheds. We’ve set it up next to the barbeque. It’ll be great for drinks. Tris has already filled it up, we just need some ice.”
Leath slumped against the back fender as Robby hoisted two large bags of ice from the boot and disappeared around the side of the house. Tristan appeared and grabbed more bags.
“Come on Leath. We have a lot of work to do before Granddad and Grandma get here. I’m helping with the food.”
Confounded, Leath picked up bags and followed the boy into the kitchen where bowls and plates and utensils were already laid out across the bench.
“Robby said you’d be in a flap when you got home. He said we should help or else you’d start screaming at us.” Tristan’s expression was a little wary as he looked up at her. “You wouldn’t really yell at us, would you?”
A chuckle escaped Leath at the earnest look on the boy’s face. She shook her head.
With a definite I-told-him-so look Tristan grinned back at her. “Come and see what me and Robby built. You’re gonna love it.”
Drawn by an insistent hand, Leath followed the boy out through the patio doors and was very impressed by the “drinks cabinet” now standing a little way from the barbeque. The old concrete tub—how they’d managed to lift it by themselves—rested in a framed stand and even had what looked like an old cabinet door as a lid attached to it. At Tristan’s insistence Leath bent down and examined the piped arrangement under the plughole.
“When all the ice is melted, we can pull out the plug and the water will run away down the pipe toward the drain. Isn’t it cool? I fixed the lid. Didn’t I, Robby, I built it all by myself.”
“You sure did, buddy.”
Robby managed to keep a straight face as the boy’s chest puffed out. “I was busy sorting out the drainage problem, you see.” He winked at his sister.
“What a fantastic idea.” Leath was only half-teasing them. It was a great set up, and one she knew would be used often during summer barbeques.
“Anyway, so the drinks are sorted. Now I guess you could do with some help with the food.”
“Least I don’t start screaming at you?”
“Yeah.” Robby threw an arm around his young helper’s shoulders. “Come on Tris. I can hear a scream building up right now.”
They took off into the house laughing. As Leath followed, Robby teased, “Always try to avoid a screaming female, buddy.”
****
After a couple of hours’ concentrated teamwork, the kitchen looked normal again. Prepared food safely in the fridge or in a chilly bin in the laundry, Leath hoped they had enough.
“We’ll be eating leftovers for a week,” Robby muttered as if he knew what was whizzing though his sister’s mind. “No more baked beans for you.” He laughed. “Not this visit, anyway.”
“Grab us all a drink, would you, buddy?” he asked his little helper.
Leath slumped into a chair on the patio. “I didn’t think I had a hope of getting everything done.”
Tristan appeared with three cans of soft drink and sank onto the sofa beside his latest hero.
“Without you two guys I would have been stuck in the kitchen until five o’clock.” Leath’s smile grew into a grin as Tristan assumed the very same stance as the man beside him—lying back with legs crossed at the ankles, one arm thrown behind his head, the other hand lazily resting the can against his thigh. “Thank you both very much.”
“That’s what family’s for. Helping each other out.” Old words coming from such a young mouth sounded so incongruous, Leath knew Tristan was merely r
epeating something he’d heard. Something very wise.
Family! Omigod! Leath sprung forward in her seat. “Robby, oh Rob. I’ve forgotten to tell you.”
Last night’s angst about Kirk had driven her startling family news from her mind. “I’m so sorry. Tris, would you check if we have enough wood.”
She took a deep breath as Tristan scampered away and faced the stiffening body opposite. “Joyce has found out who Penny was.” She worried how Robby would take this. “She’s Dad’s biological mother.”
“What?”
She definitely had all Robby’s attention now.
“Was Dad adopted or something? Then how—”
“No, he wasn’t adopted. I’m not sure of all the facts yet. We have heaps more things to check now, but it seems Gran must have been Grandpop’s second wife.”
Colour had drained from Robby’s face. He’d been especially close to Gran.
“But how come we never knew?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll ever find out. Joyce said we should check their marriage date, but I think we’re going to discover Dad was at least two or three when they got married.”
Robby leapt to his feet his half-full can of drink bouncing off the patio wall where he’d thrown it. “Why the hell were we never told?”
His eyes were blazing as he swung around. “Who’d have cared...I wouldn’t have cared if Gran wasn’t really...I loved her. Not because she was our grandmother, because she was who she was.”
From near the barbeque a scared look on Tristan’s face registered as Robby’s voice wobbled. She waved and suggested he go for a walk along the beach for a while. “Don’t go near the water, though.”
He didn’t move until Leath waved a second time. “Go on, Tris. Robby and I need to talk something over.”
“There’s more.” Leath dropped into her chair. When Robby perched on the edge of the sofa in front of her, she continued. Her brother’s fists tightened until they gleamed white against his work-darkened skin as she told him everything Joyce had discovered. Then adding to it what Mrs. Evans had told her in Whangarei.
“I can only think Mum and Dad were waiting to tell us when they thought we’d understand.”
Robby leapt to his feet. “What’s to understand? There’s nothing they needed to hide. So what if she was Dad’s stepmother? He never saw her as anything but his Mum, so why would it matter to us?”
Leath had no answer.
“Unless...” Robby turned horrified eyes toward her. “Unless Penny was trying to get in touch with us. Or they were scared she’d try—”
Leath felt her eyes widen. Their parents wouldn’t have refused Penny contact with them, would they? No! She couldn’t believe that.
In fact the parents she knew and loved would have been more likely to have done the opposite. Look at the photos Mum had sent. And the visit when she’d brought Leath here.
Surely they spoke of an attempt to establish some sort of bond rather than a determination to keep us away from Penny.
“Maybe Penny had been trying for years to get in touch with us, maybe they wouldn’t let—”
“No, I don’t think so, Robby.” Leath spoke with the certainty she felt deep inside.
Robby wasn’t yet privy to all the negative things she’d learnt about Penny. Somehow they didn’t compare favourably with a doting grandmother denied access to her grandchildren. “If she’d have wanted to see us, she could have contacted us after Mum and Dad died.”
“She was probably already gaga by then.”
“Fair enough. But she knew I was a nurse, she could have found me easily enough at Starship if she’d inquired around the Auckland hospitals. Or she could have caught up with us at school, our uniforms showed what schools we were at.”
Clasping her hands together in her lap, Leath lifted her gaze to stare across at Robby. “I’m convinced she never wanted to make contact with us. I’m betting Mum would have had a return address on her envelopes when she sent all those photos. Remember how she used to use those little stickers on all her mail?”
Leath sighed. “And Penny’s solicitor had our flat address. That would have been far harder to track down than some of the other options earlier on in our lives.” Leath let her head slump against the seatback.
“From what I’ve heard of Penny Maguire, I think she left us this property because she had no-one else, and she was too damned stubborn to allow anything of hers to go back into the government coffers.”
“You’ve changed your tune. Now you sound like you don’t think you’d have liked her.”
“From what I’ve heard, I know I wouldn’t have liked her,” Leath said confidently. “But I can still feel sorry for her. What a terrible way to live, all alone, without anyone who actually cares whether you live or die.”
Tears built up in her eyes but she blinked rapidly to stop any escaping. “I don’t think we’re ever going to know what happened, Rob. Or why. I’m going to keep checking those records with Joyce, but they won’t tell us what we really need to know. They’ll just give us facts, not the feelings or understanding to go with them.”
Leath had never thought she’d give up her search, but the more she considered the few options open to them, the more she had to accept this secret would likely remain exactly that, a secret.
There was the possibility Amy might shed some light when she got home to Brisbane, or perhaps Penny’s brother did have offspring who would know about this family skeleton in the cupboard, but Leath’s bright flame of anticipation was flickering out.
Chapter Sixteen
It took enormous effort for Robby and Leath to mentally prepare for their guests’ arrival. Both were feeling glum and despondent and were no longer looking forward to their barbeque.
Added to this, Leath was concerned how her brother might behave toward the Buchanan family, particularly Kirk. She hoped his rapport with Tristan, who’d returned from the beach to glue himself to his new hero’s side, would temper Robby’s oft-voiced aversion.
Leath felt a jumbled-up mess inside and out. Her choice of clothing didn’t want to hang properly, the skirt accentuating a posterior she was trying to hide.
The stripy pink shirt—which she loved and had always felt good wearing—hung on her like a two-sizes-too-small mannequin. Crunched into a ball it sailed across her bed, and instead she caught a plain cotton knit top from a hanger.
A glance in the mirror told her what she didn’t want to know. Bits of hair stuck out of her head like a ruffled rooster’s feathers. She groaned, searching for her brush.
The sound of a vehicle turning into the driveway halted her. It was too late to do anything else. Her makeup...she’d only started to apply makeup.
A quick glance out the window provided her with impetus. It was Kirk. She daren’t leave Robby to greet Kirk alone. Who knew what he might say, or even worse, do, if she wasn’t there to mediate?
“Behave yourself,” she hissed at her brother as she sped from her bedroom down the hallway.
All she got in return was a glower as he stomped after her. Leath hoped Robby’s little shadow would prevent him doing anything stupid.
Unreasonable shyness swamped Leath as she flung open the door and watched a smiling Kirk exit his truck. Leath’s fingers clenched and she nibbled on her bottom lip. No audible expression of their feelings had crossed their lips. Was Leath dreaming? Was she allowing her own emotions to rush away on her?
No! He’d kissed her like he’d meant to ignite their smouldering fire. They were both aware of the electrical sensibility sizzling and sparking between them like a broken power wire.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean he has any finer feelings for me, the voice of conscience bellowed inside her head. Don’t be a blind fool. He could be using my gullibility just like Robby suggested.
The smile on Kirk’s face appeared open and appreciative, but Robby’s warning niggled. Could Kirk be ingratiating himself to gain control of their property? He had indica
ted he’d do anything to force them out.
With an unsteady deep breath Leath’s back stiffened and she slipped down the front steps to take a large bowl from Kirk’s hands. “I told Mary not to bring anything.” She wondered if her smile was as plastic as it felt. “We have enough to feed an army.”
Kirk shrugged and leaned back into the vehicle and took out a carton of beer and a tray of meat. “Where do you want these?”
Conscious of her still-glowering brother at her shoulder, Leath took a risk and said, “Tristan? Would you take these drinks from your uncle and put them with the others please?”
As the boy disappeared around the side of the house, Leath introduced the two men.
Attempting to appear casual and relaxed, she prayed Robby wouldn’t make a scene.
Pausing before reluctantly taking the outstretched hand, Robby registered his aversion for the other man with a surly curl of his lip. “You’d do well to remember this property belongs to both Leath and me. It wasn’t for sale three months ago and you’re definitely not getting hold of it now.”
“Robby! Shut up!” Leath grabbed at his arm as he took a step closer to their guest. She glared into his surprised face.
“Just you watch it, pal,” Robby warned as he threw off Leath’s hold and stalked after Tristan.
Kirk turned a bewildered look at Leath. “What was that all about?”
“Nothing,” Leath mumbled as she led the way inside, Kirk following behind.
“Leath, I’m not stupid. That was definitely not nothing.”
Leath leant against the bench, gripping its honed edges. Her gaze focused on the tall trees outside the kitchen window. Gnawing at her bottom lip she debated how she could explain Robby’s behaviour. With a shuddering sigh she turned to face Kirk.
The truth seemed the most obvious way. But she’d be opening herself up to...to what? She had no idea. Reassurance? Or to having her feelings shot down in flames?
Not quite able to look him straight in the eye, Leath blurted out, “Robby’s concerned you might have figured out another way to acquire this property.”
