Berry Flavours

by Fraser, Darry

  “Me, too. Couldn’t be helped.” Then a moment or two later, Clancy mumbled, “What is that awful slurping noise?”

  Berry lifted his head, listening. “Oh, God. Rommy. And our dessert.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Clancy stared at the email, read it again. She hadn’t answered her father’s text yesterday – she’d had a few other things on her mind.

  Christmas had turned out to be something spectacular for her this year. It had been a long time since she’d pulled an all-nighter with a gorgeous male in her bed.

  Well, on the floor of his gorgeous house rather than the bed, though they did eventually get to his bed, via the kitchen and the bathroom.

  Anyhow, today, with Berry over on Mac’s farm negotiating, she’d had time to open the email discussion with the senior Jones.

  Dad was really pulling out all the stops, now. Amazing. A big blow up a week or so ago and now everything she’d ever asked for, he’s offering, and more.

  Where have you been stashing that sort of money, Dad?

  “Got a minute?” Berry poked his head in the door of the bedsit.

  “Of course. Come sit with me in my drawing room.”

  He sat close to her on the bed, only giving her laptop a swift glance. “News from home?”

  “I’ll tell you mine after you tell me yours.”

  “Hoping you’d say that.” He hugged her, kissed her cheek, her mouth. “Stop that.” He held her off by the shoulders. “Mac’s agreed. In principle.”

  Clancy let out a whoop. “Great news. But what does ‘in principle’ mean, exactly?”

  “We’ll run the surveyors over it, locate the pegs. If it all pans out, I give him reasonable time to move his fences.”

  “Reasonable?”

  “Six months.”

  “And the shearing shed?”

  “We’re still talking about that. Neither of us have sheep any more, so I thought about making a gentleman’s agreement with him.” Berry frowned. “Then I thought again about that. With Mac it has to be very cut and dried, so ‘gentleman’s’ and ‘agreement’ won’t work.” Berry inhaled. “That’s still a bit up in the air. I’m hoping with Marlie hovering close by, it’ll happen sooner than later. It has to, really.”

  “And great-grandma?”

  “He swears she’s not under the shed, and that he doesn’t know where she is. He reckons she’s on one of our properties, and should really be in the family plot over beyond that huge red gum on my place. He thinks there must be more papers to find.” Berry laughed aloud. “He tore strips off Greg when I told him what Greg had told you.”

  An incoming email on Clancy’s laptop pinged. Her father, no doubt looking for an answer from her. “It sounds so easy after all the arguing.”

  “It wasn’t, but my little folder had all the ammo and he had nothing. I’ll pin him down about the shed in a couple of days. Then I’ll call my lawyer to make it formal and get him to call off the court date.”

  “Exhausting and it went right down to the wire, almost.” Clancy had one eye on the email. She saw the words, ‘annual’ and ‘holiday’ and thought there was possibly even more up her dad’s sleeve than she suspected.

  “Still two weeks to go before the tenth.” Berry indicated the laptop. “And your news?”

  Clancy shifted, uncrossed her legs, stretched and let them dangle over the edge of the bed. “Well, Jones and Jones Restaurant can’t seem to do without this particular Jones.”

  “Really?”

  “Evie Bridezilla has pulled the princess vote and doesn’t like the work.”

  “The new bride.”

  “The very same.”

  “Must be tempting.”

  Clancy considered that. “Yes. It is.”

  She felt the breath leave Berry’s body, but he remained silent.

  “Dad says here—” she ran her finger down the body of the first email. “Any shifts I want, an upgraded company car just for me and a down payment on a unit in Stonyfell. Then he mentions here in this last email, an annual holiday.” She looked at Berry. “I’ve never had an annual holiday.”

  Berry nodded. “Impressive offer.” He toyed with her hand. “Considering it?”

  “I’d be a liar if I said no.”

  Berry lifted her hand to his mouth turned it over and kissed her wrist. “I have an offer, too.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I’d like you to make that terrine for my restaurant, amongst other things – here on the premises – every week for the next few years. As well as that, I’ll throw in a mangy terrine-eating kelpie to keep you company, a small bedsit with no kitchen but a wonderful outlook, a fantastic neighbour on the same property, and a job in a fine boutique restaurant with it’s own winery and vineyard just out of Dagsville.”

  Clancy rolled all that around in her head. “He’s not mangy.”

  “And if that’s not enticing enough, after a little while, all being well, I’ll throw in a shared space in the big house and some permanent company with a bloke who runs a little tin-pot affair this side of yonder.”

  “Will I have to cook there?”

  “Maybe a bit.”

  “And I’d have to sleep with the boss.”

  “Desirable. Essential, in fact.” He kissed her other wrist.

  “Are they the only clauses in the contract?”

  He thought about that. “Maybe a few extra small ones I’ll get to later.”

  Without looking, Clancy closed the laptop. She took his hands in hers and pulled him closer, wrapping his arms around her.

  “Where do I sign?”