‘Demolished?’ He laughed out loud. ‘I think you’re being a little dramatic. And not just about the building.’
She sighed deeply. ‘I hope so, because I care about you and Ned and I’d hate to see you both get hurt. I’d be careful exposing your son to someone you know nothing about.’
‘Just because you don’t know Meg, doesn’t mean I don’t,’ he said, no longer able to contain his irritation. The truth was he didn’t know a great deal about her past—despite their long phone conversations late into the night these last few days, he still felt as if she was holding back a little, but that didn’t make him uncomfortable. His gut told him she was good people and that her reticence in talking about herself was because someone had hurt her badly. He believed in time he’d gain her trust and that she’d open up, but he didn’t want to push her to do that before she was ready.
Adeline opened her mouth as if to respond, but this time he got in first. ‘Thanks for the prize. I’ll see you later.’ Then he turned and stalked off towards his son, his sister and Meg, determined not to be interrupted by anyone else.
‘Dad!’ Ned shrieked running to greet him. As he scooped him up for a hug, Cane also tried to solicit attention, but Lawson looked to Meg and couldn’t help grinning. Any doubts Adeline had tried to sow evaporated as she smiled back and then dipped her head to lick the ice-cream she was holding.
‘Your sister makes good ice-cream,’ she said, seemingly unaware of how erotic she looked sliding her tongue over the cool treat.
‘She does,’ he agreed, muscles all over his body tightening as his wayward thoughts imagined her tongue roving over him instead. He felt his cheeks heat ridiculously and he prayed neither Tabitha nor Meg could read his mind. He honestly didn’t know how to deal with such carnal thoughts. For years after Leah died, he’d genuinely believed his libido had gone too, but the way his body reacted around Meg proved otherwise.
‘What did Adeline want?’ Tabitha asked as she wrapped serviettes round waffle cones in between customers. ‘Looked like you two were having quite the conversation.’
Lawson slid Ned back to the ground and stooped to give Cane the attention he craved. ‘She was just telling me I won first prize in the Progress Association’s latest raffle,’ he said, looking up at his sister.
‘Congratulations,’ Meg said.
‘What’d ya win, Dad?’ Ned jumped a little on the spot.
Tabitha’s eyes widened. ‘You won the spa retreat? But you never win anything.’ She pretended to pout.
He laughed. ‘I know. Anyway you can have the prize if you want. Either that or I’ll give it to Dad.’
‘What’s a spa retreat?’ asked Ned. ‘Can we eat it?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, little buddy.’
‘I think you should keep it.’ Her eyes darted about in their sockets saying far more than her words. ‘I’ve heard that resort is very romantic, and Ethan, Ned and I can hold the fort if you ever want to get away for a night or two.’
Again his cheeks burned, but at least his embarrassment killed his inappropriate erection. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he answered, then stood and surveyed Meg’s table. ‘Have you had a good morning so far?’
She nodded. ‘Better than I expected. The tea-cosies have been selling almost as well as Tabitha’s ice-creams. How was your morning? With the cows and all?’
‘Great. They mostly behaved, which isn’t always the case.’
Meg laughed. ‘Tabitha’s been telling me about some of the calves. Sounds like they have their own little personalities.’
‘Dad writes their personalities on their tags,’ Ned said. ‘Sometimes he uses naughty words.’
‘I do not!’
‘Yes, you do.’ Ned nodded vigorously. ‘You wrote moody bitch on one. I saw it.’
Lawson smirked at his son. ‘Bitch is not a naughty word. It’s a proper animal term.’
‘For dogs.’ Ned shook his head and exploded in laughter. Both Meg and Tabitha joined him, and Lawson couldn’t help smiling either.
He held up his hands in surrender pose. ‘Okay, okay, I confess. Sometimes I call them naughty names. Life was a lot easier when you couldn’t read.’
‘Can I go get a sausage sizzle?’ Ned asked. ‘I’m starving.’
Happy for the change of subject, Lawson went to dig his wallet out of his pocket but Tabitha halted him. ‘We’re having a barbecue for lunch. I think sausages twice in one day would be overkill, but I’ve got some fruit you can have if you’re hungry.’
‘Aw, but fruit is so boring,’ Ned whined, folding his arms across his chest in protest.
‘Aunty Tab’s right,’ Lawson said and he knew her reference to the barbecue wasn’t simply for Ned’s sake. It was a reminder to do what he’d promised her he would. What he’d promised himself he would. He cleared his throat and looked at Meg. ‘Um … if you’re not busy this afternoon, I … I mean we,’ he gestured to Tab and Ned, ‘were wondering if you’d like to come over for lunch?’
‘Please, Meg, please come,’ begged Ned, sausage sizzle and fruit forgotten for now.
‘It won’t be anything fancy,’ Lawson added, ‘but Tab’s made some salads and I’ll barbecue some sausages and steaks.’
‘Actually our worker Ethan will probably make his way over and he’ll take charge of cooking the meat.’ Tabitha smiled and shook her head. ‘He doesn’t like the way Lawson does it.’
‘But he’s wrong,’ Lawson said, feeling the need to protect his masculinity, ‘I’m awesome on the barbecue.’
Meg smiled. ‘I guess I’ll be the judge of that.’
‘So you’ll come?’ Ned asked.
When she nodded, Lawson could have punched the air. While he didn’t really want to share Meg with Tab and Ned and Ethan, it was better than the alternative of not getting to spend time with her at all.
‘I’m curious about Ethan,’ she said. ‘From what Lawson tells me, he sounds like quite a character. What can I bring?’
‘Just yourself,’ he replied. She was more than enough.
At the same time, Tabitha said, ‘Oh, you don’t need to bring anything. You can follow us home straight from here. It’ll be very casual but we’ve got plenty of food to go around and I’m sure Cane will love running all over the farm with Bonnie and Clyde.’
‘In that case,’ Meg said, ‘thank you. We’d love to come.’
‘It’s a date!’ Tabitha sounded victorious but Lawson couldn’t help cringing at her use of the word ‘date’. Could she be any more obvious?
At that moment a couple of women stopped in front of Meg’s stall. Lawson stepped aside, dragging Ned and Cane with him to give her a chance to wow the potential customers. Not that the women needed much encouraging. They oohed and aahed over Meg’s creative tea-cosies and Lawson watched, delighted by the way she blushed whenever one of them complimented her on her obvious skills. She sold five and took great care wrapping each and every one of them in tissue paper and then tying them up with a bow. The women were ecstatic and he felt proud and happy.
There was a rush on ice-creams and tea-cosies after that. Lawson was in charge of Cane, taking him for a little walk, while the others handled the sales. He wandered over to the sausage sizzle stall and bought a can of Coke from Funky.
‘Don’t tell me you caved and bought one of Adeline’s puppies?’ asked his mate with a disappointed shake of his head as he handed over the icy can.
‘Nope. I’m looking after this little guy for a friend.’
Funky raised an eyebrow. ‘What friend? I thought I was your only friend. Are you holding out on me, buddy?’
Lawson rolled his eyes and told him the basics about Meg—where she lived, how they’d met, her plans for the old general store. He left out the bit about how she made him want things he hadn’t wanted in a very long time.
‘She sounds intriguing,’ Funky said, glancing across the car park to where Meg was still talking to customers. ‘Is that her next to Tab’s ice-cream stall?’
Lawson nodded and Funky let out a low wolf-whistle.
‘You failed to mention how hot she was,’ he said, fanning his face theatrically. ‘I like me a good redhead. And you said she’s living alone? Maybe I should go over and introduce myself.’
Lawson wasn’t surprised at Funky’s response. Meg was undeniably a looker and Funky’s default instinct was to flirt with anyone in possession of an XY chromosome. Usually his mate’s antics amused him, but today he fought the urge to tell Funky to back the hell off.
‘If by introduce yourself you mean try and make her another one of your conquests, then forget it. She’s a friend and I don’t want you to mess with her.’
Funky blinked, frowned and then cracked a smile. ‘Holy shit. Why didn’t you just say so? You want to make her your conquest!’
‘Keep your voice down,’ Lawson hissed, annoyed at the way Funky was speaking about Meg like she were a piece of meat. ‘Not everything is about sex, you know.’ But inside his head a little voice called him out as a liar—he did want to sleep with her. But did she want to sleep with him as well? And, if she did, would he remember how to do it? It had been so long since he’d even kissed a woman, never mind anything more.
Funky reached out and squeezed his shoulder. ‘Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, mate.’ Then he chuckled. ‘Welcome back to the land of the living. We’ve missed you.’
Lawson shrugged him off and glanced back to Meg, who looked to be deep in conversation with another customer.
‘I’m sorry,’ Funky said, sounding uncharacteristically serious. ‘I think it’s great you’re getting to know someone new. Lord knows I adored Leah but she’s gone, man, and you deserve to be happy again with someone else. If you like this Meg chick, then go for it, I say.’
With Funky’s blessing—not that he needed it—Lawson wandered off with Cane back in the direction of Meg’s stall. He stopped and half-heartedly chatted to locals as he went. There was fear in the air about the current dairy crisis—once again supermarkets were drastically cutting the shelf-price of their home brands and as usual the ramifications were most detrimental to the farmers—and as a dairy farmer himself he should have been more invested in these important conversations, but his head was full of Meg. Full of sex with Meg, if he were honest.
Finally, the crowds started to thin and he made it back to the others to find Meg had only one tea-cosy left. He tried to focus on that rather than the thoughts Funky had planted in his head.
He nodded to the one lone item sitting in the middle of her purple tablecloth. ‘You’ll have to get busy if you want to hold another stall at the next markets.’
‘I know.’ She rubbed her lips together and picked up the last tea-cosy—a blue and yellow stripy one. ‘I can’t believe how well they sold. But I feel a little sorry for this one.’
‘How much is it?’ he asked.
‘Oh no.’ She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t fishing for you to buy it.’
His hand was already pulling his wallet out of his pocket. ‘I know, but I want to. I’ll give it to my step-mum for a gift.’ That was a lie; he planned on keeping it for himself and he’d think of her whenever he looked at it. Yep, he was a lost cause, and the sooner he did something about it, the better.
‘In that case, for you, since you’ve been looking after Cane and helped me so much with the house and my research …’ she held it out to him and smiled ‘… it’s free.’
Again, he shook his head. ‘No way. I want to pay for it fair and square.’
‘Fine.’ She named a price he felt sure was a lot less than she’d charged everyone else, but he decided to let her win on that one. She grinned victoriously as he handed over a five-dollar bill, then he watched as she carefully wrapped it and tied it with a big gold bow. When she stretched out to give it to him, his fingers closed around the delicate package and he brushed his thumb lingeringly against the soft skin of her hand. Their eyes met and the breath caught in his throat as muscles all over his body stood to attention, begging him to give them more.
If they weren’t in a public place, with his sister and son standing less than a metre away, Lawson might finally have done something about this attraction. But somehow he summoned all the restraint he’d ever possessed and broke contact, drawing the wrapped tea-cosy against his chest.
‘All sold out now,’ he said. ‘Guess that means it’s time to pack up.’
Meg dropped her hand back to her side but she didn’t break his gaze. ‘Guess so.’
‘Lunchtime,’ Tabitha announced, jolting them from their little bubble.
Lawson straightened and then once again handed control of Cane over to Ned while he helped the women pack up their stalls, fold the tables and load everything into the cars.
‘Can I ride with Meg?’ Ned shouted—why could eight-year-olds never speak at a bearable number of decibels? ‘That way if she gets lost I can show her where to go.’
Lawson looked from his son to her. ‘That’s up to Meg, I guess.’
She smiled down at Ned. ‘Fine by me. That’s if you don’t mind Cane sitting on your lap and slobbering all over your face.’
Ned giggled, clearly delighted by this concept.
‘Guess that’s all sorted then,’ Lawson said, telling himself he would not feel jealous of his eight-year-old son getting to spend time alone with Meg.
Chapter Twenty-one
The long glances, the accidental brushes that made her tummy turn itself inside out—Megan told herself these were all meaningless. Her grandfather (on her dad’s side) had always berated her for her overactive imagination, and right now her imagination was running rampant with thoughts of Lawson and the fantasy that maybe he felt a little bit of something for her. But that was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? If he didn’t want Adeline with her Barbie-doll legs, perfect gold locks and peach-like complexion, why on earth would he look twice at her? He and Tabitha were simply being friendly to the new kid in town.
It was with this reasoning that she allowed herself to follow his dirty old ute, bumping along gravel roads while Ned sat in the passenger seat beside her, chattering away. The thought of enjoying such a normal thing as a barbecue with such lovely people was simply too delicious to resist. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been to a barbecue—the closest thing would have to be dinner with Archie on Friday night and that had been wonderful. She’d forgotten how satisfying the combination of good food and good conversation could be.
After about ten minutes—in which she and Ned spoke about Pokemon, something called Skylanders and another thing called Minecraft, which he promised to show her that afternoon—Lawson’s ute slowed ahead of her and his right indicator flashed on. Meg put her foot on the brake as Ned shouted, ‘We’re home,’ and pointed out the window at a large wooden sign in the shape of a cow off to the side. The words Cooper-Jones Dairy were scrawled across the front and the cuteness of the sign made Megan smile. She reckoned Lawson’s mum might have been responsible for it.
As she turned her car into the driveway, Ned began a commentary of the things they passed—pointing out cattle yards, sheds, paddocks, a cottage where he said Ethan lived and some cows he called springers, which he took great care in explaining were the ones close to giving birth. She cringed when she saw the poor cows with massive bellies standing out in the sun, swishing away pesky flies with their tails, but there was plenty of gum tree shade they could have stood in if they’d wanted to.
Finally they slowed in front of a large house that looked like something out of McLeod’s Daughters, a show her mother had watched religiously when Megan was a kid.
‘And this is where we live,’ Ned said proudly, his hand already poised to open the door.
‘Wait till I stop,’ she told him, not wanting him to jump out of her moving vehicle. That would be a great start to the afternoon.
Lawson and Tabitha parked in a carport off to the side of the house, and Megan found a spot under the shade of an old eucalypt tree not far away.
By the time she undid her seatbelt, Ned and Cane had already leaped out and all but disappeared. She looked up to see Lawson walking towards her, a confident swagger in his gait and her mouth went dry.
‘Will Cane be okay?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, Ned’ll look after him. No doubt he’ll be introducing him to our dogs. Clyde will love him, but Bonnie’s getting a little crotchety in her old age.’
Megan laughed and Lawson gestured towards the house. ‘Anyway, welcome. Let’s go get a drink.’
A drink sounded like a good idea because it would hopefully be cold and help to lower her temperature, which was rapidly rising at being so close to Lawson again. ‘This place is beautiful,’ she said, gesturing to the trees surrounding them as they walked alongside each other. As it was summer, everything was a little brown but she could imagine how much prettier it would look in mid-winter glory.
‘Thanks.’ She heard the pride in Lawson’s voice. ‘We like it.’ They walked a few more steps in comfortable silence and then he added, ‘I’m glad you came. I’ve missed you these last couple of days.’
Oh dear. Her stomach squeezed with absolute glee at his words. Something about the way he said them didn’t sound like the kind of thing you said to a just-friend.
Perhaps her imagination wasn’t so overactive after all.
‘I missed you too,’ she confessed, all the while a little voice inside her head screamed that she was playing with fire. Screamed that she should turn around, run back to her car and speed on out of his life, never to return. She didn’t deserve the attention of someone like him. Someone so good as well as so sexy.
But then she felt his hand brush ever so slightly against hers. It lingered just long enough to let her know it wasn’t an accident, and that tiny touch sparked such a yearning inside her that she was helpless but to continue up the garden path with him towards the house.
Talk of the Town Page 21