‘Do we need to wear helmets?’ she asked.
He shook his head as he turned around to reply. Their faces were so close he could feel her breath against his lips and he thought about leaning in a little and pressing his mouth against hers. But was this really the place for a first kiss? ‘Just hold on. I won’t go fast,’ he said, sounding a little gruff as he turned back around and started the bike.
Her hands slid around his body and she held on tight as he rode off towards the paddock. He tried to focus on the task at hand, rather than the feel of Meg pressed against him, but it was damn tricky. Thankfully the cows were creatures of habit and made the trek towards the shed at this time of the day anyway, so he and Clyde didn’t have to do much except hurry them on and usher them into the pens.
Once the first lot were waiting their turn to go on the rotary milking machine, Lawson took Meg to where Ethan was starting to encourage the first cows onto the rotary platform. On the ground, Lawson began to hook them onto the suction cups.
‘It looks a bit like a merry-go-round,’ Meg said.
Ethan laughed and Lawson nodded. ‘Probably the slowest ride in history but yeah, sometimes we call it the horizontal Ferris wheel.’
Meg asked a few question about the big round platform, which took up most of the shed. He explained that the platform moved around while the rotary milked the animals, so that most of them were finished by the time they got to the exit point.
‘How many cows fit on the platform at a time?’
‘This one holds fifty and one rotation takes ten minutes.’ He pointed to a tag on one of the animals. ‘We’ve got an electronic tag-on system, to ensure all our herd have been milked. Technology has definitely made the process easier and faster,’ he added with a chuckle.
‘That one is trying to push the other one out of the way,’ Meg said, sounding concerned as she pointed towards the cows hustling in the pen.
Lawson shrugged. ‘The bossy ones always push in; it’s almost like they have their own order that we’re not privy too, hey Ethan?’
The worker nodded. ‘Yep. And who are we to mess with the girls?’
Meg smiled. ‘Is that water you’re spraying them with?’
Ethan opened his mouth to answer but Lawson got in first. ‘Yep, mixed with a little sanitiser. We clean the udders as they’re getting on and again as they’re getting off. It’s not just milking that happens on the rotary. We can also do injections, give medication and inseminate.’
Meg kept firing questions and he found himself, like Ned, wanting to impress her with his knowledge. Even though he realised how stupid it was, he couldn’t help himself and explained every damn thing in so much detail that he was probably in danger of boring her to death.
When the rotary was almost full, they left Ethan and headed round to the other side to start getting the cows off. Meg watched as he unhooked the suction cups, sprayed their udders and then sent them on their way.
For a while they stood in comfortable silence and then she asked, ‘How come a few of the cows have chains across?’
‘They’re the ones we’ve identified as having more milk, so they go round twice.’
She nodded and rubbed her lips together in the most infuriatingly sensual manner. He didn’t think she did it on purpose, but it drew his attention once again to her lips.
‘Do you want to have a go spraying?’ he asked, trying to distract himself.
‘Do you trust me?’
‘It’s not rocket science,’ he said, as he reached out to hand her the hose. She took it and again their hands touched in the interaction.
He had to step back to unhook a cow that had just finished its second time round, but then he turned back to watch her working. No one had ever looked so adorable in dirty gumboots, but the way he felt right now, she could be wearing a hessian sack and he’d still think her the sexiest woman on the planet. It might not be the most romantic place for a first kiss—what with the noise of the animals, the smell he no longer noticed and Ethan only metres away wrangling the cows into position—but Lawson couldn’t wait a moment longer to show Meg how he felt.
There might never be the perfect place, the perfect time. He wasn’t going to let another week pass by—another day, another hour, another minute—without knowing what her lips felt like against his.
He took a step closer to her and swallowed as he reached out and touched her arm. She turned to face him and he saw her eyes widen as the noise of the cattle and the machinery ceased to exist. The rest of the world ceased to exist. Their gazes locked, his breath halting as he reached out, took the hose and then tossed it onto the floor.
Then he lifted his hand, palmed it against the back of her neck and drew her face towards his.
For one split-second he panicked that maybe he’d read her wrong—that maybe she didn’t feel the same pull of attraction that he did—but it was too late to chicken out. He lowered his mouth and pressed it against hers. Her lips were warm and soft, her mouth pliant. He felt Meg’s hands land on his back, then slide upwards over his T-shirt. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she opened her mouth and welcomed his tongue inside. A little murmur of pleasure escaped her mouth into his, only increasing his desire.
She tasted amazing—better than all his favourite foods put together. He never wanted to stop doing this. The nerves that had stopped him from kissing her so many times before faded to nothing as a feeling of rightness descended.
Why the hell had he left this so long? They could have been doing it for days.
‘Oi, what’s going on over there?’ came a shout from Ethan, which intruded into this most perfect kiss. ‘I’m sure this one’s been round three times already!’ He chuckled loudly.
Lawson cursed silently and reluctantly tore his lips from Meg’s. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,’ he whispered as he let his hand fall away from her neck.
In reply, she simply smiled at him, and he could tell they were on the same page.
He waited for guilt about Leah to land, but it didn’t. All he felt was utter joy and the desperate desire to kiss Meg again.
Who was he kidding? He wanted to do a lot more than kiss her.
Chapter Twenty-three
Megan had never been kissed like that before. She stood in front of Lawson now, her heart racing, her cheeks flushed, her lips tingling and her limbs shaking as her mind caught up with her body. Move over Romeo and Juliet, step aside Scarlett and Rhett: their passions had nothing on the sensations currently racing through her body.
As Lawson gazed down at her and admitted he’d been thinking about kissing her for a long time, she was helpless to do anything but smile. She felt exactly the same way but it appeared she’d forgotten how to speak in the aftermath of what had just happened between them. It couldn’t have lasted longer than thirty seconds but it felt bigger than a simple kiss. It was like they’d kissed a hundred times before, yet at the same time it held the magic that only a first time could. A magic that none of her other first times ever had. From the moment his lips touched down on hers, she knew she’d been fooling herself that he wasn’t interested in her as anything more than a friend.
After that lip-lock she could no longer live in denial.
You didn’t kiss someone like that unless you were hoping to someday take things even further. Again her body shivered in delicious anticipation at that thought.
A tiny voice inside her head told her she needed to set things straight with Lawson right this second by telling him the secret she’d been harbouring since the day they met, but after a few moments’ deliberation, she told that pesky voice to take a hike. You couldn’t fight chemistry like the kind arcing between the two of them. And why should she? It wasn’t like she’d killed anyone! Like Archie said she wasn’t a bad person, she’d just been involved in a bad thing, and she didn’t want to let that thing sour this most magical moment. Kisses like that didn’t come along every day. She deserved to glow in the aftermath. So did Lawson. Ev
en without this development, today had been near-perfect and she didn’t want to ruin it.
She would tell him, but not just yet.
Decision made, she continued to smile and listened intently as he talked her through the motions of finishing the milking and cleaning down the rotary platform. Her fascination with the process surprised her and she wondered if it was simply because it was Lawson doing the talking. The way he spoke to and worked with the cows not only made her smile, but also made her toes curl in these ridiculous boots. Even as he ushered the cows out of the pens and back into the paddocks, he treated them like individuals, with love and care. It was clear to see dairy farming wasn’t simply a profession to Lawson: it was a calling, and something he loved with every last bone in his beautiful body.
Finally, when they were done, they said goodbye to Ethan and headed back to the house. Lawson took her hand as they walked and they smiled goofily at each other without saying a word. When they got to the house, he let go to open the door and Ned came running down the hallway.
‘I missed you. We fed Cane dinner with Bonnie and Clyde, hope you don’t mind.’ Clyde had taken himself back to the house once the cows had headed out to pasture for the evening.
Megan shook her head. ‘Of course not, thank you.’
‘Are you staying for dinner?’ Ned asked, taking hold of the hand Lawson had been holding only moments before.
‘Oh, um. It’s getting late, and I should probably be heading home.’ She’d meant it earlier about not wanting to outstay her welcome, but neither was she ready to say goodbye to Lawson just yet.
‘Why don’t you stay to eat?’ he said. ‘We’ll only be having leftovers, but you’re more than welcome.’
‘Can we watch Oddball while we eat?’ Ned asked, jumping up and down in anticipation.
Lawson laughed. ‘Give Meg a chance to answer.’ He smiled at her. ‘Sunday night we have a bit of a habit of eating on the couch while watching a movie.’
‘Sounds like a wonderful habit. If you’re sure you don’t mind me joining you, then I’d love to.’
‘We don’t mind at all,’ he said, his voice low and his gaze meeting hers in much the same way as it had just before he’d kissed her. Shivers flooded her body. She didn’t know whether she had an appetite for food, but she was definitely hungry for something.
Ned raced off to get the movie ready and Megan followed Lawson into the kitchen to find Tab getting the leftovers out of the fridge.
‘Since it’s still hot, I thought we could just eat the meat cold,’ she said. ‘Are you staying to join us, Meg?’
‘If that’s okay with you.’
‘More than okay. Having female company around here is such a treat.’
Megan half-laughed as an annoying thought popped into her head about how for the last few years she’d been living in confinement with nothing but female company. She pushed it aside, determined not to let such thoughts ruin her day. ‘Thanks. Anything I can do to help?’
‘Nah.’ Tabitha shook her head. ‘I’ll just put it all onto the table and we can serve ourselves.’
Lawson went over to the sink and scrubbed his post-dairy hands. Megan followed suit and then they piled their plates with leftover sausages, salad and bread. He put together a plate for Ned before he made his own and then they took everything into the lounge room.
Tabitha immediately claimed the armchair and Ned was already perched on one end of the couch, his skinny little legs curled up beside him, leaving Megan to sit with Lawson at the other end. She lowered herself onto the couch next to Ned and then Lawson landed beside her. His thighs were pressed right up against hers and their bare skin touched below the hems of their shorts, sending delicious messages right to her core.
She swallowed and dared not look at him—it was wrong to be having such wanton thoughts while sitting next to his son.
Ned aimed the remote at the TV and pressed play. As the music of the opening scene began, he said, ‘You’re gonna like love this movie, Meg. Oddball is so much like Cane.’ Then he looked past her, to Lawson. ‘Dad, can we let the dogs inside so Cane can watch himself on the TV?’
Lawson shook his head. ‘I think the dogs are just fine outside. Now, eat some dinner.’
Ned sighed, flopped back onto the couch and started picking at his food. Megan took his lead, cut a slice of sausage and then popped it into her mouth. She wasn’t a fan of cold leftovers, but she wouldn’t have cared what the food tasted like. It was the people and the situation that filled her with a kind of satisfaction she hadn’t felt since her family died. This was what normal felt like—eating leftovers on the couch while watching a movie with people you cared about. Because she did care about the Cooper-Joneses; whether she should have let it happen or not, they’d got under her skin.
Today had undoubtedly been the best day she’d had since before the fire—maybe even the best day of her life.
Halfway through the movie, when it had finally gotten dark outside and nobody had bothered to get up to turn the lights on, Lawson lifted his arm and stretched it up across her shoulder. She leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. It wasn’t soft but she felt more comfortable than if she’d laid her head down on a fine goose-down pillow.
He was careful to remove it as the credits rolled up the screen and Ned turned to them.
‘Well, Meg? What was your verdict?’
She laughed at his seemingly grown-up phrasing, but the truth was she couldn’t tell anyone the plot of the movie if her life depended on it. ‘It was very funny,’ she said, hedging her bets.
‘I still think we should have let Cane watch it,’ he said, shooting daggers at his dad.
Lawson pushed to a stand. ‘Maybe another time. It’s time you went to bed.’
‘Aw!’ Ned whined.
‘Ned,’ Lawson warned. ‘It’s late enough already.’
‘Can Meg put me to bed?’
Meg blinked, so surprised by this question.
‘That’s up to Meg,’ Lawson said, giving her an apologetic look.
‘Please, Meg?’
She found herself nodding. How hard could it be to put an eight-year-old to bed?
As if Lawson could see her hesitation, he said, ‘Ned will go brush his teeth and get changed, then you can pop in and say good night to him in bed.’
‘Okay.’ She nodded. That didn’t sound too difficult.
Lawson went with Ned to get him ready and Megan helped Tabitha scrape the plates clean and then load them into the dishwasher. They spoke more about the ice-cream business possibility until Ned returned, telling Meg he was ready. Holding her hand, he led her down the corridor with Lawson following closely. Once again she noticed the photos on the wall and once again, she wished she could stop and look at them properly. She saw a glimpse of a beautiful blonde with a baby who could have been Ned and guessed this must be Leah.
‘This is my room,’ Ned said, his voice full of pride as he pushed open the door and turned on the light. It was your typical eight-year-old boy’s bedroom. The floor was a sea of Lego and Matchbox cars they’d have to navigate to get over to his bright-red, car-shaped bed.
‘It’s really cool,’ she said.
‘Watch your step.’ There was an amused edge to Lawson’s voice. ‘We usually have a tidy-up on Sundays but we had better things to do today.’
She couldn’t help but smile at that comment. Then she tippy-toed through the mess and pulled back the sheet on Ned’s bed. Although no one had tucked her into bed for a very long time, she remembered all too clearly the way her mother had done so years earlier, and how loved and secure it always made her feel. She smiled down at him as he climbed into bed, and then she pulled the thin sheet over the top of him.
‘Sweet dreams, Ned,’ she said.
He reached his arms up for a hug and she willingly gave him one. ‘See you soon, Meg,’ he said, when she eventually pulled away.
‘Good night.’
She stepped back to allow Lawson his
turn. He stooped down, kissed Ned, then switched on the bedside light. ‘See you in the morning, little man.’
As they left the room, Lawson switched off the main light.
‘He’s such a great little boy,’ she said as they walked away.
‘Thanks. He has his moments, but most of the time I can’t believe my luck that I got such a cool kid.
Megan smiled. ‘I really must be getting home now,’ she said, knowing that despite the fact she never wanted this day to end, Lawson had to get up early in the morning.
‘I’ll miss you,’ he said, slipping his hand into hers as he led her out onto the verandah.
‘Me too,’ she admitted, although a heavy weight filled her heart at this truth.
Out the back, he whistled for Cane, who came running out of the yard with Clyde. Bonnie was resting beside the back door; she looked up at them and then flopped her head back down onto her paws. Lawson scooped Cane up and carried him back through the house. Megan paused to say good night to Tabitha, who was still sitting in the lounge room, now knitting.
‘Good night,’ Tabitha said. ‘See you on Wednesday.’
Lawson walked them to her car, opened the back door and deposited Cane inside.
‘Thanks for a wonderful day,’ she said, her hand on the driver’s door.
In reply, he closed the gap between them and kissed her again.
Oh Lord! Her body melted. She’d thought it had been magical the first time because it was the first time but this time hit it out of the ballpark. She could only lean into his kiss, into his body, and give herself wholeheartedly. He pressed her up against the car, again holding her face between his two hands as if he couldn’t get enough. She slid her hands up into his hair, loving the feel of his curls, and wished this moment could last forever.
They finally had to pull apart to breathe and when they did, they simply stood there a few moments staring at each other. The only light was from the moon above and they were so close she could see the stubble on his jawline glinting. She recalled the feel of his five o’clock shadow brushing against her skin only seconds earlier and shivered again.
Talk of the Town Page 24