She pressed the obviously expensive, pliable new leather to her trembling lips, inhaling the scent. How was it that every time she thought she had his measure, Matt blindsided her? ‘Thanks.’ She held out her peace-offering. ‘I thought you might be hungry.’ She flinched as his gaze met hers, the blue eyes piercing her armour.
He took the bag and opened it. ‘Carrot cake.’ He huffed out a short laugh, then indicated a stand of trees in the distance. ‘How about we stop over by that scrub? Make it a picnic?’
‘I didn’t bring a rug. Apparently, that’s mandatory.’
‘I’m sure we can find a way to make it work.’ His gaze lingered on her, and she desperately wanted to believe he meant so much more than he said.
He put the paper sack alongside his seat and focused on the rows of crop in front of them. Rubbed his chin. His chest rose, then fell on an audible sigh, so close to a groan that she winced. ‘Roni, I reckon we need to talk.’
She lifted her chin and met his eye. She would speak her piece, and if he said no, she would survive. She would find a way to manage the property, maybe even implement the new plan that was burgeoning inside her without him. But she would rather do it with him. ‘You’re right. I wanted to tell you—’
‘There’s never been anything between Fiona and me,’ he interrupted. ‘It’s important you know that.’
‘Important? Why?’ Sudden hope pulsed strongly through her veins, but she needed more: she wanted reasons and reassurance—but she had no right to either.
‘Because I want you to understand. I’m not big on talking, Roni. Guess that’s a throwback to my roots. You jumped to conclusions because I didn’t confide in you—which proves Marian right; things shouldn’t be left unsaid.’ He scowled at the tinted window, choosing his words. ‘Truth is, Simon’s death was my fault. I owe it to him to look after Fiona and the kids.’
Everything inside her coiled tight and hard, appalled at the weight of grief in his tone. She instinctively wanted to comfort him but she had no idea how.
Sorrow carved deep furrows in his cheeks. ‘I know Fiona likes to come across as though we’re together, and I’ve never pulled her up on it. Never had any reason to, until yesterday.’
She didn’t dare ask him what that reason could be. ‘How can your brother’s suicide be your fault?’
Matt shook his head fractionally. ‘Messy story. I’m not ready for that one yet.’ He shot an apologetic glance at her. ‘But one day, okay?’
One day. That sounded like a promise of a future, a concept that should scare the hell out of her, yet she could barely keep the jealousy from her voice. ‘But Fiona does live with you?’
The muscle in Matt’s jaw twitched, as though he clenched his teeth. ‘We share the house. That’s the extent of it. I barely see her. I’m trying to juggle work, plus your property, my property, and provide some kind of stability for the kids until she’s ready to move on. That’s why I’ve not been around here much. One of the reasons, anyway.’
‘There are others?’ she whispered. Matt was clearly not the man to pursue an uncomplicated relationship with. She should run. Not lean toward him.
‘Were. But you’ve made me rethink them.’ His eyes met hers, dark and serious, but then he grinned, breaking the tension. ‘Mind, you’ve also made me rethink why I’m doing all the driving. Reckon the boss should know how to handle her own equipment.’
Her elbow hit the door as she jerked back. ‘No, that’s—oh.’ Matt stood, and her entire focus was on the warmth snaking around her waist as he drew her closer to the illuminated control panel.
‘Stand here. It’s all computerised, so all you do is press this.’ He leaned forward to indicate the control. The machine continued to trundle, the huge blade scything the paddock in front of them.
She stared forward for a few minutes. The cab was large enough that they didn’t need to stand close, yet she could feel his chest against her back. The machine chugged steadily. ‘I think I see why you prefer being a vet.’
Conscious of his every movement, every breath, she felt his shrug before he spoke. ‘It’s not all bad. The best bit is coming up … wait for it … any second now … right, time to get excited, here’s the turn.’ One arm wrapped around her waist so he wouldn’t knock her over, he reached to the control panel again. He cornered the paddock then adjusted levers, setting the machine straight ahead once more. ‘That’s the highlight. The pressure’s intense, right? And you have to be able to handle it four times every lap, or you’re just not cut out for the job.’ He didn’t drop his arm.
She twisted to look back at him and wrinkled her nose. ‘So today is the slow tour?’
He reached for the control panel. The combine blade ground to a halt. ‘That was my plan.’ He tightened his grip on her waist, turning her to face him. ‘But now I’m thinking maybe sometimes going slow isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’
His fingers brushed across her temple, pretending to chase a strand of hair she knew was caught tightly in her ponytail.
She was far too close, losing herself in the wilderness of his eyes as his roughened fingertips traced her jaw. There was nothing safe or familiar in this moment, and she couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to breathe, if it would interrupt his exploration.
He leaned back a little, frowning at her. ‘What is about you, Veronica Gates, that’s messing me up so bad?’ His knuckle stroked down her cheek, his voice low and puzzled. ‘What did you come here looking for?’
She shook her head wordlessly. Maybe she had come looking for herself—yet that wasn’t all she had found.
‘I read you so wrong,’ Matt’s fingers continued their exploration, his eyes following the path they traced. ‘I was sure you’d be like Denise. Cruise into town, find a loophole in Marian’s crazy scheme and sell everything she’d built. Instead, you come in here and take over. You’ve got this kick-arse take-no-prisoners independence that blows me away—even when you’re ripping me to shreds over something I didn’t do. Or, you know, breaking my fingers.’
She winced.
‘I should probably run like hell.’ His mouth now only centimetres from hers, she could smell sweet coffee. ‘God knows, I tried to back off. But then you gave me a glimpse of this vulnerability you hide. And that just—I don’t know, it tears me apart.’ The blue of his eyes endless, his forehead furrowed. ‘It kills me that there’s something in your past, something that hurt you even more than being abandoned. I want to fix it, but I don’t know how.’
She pulled back, though she made no attempt to free herself from his loose grasp. ‘You can’t fix me.’
‘You don’t need fixing. I said fix it. I want to make whatever is wrong in your life right. I don’t know what you’re looking for, Roni. But if I can give it to you, here I am.’
Her heart hurt from wanting. ‘There’s too much you don’t know about me.’ Things she could never share. The strength Matt thought he saw was Marian’s creation; she was nothing more than a scared woman trapped in her past, seeking safety in familiarity.
Except … what if she wasn’t anymore? Hadn’t Marian given her the tools, and she’d used them to liberate herself? She’d left her comfort zone, crossed the country alone, and created a new life for herself and Scritches. What Matt saw, what he liked and admired, was her.
He brushed his palm from her wrist to her shoulder, a welter of goosebumps shadowing the move. ‘There’s plenty we don’t know about each other, and maybe that’s how it should be. At least at the start. The unknown is our adventure.’
He was right: she didn’t know him. He wasn’t familiar. He wasn’t safe. He wasn’t predictable or mundane, or any of the things she had convinced herself were necessary in her life. And yet, maybe he could be everything she wanted.
If she could summon the courage to let herself find out.
She bunched her fists. Why the hell did this have to be so hard? Why couldn’t she blindly leap, allow herself to fall helplessly, thoughtlessly in love, like everyone
else seemed to?
Matt’s fingers found the nape of her neck as his lips brushed the sensitive pulse in her throat. Not kissing, not biting. Just touching, as though he tasted and inhaled her, the warmth of his breath thrilling through her. She swayed toward him, her hands moving to his chest, keeping the safe distance between them, but also holding him close as her fear ebbed.
His lips traced her jaw, tiny kisses now, trailing fire. ‘Tell me if it needs to be slower, Roni.’
She tipped her head back to allow him access. It didn’t need to be slower. Because maybe he was perfect.
Matt jerked away, staring out of the side window. ‘Damn it!’ His neck corded and fury vibrated in his tone. ‘What the hell does she want?’
A couple of hundred metres from them, a blue BMW had pulled up on the dirt track. A woman leaned back against the hood on her elbows, loose summer dress billowing around her legs.
‘Who—?’ Roni didn’t need to finish the question. Her gaze flicked back to Matt and, for the first time, she truly knew what his anger looked like.
The words ground between his tight lips. ‘Your mother.’
Chapter Thirty-four
Matt leaped from the cab, then turned to lift her down. When her feet were firmly on the ground, he squeezed her waist. ‘Roni, this is your business, not mine. And maybe it’s not my place to say, but the way Taylor explained it to me, your mother’s a narcissist. She cares for no one but herself. She can’t feel empathy. But don’t you forget, no matter what she says, you’re an amazing woman. You don’t need Denise for anything.’
‘Just as well, huh?’ she murmured. Yet, though her mother had twice deserted her, now she had come back. Hope she didn’t want to allow flared deep inside Roni.
Alongside the implied strength of Matt’s towering presence, her hand in his, she picked her way across the furrows, the air thick with the fragrance of sun-ripened wheat.
‘Denise.’ Matt’s tone was curt, and Roni instinctively moved closer to him. ‘I thought you’d gone to Queensland.’
Coal black eyes flicked from Roni to him. ‘Missed me, did you, Matthew?’
‘Hardly. What do you want?’
‘I don’t think I require your permission to visit my daughter.’
My daughter. So there was still a chance they could have a relationship? She shouldn’t want that, shouldn’t need it, yet still she longed for connection. Her last chance to claim a family. Roni impulsively stepped forward, as though she could breach the chasm between them.
Matt’s grip tightened, cautioning her. ‘You know you’re not welcome at Peppertree Crossing, Denise.’
The fine lines around Denise’s lips deepened. ‘It’s not really your place to say, now, is it, Matthew? I guess that’s pretty hard for you to take. Though it seems you’re working your way around it.’ She nodded at their linked hands, partially hidden behind Roni’s hip. ‘Didn’t take you long to scope out the best angle, did it? I did warn you, Veronica. Remember? I came here specifically to tell you this would happen.’
She hadn’t taken her eyes from Denise, hoping for some stirring of family, some bond to repair the damage her mother had done. Something more intimate and personal than the casually thrown word, daughter, which inferred ownership rather than love. Yet, as her mother sought to tear apart the tiny, fragile, growing something she had with Matt, a something so new, so precious that she dare not try to name it, a wave of sorrow and loss washed through her, drowning the last of her most secret childhood dreams. But with the death came freedom; her mother was toxic, and Roni owed her nothing. ‘Are you done, Denise?’
The woman straightened momentarily, but then deliberately lounged back against the car again. A blur of white fluff, Bonnie dashed from passenger seat to driver’s seat, leaping up against the steering wheel and yipping furiously. ‘I thought we’d grown closer than that, Veronica. Aren’t you going to call me Mum?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a less appropriate title.’
The groomed eyebrows lifted a millimetre. ‘I suppose we’ve nothing in common other than a dash of blood.’ Denise’s snakelike glance flicked to Matt, a taunting sneer on her painted lips. ‘Well, something in common.’
‘Why are you here?’ She didn’t have to grow up on a farm to know how to cut through bullshit.
‘To protect your interests, darling. I cautioned you that some people around here aren’t as open as I am. They like to keep their bad behaviour under wraps, whereas I’m unconcerned with what people think.’
Matt stiffened. ‘Denise. Be very careful what you say.’
Denise flicked her fingers dismissively. ‘Down, boy. You don’t have your protector here anymore. Have you wondered, Veronica, how little old farm boy here got to be a vet?’
‘I already know.’
Denise sneered. ‘You know that your aunt used our money to put him through school? How do you imagine he persuaded her to do that? Do you think that maybe, as she got older, Marian questioned the choices she’d made? After all, he’s not too bad, is he?’ Her lascivious gaze caressed Matt from head to foot. ‘If anyone was going to turn my sister, it’d be him.’
Matt’s voice was low and dangerous, as though he barely restrained his anger. ‘Haven’t you done enough damage, Denise?’
‘Oh, I don’t think I’m the one causing harm, am I? Veronica, don’t you find it intriguing that Matthew had a … how can I say this nicely? A relationship with your aunt, yet here he is, holding your hand like a teenager? Of course, I told you before that I’m not immune to his charms myself.’ She pulled a strand of her hair forward, toying with it coquettishly. ‘Maybe he didn’t leap straight from Marian to you. In fact, this little triangle must be almost incestuous. Though it’s not a triangle, is it, considering our history? Goodness me, so many tangled webs. Let me see,’ she drew lines in the air. ‘Marian, Andrew, me, Matthew, Fiona, Simon. And, of course, now you, Veronica. So complicated. Yet it seems the common denominator is always Matthew, doesn’t it?’
Roni staggered back, the rutted ground crumbling beneath her feet, fear and denial squeezing at her chest. She had deliberately pushed Denise’s insinuation from her mind and turned a deaf ear to the whispers of gossip. She hadn’t wanted to know the truth. Her fingers turned to ice, sliding from Matt’s grip. She shot a desperate glance up at him, and his eyes met hers steadily. He shook his head fractionally and interlaced his fingers with hers, his thumb caressing the back of her hand.
Denise would destroy them if she allowed it. But Marian had urged her to learn to trust. And she trusted Marian’s judgment and, above all others, Tracey’s.
She moved closer to Matt.
A smile haunted Denise’s lips. ‘Nicely played, Matthew. But so many secrets, aren’t there? It must be difficult to keep them all straight.’ She snapped toward Roni. ‘Do you realise he’s living with Fiona? From the day her husband died, actually.’
‘Don’t you bring them into this,’ Matt growled, his grip on Roni’s hand painful.
Roni realised that the poison her mother spewed was made more dangerous because it was seasoned with grains of truth. She laced her voice with sarcasm. ‘Fascinating rundown. Now we’re all caught up, what exactly do you want?’
Denise slammed a hand on the hood of the car. ‘My share, Veronica. Your aunt cheated me. I should have had Andrew’s estate. After all, I was far more wife to him than Marian was, in the ways that really count. And I’ve kept his dirty little secret all these years.’
So that’s all she was? A dirty little secret? ‘The way I understand it, Marian paid you to keep that secret.’
Denise slapped the comment away with a wild gesture. ‘Not enough! She always implied there’d be more. I want a share of Peppertree Crossing. It was my parents’ property, just as much as it was hers.’
‘Derek Prescott tells me you’ve already exhausted the legal avenues to argue your case.’
‘Pre
scott’s an old fool,’ Denise snapped.
‘Fine. Have your solicitor contact my old fool, and enjoy paying to hash it out again.’ Roni released Matt’s hand and took a step toward her mother, lowering her voice menacingly. ‘Because I swear, you’re never getting a single acre of this land. Your own sister didn’t want you on it, and now I’m telling you I don’t want you here. Get off my property, Denise.’
Shock flashed across her mother’s face. ‘But I thought we—’
‘There is no “we”. You forfeited that right every day of the past twenty-nine years. You’re a stranger to me, and certainly not one I care to get to know any better.’
‘Don’t you realise what this is?’ Denise’s painted nails flashed as she pointed at Matt. ‘You’re the new poor little rich girl in town, and he’s going to drain you. Has he hit you up for a share of the property yet? Suggested a variation to the farming agreement?’
‘No.’ She knew with certainty Matt had no intention of taking advantage of her. ‘And he won’t.’
‘He will!’ Denise’s hysterical screech startled a raucous murder of crows from the nearby scrub. ‘His brother was just the damn same. It’s all about the money.’
‘Let it go, Denise. Haven’t you hurt enough people?’ Matt’s tone was flat and exhausted, as though the pain he hid had become too heavy.
Spittle flecked the corners of Denise’s mouth. ‘Simon wanted me, he loved me. He was going to leave that bitch Fiona, but then he discovered Marian had control of all the money that should have been mine. She stole him from me, just like she did with Andrew. You don’t realise, Veronica, how much she interfered in people’s lives, how she controlled them. Even dead, she still wins; you’re just her new puppet.’ Her voice disjointed and her fists clenched, her eyes were wild.
Matt stepped up. ‘Denise, you have to calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself. You know it’s all over.’
The Farm at Peppertree Crossing Page 30