by Cathryn Hein
Catching it, Teagan gave Nick a tight smile before turning to Lucas. ‘Sorry. You probably need to get to work.’
‘So do you.’ He indicated Diablo. ‘You can hold him for me.’
Elsa, the stable girl, hovered around as he worked, filling Teagan in on the owner’s plans of a showjumping career for Diablo, a plan that she clearly disapproved of. How the owner was one of those rich, fairweather people who sold their horses on the moment they didn’t perform. Diablo was likely to end up at the knackers if he didn’t learn to behave. He’d thrown the shoe not long after throwing his rider, losing both up on the property’s steep back hills. The idea being that if she took the horse up and down them enough, tiring him out, he’d be too stuffed to play up when she took him back to the riding ring. Clearly a strategy that had failed.
‘Poor baby,’ said Teagan, stroking him. ‘He’s too young for that. I turned my Astra out for eight months after I bought her. She was like a puppy, legs going everywhere. Only knew stop and go. Still only knows two speeds, but we’re getting there.’ She gave an irritated sigh. ‘Were getting there, I mean. A friend owns her now. It’s a long road for these animals. They need patience, not the guts flogged out of them.’
‘Couldn’t agree more,’ said Nick, sidling up as Lucas patted Diablo and began stripping off his leather apron. He glanced at Teagan. She was watching him again, mouth slightly open. So she liked him in his leathers? Interesting. Made him wonder what she’d be like if she saw him at work in his forge.
Nick addressed Teagan. ‘Look, I had one of my staff quit on me yesterday. Ran off with her boyfriend.’ He lifted his arms from his sides and looked skywards. ‘What is it about horse girls? Always running off with men. Most of them losers.’
‘Not this horse girl,’ said Teagan.
‘Some men are worth running off with,’ said Elsa, throwing Lucas a hot glance.
‘You.’ Nick pointed at her, then jerked his thumb towards the stables. ‘Work.’ He turned back to Teagan. ‘I have a part-time vacancy. Six am until twelve, Monday to Saturday. Award rates. Interested?’
Teagan glanced at Lucas and then at Diablo. ‘I don’t know. I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. I still have a heap of stuff to sort at my aunt’s.’
‘You said yourself you’d need a job eventually,’ said Lucas. ‘That you didn’t want to keep sponging off Vanessa.’
Teagan bit her lip. ‘Can I get back to you?’
Nick handed her a card. ‘Mobile number’s the best. Don’t leave it too long. I can’t afford to be without staff for more than a few days.’ He looked up at the two-storey, old colonial Georgian-style house perched halfway up the hill behind the yards. The sort of historic home that cost a fortune to heat and maintain. ‘We’ve just had a baby. I spend enough time down here as it is.’
She fingered the card. ‘I’ll call. One way or another.’
Lucas glanced at her as they drove down Belgravia’s long hill back towards the road. She kept alternating between staring at her hands and out the side window, dragging the point of her incisor over her lip. Horses grazed the paddock, most wearing their lighter day rugs. A few were snatching from a round bale feeder, ears pricking as the ute wheeled past. Looking after them and others would be Teagan’s responsibility, if she chose to take it on.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
At the end of the drive, he braked and flicked the indicator. A few cars sped past. He pulled out behind them and waited until they were up to the limit before speaking again. ‘Don’t want the job?’
She shook her head and sighed. ‘I honestly don’t know. I love horses, I’d like to work with them. And you’re right, I don’t want to keep having to sponge off Ness, but it seems permanent, you know? Coming here was only meant to be temporary. A place to rest while I worked out what to do with myself.’
He glanced at her again. Teagan’s lip was puffed where she’d been worrying it. The job offer seemed to genuinely trouble her.
‘What would you do otherwise?’
‘I don’t know. Drive west or north. There’re bound to be plenty of properties looking for workers. Lose myself out in the bush for a while.’
‘Lonely.’
‘I’m not exactly the world’s most sociable person right now.’
‘You’re not doing too badly from what I’ve seen. Anyway, it’s not like the job would be forever. You could give it a try and if you didn’t like it look for something else.’
‘Maybe,’ she said doubtfully, staring back out the window. ‘I’ll talk to Ness.’
They drove back through the village. Lucas was tempted to stop and check his mail, but on spotting Col’s battered Ford in the parking lot decided against it. It was lunchtime anyway. He had corned beef in the fridge. Some tomatoes and cheese, and homemade chutney that one of his clients had given him. All the workings for a good sandwich. Plus Lucas didn’t want his time with Teagan to be over yet. What better way to extend it than to offer lunch?
He was about to ask her if she’d like to grab a bite to eat with him at Astonville when she spoke.
‘Thanks for convincing me to come out with you. I had a nice time.’
‘Good. I hoped you would.’
‘I suppose I should get back to the farm now, let you get on with things?’
The way she spoke, the question in her voice, made him look at her. She was biting her lip again, her hands twisting together. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Actually, no.’ The words were shy, her sideways gaze low under her lashes. A pink hue was colouring her creamy, freckled skin. ‘If you have the time, I’d really like to see your forge.’
She couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Teagan hadn’t given much thought to what Lucas’s place would be like. She assumed it’d be similar to those of Owen’s mates’ she’d seen or Em’s brother Digby’s bachelor pad. A bit daggy. Perhaps even a little run down. Clean but not terribly tidy and full of boy’s toys. What she found was quite different.
‘It’s not much, but it’s mine.’ He grinned as he braked near a paved, pergola-covered outdoor entertaining area at the rear of his house. ‘Well, mine and the bank’s.’
Teagan didn’t quite know what to say. She’d been enchanted from the moment he’d turned into his drive and cruised slowly up the hill towards his home. His cottage was gorgeous. A sweet little stone building built into the side of a hill and surrounded by a well-maintained buffalo lawn and garden beds colourful with flowering shrubs. Tall trees swayed around the edges, offering shady respite and a partial screen from the road. The drive was neat gravel with shallow concrete guttering to catch rain and channel it to the small dam near the entrance.
‘It’s really lovely,’ she said, meaning it. She smiled back at him. ‘Not quite what I expected.’
‘Yeah? What did you expect?’
‘I don’t know. Something more bachelory.’
‘Uncared for, you mean?’
Not wanting to offend she shrugged lightly. ‘Maybe not uncared for. Just more . . .’
‘Untidy? Nah. I had to put up with enough of that when I was sharing. I like things neat.’ He pushed open the ute door and waited until she’d also alighted to continue. ‘Getting a mortgage focuses you. I’ve worked my arse off to own this place. I plan to look after it.’ He tilted his head. ‘Come on, I’ll show you around.’
Teagan walked companionably alongside as Lucas pointed out the improvements he’d made over the past four years. Astonville, as the property had been once named and which he’d kept on, was a dump when he’d bought it, but if he wanted to buy in the valley, a dump was all he could afford. He’d laboured hard on the renovations, calling on mates like Dunks to help when he couldn’t manage on his own. Begging and borrowing tools and equipment, cajoling extra labour in return for beers and barbies.
‘The verandah was a killer,’ he said as they walked along the garden at the front of the house. The view down t
hrough the trees to the road and across was richly pastoral, with a flock of brown-and-white Boer goats grazing the opposite hill, post and rail fences, and a eucalypt-lined driveway disappearing over the top. ‘Had to replace the whole thing. Boards, posts. They were all rotted. The lacework I made myself.’
She could hear the pride in his voice. He deserved to be proud. The verandah’s iron lacework was spectacular. Instead of the traditional spear tips, scrolling and regulated design, Lucas had created softly curving Art Nouveau forms and seductive organic shapes that seemed to sprout from the timber posts as though alive.
‘You could make a fortune alone selling that lacework. It’s amazing.’
The smile he gave her was dazzling, and not just because of his glowing white teeth. That she was impressed had made him happy. She looked away as something flipped over inside her and brought back the memory of an emotion she hadn’t experienced in years. An emotion pointless and unwanted, yet longed for all the same.
‘Come and see this,’ he said, grabbing her hand and holding it as he led her around the side of the house. The movement was as natural as it had been in the pool when he’d taken her hand and they’d floated on their backs, staring at the infinite sky.
She glanced down at their threaded fingers, not knowing what to think. Holding her hand said things. It implied their relationship was more than a growing friendship and she didn’t know how to trust it. Or if she could. Teagan was a skinny, screwed-up redhead who belonged nowhere except a place that was lost to her. Lucas was a man with everything – ridiculous looks, friends, professional skill, a home he was proud of. He couldn’t be serious about her. They were completely mismatched.
Still, she didn’t pull her hand away.
He guided her beneath the pergola. Dormant vines were tucked against the bases of the uprights. They were thin-stemmed and young, but Teagan could imagine how gloriously cool and Mediterranean-like the setting would be in the summer, when the vines were established enough to twine across the roof and form a green protective canopy.
‘More of your work?’ she asked, nodding towards the timber-and-iron outdoor setting.
‘Yep.’
‘How do you find the time?’
He shrugged. ‘My days vary. Sometimes I’m flat out, other days I only have one or two clients. Business tends to be seasonal, too. In the summer a lot of horses are turned out while everyone goes on holidays and I’m quieter, which means I have more time to spend on stuff for the house.’
Leaving the pergola, he crossed an open gravel space towards a small brick building attached to the end of an open bay farm shed. Everything about Astonville was neat. No junk lying about. No unkempt lawn or shrubbery. Even the wood pile was tidy.
He let go of her to drag a set of keys from his pocket and Teagan couldn’t help her pang of disappointment. He found the key he wanted and inserted it into the deadlock. The place was solid. Brick walls, thick timber struts and a corrugated-iron roof.
She stepped inside. The room was dark despite the bright sun creeping through the eaves. And there was a smell in the air. The scent of metal and something else she didn’t recognise but which felt familiar all the same.
‘Hang on, I’ll give us some light.’ He strode across the room and Teagan could see that the shed wasn’t all brick. The left side housed a large steel sliding door. Lucas unlocked another bolt and began to push the door across.
Light flooded in, exposing his workshop.
‘So this is your forge,’ she said, taking in the space.
‘Not a proper one. But it does the job for now.’ He placed his hands on his hips and looked around. Again that sign of pride. ‘One day I’ll have it set up properly. Can’t quite afford everything at the moment.’
Teagan began to wander, fingering things as she walked. A large gas forge with a flue reaching to the roof dominated the room. Solid racks containing steel sheets, rods and tubing of various size and diameter occupied one wall. Anvils – one enormous, the other smaller – stood mounted at waist height on log plinths. Tools were hooked onto special frames on the walls, all well cared for and stored neatly. Along another wall, stretched a steel-and-timber bench with pieces of sculpted and shaped metal in various stages of completion.
There were books, too. On a galvanised bookshelf behind the door. She walked over to study the covers. The books about metalwork she’d expected but not the titles covering design and art. She pulled out a hardcover volume on Art Nouveau style and flicked through the pages before looking up at him.
Lucas was watching her closely. ‘I use them for ideas. I’m not,’ he scratched his cheek, ‘you know, real arty-farty.’
‘Could’ve fooled me.’ She slid the book back and continued to nose around. At the far end of the bench was a small portable forge, about the size of a barbecue gas bottle. Nearby stood what looked like a jeweller’s magnifying lamp on a flexible arm. Intrigued, she moved for a closer look. The mat beneath the magnifying glass held a shaped piece of silver with enamel inlays of incredible vibrancy. The artwork shone with a warmth that belied its metal-and-glass base.
She glanced at him. ‘May I?’
He scraped his hands against his jeans and nodded.
Teagan picked up the pendant and studied it. The piece was circular. Inside, two stemmed silver flowers curled like yin and yang shapes around each other. The petals were enamelled in a deep red, the leaves emerald. A sky-blue background completed the filling. She could see areas requiring further polishing down, but even so, the craftsmanship was exquisite.
‘I’m just playing around.’
‘It’s beautiful, Lucas. It really is.’ She placed it down carefully, almost reverentially, giving the surface one last, lingering stroke before smiling at him. ‘Does anyone else know you make these things?’
He shook his head and pointed to his necklace. ‘Stuff like this everyone knows about.’
‘But the jewellery?’
He held her gaze. ‘You’re the first.’
‘I’m honoured.’ She meant it, too. She drifted on, trying to act nonchalant when her heart was thumping fast. The hand he’d linked with hers had created this beauty. He was a big burly farrier, a man’s man, and yet he created artwork so delicate and expressive it stole her breath. Lucas had surprised her in a way she couldn’t have imagined. ‘But you must have lots of visitors. Friends.’
Girlfriends. Women.
‘Not really.’
She threw him a disbelieving look.
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. ‘I tend to catch up with people on my rounds. Unless I’ve asked for a hand with something no one seems to bother calling in. When I’m home, I just want to kick back or work here anyway.’
‘But you have that great entertainment area. You must’ve built that for something.’
‘It’ll get used. Eventually.’
She regarded him with folded arms, trying to work him out. None of this was as she’d expected. Lucas himself was proving nothing like she’d expected. ‘You’re a funny one.’
‘Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?’
‘I’m not sure yet.’
‘Don’t puzzle too hard. I’m just your average bloke trying to sort out his place in the world. Come on, I’ll show you the house.’
This time there was no offer of his hand. Teagan followed alongside, trying to kill the urge to reach for it. The man had heartbreaker written all over him, but when he’d held her hand earlier it had felt safe instead of insecure. A feeling she hadn’t experienced since things had started going downhill at Pinehaven. Over the last eighteen months she’d been in a state of permanent anxiety. Then about six months ago the oily black slick had begun its ugly, whispering creep and Teagan had begun to feel unsafe even with her own thoughts. She still did.
But not today. Not with him.
Lucas pushed open the back door, letting her pass through before following behind. ‘Kitchen’s straight from the seventies. It’s on my list to fix up. I burned m
ost of my cash trying to get the place sound.’
The kitchen was as described, unfashionable but functional, with burnt-orange benchtops and splashbacks, and faux-walnut-laminated cupboard doors. A large modern timber table dominated the area, newspaper spread open at one end, a pile of folded clothes at the other. In the centre was a metal bowl containing apples and a spotted banana. A wall clock ticked above a matching sideboard strewn with keys, mail, an empty iPod speaker dock and tablet computer.
‘It’s nice.’ She nodded in approval. ‘Homely.’
‘Thanks.’
Teagan hunted for something else to say and couldn’t think of anything. She licked her lips and grabbed at her upper arm, flicking a look from him to the lounge then towards the hall that ran dark to her left. The bedrooms would be down there. She swallowed and darted another peek his way.
He was studying her closely, hands in his pockets, a slight frown marking his brow.
Self-consciousness crawled over her shoulders and circled her chest and throat. She twitched a smile, wishing she could think of something, anything to say, but she’d been muted by awkwardness. Half of her was pleading for him to make a move. For him to smile one of his flirty grins and step close, tease her with glittering eyes that kept tracking to her mouth. The other half wanted to bolt for the door.
A smart person would do the latter. Teagan was too fragile for emotional games. All she wanted was some sort of normalcy, to find peace in her own thoughts. Playing around with Lucas wouldn’t bring her that.
He pulled a hand from his pocket and scratched his cheek. ‘What was your place like?’
The relief of conversation was huge. Even if it was about Pinehaven.
‘Basic.’ At his questioning look she elaborated. ‘I lived in one of the farm’s old worker’s cottages. I had plans to do it up but never had the time or money. The main house was okay though. Mum and Dad renovated several years ago, when things were good. My brother still lived at home then.’ Not wanting to let him see the despair mention of her lost home brought on, she folded her arms and strode to the end of the room. ‘This is the lounge?’
