Matilda Next Door

by Kelly Hunter

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Ask him.’ Tilly’s father had known full well where Henry’s thoughts had been heading all those years ago. ‘You’ve had an open invite to visit me in London since you were eighteen years old.’

  ‘You forgot my eighteenth birthday, Henry. You made that offer one week later, probably out of guilt.’

  ‘My offer was genuine. But you never did visit and I never did push, and now that I have a daughter to provide for it doesn’t exactly seem like the right time to make my interest known. You might think I’m opting for convenience, rather than finally acting on a long-held attraction towards you. To take on a difficult man, and a motherless child, is a lot to ask of any woman.’

  Her eyes met his in the window reflection. ‘I wouldn’t mind.’

  He came up behind her and she set her glass down and clutched at the rim of the sink instead, as she watched him draw closer. ‘Turn around,’ he ordered quietly, and she did and he boxed her in with an arm either side, watching her face and reading her body for any signs of resistance. ‘I’d like to kiss you now, and then I’ll say good night and turn in, because what I don’t want to do is pressure you into something you’ll regret tomorrow. You’ve had a crazy few days. So have I. So we’ll take this slow and get it right. That okay by you?’

  She nodded, her cheeks flushing and her gaze skipping to his lips, and that was all the encouragement he needed.

  Her lips were warm and soft and he started slow, as slow as he could with the fierce need for more riding him hard and turning every muscle in his body taut as an overwound violin string. And then her lips parted beneath his and her hands came up to hold his face in place as she melted against him and feasted, and this time it was his turn to hang onto the edge of the sink as if his life depended on it.

  One kiss, just one kiss, and then he’d leave, but his mouth never left hers and the kiss grew deeper and ever more soul consuming, and breathing was for fools. She wasn’t coy. She didn’t hold back her delight. No games. Be it with words or with kisses, her simple honesty floored him.

  All he wanted to do was push for more, pin her to the counter and let her sweetness engulf him.

  Instead, he pulled back, loving the tousled, freshly kissed look of her. ‘I’m hard work. I’m no one’s prize catch. I’ve been told repeatedly that I don’t trust easily, and nor do I love without reservation. If people are being blunt, they’ll say I don’t know how to love at all.’

  ‘They’re wrong.’

  Stubborn Tilly. Always prepared to believe the best of him. She made him want to believe it too. ‘I want to get this right.’ He kissed her hard and fast. ‘If you hear Rowan fussing tonight, don’t worry about it. I’ll get up for her and, fingers crossed, I’ll deal with it. Consider this step one in my courtship plan. Prove to Tilly that I’m on top of the single fatherhood gig and don’t need rescuing.’

  She nodded, bemused. ‘But you do need rescuing. Isn’t that why I’m here?’

  ‘Not anymore. You’re backup only. I’m a man with a plan.’

  She raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

  ‘Good night, Matilda. Sleep well.’

  ‘I won’t you know.’ He was halfway down the hall before her tricksy words reached him. ‘I’ll be too busy planning how to seduce you.’

  *

  Tilly got ready for sleep in her third unfamiliar bedroom for the week. Not that it bothered her this time around and the reason for that was across the hallway in a nearby bedroom. Who knew that all she needed was the presence of Henry in order for the unfamiliar to feel a whole lot like home?

  Henry, who may have been labelled mad during his teenage years, but he had never not also been hot. Mad Hot Henry—she saw no reason whatsoever to rethink that assessment. And he was here and now and home for who knew how long, and he wanted her in a romantic way and not just as a babysitter. She wanted to believe that so much.

  The way she saw it, she had two choices. Run away and protect her heart, which, admittedly, had been the choice behind her decision to leave Henry to it in Melbourne. Or open herself wide to the possibilities Henry presented. Believe him when he said he didn’t need an insta-wife. Trust that he was following his feelings and not his need for a nanny for his motherless child. Hope that he’d find the kind of happiness in Wirralong that he’d never found before and that he’d want to stay and build his life here. With her. That was the big one. The one that seemed impossible.

  Because London, for all its charm and bustle, would never hold her heart. She was addicted to blue skies and red-dirt sunsets. And maybe there were drawbacks to living in a place where memories were long and most everyone knew her name, but Wirralong was growing ever more vibrant and innovative. Maggie’s destination wedding venue drew people from far and wide—people with fat wallets and a love of good coffee and fancy sweet treats that Tilly was more than happy to provide. There was an emerging fine-dining scene, a tiny antique store and a vibrant arts-and-crafts co-op. Tilly wanted to be part of it all for a long time to come. What did Henry want? Could he build a career here? One based on the type of statistical risk analysis work he’d been doing for years? Could he collaborate from afar with others just like him? Be part of a virtual think tank and stay right here in Wirralong. It wasn’t an impossible ask. Was it?

  She patted down her hair, took a deep breath, and then headed towards Henry’s bedroom. She knocked on the door, and it opened, and … ah.

  Because a shirtless Henry Church had muscles any gun sheep shearer would be proud of—and if fantasy could become reality with the snap of her fingers, breakfast from this day forward would involve her wearing one of Henry’s fancy shirts and him wearing no shirt at all. Just those groovy pyjama bottoms with the elastic round the top that barely hid the tempting cutaway to—

  He cleared his throat, a handy reminder that his face was way up there. She’d knocked on his door for a reason, and there were words to speak and possibly hopes to be dashed. Way to kill a relationship before it even began, she thought grimly, but she had to be straight with him. ‘My last relationship failed because Wirralong’s my home and I wouldn’t move away when he asked me to. In the end, that just wasn’t a decision that made sense to me. Maybe I didn’t love him enough, and I don’t quite know how I got on to mentioning that, but Wirralong is where I want to live. You should know that about me before we begin anything.’

  For some reason he seemed just as enamoured with Tweety Bird as she’d been with the elastic on his pyjama pants. ‘I do know that. Your family’s here, your roots run deep, and London’s not for you—although I know I could find you a rooftop view that would take your breath away.’ He reached up to run his hand across the back of his neck as if uneasy, but his gaze was direct and clear. ‘Although the farm holds little of interest to me, my family’s here and they need me. Perhaps I need them too. I figure I can be here and care for the farm, my grandparents, and a baby, and start a new business as well. Get into statistical environmental modelling. I can do that from here. There are plenty of questions out there that need answering.’

  ‘You’re not Superman.’

  His smile turned wry. ‘I do, however, have something that’s going to help me achieve those goals.’

  ‘The ability to exist without sleep?’

  ‘Money,’ he corrected her. ‘It helps.’

  ‘So you’re staying in Wirralong?’ She could barely believe he’d made such a decision so quickly. Where was his agony of indecision? The big bit of paper divided into columns of pros and cons? All those checks and balances that he was famed for? ‘For how long?’ Until Beth and Joe passed on? Until Rowan needed better schooling than she would get in a small country town? ‘Because all that modelling you do for your work is about predicting the future, right? Will you be here in ten-years’ time? How about fifty? What happens when you get bored with it again?’ With me.

  ‘What’s to say we can’t make a traveller out of you yet?’ he countered. ‘With Wirralong as your bas
e. Do you discount it?’

  Did she?

  ‘I’m not saying don’t ask these questions of me, and more,’ he continued quietly. ‘I’ll give you the best answers I can. The way I see it, I’m here until the people that took me in and raised me no longer need me. After that, it’s something we’d have to nut out between us if we were together. There would be a give and take about that discussion. A willingness on your part to venture forth and share new experiences with me. To let your own culinary studies take you far and wide.’ He spread his hands at his side, and there was that body again, such a glorious distraction. ‘A willingness on my part to return, over and over again, to the place that makes you happy. To make it my happy place too. Does any of that sound appealing?’

  More than. She nodded vigorously. A bobble-headed, hopeful fool as she took a step back and then another, still facing him. ‘Yes.’ All of it. Intrepid, worldly Tilly, with Wirralong and Henry the pillars on which she built. ‘Yes, it does. Can we have sex now?’

  Uh oh. Too soon.

  ‘Matilda Moore, I am shocked; shocked by your artless attempt to seduce me. Where’s the subtlety, the agony of the slow build, the simmering—oomph!’

  The best way to shut him up was to launch herself into his arms and kiss him quiet. She’d been wearing his shirt for weeks now, rifling in his sock drawer, slathering herself with his body soap. Bonding late at night over a sleeping baby. Ogling the sheer glory of him not two minutes ago. Surely the foreplay was done?

  He was laughing as he allowed her to nudge him backwards onto the bed, still smiling as she peppered his face with kisses and climbed all over him, and he was gratifyingly hard in all the right places and she could not wait for him to discover all her soft parts. She could help him find them, yes, the thin material of his trousers and the dampness beneath her shorts doing little to disguise how utterly ready she was for more.

  ‘Do you have any idea how often I imagined you and me in your sexy shower? I have an entire ten-minute fantasy fully imagined and set on standby.’

  ‘Only ten minutes?’ He had such lovely hands. Devious fingers as they slipped beneath barriers and unerringly found her centre. ‘Give me some credit. You know I’m a high achiever.’

  ‘Go on then. Challenge my fantasy.’ She didn’t need to be a genius to know that some people rose magnificently to a challenge.

  Just magnificently.

  There were kisses and plenty of them. Touches and sighs and melting pleasure and piercing heat as she opened for him and softness met velvet-wrapped steel.

  He reworked all her fantasies until they were better and surer and dripping with anticipation. There was a finale in there somewhere, a final build of greedy lips at her breast and possessive hands as he took control of her body and put her where he wanted her, playing her to perfection.

  Up and up, as she lost all sense of time.

  And over.

  Chapter Nine

  Four am was not Henry’s favourite time of day. Or night. It was all relative. But wake up he did, and get up he did, to go and see to the daughter he’d so recently been introduced to. His feelings for Rowan were complicated in the extreme, a tangled mix of bemusement, affection, frustration that he wasn’t doing a good job by her, and fear that he wouldn’t get any better at it.

  It was not as if his role models could help him out any but, then, what was it he’d said to Amanda? That she’d make a great mother in spite of her lack of knowing what it meant. No role models at all, just instinct and knowing when she would be most needed. Because of what Amanda had needed as a child and never received.

  Could the same go for him?

  ‘What do you think, baby? Want to take your chances with me as your father?’

  Not that he was expecting an answer as he made short work of her dirty nappy, and didn’t dry heave once. Progress.

  ‘Not as if you have much of a choice,’ he answered for her. ‘Okay, let’s do this. Hi.’

  She smiled at him and he took it as a reciprocal greeting.

  ‘I’m Henry, your …’ He could do this. ‘Father.’

  Easy.

  So not easy, as self-doubt assailed him. ‘Let’s start with the basics. My sock drawer is sacrosanct. Led Zeppelin IV is the best music album in existence—do not let Tilly speak of Pink Floyd. Your mother’s name is Amanda and whenever you want to talk about her or ask questions, we’ll talk. I may not always know the answer to your questions about her, but we can go looking for information if need be. So that’s me. What about you? How’s it going so far? This daughter business?’

  Silence.

  ‘Yeah, I’m good at waiting and watching and not saying much too. Hasn’t always worked to my advantage.’

  Rowan seemed to recall that her arms actually belonged to her, and promptly put her left fist in her mouth.

  ‘Good talk.’

  He settled Rowan to sleep again without having to wake Tilly in order to do it. Tilly, who was fast asleep in his bed, and he’d meant to go slow with her, treat her with the respect she deserved, but he’d forgotten how completely without artifice she was and how quickly she made decisions. She didn’t need the full picture before acting. She just owned her decisions and seemed happy with them. It was one way of reasoning.

  She’d seemed so happy in his company and in his bed.

  Not that he’d ever had complaints in the bedroom, but still …

  Her open, wholehearted affection was new to him, and he wanted to nurture their relationship, layer by layer, until it was unbreakable. And if his grandfather’s words that Henry didn’t trust women or know how to relate to them lingered in the back of his mind, maybe it was more that the women in his life had never deserved that trust, than something lacking in him.

  He wanted to believe in his own inherent goodness.

  He wanted to believe that he had love to give.

  Don’t cock this up. It was his foremost thought as he slid beneath the covers of his bed and wrapped his arms around a sleepy, smiling Tilly who laced her fingers between his and drifted back to sleep.

  Don’t be that inaccessible thing your mother neglected, your grandmother hated, and your lovers kept secrets from.

  *

  If life in Wirralong had been good before, Tilly found it even better with Henry and Rowan in it. The bright, heady days that followed their return to Wirralong involved her modifying her old routine to allow Henry to cobble together a workflow that suited everyone. His involved mornings on the farm, evenings talking about possible work projects with his London contacts, and resting after lunch when Rowan went down for her nap.

  Tilly spent her nights in Henry’s bed at the Red Hill homestead, rising early with the dawn-loving Rowan and readying her for a quick trip next door to the kitchen where Tilly did her morning baking. She’d tried talking Henry into staying in bed in the mornings, seeing he’d done Rowan’s night shift, but he was having none of it.

  If she was up tending the baby, he was up and spoiling her. By the time she and Rowan made their way to the kitchen in his house, there would be steaming coffee sitting on the table, made just the way she liked it, and Rowan’s baby bottle warmed and ready for drinking. He’d be the one to put Rowan in the car carrier and take her out to the Mercedes. His kiss would see Tilly on her way, leaving her feeling all loved up and glowing.

  Over at the Moore Creek homestead, Tilly had her baking station and Rowan had a play station set up right next to it. It was all too easy to get used to holding a one-sided conversation with a happy burbling baby who had a fondness for Tilly’s cooking.

  Tilly’s spare bedroom turned into a spare nursery. A twin-cab farm 4WD turned up for Henry, and he began to tackle the on-farm tasks that Joe had been neglecting.

  Within a week, Tilly couldn’t imagine Henry anywhere but in her life, and not even her mother’s increasingly worried looks could dim her glow. Henry Church lit up her nights and lightened her days and his commitment to doing his very best for his daughter only made
her admire him more.

  Bethany was in recovery, but her rehab would be a long, laborious process. Henry secured Joe’s apartment for another month and arranged for a driver to be on call to take his grandfather to the hospital and back, as well as anywhere else in Melbourne that he wanted to go. When Henry wanted something to happen a certain way, it happened exactly as specified, and it wasn’t only that he had money to burn and wasn’t shy about spending it.

  He paid attention.

  Fed a person’s wants and needs into one of his equations and went about solving problems before they happened.

  He’d turn up mid-morning, ready to steal at least two of her hot pastries, while looking better than he had any right to look in his old farm clothes that spoke to outdoor work and progress. He’d take Rowan with him when he left, leaving Tilly free to make her deliveries and get on with her day. She’d then see him again around dinner time when she headed over to Red Hill to spend the night.

  Not that Tilly needed to spend the night on Rowan’s account anymore.

  Henry and his daughter had bonded.

  As a package deal, they made her heart sing. As individuals they each brought something to her life that had been missing.

  She didn’t care that her mother thought she might be moving into a relationship too quickly.

  She ignored those niggling doubts that said Henry would tire of Wirralong sooner rather than later.

  Tried not to notice the way he emerged from his office in the evenings, eyes bright and energised by his contact with his colleagues in London.

  Actuarial analysis, he called it. She’d looked it up and was none the wiser. Using mathematical models to help global corporations and governments make decisions, he told her next, and she could tell his thirst for knowledge had never faded.