by Diana Fraser
It all added up to something that suggested Susie had been lying to him. James strode forward. He had no idea what was going on or why Susie had lied to him, but he was damn sure he was going to find out.
Susie watched with amusement as Tom peered into the fridge. There’s a meat pie for you. I thought you’d be hungry.”
He grinned over the fridge door. “I’m always hungry.” He took a mouthful of pie. “So how’s your week been, Susie?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mum. Call me Mum.”
“Nah, it’s cool to call your mum by their first name, they all do it at school.”
She sighed. “Okay, fine. The week’s been good really, I guess. The winery’s safe. Pete’s sold to a new investor who wants us to carry on more or less as we have been doing.”
“Brilliant.” She smiled. Her son was so sweet. Just like his father. She knew he was too young to really understand the implications of the deal but there’d always just been the two of them and their circumstances had made them closer than the usual mother-son relationship.
There was a knock at the door. She froze. She wasn’t expecting anyone. She always kept this time free for family.
“I’ll get it.” Tom started to walk over to the door.
She put out her hand. “No, it’s okay, Tom, you eat, I’ll get it.”
She walked down the sunny yellow hallway, past the cluttered coat rack and saw a man’s shape through the glass door. She paused briefly to gather herself. She took a deep breath and opened the door.
Gone was the smile, gone was the charm. James stood, frowning, his jacket hooked over his finger, his other hand in his pocket.
“Mac! What are you doing here? Did you forget something?”
“Can I come in?”
She glanced behind her. Tom was quietly eating in the kitchen.
“I’ll come out.” She slipped the door closed behind her. “Let’s walk and you can tell me what’s on your mind.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Sure.” She grabbed a wrap from the coat rack and stepped out onto the worn verandah. The sea breeze was picking up as evening descended. He followed her down the steps and fell into step beside her on the scrunchy sand.
“So what’s up? Did you leave something at The Lodge?”
“No.”
Her heart beat more rapidly as she watched him look down at the sand thoughtfully.
“Plane delayed?”
“Not that either.” He put his hand on her arm and she came to an abrupt stop. “I needed to know why you wanted me gone so quickly.”
She shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Suse, you were never good at pretending to be anything other than you are, why try now?”
“Because I need to, Mac. I need it for protection.”
His frown deepened. “From me?”
She nodded. Suddenly there was a shout from behind them and Tom appeared, bounding towards them with a surfboard under his arm. Susie dragged the shawl around her more tightly and smiled at Tom. “Careful out there.”
Tom grinned and came to a halt in a spray of sand in front of them.
James returned his grin and Susie held her breath. “Aren’t you going to introduce us, Suse?”
Tom stepped forward. “I’m Tom.”
“And I’m James. Nice to meet you, Tom.” James met the boy’s extended hand and gripped it in a firm shake. “You live round here?”
“Weekends. I go to school in Auckland now though.”
“Tom’s staying the weekend.” She smiled at Tom. “It’s a non-stop food-fest.”
“Yeah, Susie likes to spoil me. But I tell her jokes in return.”
Susie watched Tom’s words have an effect on James. The fact that Tom didn’t call her “Mum” came as a relief. She felt an overwhelming need to keep her personal life very personal. She needed to keep the barriers up because James threatened to demolish them with every passing hour she was with him. Why didn’t he just go and leave her like he was always going to do, like he always would do? Why prolong the inevitable?
James nodded slowly as if considering everything Tom said carefully. “It’s good to be spoiled sometimes.”
“But not all the time.” Susie couldn’t help saying pointedly to James, who’d been spoiled rotten by his mother growing up. She turned to Tom. “Tom, why don’t you go and get your swim and then I’ll fix us something to eat.”
“Are you staying for dinner, sir?”
“I haven’t been invited.”
“Of course James is welcome to stay but…” She turned to James. “He has to be off. Won’t even stay for a cup of tea, will you?”
“Cup of tea’s not my thing, thanks Susie.”
“Nor mine!” Tom laughed. “Nice to meet you, sir.” They watched him run off, the rope of the surfboard trailing in the sand, before he threw himself into the sea and slammed his body onto the surfboard and paddled out.
“He’s got good manners.”
“Better than yours at his age.” She could see what James was thinking and the unspoken question hung between them. She followed his gaze to Tom, who was sizing up an incoming wave. “So, why have you come back? Surely it’s nothing that can’t be dealt with over the phone.”
“I wanted to know what you were hiding. You weren’t telling me everything.” He glanced back at Tom. “And now I can see why.”
“You think it’s because of Tom.”
“Isn’t it?”
There was a yell and Tom stumbled up the beach towards them a wide grin. “Did you see that one?”
She turned to the boy and her heart contracted. She shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Jeez, Susie.” For the second time, she was glad of the name he called her. “Are you coming in for a swim, sir?”
James shook his head.
“Mac—I mean James—is just leaving,” she found herself saying. Then she wished she hadn’t as James turned slowly towards her, a world of meaning on his face. All the chat and flirtation of the day had vanished and in their place were words—a question—he seemed hesitant to ask. She bit her lip. She sure as hell wasn’t going to volunteer an answer.
“Maybe later.”
“Cool!” Tom raced back down the beach once more.
James gazed steadily at Susie.
“Later?” she asked quietly.
“Sure.” His eyes searched hers. “I’m going back to The Lodge. I’ll stay the weekend then we can fly to the Wairarapa on Monday together.”
Her heart slammed into her chest. Business was one thing but a weekend in close proximity to James? She couldn’t do it. “But I thought I was going to meet up with you at the airport?”
“Change of plan.” He shot her a grim look and walked away.
Susie sucked in a long slow breath, as she watched him leave, desperate to quiet the rapid beating of her heart. James was nearly at the road when Tom called out. “Susie!” She couldn’t take her eyes off James, still wondering what was running through his mind. “Mum!” Tom called again. Susie closed her eyes and turned to Tom who cupped his hands around his mouth and gave another yell, so loud it could be heard all around the small crescent of the bay. “Mum! Did you see that one?”
She shook her head stiffly in reply to Tom, who then dived into the water. She didn’t move. Just waited. Waited for the sound of James’s taxi to turn around and roar back up the dusty, rough road to the winery. Waited for the drone of the engine as it juddered across the worn corners of the road. But there was nothing. Only the gentle ebb and flow of the waves on the brilliant white sand, and the clatter of the Phoenix palm at the bottom of the garden where the sand dunes began.
She had to know if James had heard. She turned around slowly. He stood there, closer than she’d imagined, watching her. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. She knew what he was thinking.
CHAPTER FOUR
James felt winded, his mind numb, his suspicions confirmed. Tom was not a friend’s child, not a relative, not jus
t some kid. He was her son!
Susie stood, equally still, facing him, her eyes bright, biting her lip. She almost looked nervous.
“I’ve changed my mind. I will have a cup of tea and dinner after all.”
She looked down at the sandy ground and nodded. “Sure. I’ll go and put the kettle on.” She disappeared inside while James strode up the hill, back to the taxi, two words repeating themselves as he went—her son, her son. He walked in time to them and was aware only of them as he distractedly told the taxi driver to take his bags back to The Lodge. He didn’t go back inside the house to Susie immediately but stood on the dunes behind the house, looking out over the beach to where Tom was wading through the shallows. Tom turned and waved, a huge grin splitting his face. Then he turned back and waded out into deeper water.
James closed his eyes against the ferocity of the low sun but he could still see the boy’s face. The boy was Susie’s son but who was the father? Could it be him? Could it be that Susie never had that abortion after all?
He let the hope that he had a son slowly fill his senses. A son. It was something he’d never thought to have, not since the consequences of that hot night in the hayloft. Because, long afterwards, his guilt had made him do something stupid, something irrevocable, something to punish himself. But it had been only much later that he’d realized he’d never be able to atone for what he’d done to Susie.
He opened his eyes and watched as Tom jumped the waves, waiting for the rolling wave that was gathering power further out. His dark hair was like James’s, thick and almost black. His shoulders promised to be broad but his body was skinny and long.
Was the boy his? Was James’s instinct about the boy true? When James had first seen him, his gangly limbs, his coloring, his approximate age, he’d felt a slam of recognition. But perhaps that was just because he remembered being a boy like him? Or perhaps it was because of something more? Had Susie purposely not told him about Tom because she didn’t want him to know that Tom was his son?
Secrets. He never could stand them. From his days growing up in a household of deceit and barely-suppressed anger, he’d hated them. He wasn’t leaving until he’d got to the bottom of this one.
He watched as Tom took the wave and slid far up the shore towards him. With a cry of delight he picked up his surfboard and came bounding up to James, spraying water as he shook his hair.
“You’re staying for dinner after all, sir?”
“Yeah. I decided I needed to hear your jokes.”
“Cool. The girls love them.”
James groaned inwardly at evidence of further similarity between them as he followed Tom up the worn wooden steps to the cottage where Susie was busily moving around the kitchen. She brought out a cup of hot chocolate and a cup of tea and placed them carefully onto the table. She caught James’s gaze but turned away suddenly and James could hear her banging around in the kitchen. He sat back onto the flat cushions, embroidered with homely motifs that lined the antique cane chair. Tom might like him being there, but he could hear from Susie’s impatient movements that his mother wasn’t happy. At the first opportunity he’d ask her. But, until then, he’d enjoy the luxury of imagining he had a son, something he’d thought to be impossible. Until now. He might, just might, have been given a second chance.
Susie picked up the saucepan lid that had fallen to the wooden floor with a clatter, and jerked the heavy pan back onto the stove. She knew what he was thinking. It was written all over his face. He may be a bastard but he’d always been utterly incapable of lying to save his life.
“Tom! Come and lay the table!”
“But, I was just showing—”
“Tom!”
“Sure, Susie.” Tom planted a kiss on her cheek, hearing her irritation. She grunted, unwilling to show how well his display of affection had worked. He shunted the pile of books and papers up to one end of the scrubbed pine table and retrieved the willow-pattern plates from the dresser.
As Susie took the casserole from the oven, she turned and saw James leaning against the door jamb, silently watching them both. “It’s just beef casserole. No frills.”
“Smells great. And I’m sure it’ll taste great too.”
“Susie’s cooking is always good. Pete reckons her cooking is better than The Lodge.”
“Is that so?”
She sat down, the wooden chair scraping against the bare floor boards. “Last night at the Lodge, the service wasn’t normal. If our other waitress’s mother hadn’t been sick, the service would have been top notch, as usual.”
“I’m sure it would have been,” he said smoothly. “I hope her mother is better now?”
“Yes,” she said slightly mollified. “Much better.”
“That’s good. It bodes well for dinner tomorrow night then.”
She glared at him. She knew what he was saying. You can’t run a restaurant on a shoe-string staff. And he was right.
“So, Tom, tell me about school. What do you enjoy most?”
“Soccer.”
James grinned. “Not Science, or English or Math then?”
Tom pulled a face and hastily looked at Susie. “It’s not that I don’t like them. Just that, well soccer’s real fun. We play at lunch—”
“I hope you eat the lunches your aunt packs for you,” Susie said.
“I eat that at morning tea. I buy chips for lunch.”
Susie shook her head in despair. “Tom’s an eating machine.”
“So I see.” James smiled. “You’re going to be tall, like your father?”
Tom shrugged his angular shoulders and looked at Susie. “Was Dad tall, Susie?”
Color filled her cheeks. “Yes.” She jumped up to fill a glass of water. “Anyone else like a glass of water?” She let the water run as she gripped the edge of the butler’s sink, willing James not to continue that line of conversation.
She heard a chair scrape behind her and he was beside her. She turned to him warily. His eyes were full of questions. But, instead, he held out a glass. “That would be fine… For now.”
She knew she wasn’t going to escape without a grilling. But not while Tom was there.
After dinner Susie insisted on doing the washing up, a job that was usually Tom’s. She didn’t want to risk being alone with James, didn’t want him asking questions she’d prefer not to answer. The past had been traumatic enough without revisiting it.
There was a shout from the living room. Susie edged towards the open door, making sure she kept to the shadows. The soft glow from the sidelights revealed a scene that nearly made her cry out. She raised her fist to her mouth and watched as Tom and James concentrated hard on a board game, at which it appeared Tom was winning. They sat cross-legged on the floor, their absorbed faces looking up from time to time trying to catch each other out, hands reaching out to the board to move their pieces. Then a whoop of glee from Tom again.
“I own it! With hotels! $2,000 please, James.” He held out his hand triumphantly as James was forced to resort to the dwindling pile of $10s and $1s.
“You are a hard opponent.”
“Well, you should have put a hotel on Mayfair when you had the chance.”
James grinned and rolled the dice.
How likely was it that James wouldn’t have put a hotel on such an expensive property, Susie wondered. He was obviously going easy on Tom. But then, James had always been like that hadn’t he? Gentle, kind and always sensitive to the needs of others. Other people beside herself, obviously.
“And you reckon you’re not good at this game? I’d hate to play you at soccer, something you reckon you are good at.”
Tom knelt up in his excitement. “Let’s have a game of soccer tomorrow. Yeah?”
James looked across to where Susie thought she was standing undetected.
“No. I’m sure James”—she emphasized his given name—“has other plans. He’s only here for a few days.”
He pushed himself off the floor. “No, no plans. That would
be great.”
“Choice! Soccer it is. And you can come to our picnic. We’re sailing round to the bay. Can’t he, Mum?” Her young son’s brows suddenly furrowed as he realized he might be asking something she didn’t want to happen.
It broke her heart to see how he’d taken to James, how starved of male company he was. Pete did his best but he had another life, away from the island, and now his focus had switched further afield, to the Mackenzie Country. Tom was of an age where he really responded to men, where he needed a man’s solid guidance. But she couldn’t allow him to get close to James who’d be gone within days. It would be too painful to watch Tom wondering why James hadn’t called, just as she had all those years ago.
She stepped into the light, strengthened by the reminder and shook her head. “No, I’m sure James has other plans. He won’t want to come out with us.” She shot James a warning look. “Will you, James?”
“Actually, I would. I can’t think of anything I’d like better.”
“Really?” She said archly. “Cold sausage rolls, potato chips—”
“Salt and vinegar?”
“Yes!” Tom shouted.
“Love them,” added James.
“Meat paste sandwiches—”
“Paste?” asked James faintly.
“Paste,” she replied firmly. “Tom’s favorite. Probably with a sprinkling of sand because you know how that gets everywhere.”
“Indeed.”
Susie grimaced at James’s wicked smile. “And lemonade. Probably flat by the time we get there.”
“Cold gritty food and flat lemonade. My favorites.”
Tom gave James a high five. “And soccer.”
“It’ll be a perfect day, then.”
“And night,” added Susie, saving her big guns until last. “Didn’t Tom tell you? We’re camping under the stars tomorrow night.” It took Susie all her self-control not to laugh out loud at how quickly James’s face fell. James had only gone camping with her once when they were barely into their teens and had sworn never to do it again. And she had no doubt that he’d kept to that. Until now.