And then the guy saw the car and Bryn saw his face change.
How many people in this district had been conned?
‘You’re...’
‘I’m nothing to do with him,’ Bryn said wearily. ‘I’m just returning the car to the...’
‘He’s his nephew! He came to help him!’
She must have been watching. Charlie’s head appeared at the top-floor window. She yelled and the guy backed away as if Bryn smelled. Which, considering the mud and the sweat, wasn’t surprising.
‘What the...? You okay?’ the farmer yelled up to Charlie. ‘What’s this low life doing here?’
‘I’m fine,’ Charlie yelled back. ‘He’s getting a taste of summary justice. Leave him to it.’
‘He might be here for a few days,’ the farmer yelled back and then he grinned. ‘Couldn’t happen to a better piece of... Yeah, I won’t say it. Got a mess on my own place, love, but if you’re sure you’re okay...’
‘Thanks,’ Charlie yelled back. ‘But I’m okay. Let’s all mind our own business. This guy’s nothing to do with us.’
She slammed the window shut, the truck did a fast reverse and Bryn was left alone again.
* * *
He sawed on.
In a way, the hard work helped. For the last week he’d been stuck in a dingy motel room or in the interrogation room at the police station, fielding questions from police, from accountants, from lawyers, trying to sort his way through a financial nightmare. His own lawyers had flown out in the end, and the mess was sorted as much as it could be, but the week had left its mark. He’d felt dirty even before he’d arrived here, and Charlie’s contempt was making it worse.
What else could he do?
Years ago his family had abandoned the idea of compensating for Thomas’s crimes. What Thomas had stolen, gambled, conned in his lifetime was enough to destroy everything they’d worked for and more. This scam had been a small one in the scheme of things, and it spoke of desperation. Thomas loved all things European. For him to spend months holed up in such an out of the way place, conning little people... He’d have hated it. And now he’d be in some even more distant country, conning more?
What could Bryn do about it?
Nothing, he conceded. The Ballystone Hall website, used only as a tool for marketing his cattle, was now plastered with warnings of this scam. It was hurting his own finances. People were now questioning the integrity of the Ballystone herd—with good reason. The last weeks had cost him a fortune. The idea of compensating every victim...
‘You can’t do it,’ his lawyers had advised and they’d advised strongly. ‘Your grandfather accepted it and you need to accept it, too. If you do it once you’ll be admitting familial obligation, and you’ll have every one of your uncle’s victims from the last thirty years suing you.’
So he had to wear it, and it made him feel ill. Yesterday all he’d wanted was to get home and put this behind him. He couldn’t bear to face the victims of Thomas’s deceit.
He was facing Charlie.
Or not facing her. She was locked inside the house, hating him, hurting because of what his toe-rag uncle had done.
If Thomas were here now...
He wasn’t. There wasn’t a thing Bryn could do about his uncle. He had to put all his faith in international policing and hope that one day justice would catch up with him.
Meanwhile, could he help Charlie? Pay her out? He could do that without getting emotionally involved.
But the lawyers’ warnings rang in his ears. ‘One pay-out and you’re liable for millions. Don’t even think about it. Most countries have victims of crime compensation. We’re sorry, my lord, but you’ll just have to wear it.’
He was wearing it now.
All he could do was saw, and heave away dead timber, and feel...as if it wasn’t even close to being near enough.
* * *
He was still on her land.
Three hours later he was still sawing, and Charlie needed to take the dogs for a walk, check the chooks and make sure Cordelia was doing okay. And get out of the house.
She couldn’t sit in the kitchen and rage for the rest of the day. Or for the rest of the week. Or until the bailiffs came and repossessed Grandma’s farm.
He’d sawed for a full morning. Maybe that was enough. What she most wanted was to get rid of him and the way he was going...her neighbour had said a few days. She wanted him gone now.
She looked out again at the mass of timber. He didn’t seem to be making inroads. There was still a mess around the car.
Needs must, she thought, sighing. She had to let the guy off the hook.
How?
His phone must be in the car. Otherwise he’d have rung for help by now. If she lent him her phone he could ring for a tow truck, for a woodcutter who was handy with a chainsaw—for a hire car? He’d have to pay—she had nothing to pay with—but that was his call. But she bleakly, finally accepted that she needed to approach him, maybe find the numbers, offer her phone, wait until he’d made the calls.
‘Okay, Charlie, suck it up,’ she told herself. ‘Go lend the toe-rag your phone and give him the right numbers. Anything to get rid of him.’
But it took courage to walk out of the front door.
After her post cow-digging shower, instead of putting on another pair of ancient jeans she’d gone a bit formal. As a defence? Who knew? But for some reason it made her feel a smidge more in control. She’d pulled on black trousers and a crisp white shirt and she’d twisted her hair into a neat knot. Now that decision seemed sensible. She was a career woman, and she knew how to handle conmen.
Or maybe not, but she surely knew not to do anything like kiss them. Idiots kissed conmen and she wasn’t playing the idiot one moment longer.
Go and get rid of him. Fast.
CHAPTER FOUR
SHE LEFT THE dogs inside. If she let them out they’d be bouncing around her, joyful to be out and doing, and she didn’t want their joy undermining her disdain. Bryn was at the far side of the bulk of the tree. She stalked around, fighting for courage. Keeping her disdainful face on.
And then she stopped.
He wasn’t sawing into the car, or, if he was, he was doing it the long way.
What she hadn’t realised from the glimpses she’d dared from upstairs was that he was working in from the far reaches of the driveway, unblocking the route to the house. He was forming a mountain of twigs and dead-leaf litter, stacking it well past the driveway. Anything that could be used as firewood he was stacking closer—where it could be loaded onto a trailer to be taken to a woodshed? He was clearing her drive as he worked.
Why?
He surely wasn’t intending to drive his over-the-top sports car out. Even from here she could see it was damaged past repair.
Did he think she’d drive him?
That didn’t make sense. He was giving himself hours of extra work, when surely the best option was to simply reach his car, reach his phone and call a cab.
She stared in stupefaction and, as if he sensed her presence, he looked up, saw her and stopped sawing.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked stupidly, and, even more stupidly, here came his smile again. In the face of all he and his appalling uncle had done, how he had the effrontery to smile...
To kiss her...
Do not think of that kiss.
‘I’m sawing,’ he said helpfully, and went back to sawing.
She stood and watched. He sawed as if the ancient, rusty saw he was using was brand new, built for the job. His strokes were long and steady, with no hesitation, no catching. Charlie had tried to use a saw before, and she knew it was hard with well-cared-for tools. To saw like this, with a rusty blade...
He’d said he was a farmer. Maybe it wasn’t all lies.
But most of it was. She glanced a
gain at the squashed car and thought of the damage, the pain. She hardened her heart.
‘You don’t need to clear the driveway,’ she said, and was proud of how cold she sounded. ‘There’s no way you’ll be driving out. There’s a local cab company in Carlsbrook. If you pay enough they’ll take you to the airport. There’s a guy who lives a couple of miles from here, a woodcutter. I’ve checked. He has more than enough work after last night to keep him busy for months but if you pay him enough he’ll cut a path through to your car.’
He stopped sawing again and straightened, watching her.
‘And where does that leave you?’
‘That’s not your business. I want you off my land.’
‘Will he clear your driveway?’
‘Eventually.’ If she paid him. With what?
Don’t go there.
‘“Eventually” isn’t good enough,’ he said and went back to sawing.
‘You can’t clear it by hand,’ she said, stunned, but he didn’t pause as he answered.
‘I’m thinking the bulk of it’ll be done by this evening. By then I’ll have reached my car. I’ll retrieve my phone—and my gear with a change of clothes—and I’ll do my own organising to get me out of here. And you’ll be left with a clear driveway. So thank you for the offer, Miss Foster, but I don’t need it.’
She was feeling...a bit dizzy. This man was a toe-rag. Why wasn’t he acting like one?
Because charm was his middle name? She was beginning to realise just how her grandmother had been conned.
She was looking for the con now. She wasn’t clever enough to find it but she knew it’d be there.
‘I don’t want you on my land any more,’ she said, and it came out petty. Like a kid saying, ‘I’m taking my bat and going home.’
He straightened again then, and set the saw aside. Once again she was caught by the sight of him. Naked to the waist, every inch of him toned, muscled, hard...
Was he really a farmer?
The way he handled that saw...
Do not let yourself be conned!
She walked forward, proffering the phone, holding it out as if she were handing over something distasteful to someone who was even more distasteful. As if she’d need disinfectant when she was done.
He smiled but his smile was rueful and he shook his head.
‘I’m not taking more from you, Charlie.’
And what was there in that to make her blink? To make her eyes suddenly well so she had to fight back stupid, unwanted emotion.
Do not trust.
‘Go inside and ring the police at Carlsbrook,’ he said, just as gently. ‘Ask to speak to Sergeant Marlow. I’ve been working with him for the last few days, trying to clear up what I can of this mess.’
‘Of...your uncle’s mess.’
‘Yes.’ He was looking straight at her, his gaze on hers, serious, steady.
Steady. It was a strong word but it resonated. In all this mess, he seemed somehow...solid.
Right. Grandma had thought that. Grandma had lost everything.
‘Thomas Carlisle is an alias,’ he told her, confirming what she’d just learned. ‘He’s really Thomas Morgan. My uncle. Once upon a time he was part of my family but that was a long time ago. He was wild as a youth, he was in trouble with the law before he turned twenty and he’s gone from bad to worse. He broke my grandmother’s heart. My grandfather died recently still despairing of him.’
‘So you knew...’
‘We’ve known for years that Thomas is a slime ball. We didn’t know of this particular con until the police contacted us.’
His voice was deep. Even. Steady.
There was that word again.
‘He’s stolen from us,’ Bryn said. ‘From my family. From me. From everyone he touches.’
‘He wasn’t a Baron. A Lord.’ She should have researched it herself, she thought wildly. She’d been so caught up in her personal distress.
‘No.’
‘And you... You really are a farmer?’
He held out his hands then, large, capable, worn. Hands that had carried Flossie in last night. Hands that had dug Cordelia out of the mud. Hands that had sawed for three hours without blistering.
‘Farming’s my life,’ he said simply. ‘I’m only here—’
‘To rescue your uncle.’ She said it flatly because it was the truth and she had to cling to it. Families didn’t discard members. They stood together against the world.
Like she and Grandma. Going down together.
‘I came because they told me Thomas was dead.’
That hauled her out of her introspection. It was a blank statement, bald, and it held her.
‘Dead...’
‘If you’ve indeed been conned by Thomas, you’ll know he set this up with so much skill he might have got away with it.’ His voice was suddenly tired. ‘You might not know that he’s conned people before. There are lawsuits against him at home and in half a dozen other countries. This was a small-time scam compared to the others, mostly I imagine because there are any number of law agencies looking for him. Now he’s running out of options.’
Still he hadn’t moved. They were thirty feet apart, a mile of distrust between them, and the bleakness in Bryn’s voice seemed to make the distance greater.
‘It seems, to give him time to get out of the country, he parked the car above the cliffs overlooking Deadman’s Reach by the river north of Carlsbrook,’ he said wearily. ‘What a name, by the way—it’s almost designed to live up to its reputation. He left a note saying he was tired of running, that he regretted his life of lies, that he was done. He left one shoe artistically at the cliff edge, and tossed another to land on a ledge below. He made scuff marks at the cliff edge and his briefcase wide open, so we could assume the wind had blown things away. He left the car, which he’d only leased. Leased with fraudulent papers. So I had a call...’
‘You had a call?’ She was struggling to take this in.
‘I’m...’ His voice faltered and something washed over his face—a shadow of pain? It was an impression only though, fleeting and gone before he continued. ‘I’m pretty much his only relative. My father died some years ago and my grandfather recently. I couldn’t ask my mother to come to Australia to prove her brother-in-law hadn’t actually committed suicide but had taken off on yet another false passport to somewhere he could start conning people all over again.’
‘You knew he wasn’t dead?’
‘I guessed. Once I was here I was sure.’
‘That’s what the police are saying,’ she whispered. ‘That it was fake. But you... You said you’re here to help him.’
‘I didn’t say that. I’ve done as much as I can to undo the damage he’s done but helping Thomas... If you knew how much I wanted to...’ He paused and gazed around him, at her land, or the land that the bank now owned. ‘No. Fury gets me nowhere.’
She shook her head, trying to rid herself of confusion. This man... Why should she trust him?
‘The car...’ she managed, looking at the wreck of the over-the-top sports car, and he sighed and even managed a wry smile.
‘Yeah, that’s my call.’
‘Your call?’
‘He used my name to lease it,’ he said wearily, almost apologetically. ‘That’s another reason I had to come. I told you he’s stolen from me. He came to my home...a while back and stole identity papers. Plus the rest. The car’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s...it was to be collected by the dealership in Melbourne.’ He looked at it ruefully. ‘It was hard enough to explain I wasn’t responsible for the debt before it was squashed. Now...’
‘You’re responsible for that?’ It was unbelievable. But suddenly...she did believe him.
Why? His uncle had been a consummate con artist. This man, with his blazing good looks, his smile... He was so
far out of her realm...
Or he had been. But maybe Thomas had stolen from him, too, and she’d made him battle a fallen tree the whole morning and he’d saved Flossie and he’d saved Cordelia and...and...
She felt about two inches tall.
She could choose not to believe him. That’d be easier.
‘If you need to keep thinking of me as a scumbag, go right ahead,’ he said and, for heaven’s sake, it was as if he’d read her mind.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said, and she knew she was sounding desperate. ‘How can I believe you’re a farmer when you swan around in such a car? They cost...’
‘I know exactly how much this one cost,’ he said and named a figure that made her almost do a double take. And then, stupidly, the smile returned. ‘But you know, life’s not all mud. Sometimes a man needs to stop and smell the roses.’
‘I don’t know what you mean?’
‘The police collected me at the airport and brought me here,’ he told her. ‘They put me up in the Carlsbrook Motel, which leaves a lot to be desired in the comfort department. I’ve spent days being grilled like a criminal. I had the distinct impression I’m lucky not to be behind bars myself and only the fact that I’d voluntarily flown out here gave them pause. Thomas has put my signature on a power of paperwork, and he’s done it well. When they finally stopped suspecting me, I was still facing a mass of legalities. Finally I was cleared to go home but the police weren’t offering to take me back to the airport. However, this car needed to be taken back to Melbourne. And what a car!’ His smile became a grin then, suddenly pure mischief. ‘So I thought...’
‘You thought you’d just...’
‘Have fun,’ he said, but he said it quite gently. ‘Because I’ve learned from hard experience that you can let grey overwhelm you, or you can catch at slivers of light.’ He paused and watched her for a moment. ‘I suspect there’ve been very few slivers of light in your life lately,’ he said. ‘Just how badly did Thomas hurt you?’
‘You don’t know details?’
‘I don’t know individual cons,’ he said apologetically. ‘The police seemed to think it was none of my business. They’ve cited privacy provisions, and, to be honest, I couldn’t face knowing the details of every farmer he’s hurt. He’s done this before, Charlie. I can’t undo—’
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