To Wear His Ring

by Diana Palmer

  She shook her head. “The land, not the lodge. He’s never cared about the land.” The desolate expression was back.

  “How do you feel about that?”

  Lucy gave a barely-there rise of her shoulders. “I’ve always found the house a bit depressing since Mum left. Every minute I could, I’d be out here, riding, camping, just walking. I couldn’t bear it if he sold even an inch of it.”

  Ethan scratched his head. What a load on her shoulders at the moment. “You must have a say.”

  “I can’t tell him what to do with his fifty per cent.”

  He nodded and thought for a few moments. He had nothing to do with Magnus’s club or the Global List, but he knew that Magnus took it very seriously indeed. “I’ll talk to him, but I can’t promise anything. Magnus would probably overlook some things. It’s the hint of financial embarrassment that could be the sticking point. I know he’s heard rumors. The sort of people that belong to the club don’t like rumors.”

  Lucy nodded, sighing heavily. Ethan stared at her mouth, wanting to kiss her troubles away. “Lucy, if you’re out of the club, it’s not the end of the world. With the right marketing, you can still run a good business.”

  “The prestige of it is a big thing with Tom. But the main reason is the exclusive advertising rights. We won’t have time to build a new market and be able to trade our way out of debt before—before it’s too late.”

  He didn’t want to tell her that as far as creditors went, the meat supplier she already knew about was in the basket named peanuts. There was a whole lot worse to come.

  “Cheer up. We’ll talk to him tonight and then I can work on Magnus. But if I can’t swing it, I’ll set up something with my marketing team. We can’t get you into all the printed accommodation publications overnight, but there are lots of ways to target your market that get results in months rather than years.”

  “Really?” She looked up at him hopefully and his heart squeezed. Tom and her father had kept her down for so long. No wonder her confidence was shot. She needed to know that anything was possible.

  She needed to know he would help.

  She was already perking up. “Hey, you’re not too bad on that horse, for a city slicker,” she told him with a big grin.

  “Kid, I was riding when you were still a twinkle in your daddy’s eye.”

  “You reckon?” She laughed and leaned over to give him a playful push. And somehow lost her balance, ending up flat on her back in a pool of mud.

  Ethan grabbed Monty’s bridle to bring him to a standstill so he didn’t step on Lucy. “Jesus! You okay?”

  She lay there for a couple of seconds, a surprised look on her face. When she started to gurgle with laughter, he relaxed.

  “I dare you to laugh.” She gasped.

  His mouth tightened with the effort of not smiling. He couldn’t do anything about the sparkle in his eyes. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he told her solemnly.

  Leaning down, he put out his hand. She grabbed it, but before she hauled herself up out of the mud, she squinted up at him. “You know,” she said, matter-of-factly, “just for a moment, you sitting up there tall enough to touch the sky, you reminded me of my father when I was little.”

  He gestured at his hand, indicating she get up. “There’s a worrying thought.”

  Lucy giggled as she was hauled up to her feet and stood, swaying slightly with one hand on Monty’s back. She took off one glove and wiped her hair, grimacing at the sludge that appeared on her hand.

  “Even with you looking like something the cat dragged in,” Ethan continued as she heaved herself up into the saddle, “I am definitely not harboring any fatherly feelings toward you.”

  They arrived back at Summerhill to find the hunters were home, except for Tom who was at the local medical center having his wrist X-rayed. Magnus and Juliette had retired to their suite, both of them exhausted and emotional. The Indonesians seemed to be treating the whole thing as part of their scheduled activity. They sat in front of the fire, poring over the menu for dinner.

  Ethan excused himself and went to his room to take a call from his Sydney office.

  Clark in Sydney had bad tidings. The minister for the Interior had gone back on his word to consider Magna-Corp’s offer before going public. Turtle Island was now officially on the market.

  He sat down in the armchair and stared into the gas fire. Okay, this was the worst-case scenario, but MagnaCorp had the inside running. Ethan had already spent a month on the tender. He was way ahead of the competition. And he had access to all the information and reports Magnus had compiled twenty years ago.

  Information that his father would also have on file.

  Ethan leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. He couldn’t let Magnus and the team down. He would leave soon. After showering he’d go see if Magnus had emerged. He had only a short time to try to persuade his boss to give Summerhill another chance. To help Lucy find out what the hell was going on with Tom.

  A short time to spend every waking minute with her, reassuring her, making love to her.

  It was cozy by the fire. His last thoughts before he drifted off to sleep were of Lucy looking around at her embattled heritage with such heartache on her face, and then grinning like a naughty child as she wrung the mud from her hair.

  Lucy woke him an hour later. She had filled her bath with bubbles, too many bubbles, and wanted to share…

  An hour or two later, her stomach gurgled with hunger—or motion sickness. “I’ll make us a sandwich.”

  She tidied the rumpled bed around his drowsy form, doubting he would be awake by the time she got back with the food.

  On the way downstairs, her smile faded with each step. She wondered at how torn she felt. On the one hand, she was infused with the well-being that making love with Ethan brought. On the other, she had a heavy heart. Even after a fun-filled hour of giggling and making an unholy mess of her bathroom and then her bed, she felt a weird sense of loss.

  His office had called. He hadn’t said anything about it, but it was a reminder that he had a whole other life out there, one she wasn’t part of. She had to get used to the idea that this little sojourn would soon be over and life would get back to normal.

  Lucy wondered if she could ever feel normal again.

  Somehow in the last week, her whole perception of herself had undergone radical surgery. She did have something to offer. Instead of letting Tom make all the decisions and ride roughshod over her, she had to persuade him that his half sister had half a brain and wasn’t entirely the ditz he thought she was. Ethan built her up, made her feel smart and sexy, not clumsy and stupid. She felt as if she mattered, even knowing he would not be around for much longer.

  And that was killing her. She wanted him around, for a long time. Maybe forever. She was falling hopelessly in love.

  “And we all know what that means,” she murmured to the stag’s head at the bottom of the stairs. She had to tell someone, but wasn’t quite masochistic enough to tell the man himself. “That means the next thing I hear will be the sound of his running feet.”

  Well, hell! Nothing was forever. He was here now. He’d promised to help. No point getting down about things she couldn’t change.

  Forcing a lighter step, she heaped bread and bags of salad vegetables and cheese onto the kitchen counter. She had barely begun when Tom walked in, looking dirty and pale.

  Lucy smiled and offered to make him a sandwich. “How’s the wrist?”

  He held up his plastered limb. “Hellish sore. How was Magnus?”

  She shrugged. “By the time Ethan and I got back, they’d gone up to their room.” She explained they’d been riding, checking out the stock.

  “God,” Tom groaned, sitting at the big kauri-wood table, “I have royally screwed up, haven’t I?”

  “Could have been worse,” Lucy told him lightly. He looked so beaten.

  “I think we have to face the fact that there will be some changes around here.�
�� He examined the plaster cast morosely.

  “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, is it?” Lucy was thinking of the badly maintained Jeeps, the chef who kept calling in sick, the hunting guide who disregarded a weather report and put lives in danger. The firearms cabinet…

  “Tom. I need to talk to you about a couple of things.”

  He sighed heavily. “Can’t it wait? I’m beat.”

  She ignored that and placed his sandwich beside him. “John Hogan came to see me yesterday. He got his judgment and we have a month to pay or he’s starting proceedings for real.”

  Tom closed his eyes.

  “How can things be so bad, we can’t even pay an old family friend what we owe him?”

  “Everything’s gone to hell. Everything I touch.”

  Lucy, with her back to him, raised her eyes heavenwards. Self-pity was not going to solve anything. “That’s not all. I had a visit from a detective. You didn’t report the car stolen, or what I told you about Joseph Dunn. Just what’s that about?”

  Tom slumped. His cast hit the table with a thump. Alarmed, she forgot her sandwich and sat beside him, her hand on his shoulder. “Please talk to me, Tom.”

  He took a deep breath. “I owe Dunn some money.”

  Ethan was right. “How much?”

  He slumped even farther. It would not have surprised Lucy if he shed tears, he was so down. “How much, Tom?”

  He swallowed. “Thousands.” It was almost a whisper.

  Lucy stared at him, her stomach churning with nerves. There was a long and tense pause. “Your car was found at the scene of an arson. The police want to know whether you had anything to do with it. Did you?”

  “I swear. No way, Lucy.”

  “Ethan thinks Joseph Dunn might be setting you up. Making it look like you were there.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

  “You have to go see the police. First thing. Tell them about him.”

  “I will.”

  He stared down at his untouched sandwich for a long time. “I’ve let you down. Let everyone down.”

  She rubbed his shoulder. She might be angry and bewildered but he was family, her only family, and that mattered.

  “I never meant for any of this to happen,” he was saying.

  And then, the dam broke and words just flowed out of him. She stared at his face, disbelieving, and listened while he told a tale so harrowing, she could never have imagined it. How he’d gambled his way into debt. Owed money all over town. How it had been the reason for his marriage break-up shortly before their father had had his stroke.

  How he had remortgaged part of their property.

  Lucy struggled to take it all in. She reeled with each revelation as if they were blows. He had single-handedly gambled them into debt. To think that he could remortgage a family business and farm that had been theirs for generations.

  Fear crawled around her neck. She jumped to her feet and moved quickly to the huge chest against the wall, rummaging through the drawers.

  “What are you doing?”

  She returned to the table, empty-handed and agitated. “I remember Mum used to stash a pack of cigarettes in there somewhere. I’ve never wanted to start, but I do right now.”

  Tom’s eyes slid away, but not before she noticed the disparaging look he got whenever her mother was mentioned.

  “You never liked my mother, did you?”

  He shrugged. “No staying power,” he drawled, encompassing her in a sweep of a glance that seemed to imply she was of similar ilk.

  “And that’s the killer, isn’t it?” She leaned forward, her face close to his. “You feel you’re the rightful heir to Summerhill because you were born first, to Dad’s first wife. You hate that he left half to me.”

  His eyes met hers and he nodded. “That, and the fact that you’ve hardly been here. Had nothing to do with building up the lodge…”

  “Dad never wanted the lodge in the first place,” she countered hotly. “You took advantage of his depression to bully him into it. He was a farmer.”

  Tom wouldn’t meet her eyes and she spent the next moments trying to swallow the anger churning inside. Anger wasn’t a normal emotion for her. Usually she met the world with a smile, no matter how anguished she felt. If the world didn’t smile back, it was time to move on.

  Several big breaths later, she felt composed enough to look at him. “You have to get help. Gambling is an addiction. There are people, organizations who can help you.”

  After a long time, he raised his head. His eyes were tormented. “On the way back from the police station, I’ll go see a business broker. I can’t see any other way to make the mortgage payments, or stall the liquidators.”

  Lucy bridled. “There has to be another way. I won’t sell.”

  “If you’re going to be stubborn about it, then we’ll have to cut it down the middle. Lucy, I’ve blown it with Magnus.”

  She shook her head impatiently. She knew the club was important, but in the last forty-eight hours, it had assumed less importance for her than her other problems. Especially the one tearing her heart up. “Not necessarily. Ethan is going to bat for us with Magnus.”

  He stared at her and she saw a nasty little slide of understanding in his eyes. “Ethan this, Ethan that. You two seem cozy.”

  “He wants to help.”

  Her hackles rose as he scorched her with a look of such contempt. “He knows, doesn’t he? You’ve been shooting your mouth off.”

  “He found out on his own. And he was with me when the police came. There wasn’t much point in denying anything.”

  A sneer twisted the corner of his mouth. “You just wait, little sister. We’ll be off the list, there will be forty thousand acres of Summerhill land on the market, and your champion will be nowhere to be seen.” He shook his head in disgust. “I told you to keep away. You’re not equipped to deal with business matters.”

  There it was again, that disdain for her ability. Lack of respect, even though none of this was her fault. The closeness she’d earlier felt toward him drained away like dirty bathwater.

  “Maybe you’re not equipped to handle maintenance and safety issues.”

  “I’m not letting the lodge go down,” Tom said belligerently. “I’ve worked too hard, lost too much, to lose it too.”

  Lucy stood abruptly and loomed over him. “Then you’ll have a fight on your hands,” she told him grimly. “I’m sure there is a law about a person who defrauds his business partner to pay gambling debts. And like it or not, Tom, I am your business partner.”

  His eyes widened. Lucy had never spoken to him like that before. She’d always deferred to him. He was so much smarter than her, and she’d felt so guilty over her past indifference.

  Not anymore.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lucy tossed and turned all night and woke at dawn. Creeping out of bed so as not to wake Ethan, she made instant coffee and curled up on the armchair beside the big window, opening the drapes just a sliver.

  How she wished to be able to enjoy their first morning waking together. Who knew how many more they’d have?

  He’d been asleep when she’d returned from the kitchen last night. She’d snuggled up close, taking comfort from his inert warmth. Pretending he’d be there forever. Trying to erase Tom’s contempt and the horror of her financial situation.

  What was she worth? What was her value? Not in monetary terms, but in purpose. Tom had been stupid, but she had to accept some responsibility. How different things might have been if she had given instead of always taking. As if taking were her right and there was no effort required on her part to sustain this land of hers.

  She sat there in a fearful misery for an hour before Ethan woke. Tousled, naked, a sleepy smile on his wicked lips, he brought a little burst of hope to her heart.

  He was starving, so Lucy phoned the kitchen and cajoled a light breakfast. She crawled back into bed and told him the whole story of her c
onversation with Tom last night.

  “How could he remortgage without your consent?” he demanded.

  “He had power of attorney for Dad. After the stroke, Dad was deemed to be incapable.”

  “You have to find out how much and how immediate the debt is,” he told her brusquely.

  Lucy didn’t miss the inflection on you. It was an unwelcome reminder that their short interlude was drawing to a close.

  “Trouble is,” he continued, “there are unlikely to be any records of gambling debts. I’ll go see Magnus first thing and try to stall his decision for a bit. You don’t want Tom flying off the handle and making rash decisions.”

  Room service arrived with their breakfast and Ethan disappeared into the bathroom to dress. Lucy poured coffee for herself. Ethan liked tea in the mornings. A piece of useless information she would hold in her heart.

  How little she knew of him. How was it possible to feel so much so quickly, with as much room for growth as a root-bound potted plant? She wondered if in ten years, she would recall that little detail: I once fell in love with a man who liked to drink tea in the mornings.

  He returned from the bathroom in pants and with his shirt unbuttoned, and sat down opposite her. She offered the teapot, waiting for him to raise his cup. He seemed subdued. “I have to get back to Sydney.” His eyes glided to her face. “Tomorrow.”

  Lucy’s heart sank. The teapot stilled in midair. So soon…

  He pushed his cup toward her. “There’s a problem.” He looked straight at her then. “I had hoped for a few more days.”

  She began to pour, feeling a tremble threaten her fingers. “Work’s important,” she said inanely.

  “Will you be all right?”

  “’Course.” Said lightly, as in “Don’t be silly.” She set the pot down carefully.

  Ethan leaned back, still looking at her. “I have to go. But…”

  Lucy blinked. Was that guilt in his eyes? “Can’t be helped.” The last thing she wanted was to make him feel guilty. None of this was his problem.

  “I’ll be back—soon as I can—if you want, that is…”