The Protea Boys

by Téa Cooper

  Georgie took a deep breath. “It’s about the other day, Tom.”

  “Which bit of which other day are you referring to specifically?” he asked with enough irony to back fill the dam.

  “Come on, Tom. Don’t make this any harder than it already is.” She slammed her elbow onto the table; a stab of pain ricocheted up her arm from her funny bone. Ignoring it, she leaned forward and twisted a lock of hair around and around her index finger. “I’m not looking for any involvement.” Once bitten, twice shy, as the old saying went. “Nor am I suggesting you are,” she added hurriedly as his eyebrow disappeared again. “We just forgot ourselves for a moment the other night. There’s no need to make a fuss about it, but it mustn’t happen again. We need to be professional about this. A working relationship.”

  Tom steepled his fingers, and a puff of air escaped through his lips as he stared across the table directly into her eyes, slowly nodding his agreement. Obviously he was relieved, but she wasn’t sure whether she was pleased or disappointed. He agreed with her. They had to maintain a businesslike relationship, respect the boundaries. Just as well she’d brought it up and cleared the air.

  Right.

  Disappointment sneaked in the back door and settled at her feet. Tom didn’t want her. She had misread the situation.

  “I’m glad we’ve got it sorted out,” she lied and cleared her throat again.

  The evil little piece of disappointment travelled to her gut and blossomed, reminding her how close she had come to making another mistake, another Dale disaster. She shook herself and produced her most public of Public Relations smiles.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee before you get back to work?” She stood up and walked through to the kitchen, managing to keep her hands from clenching into fists. Now all she had to do was to get their relationship—her thoughts stuttered on the word—back on an even keel. Camaraderie, friendship, was what she was aiming for.

  “Yeah. Coffee would be good, and then I’ll go and sort out the quad.”

  The familiar ritual of the coffee machine and the sound of Tom flicking through the brochures comforted her. There was something ridiculously domestic about the whole scene, something rather soothing and secure. Georgie stamped the coffee grounds down.

  “You could try some leucadendrons too. They make excellent cut flowers, and they’d grow well in the soil here,” he said.

  Letting her shoulders drop, she pulled the mugs to the machine. She’d done it. Already the tension in the atmosphere had dissipated. She could do it. Get things back to normal and keep her fantasies where they belonged—in her dreams.

  “Can you mark the page? I’ll have a look in a moment.” The swoosh of the steam sent the aroma of fresh coffee wafting through the room, and she inhaled deeply. Needing to finally settle her stomach, she launched into what she hoped would be a neutral conversation.

  “What made you come back to Australia?” she asked.

  “My brother needed a hand.”

  She paused, expecting Tom to continue, and when he didn’t, she dived in with more questions. “Do your parents live in Sydney?”

  “They do, but I haven’t spent much time with them since I’ve been back.”

  Georgie drew back for a moment or two. She couldn’t imagine not seeing her parents; as a family, they’d always been so close. She’d give anything to see them again. Going home was always the first thing she’d done after she’d been away. How unusual. Tom had been working with his brother. Surely he’d taken some time out to go and visit his parents. Sydney was only a couple of hours away from Gum Tree Crossing.

  “But you’ll catch up with them soon, I expect.”

  “Maybe.” Tom’s tone denied the single word.

  “I guess there are lots of things we see differently,” she said, shifting away from him.

  There was more to this guy than his lazy smile and leopard eyes, but if this was strictly a friendly business relationship, she shouldn’t delve too deep. It was none of her business what kind of a relationship he had with his family. They studied each other warily for a moment as they sipped their coffee. “I think it’s good to have family and be near them. I really miss Mum and Dad.”

  “I guess I got used to not having my family around. I spent the first year in South Africa playing rugby after I finished university.” The picture of Tom in rugby gear made Georgie’s toes curl, but she twisted her feet around the legs of the chair and concentrated. She hadn’t picked Tom as a team player. He seemed too much of a control freak, but then again, he was good working with the boys. She shook her head. It was too difficult. The man was a mass of contradictions.

  “And then I stayed on. My sister came out to visit when she finished school, and she fell for a guy so she extended her stay, and I scored a job with the government—a program helping families turn their small holdings into profitable businesses.” She wondered if he’d fallen for someone, too, and it was the real reason he’d stayed. But his next words sounded more in keeping with the Tom she’d come to know. “I stayed to keep an eye on her. Look after her.”

  There were so many gaps in his story, pieces he obviously didn’t want to share, probably as much as she had no intention of telling him that the darling of the Sydney PR scene couldn’t spot a scammer when she saw one and had been well and truly sucked in. “When did you leave South Africa?”

  “After my sister died.” He paused, staring into his coffee, swirling the remains around in the bottom of his mug. “It’s okay.” He looked sideways at her. “Why did you come back here after your parents died?” he asked suddenly, surprising her and making her wish he hadn’t put the spotlight back on her.

  “I needed a change. I needed to get out of Sydney. And I felt bad because I had spent so little time here.” She picked up the coffee mugs, hoping to neatly finish the conversation. Tom didn’t need to know what a fool she was around men. How she had believed the silver-tongued rat when he said he loved her, or how she had blithely accepted the fact he spent more time with his ex-wife than he did with her.

  “Oh, come on, Georgina. I saw you doing a number on those people at the Chamber of Commerce. You had them eating out of your hand. You’d done it before. Why did you need to get away?”

  Georgie let out a great huff and put the coffee mugs none too gently into the dishwasher, knowing she wasn’t going to get off lightly. His green eyes were glinting. The leopard playing with its prey.

  “Where were you working in Sydney?” He’d really gotten his teeth into her now.

  “I worked in PR. We dealt mainly with small businesses, helped them get their names out there so they didn’t get swamped by the big guys.”

  “Hmm. We used a PR company in South Africa, to promote small business. I bet there were a few people in Sydney who were sad to see you go.” There was the eyebrow again. It was a good sign. If he was back to teasing her, then the danger was over.

  “A few people but not many. Most of the staff got jobs elsewhere when I sold the company.” She closed the dishwasher door and looked up. Tom’s gaze was fixed firmly on her. She might as well have been under a microscope. As he drummed his fingers on the bench top, he studied her thoughtfully. She pushed her hair back off her face. The coffee had made her so hot.

  “When you sold the company?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it was your company to sell? You weren’t a highly paid executive or someone’s personal assistant?”

  Finally Georgie understood Tom’s problem. She might have guessed he was going to go into his sexist little woman number. “No. It was my company.”

  He stood very still for a moment and then said, “Right. Okay, Ms. Martin, and what exactly was the name of...”

  What was the matter with the guy? Did it matter? It was history. She’d sold the company. The only good thing about selling was it had put her in the delightfully satisfying position of being able to tell Dale he didn’t have a job to fund his oh-so-sophisticated Sydney lifestyle anymore. A small
smile quirked the corner of her mouth, and she pushed away the one fact that had helped her through the whole ghastly situation.

  “Martin...Martin?” If he ran his fingers through his hair again, it would probably stand up on end.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked, bemused by his repetition of her name.

  “Georgina Martin as in G & G Martin, offices at The Rocks G & G Martin?” Tom was being unbelievably persistent. What did it matter?

  Georgie raised her hands to her face, her fingers cool against her cheeks, hating his inquisition. “Yes. G & G Martin. My father, George, and I started the company when I finished university,” she said impatiently, annoyed he should be making her feel embarrassed about running a successful business. It had been her decision to sell it when she wanted, needed, to get out of Sydney. After all, she had every right to sell her company whenever she wanted. Something snapped. “Not quite the personal assistant you imagined, Mr. Morgan? Just because I can make a decent cup of coffee doesn’t mean I spent my working life at the beck and call of some male chauvinist.” Georgie opened the back door. “And thanks for your advice about the flowers. Don’t forget to collect your ark on the way out.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Well, who would have thought? Tom chuckled quietly to himself and whistled through his teeth as he headed back out to the shed. G & G Martin. Not just some PR company, but one of Sydney’s leading PR companies. He’d been out of town for too long. Why on earth had she chosen to bury herself away here, and why was she worrying about money? She could have employed a team full of Protea Boys all on her own and had the place spick and span in no time—and a new pump down on the bottom dam instead of getting her hands dirty. Probably could have bought out the whole of the Sydney flower markets if she had a mind. Something must have happened to make her sell. Something big.

  Tom ran his fingers along the faded corrugated iron of the shed. The memory of Georgie down at the dam fixing the pump flickered through his mind. What was it she had said? I’ve got a lot to thank my father for—she sure had. But then again her father wasn’t around anymore for her to thank, that was the downside. The same way Jane wasn’t around anymore to run rings around him and make him smile. That pleasure had twisted and died in the flames along with her.

  The sounds of footsteps on the gravel broke into his thoughts.

  “Tom.”

  “Yup?”

  “D’you hear the weather forecast?” Matt wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving sweat-soaked streaks of grease. “We packed up early because of the bushfire alert.”

  Tom gazed up at the sky; the temperature had risen while he’d been up at the house with Georgie. The horizon shimmered and vibrated, and the trees in the distance appeared distorted. A heat haze. He spun around, checking out the sky, but couldn’t see any sign of anything particularly ominous, other than a blanket of fine, high cloud. The wind had picked up, and it was coming hot and strong from the northwest. Dry and hot and full of dust particles but no smoke.

  He sniffed the air.

  Nothing.

  “Bushfire alert?”

  “Yeah,” said Matt. “We picked up the call from the bushfire brigade when we were in the truck. They’re calling the crews in for a briefing; we’re all members so we’re going. Apparently there was a lightning strike in the National Park a few days ago. No one picked it up until the blaze took off with this wind. Are you coming to the briefing?”

  “I think I will. I’ll see you there. I’ll just pop up to the house and let Georgina know what’s going on. She might want to come too.”

  Tom bounded up onto the veranda, calling Georgie’s name. Eventually he found her stacking the deck furniture inside the house.

  “The boys are back. They say there’s a bushfire alert, and there’s a briefing down at the fire shed. I thought you might want to go.”

  “Yes, I know. Thanks. I’ve just had a call from the phone tree. The fire’s been burning for a while in the National Park, and with the wind change, it’s pushing this way. I’m going to stay here and do a bit of a cleanup and block the gutters while I have time.”

  “I’ll stay and give you a hand.”

  “No. I’m fine. Don’t worry. If you can come back and tell me what’s going on, it would be great. The boys will probably be called out from there. They’ll need all the crews they can get. Everyone pitches in, but only the trained crews go out on the trucks. You need to get down to the village and check everything’s okay at the restaurant. There shouldn’t be any problems here.”

  “What about Hillary?”

  “With the current wind direction, she’s not in the direct path of the fire, and the boys were there today. I’ve spoken to her too. All her gutters are cleaned, and everything sorted.” She moved around the veranda, pulling in cushions and stacking the chairs. Tom was redundant.

  “If you can hook the trailer up to the quad before you go, I’ll take the jerry cans down to the dam in case we need to use Bertha if the power goes out. And I’ll need the ladder from the truck to put the bungs in the gutters. I’ve got all the hoses up here. It’s about all I can think of at the moment.”

  Tom nodded, impressed by her cool efficiency. A slight sense of inadequacy hovered in the back of his mind. He’d never been through a serious fire, not in Australia or in South Africa. The briefing at the fire shed would fill in the gaps.

  As he was about to leave, Georgie said, “You didn’t get the slashing done on the fire trail above the ridge, did you?”

  His stomach sank. “No. I was going to take the quad up there when I’d done the service. I’ll duck down to the fire shed, find out what’s happening, and do it when I get back. Everything’ll be fine. The wind will drop overnight.”

  “Don’t bank on it. We’re surrounded by ridges and gullies; it can play some pretty weird games around here.”

  “It’ll be fine. I’ll be back in less than an hour.” His false bravado rang in his own ears as he returned to the shed at a run.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Georgie ran through the checklist in her mind; she’d done it enough times and ought to know the drill. About every five years, there seemed to be some sort of outbreak, but the brigade always advised to stay with the property unless they labelled the situation catastrophic. She had plenty of water, and the circular driveway made it easy to get in and out if the fire turned. The only difference this year was the undergrowth. It was tinder dry from the lack of rain. It would be all right, she assured herself. The area around the house was clear, just mown grass, and that made a decent fire break. She’d have to make sure she kept her wits about her if an ember attack hit her though.

  From the top of the roof, she had a much better view of the area, and her stomach sank as she looked to the west. Smoke clouds lined the horizon, and as the sun dropped, a surreal orangey-brown glow hung low. It always made her think of a nuclear holocaust. Shaking her head, she tried to push down the bunch of dread in the pit of her stomach. No point in wasting time.

  Georgie stuffed the bungs into the downpipes and said a small thank you to the Protea Boys for the fact that the gutters were cleaner than they’d been in a long time. She pulled the hose up the ladder and stuck it in the gutters, ready to fill them, and took one last look over to the west. The line of the fire front was visible in the distance, but it had to be a good twenty kilometres away.

  Lucky, really, it was late afternoon and not the middle of the day. Hopefully, the wind would drop as Tom predicted. Tomorrow would be the problem if they couldn’t get it under control and keep it behind the containment lines. But that was all conjecture. She still had things to do. She took a last look around the veranda and the house. Hoses, buckets, filled the bath, towels at the doors, furniture inside, curtains drawn—she ticked the items off in her mind.

  Georgie rolled down the sleeves of her cotton shirt, grabbed her hat, and then headed down to the shed to pick up the jerry cans. Fuel was better off out of the shed, and having the cans
stored near Bertha would save time if the electricity went out and she needed to pump water up to the house. As an afterthought, she threw one of the brush cutters into the trailer; since Tom hadn’t slashed, it might be worthwhile checking the fire trail at the top of the ridge.

  The quad bumped and bounced along the track, the metal jerry cans rattling and clanging; rounding the corner under the overhanging eucalyptus, there wasn’t a ripple on the surface of the dam. The smoke in the air had collected in the hollow of the dam, and the weird ochre light hovered over the surface. A shiver ran up her spine, but she ignored it and lifted the jerry cans out of the trailer, then settled them on the edge of the dam and damped down the old sheet to cover them.

  The motor hitched when she flicked the key and then started, relieving the ominous silence. She rode up over the track away from the house. Hanging branches slapped at her face as she dropped the quad into a lower gear, thankful for the sturdy tires. When she crested the hill, she looked across the valley; the visibility was getting worse as the smoke increased, and she wasn’t sure whether she should be pleased or disappointed she couldn’t see the actual line of the fire.

  It had been a long time since she’d been up here. In the old days, it was one of her father’s thinking spots, and sometimes she’d join him just to sit up high, legs dangling, and look across the ravine, while the sun played on the sandstone rock faces in the late afternoon. It was here they had hatched the plan to form G & G Martin and where her father had told her he was retiring and the company was hers to run as she saw fit. It had been in this spot she had argued with her father, determined to promote Dale to CEO. A lot of decisions had been made right here. Some good and some—mostly those relating to Dale—downright stupid.

  Despite the leaves twirling and twisting in the breeze, there was no sign of any spot fires, and turning to look over her shoulder, she checked the firebreak, wishing Tom had found the time to clear it. Perhaps if she hadn’t dragged him up to the house to pore over brochures, he might have done it. A smile flitted across her face at the memory of the look of stunned surprise on his face when he’d finally put two and two together and realised G & G Martin had been her company. Would it have made any difference if he had known? She doubted it, except perhaps he wouldn’t have been quite so patronizing. It was a source of continual amazement to her the number of people who still wouldn’t accept that a woman could run a company.