by Cathryn Hein
The shed provided no solace. Lucas was too distracted to craft anything. He looked at his main furnace. With all the time he’d been spending at Nick’s and Falls Farm it felt like he hadn’t fired it up in weeks. Ever since Teagan’s arrival his life had changed, and now it was changing again. She would be living under his roof, and not because last night had turned friendship and want into something special. But because he’d taken in another exile.
Only this time he wasn’t dealing with a knuckle-headed ram. This time his guest was all too human, and judging from the conversation he’d overheard, very, very fragile. A kick in the arse wasn’t going to work.
He walked outside to where Merlin was grazing. At his approach the ram looked up and bleated throatily before resuming his graze. Lucas rested on the gate and watched him for a while. Then he pulled his mobile from his pocket and searched for the number he never thought he’d dial.
The call was answered on the third ring.
‘Lucas. Everything okay? I wanted to stay but Vanessa insisted I leave.’
‘Teagan’s with me, at Astonville.’
‘Ah. Look, I’m sorry for what happened between us. I should’ve held my temper.’
Lucas reached down to pick at a runner of kikuyu that was worming its way up the strainer post. ‘Vanessa says she’s depressed.’
‘Yes, it’s been worrying her since Teagan arrived.’
‘Is she?’
‘It’s possible, but without a clinical diagnosis we can’t know for certain. Is that what you’re calling about? Getting her to see someone?’
‘No. I mean, I’ll try, but from the way she spoke to Vanessa I don’t think that’s going to happen. My worry is how to handle her.’ He stared back at the house. ‘She matters. A lot. I don’t want to fuck this up.’
‘You love her.’
‘Yeah.’ Although right now he was scared shitless over what that might mean.
Several beats passed before Dom spoke again. ‘I can arrange a counsellor, for you or Teagan.’
He gave a sad half-laugh. ‘I think she needs it more than me.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. I’ll talk to Meredith. She’s our senior psychologist, and very experienced. She’ll have some ideas. But we still have you to worry about. This isn’t easy.’
‘I just need a mate.’
‘Then I’m here.’ Dom paused. ‘Like I always wanted to be.’
Lucas hung up and leaned back on the fence. He wasn’t sure about what he’d just done but he had no one else to turn to. Dunks had his own problems with Bunny and his ex. Vanessa was too close to it all, which left Dom. His father.
His father.
Somehow, those words gave him a weird sense of safety.
Lucas was going through paperwork at the kitchen table when Teagan walked in. He’d checked on his return to the house and found her curled up in the foetal position, her cheeks pale and tear-stained. He’d spent a long time studying her, his heart aching for her. He badly wanted to help. But he didn’t know how.
She pulled out a chair and sat down, her hands cupped in her lap and her head bowed. Lucas wished she’d smile, just a little.
‘Can I get you anything? Cuppa? Something to eat?’
She shook her head.
He glanced at the invoice he was holding and put it down. ‘Do you want to talk?’
‘Not really.’
At a loss, he picked up the invoice once more. Perhaps he would need to talk to Dom’s counsellor. In the face of her distress every word seemed wrong.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Teagan said after a while. ‘I think maybe I should go back to Levenham. I have friends there. Astra – my horse – she’s there.’ She bit her lip and stared towards the window, wincing a little. ‘I’ve made too much of a mess of things here to stay. I should never have come in the first place. I should’ve had the guts to stick it out instead of running away.’
The thought of her leaving made his heart constrict. She couldn’t go. She couldn’t. ‘What about us?’
Her hollow gaze slid to his. She smiled sadly and shook her head in dismissal.
Anger flared inside him. ‘So last night and this morning meant nothing then, did it?’
‘You know as well as I do it would never have lasted.’
‘Don’t tell me what I do or don’t know.’ He thrust out of his chair and began to pace. Jesus. What the fuck had he done to make her think that? They’d been amazing together. Funny, sexy, happy.
In love.
‘You deserve someone better than me.’
He scraped his hand through his hair and forced himself to override the panic building inside. Losing it wouldn’t help. ‘No, I don’t.’
She stared at him in disbelief.
‘Okay, what happened between you and your mum was shitty, and I know everyone was upset, but that doesn’t mean you can just bugger off back south because you think you’ve screwed things up too much here.’
‘Ness and Mum are better off without me.’
‘And me? Don’t I matter?’
She stared back at her hands. ‘You matter more than anything.’
‘Then stay.’
She bit her lip. A tear escaped and trailed her cheek. She swiped at it angrily. ‘Why? When I’ll only disappoint you and everyone else again?’
‘You didn’t disappoint me. You just, I don’t know, lost your temper because you were scared. Said something you didn’t mean. It can be fixed.’
Her mouth twisted. ‘I’m not sure that it can.’
He closed his eyes, wishing she’d stop frightening him. ‘I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay. I want you to start laughing again, like you did that day with Vanessa and your mum. Like you did only a few hours ago, with me. I like that person.’ He swallowed, tossing over whether to reveal what lurked in his heart, and decided he needed to hold onto it a bit longer. ‘I like that person a lot.’
‘I can’t be that all the time.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because.’ She dug her teeth into the side of her lip. ‘Because I don’t know how.’
He breathed out, his panic easing. She was starting to have second thoughts. ‘Then let me help.’ He smiled. ‘I managed okay earlier.’
‘That was different.’
He moved to crouch in front of her. He took her hands, surprised to find them cold, and cradled them in his big warm ones. He looked up, and his heart lurched at the longing in her gaze. ‘Do something for me?’
‘What?’
‘Trust me.’
Another tear fell. God, she was gorgeous. Even pale and tear-streaked, her skin had a luminous tone. But it was how she looked at him that did him in.
Like he could be her saviour.
‘Please?’
Finally, she nodded.
Teagan found Lucas in the forge. The day was hot, the temperature even higher in the shed thanks to the burning furnace. He was pounding a piece of glowing steel, sparks exploding with every hit. Behind him, the furnace heat turned the air shimmery, as though something from an invisible realm was trying to push through, causing the space to swell and bend.
Lucas was wearing his blacksmithing clothes: leather apron, goggles slipped up on his head, long-sleeved shirt and jeans. Sweat soaked the cloth and streaked the sides of his cheeks. He rippled with sexy masculinity and the kind of grace unique to expert craftsmen. She propped against the door, where a little breeze cooled the moisture on her own back, to watch.
It had been a week since he’d held her hands in Astonville’s kitchen and asked her to trust him. She was trying, but the relationship had an eggshell fragility. Teagan found herself tiptoeing, not knowing how to act. Still ashamed of what she’d done and not understanding why he would want her to stay. The tension in her body refused to ease. Sometimes she’d halt and stare at nothing, her concentration inward, listening to the crazy whispers telling her it was all false. Dread would frost her skin. Her heart would thud and the effort of stopping hers
elf from howling would make her throat swell and ache.
Lucas had caught her a few times and done his best to soothe her with promises that everything would be okay. Distracting her with his touch, his tender kisses, the intimacy of sex. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t real. That it was more to keep her craziness at bay than because of any deeper feeling he had for her.
Teagan’s relationship with Ness and her mother was even more fraught. It had taken her three days to summon the courage to return to Falls Farm and apologise again. An apology that was accepted by her mother with good grace, less so by Ness, who had been watchful and thin-lipped throughout. Though her aunt had called in each day since, she hadn’t invited Teagan once to stay for cocktails. In a way Teagan understood. Her record with alcohol wasn’t great, but it still hurt not to be included in what had become an anticipated and fun Falls Farm ritual when she’d resided there. Although not as hurtful as catching a glimpse of Lucas’s ute in the yard during cocktail hour when she’d driven past the following evening.
Work helped to keep her mind occupied, but even the most innocent of looks from Nick, Elsa, Bart or the other staff left her paranoid. She was sure they could all see through her carefully constructed facade. The constant anxiety was beginning to wear her down, which only added to her internal fear that one mistake would see her crack apart forever. Today, Nick had kept her at Belgravia well past her normal time to help set up another of his riding schools that was beginning the following day, leaving her even more fatigued and down.
Which is why it was nice to spend a few secret, tension-free moments watching Lucas.
He plunged the worked steel into a bucket. The resulting steam added to the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the shed. He pulled it out and inspected his workmanship, and grunted to himself.
‘Very cave man,’ said Teagan, wandering inside.
He grinned and waved the elegantly formed scroll. ‘Like it?’
She inspected it, aware of keeping her distance from the hot metal. She’d been around Lucas’s shed enough now to understand the safety requirements, and she liked watching him. It was one of the sexiest scenes imaginable. Earthy and elemental, and very, very masculine.
‘It’s lovely.’ She meant it. He’d made coarse metal into something artistic and beautiful. She pointed to where the tip twisted outwards, like a strange animal horn. ‘That looks dangerous.’
He screwed up his nose as he inspected it. ‘It probably is, but I like it.’
‘So do I. What’s it for?’
‘I was thinking of using it as decoration for a birdcage.’ He shrugged and placed the rod down. ‘Just an experiment. Have you had lunch?’
‘Not yet. I grabbed us some pies from the bakery. They’re in the oven.’
‘That must’ve been fun.’
Fun wasn’t the way Teagan would describe it. The moment she’d walked in, Kathleen Ferguson was on her. The Falls Union Progress Association was meeting that night. In secret. Kathleen Ferguson wanted her to come.
Teagan had greeted the invitation with suspicion, but the old lady was insistent, needling her with Penny’s illness, the way Dom was taking advantage of villagers who needed local employment. Buying loyalties and quashing disquiet with his sponsorship and false charm. A few weeks ago she would have brushed Kathleen off, but now Teagan didn’t have the strength. Plus she was curious.
‘Not exactly,’ she said in answer to Lucas’s question. ‘Mrs Ferguson kept me waiting so long I couldn’t avoid Col. It appears the rise in temperature has also brought a rise in Col’s shorts.’ She made a face. ‘What sort of man wears orange jocks?’
‘I have a pair of orange jocks.’
‘They’re trunks. And Col doesn’t fill his the way you do.’
Lucas’s expression took on that teasing look she adored. The one that signalled where his interest was heading. ‘And how’s that?’
‘Impressively.’
He shut down the furnace and began to strip off his apron.
‘I thought you were busy.’
The goggles went to the bench. He approached and stood in front of her, his body hot and shiny from heat and exertion. Closing her eyes, Teagan breathed him in. He smelled of metal and man. Of everything she longed for.
Of hope.
The Progress Association meeting was held in Kathleen Ferguson’s lounge, enabling her to chair with authority. Teagan sat at the back, working an edge of fingernail with her teeth, scrutinising the other arrivals with worry. Tony de Vitis sat beside her, whispering asides to make her laugh. He’d come out of curiosity as well, having been invited – in error – by an overexcited Col. Teagan was too nervous to do more than twitch a smile, afraid that someone would dob her in to Ness or Lucas. Tony had promised to keep mum. Whether he would remained to be seen.
For Ness, Teagan’s attendance would be just another disappointment, but for Lucas it would be a betrayal. She hadn’t lied as such. She’d simply gone out late that afternoon and not returned, hoping Lucas would assume she was visiting her mother. When he’d sent her a concerned text, she’d replied that she wanted a bit of time on her own, which had only resulted in a flurry of more worried texts. Now her phone was shut down to ward off any calls, the last message promising she was fine and that she’d be home around eight. A white lie that only made her feel sicker.
The invitees were crowded into a pristinely kept and decorated fifties-style lounge. Uncomfortable chrome-and-vinyl chairs had been brought in from the kitchen and it was on these that Teagan and Tony sat while others took the sofa, armchairs and tapestry pouffes. Kathleen Ferguson took position in a queenly pose in front of an ancient built-in oil heater, Col hovering sycophantically alongside. Faint blotches of yellow marked her cheek and chin, otherwise she appeared fully recovered from her assault.
According to gossip, the police had a suspect but were keeping tight-lipped as they continued the investigation, which made Teagan suspicious of another cover-up. Dom would do anything to protect his investment and with his development application before council, the timing was critical.
Besides Col and Tony, Teagan didn’t know anyone else, although she recognised Bunny’s frightening receptionist, Janice. Except for a younger woman, her belly swollen with mid-term pregnancy and appearing even more nervous than Teagan, most of the dozen or so people appeared eager.
The mantle clock behind Kathleen began to bong out its seven-pm chime. At the final stroke, Kathleen clapped her hands together. ‘Attention!’
Everyone sat up like an obedient primary-school class. Teagan half expected them to start chanting, ‘Good ev-en-ing, Miss-us Fer-gu-son.’
Their host gave a cold smile. ‘Welcome to the inaugural public meeting of the Falls Union Progress Association.’
‘Public, my arse,’ whispered Tony.
‘Thank you for coming. I understand for some of you this has posed some difficulty.’
Colin gave a significant nod. According to Tony, Col wanted the meeting held at his place, but his daughter, Maggie, had been made furious by the idea. That he was involved in the Fuckuppas was bad enough, holding an anti-Dom meeting on her property was going too far. She’d been so incensed she’d railed at him for a solid thirty minutes about bored old men with nothing to do except create mischief, ending the tirade with a threat to cut off his caravan power if he even thought of attending such a meeting. The encounter had left him severely rattled, but being far more afraid of Kathleen Ferguson than Maggie, and tizzied by all the drama, he’d come along anyway.
Ignoring Col’s puffed-out chest and martyred countenance, Kathleen began to point out others in her audience. ‘Antonio, I’m sure you’re worried about your business and how taking sides may upset some of your customers.’ The finger moved to the pregnant woman. ‘Carol, I appreciate your husband is a gardener at the centre and your presence could cause problems between you. Janice, given your boss’s friendliness with Vanessa and the centre’s proprietor, I imagine you have fears for
your position.’ A claim that sounded rather odd when Bunny’s fierce assistant appeared to harbour anything but fear.
Kathleen continued on, pointing out each of her guests in turn and the risk they’d taken to be present. Finally it landed on Teagan. ‘No doubt your aunt would have something to say about your presence here, too, Teagan.’
Teagan shrivelled in her chair as everyone turned to look at her.
‘But we are fighting to keep our rural village free of riff-raff and drug addicts. Thanks to that centre we not only have our roads laden with ridiculous vehicles, sporting blacked-out windows and driven by eastern European gangsters, but a hideous fence hiding some of our most magnificent countryside from view. If that wasn’t enough, land that should be producing prime cattle is instead being kept for a coterie of rich, over-pampered starlets. Now the centre has brought crime to our peaceful village. Not petty thefts. Armed robberies and assaults. On defenceless elderly people such as myself.’
Murmurs went around the room. Heads bobbed in agreement. The fading bruises on Kathleen’s face seemed to take on a deeper, more sinister tinge. Colin was nodding like a bobble-headed toy.
She slammed her fist into her palm with a smack. ‘A line must be drawn.’
A chorus of hear-hears tumbled around the room.
‘I’m worried for our children,’ said the pregnant woman.
‘And our property values,’ said another.
Others joined in with their concerns. Tony sat back with his arms crossed, shaking his head and muttering about small-mindedness, but as Teagan listened to the complaints she began to wonder if some weren’t valid. Admittedly, Kathleen’s rant about gangsters and violent crime was completely over the top, but the other villagers appeared genuine in their concerns.
Kathleen held up her palms to shush the group. She scanned faces until her eyes found Teagan’s. ‘We’ve also had reports of people becoming ill from the centre’s quackery. Illnesses that were quickly covered up by Domenic Ashe’s public relations machine. More proof that the centre serves only one purpose: to make its callous owner richer than he already is. He has no feelings for his clients, just as he has no feelings for this precious village.’