‘No, I’m fine,’ Angie fibbed. In truth she was as stiff as a board but a hot shower and some exercises would loosen up the muscles. ‘Carla’s in greater need of your magical fingers than I am.’
‘I’ll let you convince her of that.’ He winked at her. ‘Meanwhile, I’d better turn the meat and veggies.’
Dinner that night in the cement-rendered cottage at Sundown Crossing was a pleasant affair. Paul turned out to be a good cook, and supplied dessert: apple crumble and whipped cream. Angie insisted on doing the washing up, freeing Paul to give Carla—who at first objected but finally gave in—a neck and back massage while Sam, who’d started to get small amounts of homework, did his usual grumbling as he settled down to it at the dinner table.
‘You’ve got to relax, Carla,’ Paul chided as, sitting on the sofa with her on a footstool in front of him, he began to work on her taut muscles.
‘I am relaxed.’
‘You’re not,’ he told her straight out. ‘Breathe in deeply, then out slowly. Go on.’
She did once, twice, three times. God, but his hands were good. They sought and found sore muscles she didn’t know she had. His fingertips kneaded her neck, rubbing, working the tightness out. Wonderful. She sighed with satisfaction, wondering how people picked fruit day after day. This massage was what she’d needed, and really, she had been silly, initially, to deny that she did. Why had she?
What was it about Paul that kept her…what? On edge, unable to relax when he was around. He was a good employer, understanding, very intelligent, ‘a let’s not fuss about it’ kind of man. Mmmm! Deep down and if she were honest with herself she knew the answer to the question only too well. There was the potential within her to like Paul too much. And…she didn’t have time for romance, she had to concentrate on building up the vineyard, getting it out of debt and making a satisfactory income. Besides, why was she even mentally debating it? He wasn’t interested in her, not romantically. Still, she sensed a loneliness in him, a need for company, which had probably come about since Lisa’s death. Being the friendly, downright nice type he was he had consciously or unconsciously taken them under his wing.
She recalled Paul’s reaction when her grandfather had spoken as he had to her. Paul had interrupted Carl and said he’d overstepped the boundaries of politeness, which proved he wasn’t in awe of the Stenmark family. She liked it that he’d defended her even though she was perfectly capable of standing up for herself. Damn, there was that word again—liked. She couldn’t seem to get away from it.
Paul’s massage and Carla’s deliberations were interrupted by Angie carrying a bottle and three port glasses on a tray. Carla recognised the label as her father’s one and only vintage—the bottle was one of the fifty bottles of port they’d found that first day.
‘Today being the first day of the harvest, and it going so well, weatherwise and with optimum bunches of grapes, I thought we should test your father’s port. It’ll be amazingly smooth or amazingly off.’ Her smile sought Carla’s approval. ‘Shall we?’
‘I think Dad would like that,’ Carla replied, her voice becoming a little husky. They were both remembering other vintages, at Valley View, where her father had established the tradition of sampling the previous year’s vintage as the current grapes were being harvested.
‘I’d be honoured to try it,’ Paul said. He was studying Carla’s reaction, an unfathomable expression in his eyes.
Angie removed the seal and uncorked it. She brought the bottle close to her nose, inhaling the fragrance. ‘Smells all right but, as Rolfe used to say, the proof is in the tasting.’ She poured the dark liquid until each glass was half full. They each took a glass, holding them aloft in a silent salute before they sipped.
‘It’s good,’ Paul approved. ‘Not too heavy, a pleasant aroma, a smooth aftertaste.’
Angie’s comment was more professional, as it should be. ‘Fruity. Smooth. A touch dry, aged in small oak casks for at least five, maybe even eight years before being bottled—probably by Otto, the man Rolfe kept on with a retainer.’
‘Pity there were only fifty,’ Carla corrected herself, ‘now forty-nine bottles.’
‘Mum, may I have a sip?’ Sam entreated, wanting to join the momentous tasting session. ‘It was Grandpa’s first vintage.’
Carla smiled at her son and sat him on her lap. ‘Okay, but just a sip. You’re way too young to be drinking alcohol.’
Sam rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, I know.’
Carla was no wine connoisseur and she didn’t have an overly sensitive palate but she knew enough to understand that the port was good. It warmed her throat as it went down, but didn’t burn, and radiated a sense of relaxation through her body, though in a different way to Paul’s massage. Oh, for God’s sake…
Angie filled the port glasses again and they talked as they drank, mostly about the harvest and the work that was to follow.
When Paul caught Carla in her third yawn he apparently decided that it was time to take his leave. ‘I’ll be off now. There’re enough leftovers to do for tomorrow night’s dinner. Saves you having to cook if you don’t want to.’
Carla yawned again. ‘All I want to do is sleep like Rip van Winkle, for a hundred years.’ She chuckled at the look Sam gave her, then remembered her manners. ‘Paul, thanks for doing what you did tonight, and the massage. Much appreciated.’
His hand reached for the knob on the front door. ‘My pleasure. Hope tomorrow goes well. Bye,’ and then he was gone.
By the time Carla got Sam into bed and lay down on her own bed she admitted, as she lay in the dark, to being pleasantly exhausted—too much so to think, to worry, even to dream.
The weeks following the harvest at Sundown Crossing were busy ones as the grapes were crushed and the winemaking process kicked into gear. Carla became familiar with crushing and the resultant slurry of skins, juice and seeds known as ‘must’ being pumped into tanks for fermentation and clarification; the process of filtering and cold-stabilising the wine through to the bottling stage, the timing of which would be decided by Angie. Throughout the several weeks this process took, Angie spent more time in the winery to which they’d added a small office-cum-laboratory, than she did anywhere else including the cottage or her bed.
Every vineyard in the Barossa, small or large, was similarly engaged, the winemakers concentrating on turning the harvest into the best possible vintage. Even so, there was one person who found the time to check on what was happening at Carla’s vineyard.
Josh Aldrich, familiar with the property after being there several times had, since Carla gave him his walking papers, adopted the habit of ‘spying’ several times a week on Carla and Angie. In respect to nocturnal wanderings, he was experienced as, since adolescence and while in Tasmania, he’d become what was known as a peeping Tom. He relished the act of sneaking up to windows in the hope of catching a glimpse of a girl or woman undressing, or couples making love—that was quite a turn-on for him. He’d almost got caught recently doing the same thing in Lyndoch but the danger made the exercise more exciting.
Carla’s vineyard had no dogs to bark and raise an alarm and no padlocked gates, so it was a simple matter to park off road, in the scrub, and wander in after dark. Tonight, a full moon cast a pale glow over the land, the vines, and buildings as he made his way about the vineyard, making sure he trod quietly. Lights, he noted, still shone in the cottage, the winery and in the Loongs’s caravan.
Soon after harvest he had sneaked in to check how many fermentation vats were full, noting that they had managed a respectable harvest for the vineyard’s first year. That wouldn’t make the Stenmarks happy, if he decided to tell them. But for the moment Luke, John and old Carl were too preoccupied with getting the most out of their own harvest to be concerned over the happenings at Sundown Crossing.
Besides, he had a more personal reason for sniffing around…He hadn’t forgiven Carla for treating him as she had because he had done nothing to warrant the brush-off and, being vengeful
by nature, he’d be damned if he let it rest there. He had invested time and money in her and she owed him, and one day he was going to make her pay.
He felt his body getting excited at the thought of what he’d do to Carla when the opportunity came, and it would be more than a lousy kiss. For sure! What she needed, he reckoned, was a bit of a tumble to make her remember what good sex was all about. Hadn’t been with a man since that husband of hers had died, most likely. She was ripe for it, all right. She just needed a little encouragement. Most women wanted it, needed it just like a bloke did, but for reasons known only to them they were usually too coy to admit it.
For several seconds he stood under a window of the Loongs’s caravan, listening to the Asian music. Crap stuff. He shook his head in disgust. Bloody chinks. Kim hated his guts because he’d introduced Tran to a group that played poker on Friday nights in a back room of the hotel in Lyndoch. She was a bossy bitch, according to her brother. He licked his lips. Wouldn’t mind a piece of her either, she had a good body and he knew about her life back in Vietnam. Probably knew a few tricks to get a bloke into a lather too.
He continued to move quietly around the perimeter of the winery. He peeped through a glass window to watch Angie using some of the lab shit. Not interested in that, or her, he moved on. His gaze became fixed on the front of the cottage, it was sited far enough back from the road for Carla not to worry about curtains in the living areas. Tentatively, he crept up the steps onto the verandah. He was careful because there were a few old boards that squeaked under pressure and over the weeks he had come to know where not to put his feet. He peered into the living room. No one there. He checked the luminous dial on his watch. 9.36 pm. The kid would be asleep by now, but where was Carla? His mouth screwed up thoughtfully, then he licked his lips. In the shower, maybe!
Josh’s throat muscles tightened and he got an instant hard on just from the possibility of seeing her naked in the shower. He closed his eyes and let his imagination take over. There’d be soapy water running down her body, her hair would be wet and slick because she was washing it, and her head would be arched back under the water. Jesus! He gripped his crotch with his left hand. Steady on, old fellow, you’re not a teenager. Control yourself.
Wandering around to the bathroom window, but not being overly tall, he looked about and found an old plastic crate—Sam and Su Lee used it for stumps when playing cricket—to stand on so he could see into the bathroom via the half-open window. The light was on but no one was in the room. Disappointment snaked through him. Maybe the office? He sneaked around—no lights on there, then, hearing a noise he flattened his body against the office’s outer wall as the back door opened and closed.
He edged closer to the corner to steal a glance at the back of the house. There she was, walking across open ground towards the vines. His forehead knitted in a frown. What was she doing, going for a walk in the moonlight? A pleased grin flicked across his mouth. Shit, yes, that’s precisely what she was doing, walking along where the rows of vines began, stopping every now and then to look up at the sky, then moving on. Josh couldn’t believe his luck. His well entrenched ‘habit’ allowed him to walk without making a discernible sound. He began to follow when he saw that she was moving away from the cottage, and the winery.
Something…the sensation of feeling as if she wasn’t alone, made Carla turn in time to see Josh Aldrich close behind her. She jumped with shock. ‘God, you almost gave me a coronary, Josh.’ Surprise at him being there made her tone angry. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I wanted to give you time to cool down. I think we should talk,’ he lied.
Heart beating double time, her annoyance rising because of the fright, she didn’t disguise her irritation. ‘We have talked. It’s over.’ Before anything had begun. ‘I don’t want to see you anymore, I thought I’d made that clear.’
‘Why? Wasn’t I nice to you, and respectful? We had good times together, didn’t we?’ He moved a step closer. ‘I made no demands on you.’
‘Look, Josh,’ her tone softened, as if trying to reason with a difficult child. ‘What you said is true but I realised two things. One, there was just no emotional attraction on my part and, secondly, I don’t have time to…become involved with any man! I have to concentrate solely on getting Sundown Crossing into the black.’
He didn’t like the way she was talking down to him, as if he wasn’t very bright. What a cheek…anger began to well inside him. ‘That’s great. You get a bloke all worked up with your great body, your beautiful eyes. Make him think he has a chance then, without a moment’s thought for how he might feel about it, you break things off because it doesn’t suit you.’
The moonlight was shining on Josh’s face, letting Carla see how angry he was. She had seen his temper before and common sense told her that she had to try to calm him down. ‘I’m truly sorry if you had the impression that I had feelings for you.’
He made a growling sound in his throat. ‘Sorry doesn’t cut it with me, Carla. I thought you were different, special. You’re not. You’re like all the other women I’ve known, self-centred, users, all of them.’
‘That’s not true and I think you know it.’ She tried to move around him because all at once she saw that they were a considerable distance from the cottage. A shiver of concern slithered down her spine and her stomach muscles tightened. ‘Look, Josh. Let’s just agree to disagree. Whoever was right or wrong, it doesn’t matter now. Our relationship is over. I want you to leave the vineyard, and I don’t appreciate you sneaking around at night as you obviously have. This is private property, you know.’
It was her tone that did it. Imperious, commanding, dismissive. Just like old Carl. Christ, he’d had enough of people pushing him around, telling him what to do, and when he could do it. When he could come, when he could go. To hell with all the Stenmarks. His gaze ran over Carla’s body, arousing him with a need that within seconds became all-consuming. He was close enough to reach for her, and he did.
‘Time to pay your dues, lady.’ He pulled her to him and began to kiss her ardently, feverishly. One hand slipped around her waist to hold her close while the other roamed over her body, touching her neck, cupping her breasts through the fabric of her shirt. He moved one foot, letting it coil around the back of her feet then he pushed himself forward which made them topple to the ground with him on top of her.
‘Are you insane?’ she screamed as loud as she could. ‘Get off me.’
He hit her across the face to shut her up but still she fought furiously, hitting him on the side of the face, the chest, and shoulders until he grabbed both hands and pinned them above her head. Her legs struck out at him too but the sheer weight of his body made her attack ineffectual. Laughing at her efforts his mouth rained kisses down her throat, between her breasts. He ripped the shirt open and pulled at her bra until her breasts were exposed to his questing hands and mouth.
She continued to wriggle and squirm, trying to get away from his superior strength. He didn’t stop her because he knew that sooner or later she’d run out of energy. Meanwhile his free hand reached down between her thighs and his knee forcibly nudged her legs apart.
She screamed again. He slapped her again.
‘Come on, Carla, give up. I know you want it,’ he whispered huskily. And to demonstrate his own need he rotated the lower part of his body against her abdomen, letting her feel his aroused state. ‘I can make it very good for you or I can hurt you. The choice is yours.’
‘You bastard.’
She went to scream again but he was too quick, his hand covered her mouth to stifle the sound. ‘No one’s going to hear you. No one’s going to help you so you might as well lie back, open your legs for me—it’s not like you’re a bloody virgin—and enjoy it.’ He grinned with satisfaction as her body went limp against him. He began to undo the button on his jeans. ‘Good girl. I knew you’d be sensible about it.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kim Loong came out of the
caravan to deposit some wrapped-up rubbish in the bin near their courtyard gate. A strange sound, something she didn’t recognise, made her stop and listen. Was it a night bird of some kind? It didn’t sound like anything she was familiar with. She listened for a while to the ensuing silence, shrugged dismissively and turned to go inside when she heard the noise again. It was a human noise, a woman’s scream! The sound sent a chill down her spine because it brought back the memory of other sounds she had heard years ago on the streets of Saigon. Muggings, gang attacks, even rapes, before she was rescued by Sister Dinah.
Who could be screaming and why, and where was it coming from? The cottage, the winery? Worry made her walk quickly to the cottage and knock on the back door. No response. She went inside the well-lit cottage but it was empty except for Sam who was asleep in his bed. Going outside again she listened, expecting to hear the sound. Nothing. She should check the winery. All was quiet there and Angie, whom she didn’t disturb, was huddled over some vials and tubes, checking the fermentation levels. So, Angie was accounted for but where was Carla?
Had she dreamed the sound, Kim began to wonder? All seemed in order, the moonlight giving an eerie glow to the grounds, the vines. Unable to hear the sound again or locate Carla, but almost convinced that she had imagined the sound, she was about to go inside when a small splotch of light near the vines caught her attention. It flickered, moved away, flickered again. There shouldn’t be any light there so what could it be? Doing her fastest walk because, suddenly, she sensed danger—an instinct that had been with her since her teens—she made her way towards the flash of light. What she saw made her eyes widen in horror. Someone, a man, was attacking Carla.
Kim didn’t hesitate. Small and lightweight as she was, she launched herself at the man, jumping onto his back and putting her fingers over his face, the nails scratching, trying to gouge his eyes.
‘Let her go, you pig.’ Pent up years of anger at being unfairly used, of being disowned by her parents, spilled over. She kicked him; she gouged him. Her teeth found the top of his ear and bit down as hard as she could.
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