by Nikki Logan
Grant’s hand tightened further on her upper arm. He slipped his body closer to hers and tried to nudge her away from the bar with it.
Kate leaned around him. ‘Those sea-dogs have more right to be here than you do. They’ve been fishing here for millennia.’
‘Rubbish! I’ve been around a lot longer than you have, love, and there were hardly any when I was a boy. Just those few out on the McMurtrie farm.’
‘That’s because morons like you hunted them nearly to extinction. They’re only just now getting back to—’
‘Kate! Enough.’ Grant physically pushed his way between the two opponents and forced her back a step.
‘Get out of my way.’ Her verbal warning was for Grant, but her narrowed gaze and her furious attention were all for the ageing fisherman at the bar. Although not so much she didn’t feel the strength of Grant’s body pushing back against hers.
He dropped his head low against her jaw and whispered warm against her skin, ‘Don’t do this, Kate. You’re not going to do yourself any favours.’
Behind him Joe Sampson snorted. ‘Oh, not another bloody McMurtrie man addled by a nice pair of legs,’ he sneered, before turning back to the bar and speaking too loudly to be to himself. ‘Or what’s between them.’
Grant spun faster than Kate could blink and his body was hard up against Joe’s. Both the old man’s friends stepped in, hands raised, to head off the conflict. Joe stumbled backwards off his chair and looked every year of his considerable age.
Grant caught him and held him with the steeliest grip Kate had ever seen. ‘Apologise.’ His voice was low and hard, and she got her first inkling of what he might be like as a boardroom opponent.
‘I’m not apologising to no city skirt.’
Grant shook the older man and spoke low and hard. ‘I’m not talking about Kate. She can look after herself. Apologise for what you implied about my father.’
Kate held her breath. So did the rest of the pub.
Joe Sampson eventually dropped his gaze from Grant’s. ‘Yeah, all right. I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, I s’pose.’
Kate stepped up behind Grant and put her hand gently on his back, moral support, for what it was worth. He didn’t even notice. Furious heat radiated through his shirt.
‘My father negotiated access with Kate’s team. As was his right on his land. Nothing more.’
‘That we know of,’ Joe threw out stupidly.
Grant’s whole body tensed but one of Joe’s mates stepped into the simmering tension. John Pickering, the one with the bushy beard. ‘Look, I’ll take her out. I don’t mind,’ he said.
Joe turned on his mate. ‘Traitor!’
‘Let it go, Joe. What’s one boat trip to keep the peace?’ Pickering looked past Grant at Kate. ‘This has gone far enough. Take this as my way of saying sorry for not stopping it sooner. I’ll take you out tomorrow afternoon if that suits. Half price.’
Kate just nodded dumbly. The bearded man matched it and then steered the belligerent Joe Sampson away from her. Grant straightened up but didn’t turn back to her. He spoke quietly to the bar manager over the counter, who nodded and then wandered off to wipe down a surface at the far end of the bar.
Kate stared pointedly at Grant’s back. Eventually, he turned and faced her. She lifted both eyebrows.
To his credit, he didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. ‘You would have made things so much worse.’
‘You were right when you said I can look after myself. I don’t need your help.’
‘Kate, you were warming up to a bar fight. With one of Castleridge’s longest-standing residents.’
‘He’s an idiot.’
‘Moron I think was your professional estimation.’
Smiling now would be a mistake, but Grant with his super-solemn face was hard to take seriously. Her lips twitched.
‘I’m serious, Kate. You could have ruined everything you’ve worked for.’
‘By having a vigorous discussion on a subject I can argue convincingly in a room full of potential allies?’
He stopped and stared at her. ‘You did it on purpose?’
‘Not stir up Joe Sampson—although I’m glad I’m not getting on a boat alone with him now that I know what a misogynist he is. But it wouldn’t hurt if word began to spread in town that the seals aren’t threatening human fish-stocks.’
Green eyes blazed. ‘You actually think that’s a good idea?’
Whose side was he on? Oh, wait…stupid question. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked irritably.
‘I told you I’d come if I heard the sounds of scaffolding being erected.’
‘From the other room? You were supposed to be at the movies.’
‘A man’s got to eat.’
‘Dine alone often, do you?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s Friday night. Always someone to meet.’
He looked entirely innocent. If he was lying, he was good at it. ‘There really is a table?’
‘There was. If you haven’t got us banned.’
Kate smiled and followed him into the dining hall. All eyes were on them, which barely registered, because her eyes were entirely on Grant.
Kate can look after herself.
Uncertainty nibbled. On one hand, it was enormously validating to have someone like Grant McMurtrie display such confidence in her ability to handle herself, after years of being talked down to as a pretty, young woman in the male-dominated scientific community. But, on the other hand, feeling Grant’s hard body slide in between her and danger had generated a heady, primitive kind of rush, and the tingles it caused were still resonating. Kate stared at the back of those broad shoulders crossing the dining room and remembered how they’d shielded her from Joe Sampson.
She smiled. Or perhaps protected Joe from her.
‘Table for two?’ A tall, toothy waitress appeared from nowhere with two menus. She gave Kate an approving wink before placing the menus on a neatly laid table and parting on, ‘Hope the company’s more agreeable in here.’
It couldn’t be hard. Still, for all the drama, at least she was walking away with a boat and someone to captain it. So something positive had come from the evening.
A few moments later they were settled and seated and everyone in the bar had gone back to minding their own business. Mostly. Kate could feel Joe Sampson’s malevolent stare on her back from across the adjoining bar-room. Her heart slowly got back to its normal rhythm.
‘So, you weren’t kidding about being farming blood. You’re a country girl,’ Grant said by way of a conversation-starter.
Kate looked up. ‘Sunbrook. We ran dairy, mostly, but had sheep and some alpacas.’
‘What happened to the stock when you moved to the city?’
‘Sold, apparently.’
‘Apparently?’
Her hands tightened under the table. ‘I never asked. I never wanted to know. Two of those alpacas were like pets to me.’
Grant shook his head. ‘And no-one asked your permission? Asked you what you wanted?’
Defensiveness surged through her for the people who’d been left with the awful task of sorting out her life. The people who’d done their best. But deep down she knew that Grant only voiced the same question she’d had her entire adult life. How hard would it have been to ask her what she needed?
She shrugged and studied the menu. ‘I was twelve. What was I going to say? There was no way Aunt Nancy would have moved onto the farm, so what choice did I have?’
Conversation stalled while they ordered meals and their drinks arrived—a tall beer for Grant and a wine and soda for Kate.
‘It’s funny,’ he finally said, breaking the silence. ‘While I was doing everything I could to get out of this place, you would have given your life to go back to your farm.’
Kate sipped carefully then lowered her glass. ‘I still would.’
‘Did you ever go back?’
She’d driven south especially to see it a few years back but, even with the s
hielding of time past, it hurt too much. ‘Only once. I couldn’t bear to see someone else’s children climbing my trees. Someone else’s washing on Mum’s line.’ Her voice cracked slightly and she took another sip. He hadn’t touched his beer; his attention was completely on her.
‘What did you do with the money?’
‘Most of it went back to the bank to pay off the agricultural loan. Some of it went to Nancy for taking me in. What little was left I got when I was eighteen. I used it as a down payment on my apartment.’ She folded her hands on the table and leaned towards him. ‘Grant, why are you selling Tulloquay? I completely understand your desire to keep it in one piece, but why sell it at all? Why not lease it, or get a caretaker in? Keep it in your family?’
His lips thinned. ‘What family?’
That was right; he had as little as she did now that his father was gone. ‘Your future family. Someone should look after it. Until you need it.’
‘Angling for a new job, Kate?’
She didn’t laugh. ‘No. But I would give anything for a chance to come back to country living, to have something to call my own: land. A future. A home. I can’t understand how selling it is better than keeping it. Even if you kept it empty.’
‘An empty farm is soulless, Kate. I’d rather see a stranger take it and make it great than let it run fallow.’
Her heart softened. She considered not voicing her thoughts. ‘Every now and again I look at your face and I see Leo staring back at me.’
He stiffened.
‘I meant that as a compliment, Grant. He was a complicated but dedicated man. And he was determined to strengthen Tulloquay, to keep it relevant.’
‘Then he should have left it to someone else.’
‘Because you’re not interested?’
‘Because I’m not a farmer.’
‘That’s not the first time you’ve said that. Do you think farmers are born knowing what to do?’
‘They’re raised. Trained.’
She frowned at him. ‘Leo didn’t teach you?’
He thought about that long and hard, staring into his beer. Eventually he lifted his head. ‘I didn’t want to learn.’
The dark shadows in his eyes called out to her. ‘You didn’t want the farm—even then?’
‘I didn’t want my future mapped out for me. If he’d said he wanted me to go into the army, I probably would have wanted to be a farmer. He pushed too hard.’
The two lines that creased his forehead told her he’d said more than he meant to. She nodded. ‘I can see that. He had a very forceful way about him. Particularly after he… Well, at the end there. When he thought he was out of time.’
Grant’s forehead creased further. ‘What do you mean?’
Kate rushed in to fix her insensitive gaffe. ‘I’m sorry. I just meant that he must have felt the pressure following his diagnosis. The urgency to get things in order.’
Grant’s face bleached in a heartbeat. His body froze.
Kate’s stomach squeezed into a tiny fist. Oh please, Leo… Please have told your son…
His already deep voice was pure gravel. ‘What diagnosis?’
Kate’s eyes fell shut. ‘Grant, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you—’
‘Kate!’ The bark drew stares from the other diners. ‘What diagnosis?’
Empathy bubbled up urgently. Memories of that awful discussion in her principal’s office bled through her. Memories of Mrs Martin’s pale face. Her shaking fingers, having to break a child’s heart with unspeakable news.
She groaned. ‘Grant…’
‘Tell me, Kate.’
‘Lung cancer.’ The words rushed out of her. ‘Terminal.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You didn’t know?’
Grant’s chest rose and fell roughly and his gaze dropped to the table.
Damn you, Leo… To tell a stranger and not his son…
She reached across the table and slid her fingers around Grant’s icy ones. His Adam’s apple worked furiously up and down as he struggled to compose himself. Her focus flicked nervously around the dining room and caught the cheerful waitress as she smiled her way towards them with two steaming meals balanced carefully on her forearm. Kate’s eyes flew wide and she shook her head subtly.
Effortlessly, the waitress spotted it, interpreted the tension at the table, turned on the balls of her feet and whipped the meals back into the kitchen. Kate had a horrible feeling they wouldn’t be eaten tonight—at least, not by them. She slid Grant’s untouched beer towards him. Then she just waited, her fingers still wrapped tightly around his. He clutched them back, holding on tight.
Holding himself together.
‘Are you ok, Grant?’
When he finally lifted his shaking head, his colour was back but his eyes had faded. ‘I didn’t know, Kate. I’m sorry that you had to…’ His words ran out.
Tears prickled embarrassingly behind her eyes. She shook her head, unable to speak.
He seemed to realise where his fingers were and he gently extracted them, sliding them into his lap, dragging the napkin with them to disguise their trembling. Distancing himself.
Kate cleared her throat. ‘He told me last August—in case anything happened to him. Because I was on the farm so often.’ It sounded exactly as lame as it was.
He told me. But not you.
‘Something did happen to him. But you weren’t there.’
Kate’s eyes dropped, her guilt surging back. ‘No. I was on a conference. It was terrible timing.’
His frown was tortured and angry at the same time. ‘You weren’t his nurse. He wasn’t your responsibility.’
‘He was my friend.’ Grant’s loud snort drew more eyes. ‘You doubt me, but you weren’t there.’
His eyes blazed. ‘I had a life to lead.’
She gentled her tone and didn’t bite. The man was suffering enough right now. ‘I meant you weren’t there to judge the friendship. But clearly you two weren’t—’ she changed direction at the last second ‘—in touch, so he told…a friend. I imagine Mayor Sefton knows, too.’
Grant’s nostrils flared wildly and his eyes darkened. ‘If he does, he’ll have some explaining to do.’
Kate frowned. This was more than just a horrible surprise. Grant was really struggling. What did he think his father had died of? ‘Let me take you home, Grant.’
His distracted eyes scanned the dining room. ‘Our meals…’
‘I’ll make you something at home.’
She stood and held out a hand to him; it hovered, ignored, in space and Kate fought the flush that rose as she let her fingers drop back to her side. The gesture had been automatic, but now, more than ever, was the last time a man like Grant McMurtrie would accept a gesture like that from her. Yet his world had just imploded so very publically and he was desperately trying to pull himself together.
She softened her voice. ‘Come on.’
He stood unsteadily on his feet and dropped a handful of notes—way too much for what they’d ordered—on the table. Kate smiled an apology to the waitress through the servery window and led Grant out into the cool night.
At the car she stopped him. ‘Keys.’
‘I’ll drive.’
‘You’ll drive us into a ditch. I have a research study to finish and I imagine you have—’ she suddenly faltered ‘—someone to get safely home to when this is all over.’
He tossed her his keys with an accuracy that suggested he was quickly recovering his wits. ‘No someone. No family. Not now.’
Lord, did she sound that morose when speaking of her long-dead family?
‘Well, aren’t we just a pair of poster children for “misery loves company”?’ she offered lightly. It seemed to work; his face defrosted a hint more. She pulled open her door. ‘In the car, McMurtrie.’
Grant desperately needed a few minutes in the darkness to gather his composure. He slid into his passenger seat and sank into the familiar, comfortable leather, breathing deeply.
Cancer. Lung canc
er.
A whole bunch of things flashed through his mind and suddenly made sense: Alan’s awkwardness when Grant had mentioned the stink of tobacco in his father’s house. The freaky, hippy health-concoction in his beer fridge. The fact he’d more or less got his affairs in order before…
Grant took a deep breath.
He’d even waited until Kate was away before taking his life. He glanced at the face, so serious with concentration, watching the road ahead. Had Leo not wanted such a gentle woman to find him? To discover the horror? He was willing to bet big bucks that his father wouldn’t have expected his only son to find him, either, in a million years. Grant had a sinking suspicion he’d been counting on his old mate Alan Sefton to do the honours.
Cancer.
It had had nothing to do with Kate’s project or the land grab. Something very close to relief rushed through him, stumbling and falling over the latent grief still clogging his arteries. He should have been here. He should have made more than one call a year. He should never have let so many years go by. And neither should his father.
I see Leo staring back at me. Were they truly that similar? Would he end up grumpy and alone and sick enough to end it all? There wasn’t much else stopping him, just his work. Just the same rigid discipline about his job that his father had had. That Kate had.
He cleared his throat and turned to the woman whose hands gripped the steering wheel brutally. She knew, first hand, how he was feeling yet she hadn’t taken advantage of his weakness. She’d just been there for him. Is that the kind of quality his father had seen in his young friend’s character?
He cleared his throat. ‘Kate, thank you.’
Her eyes flicked to his, wide and anxious. ‘How are you?’
He nodded slowly. ‘I’ll survive.’ She wanted to ask something. He could see it in the way her teeth worried her lips. ‘Go ahead, Kate. Ask.’
The words practically exploded from her. ‘Did it not say on the certificate—the cause of death? Or did you not see it?’
His chest tightened up. Could he tell her? She and Leo had been friends. ‘I saw it,’ he answered carefully.
‘Yet tonight was still a surprise?’
Anxiety ravaged her sweet face. Knowing would only hurt her, and lying couldn’t hurt Leo. Or him; not any more. Yet he couldn’t let her go on feeling bad for letting the truth slip, either. He reached over and slid a hand onto her cool arm.