by Anne Ashby
To hell with it. He wasn’t sitting here like some hormonal teenager for the rest of the afternoon. He’d get out of her confusing presence, do some thinking, and come up with a plan.
Whether that plan advocated ignoring Leath Robson, or suggested forcing her to admit their kisses were a big deal he wasn’t sure. What had almost happened in the barn had been major. So major it must happen again.
His deck chair leapt backwards as he stood. The idea of her begging for his touch sent blood pounding through his veins to the very spot he was trying to calm.
“Come on guys. It’s time to head home.”
Both his nephews and Leath turned surprised faces toward him as he righted the chair. “Daniel, show Leath how to use the mower so she’ll know next time. Tristan, take the tray back inside for Leath. Be careful not to drop the glasses.”
His abrupt tone galvanised the boys, and they jumped to his orders. Leath stood looking at him with a dazed expression.
Kirk searched her face for some inner turmoil, but she’d masked her emotions. Disturbing and disquieting thoughts flitted through his mind. Had she intimated the truth? Her emotions didn’t mirror his? Had she put no credence on what had happened between them?
His heart sank so low an aching pain filled his chest cavity. It couldn’t have meant nothing, zilch.
A weird sense of loss broke over Kirk like a wave at a surf beach. For a moment he felt upended, uncertain. Then his logical mind clicked and focused on the problem raging inside him.
This woman meant something. Something special. And he’d be damned if he’d let the chance of getting to know her better slip through his fingers. He just needed time to figure out a plan to get closer.
“Daniel’s waiting.” He gave her a gentle nudge toward where his nephew stood beside the mower.
****
It was still too early. Why had she accepted Kirk’s insistence he’d pick her up for tonight’s dinner? Leath frowned as she looked at her watch again. She held it to her ear. Had it stopped? No, it’s innards were still clanging along. Time was the only thing standing still.
Was pacing along the verandah going to calm her quaking nerves? Not likely. But staying inside the house had become claustrophobic. She fully intended to nip through the open front door the second she heard Kirk’s truck, though. He wasn’t going to discover her waiting in a fit of nervous tension.
No. The aim since he’d left had been to achieve serenity. Not just tranquillity or peacefulness, but total serenity. She’d almost done it, too.
Unable to concentrate on painting, Leath had done something she never normally had time to do. Pamper herself. She’d bathed and shaved and lazed the hours away. She’d pretended not to think about a certain man while subconsciously doing everything possible to make herself more attractive.
But she’d misjudged the time. Here she was ready in the best clothes she’d brought with her. They weren’t flash...she hadn’t expected to be socialising with the landed gentry. Nervous about meeting Kirk’s parents—Fiona had intimated they disagreed with the motel plans, too—she wished she had something more elegant than the stovepipe trousers and cotton top she’d recently bought at a chain store sale.
Aiming a thump against the wall, she scowled. Tonight she must display confidence. Confidence in facing down whatever the senior Buchanans might throw at her. But more importantly, confidence to sit in the same room with Kirk and not show how much his presence affected her.
Another glance at her watch showed only a couple of minutes had dragged by. With another deep breath, Leath spun on her heel and set off down the verandah. I can do this. I can pretend this afternoon was like any other afternoon. I can pretend I never felt his touch, his lips devouring mine, his hands roaming...Leath moaned as her legs wobbled.
She clutched at the railing to remain upright as an ache tugged at the bottom of her stomach. Her head flopped.
This evening was going to test her fortitude.
****
“It was very kind of you to invite me to dinner, Mrs. Buchanan.” Leath offered a bottle of red wine—left over from Carrie’s last visit—to the older woman greeting her at the kitchen door. Without the bottle to hang onto, Leath felt even more uncomfortable. She slipped her hands behind her back.
After accepting the wine, Kirk’s mother busied herself at the bench, avoiding looking directly at her guest. Leath glanced around, her eyebrows rising at the multi-coloured labels and pictures stuck everywhere.
With an apologetic murmur Kirk had disappeared after he’d introduced the pair. They were alone in the kitchen.
Leath marvelled at the lack of clutter on the benches. She spied the stove, with its bubbling pots, was missing one of its dials and Tristan’s words came back to her. “Granddad forgets things.” This room was geared for someone with extreme memory problems. Alzheimer’s?
Tempted to cough to clear the lump swelling and threatening to block her windpipe, she instead struggled to swallow it into oblivion. The silence lengthened and became oppressive. Leath shuffled her feet. Where were the children? At this point she’d even welcome Kirk’s stoic presence.
Despite her misgivings and emerging sympathy, Leath kept her head high, watching Mary Buchanan flutter around—needlessly it seemed to Leath—across near the sink. Unable to bear the atmosphere any longer, she asked, “Is there something I can help you with?”
With a noticeable heavy sigh, Mary very deliberately placed the cloth in her hand into the sink and turned toward Leath. “It isn’t kind of me at all.”
Leath noticed the woman’s cheeks redden.
“After what you did for F-Fi...” Her wobbling voice ground to a halt.
She struggled to compose herself, and then began again. “We’ve been rude and unneighbourly.” Blue eyes so like her son’s looked candidly into Leath’s. “I’m ashamed. I cannot believe we’ve been so self-centred and selfish.”
She took another deep breath, and moving closer, unconsciously held out a hand. “Please excuse us. We don’t usually treat people so abominably.”
Not doubting the depth of sincerity one iota, Leath grasped the hand, clasped it in both of hers and shook it gently. With a tentative smile, she expanded the introduction Kirk had made. “Hello, I’m Leath Robson. My brother Robby and I have taken possession of the property down on the waterfront.”
Mary stopped chewing her lip as a relieved smile broke over her face. “Hello, Leath, I’m Mary. Welcome.” She leaned forward and hugged Leath. “Welcome to Greene Valley. I hope you’ll be very happy here.” With a wary smile Mary ushered Leath into the lounge.
“Oh, hello.” Leath smiled at the man sitting watching the television. It was the man from the beach. This was Tristan’s grandfather. He ignored her.
“Terry?” Mary went forward and touched his shoulder. “Terry, this is Leath. She’s come for tea with us.”
He gallantly rose to his feet and held out his hand. “Do I know you?” A frown marred his face as he clasped her fingers.
Before Mary could speak Leath returned the pressure on his hand and smiled. “No. I’m new to the neighbourhood.”
“I thought I might have forgotten you.”
****
“Can I ask you something?” Leath was helping Mary tidy up the kitchen after a beautiful meal. “Do you know who cleared out Penny’s house?”
Mary’s head turned sharply. “Cleared it out? I didn’t know it had been cleared out.” She shook her head, a heavy frown appearing. “Was everything gone?”
Leath shook her head as she picked up another pot to dry.
“No, not everything. The rooms are all furnished. The kitchen and laundry were both fully equipped. There was linen in a cupboard in the hallway and some boxes of books, but nothing else. Nothing personal at all.” Her hands stilled, the pot clutched against her chest. “It was just something Kirk said today. It made me wonder.”
Mary’s eyebrows rose.
“He said Penny was a hoarder.” She hur
ried on when Mary’s eyebrows rose even further. “I can believe him, too. There are piles of stuff in the sheds and the barn.” She shrugged. “They’re just chocked full, most of it junk, I suspect. I have to admit we haven’t worried about looking very closely yet.”
“But the house was empty?”
“Of anything personal, yes.”
“Weird.” Mary carried on washing, her frown still in place.
“It’s as if someone came in and started packing up by taking away all the personal stuff, her clothing, toiletries, photos, knick knacks.” Leath leant against the bench. “But then they never came back to complete the job.”
She sent Mary an inquiring look. “If it had been you doing the job, wouldn’t you have taken the linen, the kitchen stuff, all that, too?”
She shook her head. “And why were there books all taped up in cartons? They’d been packed away but were still in the house.”
Mary’s hands stilled in the dishwater. “I might be able to answer that one. One of the local charities runs a secondhand book sale a couple of times a year. It would make sense that the books were made ready to be collected for a sale.”
Leath nodded as she accepted this explanation. Perhaps whoever was supposed to uplift them forgot, or called when no-one was there and never bothered coming back.
Leath’s shoulders slumped further. She’d hoped Kirk’s parents might shed some extra light on, well, on anything to do with this crazy situation. “But you’re right, the whole thing is weird. It’s a weird state of affairs.”
After some moments of silence Mary spoke. “Hemi Black used to mow the lawns, but after he shifted south, oh about five or six years ago, the place went to wrack and ruin.”
She looked over her shoulder at Leath. “Sorry, I haven’t a clue. I can’t even tell you when the packing might have been done. I never heard anything about it, so I doubt it was anyone local. Penny was a strange character, kept pretty much to herself.”
Leath couldn’t stop the gasp escaping. She responded to the inquiry in Mary’s look. “B-but Kirk told me...K-Kirk said...” Stopping her stuttering, Leath took a deep breath. “Something Kirk said suggested she was very popular. I assumed she was quite involved within the community?”
Mary’s lips moved. Leath recognised her expression was more of a grimace than a smile. “You did say you know nothing of Penny? She wasn’t related?”
Leath eyed the older woman. She had been Penny’s neighbour for at least twenty years, maybe a lot longer. She must know so much about the woman. Things Leath was struggling to discover.
Chewing the inside of her mouth, Leath pondered. No matter how the Buchanans might feel about the motels and her and Robby’s plans, there was nothing they could do to stop them. During the last couple of hours, nothing had been said to suggest they even wanted to try.
Leath dropped her gaze to the pot still held in her arms. Could she trust Mary Buchanan? She shook her head as she finished drying the pot and put it aside to pick up another. It wasn’t a matter of trust, was it? Why care if people knew the siblings had no idea who Penny had been?
Balancing her urge to keep mum about her own private business with the strength of her need to know something, anything about Penny Maguire finally swayed her. “We know nothing at all.”
The dishes were forgotten as Leath poured out her confusion. “Please. If there’s anything you can tell me about her...” she begged. “A friend is helping me track down official records, but it’s taking so long. Each thing we find I hope it’ll tell us how she knew us, but so far we’ve come up with a big fat nothing.”
“Come back into the lounge.” Mary took Leath’s arm and urged her out of the kitchen.
“But the dishes—”
“They’ll keep. Unravelling a mystery sounds far more exciting than doing dishes.”
Terry was dozing in a chair next to his son. Kirk’s keen look bounced right off Leath as she perched on the edge of the sofa next to her hostess.
Mary’s delicious food was tossing about inside Leath’s stomach by nerves fast approaching fever pitch. She folded her arms and tried to contain her excitement as she leaned forward.
Finally. Finally she was going to find out about their benefactor.
“Cade was just a baby when George bought the strip of land off us,” Mary began. “My father-in-law had farmed through the good times, not preparing for any possible drop in meat or wool prices. We couldn’t survive. Even after Terry sold, it was a struggle.”
With a fond glance toward her husband, Mary fell silent and seemed overcome by memories before rousing herself. “But you don’t want to hear about us.”
Courtesy-bound, Leath murmured a denial although she clamoured to hear about Penny.
Smiling knowingly, Mary continued. “George grew up at Bakerton.” Leath knew this to be the small neighbouring village further north. “He had two, or maybe even three, older brothers...I don’t remember. He needed something else to do other than farming, but he didn’t want to leave the district. He talked to us about building a motel on the land. We thought it was a wonderful idea.”
Leath was aware of Kirk’s start as the newspaper he’d been reading crushed onto his knees. “What?” he demanded.
Mary turned to Kirk. “It was great. It drew people. The town had extra revenue coming in, during the summer particularly.”
Ignoring the shocked expression on her son’s face, she turned back to Leath. “He’d been there for about ten years when suddenly Penny appeared. We didn’t...nobody knew anything about her, where she’d come from.” With a guilty look Mary hung her head and admitted, “We thought he probably found her in some lonely hearts column.”
“Mum!”
“Well,” she justified, “he never travelled anywhere to meet her. Anyway, that’s still not helping you, is it?” She smiled at Leath.
“George seemed happy. Although he told us Penny didn’t like the motels, she worked hard and helped him run them. She loved to garden. We thought she was crazy as we watched her break in two whole paddocks into garden, but she never faltered. The place was as magnificent as any garden you’d ever see. She definitely had a green thumb.”
In the followed pause Leath burst out, “But what was she like? Was she—”
“I’ve already told you.” Kirk’s voice was stiff and cold. “She was an amazing person, kind and generous to a fault. She cared about people. She’d give her last dollar to help anyone in trouble. She—”
“No, Kirk. That’s wrong.” Mary broke in firmly. “We’re not giving Leath a biased opinion of Penny.”
Leath watched Kirk’s mouth fall open for a second. He jammed it shut, a deep frown covering his face.
Mary turned back to Leath. “I can see you’re confused. Penny was a strange person. I guess the easiest way to describe her is two-faced.”
Kirk gasped with denial and the scrunch of newspaper.
“She was so, Kirk,” Mary argued. “Ask any woman in Greene Valley,” she urged. “Ask Jenny.” Mary rounded on her son again. “Why wasn’t she ever invited for cake after school?”
A ruddy colour grew in Kirk’s cheeks.
“I knew she was buttering up you two boys. I didn’t mind so much, but excluding Jenny made me see red. That’s why the invites stopped when you got older. I told her she either invited all of my children or none of them. She couldn’t bring herself to be nice to a little girl.”
“That’s ridiculous, Mum. Penny wasn’t—”
“Penny liked men. Oh, I’m not saying she did inappropriate things, although after George died...well, Penny basked in male company, even young males.”
Mary shot another glance at her shocked son. “She was a honey pot, drawing unsuspecting men to her like bees to their hive.”
Leath clamped down on her lips to stop a giggle bursting from her. Kirk’s stunned reaction to his mother’s revelations was comical.
Remembering the harshness of his words the night he rescued her from the bush, Lea
th almost felt sorry for him. His mother was toppling his idol off her pedestal and showing him her feet of clay were very sloppy.
“She wasn’t interested in any of the women’s groups in the Valley. But anything with men attending, she’d be there, flouting herself.” Mary stopped her heated tirade and bit her lip for a moment before continuing. “I’m sorry.”
“Please don’t be. I want to know anything and everything you can tell me. I don’t care what it is as long as it might help us figure all this out, somehow.”
“It must be very confusing for you.”
“You can say that again.” Leath gave a little laugh. It held no humour. “Now I’m wondering why she didn’t just leave everything to my brother.”
“I can’t tell you anything to help you there. She kept to herself after George died. Oh, she wasn’t a recluse or anything, but she didn’t attend much in the village.”
Mary paused for a long time. “I often wondered if something happened. Whether she’d been caught with someone’s hus—”
“Penny wouldn’t do—”
“Oh, yes she would.” Mary glared at Kirk. “I gave you more credit. Penny Maguire was a barracuda. There were a lot of women in this town who breathed easier once she went into care.”
“Including you?” Kirk snapped back.
“Yes. Including me.”
Leath’s uncomfortable glance sideward saw the colour drain from Kirk’s face.
“You mean—”
“She was a predator. She fed off any man she could find. No-one was safe from her.” Mary was breathing hard, her agitation almost out of control. “Get off your moral high horse, Kirk. Penny Maguire was a two-timing bitch of a woman.”
“But what you said...when she went into care...she was an old lady.”
“Age never slowed her down,” Mary shot back. “Believe me, son. Penny wasn’t someone you need to champion. She wasn’t a very nice person.”