Fool Me Once

by Karly Lane

  He needed to explain to Georgie that even though the facts seemed black and white on paper, he wasn’t the monster she thought he was. His company did good things. He’d just needed time to prove it to her. Damn that bloody newspaper story.

  Michael checked into the pub—an older man behind the bar handed him his key and didn’t ask any questions. He was relieved it hadn’t been the woman from his previous visit. She wouldn’t have let him escape to his upstairs room without some kind of explanation, and the last thing Georgie needed was rumours running rampant around town on top of that damn article.

  The next morning, after a sleepless night, he checked out and drove back to Stoney Creek. The tall farmhand, Matt, walked out of the shed towards him. The fact he wasn’t wearing a welcoming smile told Michael that Georgie had sent Matt out to head him off.

  ‘Hey,’ Matt called out, but Michael ignored him and walked straight past.

  ‘Mind your own business. This is between Georgie and me,’ Michael tossed over his shoulder without pausing. He’d almost reached the front steps when Matt’s voice halted him in his tracks.

  ‘She’s not here.’

  Michael turned around, lifting an eyebrow. ‘Did she say to tell me that?’

  ‘Yep. As she drove off.’

  Michael spun around and searched the large shed nearby, noticing there was indeed no sign of her old ute. ‘Where’d she go?’

  ‘Dunno. She didn’t say.’

  ‘Then I’ll just wait right here until she comes back.’

  ‘Suit yourself. It’ll be a long wait though. She told me to cover for her for a couple of weeks.’ He shrugged before turning away.

  ‘Weeks?’ What the hell?

  ‘That’s what she said.’

  He watched Matt return to the shed and disappear inside without further comment.

  Michael swore silently, gritting his teeth until his jaw ached. Where the hell would she go for two weeks? He contemplated his options. He could call her bluff and stay here a while, wait her out … or he could call this a strategic retreat and give her a couple of weeks to cool down and then try again.

  He was a patient man—he had to be in his business. Part of the reason he was so successful was because he knew when it was the right time to hold out, and when to make a move. On this occasion, it made sense to give Georgie some breathing space in order to process everything she’d discovered.

  He hadn’t wanted her to find out about his link with her father and the selling of Tamban, but now that it was out in the open, he felt better … somewhat at least. He hadn’t liked keeping the truth from her, and maybe now the wounds she’d kept hidden for so long could at last do some healing.

  Some things were important enough to wait for. Georgie was one of them, so he’d wait as long as he needed to.

  Georgie rubbed her gritty eyes and blinked as headlights lit up the interior of her old ute. She needed to pull over and rest. She found a truck stop and parked her car, ready for a toilet break and needing to buy supplies for the rest of the trip. She managed to shut her eyes for a brief, uncomfortable rest, as her seat wouldn’t recline very far, before heading off once more.

  Melbourne was a long drive. The insistent ringing of the phone had roused her from her seat where she’d remained long after Michael had left. She hadn’t felt like talking to anyone and wouldn’t have answered if she hadn’t seen the name flash across the screen. Harry.

  Only, it wasn’t Harry calling. It was his daughter, Veronica, and the news she’d delivered was like a second kick to her stomach. For a short while Georgie had felt as though she couldn’t breathe, but she had managed to pull herself together and within half an hour she was on the road.

  Harry had suffered a massive stroke. They weren’t expecting him to recover, and it was likely he’d pass away before she got to him, but Georgie didn’t care. She wanted to be there. Maybe it was selfish—maybe this was the perfect excuse to flee—but thinking about Harry took away some of the numbness of ending her marriage.

  Melbourne was huge and Georgie barely remembered how she found the hospital, but she was met by Veronica and ushered inside a dark, quiet room at the end of a ward. ‘This may sound crazy, but I told him you were on your way and I think he’s been waiting for you to get here. The doctors are surprised he’s still hanging on,’ Veronica said quietly. The sound of machines beeping was the only noise.

  The man in the bed looked frail and old. He’d lost a lot of weight after his fall and it made her sad to see him looking so vulnerable.

  ‘I know you think I’m a horrible person for making him leave the farm,’ Veronica said, her quiet words sounding loud in the stillness of the room.

  Georgie glanced up at the woman in her stylish black jumpsuit and gold jewellery. At first glance she might look like she had it all together, but on closer inspection Georgie saw weary creases etched across her forehead and dark circles under her eyes that even the most cleverly applied concealer couldn’t quite hide.

  ‘I don’t think that,’ Georgie said softly.

  ‘He did,’ she said, throwing a sad smile at the man in the bed. ‘I took him away from his beloved Stoney Creek.’

  Georgie knew Harry could be a grumpy old so-and-so sometimes and she could imagine that he wouldn’t have made any bones about reminding Veronica that he hadn’t wanted to leave his home.

  ‘I just wanted him to get to know his grandkids and great-grandkids,’ Veronica continued. ‘He barely knew them and they’re grown adults with almost grown children of their own.’

  Georgie remained silent, sensing that somehow Veronica wasn’t talking to her as much as to her father.

  ‘I always felt like such a disappointment to him,’ she went on. ‘He wanted a son to carry on farming and all he had was me. Then I ruined his plans again when I left home; instead of marrying some local boy who’d be happy to work the farm, I couldn’t wait to leave Stoney Creek and run off to the big smoke,’ she said dryly, and Georgie knew how well that would have gone over with Harry. ‘After Mum passed away, he gave up trying to stay in touch. She was the one who made all the phone calls and sent the birthday cards.’

  She smiled a sad smile and Georgie thought about the photos of the woman Harry used to have on the fireplace mantle. She hadn’t known Vera—she’d died more than thirty years ago—but she felt as though she had. Harry had left the house almost exactly as it had been when his wife had been alive. Doilies Vera had crocheted adorned all the side tables and the old piano, and a pair of her reading glasses still sat on a small table beside the lounge chair, as though she’d just left them there to come back to.

  ‘I guess I just wanted him to be proud of me. See what I’d made of my life down here.’

  ‘He used to talk about you all the time,’ Georgie told the older woman gently. ‘He was very proud of you.’

  ‘Silly old bugger never said it,’ she said, shaking her head as she stared at her father. ‘As much as he liked to complain about how much he hated it down here, though, I think he was glad he had a chance to get to know his grandsons.’

  Georgie smiled at the memory of one conversation in particular she’d had with Harry a few months after he’d moved to Melbourne. He was telling her how he finally had a house full of grandsons and not one of them knew one end of a cow from the other. There was always a quiet pride in his voice when he spoke about his grandsons, though.

  Veronica left her to say her goodbyes, slipping from the room. Georgie took Harry’s callused old hand in hers and thanked him for everything he’d done for her.

  She wasn’t sure if he could hear her, he didn’t give any sign that he could, but she felt as though he were listening like he always had, silently offering her an ear to vent when she needed it. She remembered how he’d wait for her to finish and then ask, ‘Can you do anything about it? If you can’t, well, fix the things you can do something about and let the rest go.’

  Some things were harder to let go of than others.

  Sh
e left the hospital and checked into a cheap motel nearby, planning to have a sleep and then go back to the hospital, but only two hours later Veronica called to tell her that Harry had passed.

  Fourteen

  Georgie stayed for the funeral and was sad to see how small the turnout was. It was to be expected of course, seeing as Harry only had family down this way, but Georgie couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. If the funeral had been in Timboora, the church would have been packed. Harry had lived in Timboora all his life and the community would have turned out in force to farewell one of their own. Still, it all came down to practicalities and none of Harry’s family had any ties to the old town anymore.

  After the ceremony, Veronica surprised Georgie with the news that she was coming up to Stoney Creek in a few weeks to spread Harry’s ashes.

  ‘Harry would like that,’ Georgie said.

  ‘The old bugger would haunt me if I didn’t take him back,’ she said dryly, but her smile was tinged with sadness.

  Harry belonged at Stoney Creek. It just made sense. When a place got into your blood that way, it felt right that eventually, when your time had come to an end, you were returned to it. She hadn’t done this for her own father and part of her still regretted it. Instead she’d buried him next to her mother in the cemetery. It’d seemed wrong somehow to take him to the farm. It was no longer in the family and she wouldn’t be able to visit him there. Not that she’d been to visit his grave in a while anyway.

  She said goodbye to Harry’s family, knowing she’d be seeing them at Stoney Creek in a few weeks, and headed back home.

  She wished she had somewhere else to go—the thought of Michael turning up on her doorstep for round two of their argument was too much to handle right now, but there was nowhere else she wanted to be. She needed to be busy and in a place that was familiar, so she headed back to Stoney and threw herself into work.

  At first she ignored Shannon’s calls. While she’d been away she’d had time to think, and one thing she couldn’t stop thinking about was that her best friend must have known who Brent’s family were this whole time … and hadn’t said a word.

  Her initial anger had been a knee-jerk reaction, and after she’d had time to process it, she was able to think things through with a little more clarity. Shannon didn’t know about her and Michael. Maybe if she’d known, she would have said something. At least Georgie hoped she would have. It still didn’t excuse the fact she hadn’t told her about Brent being the son of Derrick Matthew, the man behind the company who destroyed her family.

  Try as she might to stay angry with her friend, though, the messages Shannon had been leaving were weakening her resolve. And when she next called, Georgie reluctantly answered.

  ‘Thank goodness, George. I’ve been so worried about you. I heard about Harry, and Matt said you’d gone down to the funeral. Why haven’t you been returning my calls?’

  The sheer relief of hearing a familiar, loved voice opened a floodgate of emotions.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Shan?’ she asked, hearing her voice crack under the strain of trying to hold it all together.

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘About Brent. About who his father is.’

  The silence on the line lasted only a few seconds but it was enough to tell Georgie all she needed to know.

  ‘I saw the article about Micha—his brother,’ she corrected quickly. ‘I know who he is.’

  ‘George, I wanted to tell you, I really did, but I swear, I had no idea for the longest time myself.’

  ‘How? How is that even possible, Shan?’ Georgie demanded.

  ‘I don’t know, I just didn’t piece it together. I was so caught up in everything else, asking about his father was not exactly high on my list of priorities.’

  ‘But you did find out … and you didn’t say anything?’

  ‘I had no idea, George, you have to believe me. It wasn’t until just before Brent took me to dinner to introduce me to them that I realised. I felt sick. Honest to God, George, I could have thrown up when I realised. I told Brent that I couldn’t meet them, and why, and he was as shocked as I was. But I love him, I really do, and it was important to him that I meet his parents. I couldn’t not go.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me once you found out?’

  ‘I did. I tried to call you a bunch of times, but you were away. Matt said you’d taken a couple of weeks off which, I might add, you didn’t bother to tell me about.’

  The wedding. Shannon had been trying to call her while she’d been in Hawaii marrying a two-faced bastard. If she hadn’t felt so guilty about calling Shannon while she’d been getting married behind her back, she might have saved herself the humiliation of marrying a liar.

  ‘I’m worried about you, George.’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s just been a rough few weeks.’

  ‘I know, and that’s why I was going to wait. I was going to tell you, I swear.’

  ‘I just don’t know how you can stand the thought of being around that family.’

  ‘Brent can’t help who his father is, and it’s not fair to be angry at me. I don’t agree with how his father treated yours, but it has nothing to do with Brent and me.’

  She understood that, logically … but the pain she’d been carrying around for so long wasn’t ready to listen to logic just yet.

  A few weeks later she received a phone call from Harry’s lawyer, explaining that Harry’s will had instructed that Georgie be given first option to purchase Stoney Creek if the family decided to sell, on top of a sizable gift of money that she supposed counted as a redundancy package if the property was ever put up for sale. The lawyer followed up this piece of unexpected news by letting her know that the family would be selling and would email her the details about the sale for her consideration.

  When she’d left Melbourne, Veronica had told her it was business as usual, but Georgie had known it would only be a matter of time before the family decided to sell Stoney Creek. She’d already started looking for other jobs, keeping her ears open for anyone needing a manager, but with Harry’s death and her breakup with Michael, she really wasn’t in a positive enough frame of mind to think seriously about her future. She knew she had enough savings to be okay until she found a new job, but that was her Tamban money and she hated the thought of whittling it away after all her hard work accumulating it.

  The lawyer’s news about putting the property on the market and giving her first option was both exciting and depressing. Exciting because in all her planning she’d never thought about buying Stoney Creek, and depressing because the reality was there was no way she could afford it. When the email arrived, Georgie felt sick with nerves as she opened it, wincing as she read through the attached letter and preparing herself to see the astronomical amount she knew the property would be valued at. But when she reached the business end of the letter, she gaped at the figure in disbelief. It had to be wrong. She quickly reread the letter and frowned. There was no way this was the correct value of the land and cattle.

  She picked up her phone and dialled Veronica, exchanging pleasantries and asking how she was doing before launching into her reason for calling.

  ‘I think there’s been some kind of mistake.’

  ‘No, there’s no mistake. I know how much Harry valued your loyalty and hard work. He’d want you to buy the place, Georgie. We had someone look it over and we believe it’s a fair price.’

  ‘Are you sure this person was someone who knew what they were talking about?’ Georgie asked doubtfully.

  Veronica chuckled on the other end of the line. ‘You’re not supposed to try to talk the vendor into raising the price of the property.’

  ‘It’s a very generous offer,’ she said quietly. ‘If it’s okay, I’ll need to do some calculating of my own and see if I’m in a position to afford it. If I could have a few days to think about it, that would be great.’

  ‘Of course. Let me know what you decide. And Georgie?’

 
; ‘Yes?’ she answered, hesitating at Veronica’s serious tone.

  ‘Dad always knew you were something special. He would never have left the farm if you hadn’t been there. I know it seemed like I forced him to leave, but the truth was, if Dad hadn’t believed you were capable of running that place, and loved it as much as he did, there’s no way we would have got him down here.’

  Georgie heard the soft click in her ear as the call disconnected and a tear ran down her face, warm against her skin.

  Later Georgie did the sums and double-checked the amounts, biting her lip thoughtfully as she sat back in her chair. She pulled out the business plan she’d been painstakingly putting together for Tamban and read over it critically. She could use this for Stoney Creek and take it to the bank to apply for a loan.

  It could actually work. But did she want to do it? To use her savings for Tamban to buy this place instead? What about her dream? What dream? she thought bitterly. Ever since discovering Michael’s connection to Matthew Enterprises, she’d realised there was no dream to hang on to anymore. She could hardly bear to think about it, the betrayal was too fresh, too raw. She blinked away the tears that were threatening and focused on the paperwork instead. This was something real. It wasn’t just a dream or a plan in a notebook.

  She glanced over at the phone as it rang and smiled faintly. Things may have been a little rocky between them, but she knew that when it really mattered Shannon would always be there for her.

  ‘Hey Shan,’ she answered.

  ‘Hi …’ There was a brief pause before Shannon asked, ‘What’s going on? You sound weird.’

  Now that she and Brent were settling into a steady relationship, her old friend was beginning to reawaken to things going on around her. Georgie knew she wouldn’t have the luxury of her best friend being oblivious to everything now and was grateful it hadn’t been like this earlier or she’d never have been able to keep everything hidden the way she had. ‘I’ve just been told Stoney Creek is going on the market.’