Shanahan's Revenge

by Julie Mac

  Kate walked to the lake edge where there was a rustic-looking seat made of manuka branches. There was room for two on the seat, and she sat at one end, making it plain he could join her, but instead he leaned his back against the boulder, crossing his arms over his chest. Here, in the clearing, away from the dark closeness of the track, he felt more in control. Besides, she was six metres away on the seat. He felt his breathing steadying.

  She half-turned to look at him. ‘Imagine how terrifying it must have been when the mountain blew up,’ she said. ‘Dad told me his grandfather said the eruption could be heard in Auckland, hundreds of kilometres away.’

  ‘Mum’s grandparents told her that, too. Apparently the early settlers thought the Russians were attacking.’ Sam was glad of the diversion.

  Chapter 6

  He was gazing across the lake, and she wondered if he, too, could picture in his mind the cataclysmic fountain of orange lava spewing into an inky sky.

  ‘Incredible, isn’t it, to think of the force it would take to throw out a rock the size of this one?’

  He smiled in her direction as he spoke, but made no move to join her on the seat, so she stood and walked back to the huge lump of rock. She reached out and touched it, resisting the urge to spread both arms wide and lean her body into its warm solidness, as she’d done many times as a child. Instead, she lightly ran her fingers down the crispy dry lichen that encrusted the rock’s near-vertical face.

  ‘You can’t argue with nature, Kate.’ He was facing her, one shoulder leaning against the ancient stone.

  ‘What …?’

  ‘I said, you can’t fight against nature.’ He spoke softly, his gaze intent on her face, his expression unguarded.

  The moonlight had softened his features; the hardness around his eyes and mouth had disappeared. For the first time, she noticed the slight upward sweep of his thick dark lashes. He was, she realised, a very beautiful man. Her eyes fell to his lips, curved and full in the silvery light, and the memory of his mouth on hers, warm and moist and invasive, triggered a pulse, deep in her body.

  ‘You can’t fight against nature.’ His words echoed through her head, and she swayed slightly. She felt as though the moonlight had passed through the thin cover of her clothing and entered her body, turning her limbs to pliable, molten liquid, obliterating common sense, caution and reason. One step towards him and she would feel his body against hers, meld into the hardness, the strength of him, find relief for the sweet unfamiliar ache that was spreading, spreading at her core. One step …

  She curled her fingers into the crusty lichen and lifted her eyes again to his. There, she saw a naked need which matched her own, but with it a vulnerability—the same searing loneliness she’d seen that day on the airstrip. Without warning, her mind was filled again with an image of a small dark-haired boy playing in a golden field, his happiness and innocence about to be shattered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. He blinked and shook his head, his dark brows drawing together.

  ‘Sorry? Why on earth are you sorry, Kate?’

  ‘I’m sorry if Sandy upset you asking about your family. She means well—’

  ‘What makes you think I was upset?’ His voice was satin-smooth but his eyes were sad.

  ‘I … I felt you didn’t really want to speak about your family.’

  He shook his head fractionally. ‘No problems. I’m a big kid now.’

  Despite the glib words, she felt his tension. Her heart told her to take a step closer and put her arms around him in a comforting hug. But her head told her such a move was downright crazy.

  He solved her dilemma by straightening his body and turning to head back down the track in the direction they’d come.

  ***

  Their return along the bush track to the house was as silent as the outward journey. Somewhere behind them a possum screeched its war cry to a rival, but Kate scarcely noticed. Her mind was fully occupied with skirmishes of its own, all of which centred on the man in front of her. He demanded no pity for the sad events that shaped his early life, yet she felt deeply moved by the injustices dealt to his parents and himself; all because of the stupid, destructive pride of a stubborn old patriarch. Somehow, she wanted to redress the wrongs.

  Having observed his behaviour at close quarters today, she’d have to concede Sam seemed like a genuine nice guy. Yet her earlier instinct remained as strong as ever: he was a man to be approached with the utmost caution.

  And not just in the boardroom, a spiteful little voice shrieked in her head. The hot aftermath of attraction, at once unreal and frightening real, which permeated her body and unsettled her mind, caused her to shudder inwardly at the thought of her own weakness back there at the rock. She’d felt pliant, at his mercy, and willingly so.

  And yet, in a way he was her enemy, a rival for her position within the company.

  She slowed her pace and grimaced as a new and deeply disturbing thought occurred to her: was it also possible he was a rival for the affections of her father, Henry and her other allies at McPherson Enterprises?

  She thought of the smiles and handshakes around the board table on Monday, and of Henry and Sandy’s warmth towards him today.

  It was as if, somehow, he belonged.

  They reached the end of the path and stepped onto the springy kikuyu grass of the lawn. Deep in thought, she barely registered when he touched her arm briefly and turned her towards the lake. As they walked onto the wooden jetty at the bottom of the lawn, Kate glanced at him in sudden query.

  ‘I saw a seat on the end of the jetty earlier,’ he said. ‘I thought we might sit for a few minutes and enjoy the view before we go back to the house.’

  The night was still cloyingly warm and she doubted sleep would come easily. Besides, the jetty was in full view of the house. She wasn’t about to let her earlier weakness surface again, and she was pretty sure he wasn’t about to do anything stupid.

  They walked down the long jetty, past Henry’s sleek new launch and onto a T-section at the end. Here, they sat—carefully apart—on the wooden bench Henry had built so he could sit and fish for trout, or just contemplate the beauty of the place.

  A small breeze lifted off the lake, stirring the soft fabric of Kate’s top, and gently tumbling her hair against her neck.

  He noticed the breeze too. ‘Cold?’ he asked. ‘We can go in if you want.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ She smiled towards him. ‘Actually, that little breeze is very welcome. It’s been far too hot today. Still, I suppose Australia has made you used to the heat.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He returned her smile, his teeth gleaming white in moonlight. His face looked relaxed and composed again, but Kate sensed his tension, coiled, but not dormant, beneath his controlled veneer. Intuition told her he was thinking about his family.

  He surprised her. ‘Tell me about your mother, Kate.’

  ‘My mother?’ She turned toward him, her eyes wide.

  ‘I know you lost her when you were young. What happened?’ The deep timbre of his voice was soft; though the question was blunt, Kate knew he was trying to be kind.

  ‘I remember my mother as very beautiful. She was funny and laughed a lot and I loved her very much.’ Kate stared at the moon-silvered lake, but saw only a smiling, dark-haired woman.

  ‘When I was six, she became pregnant. I was really excited when Mum and Dad told me we were going to have a new baby. Then one day, without warning, she had a heart attack and died. We found out afterwards that her heart had been quite severely damaged, probably by a virus in childhood. No one—not even her doctor—suspected a problem. He detected a heart murmur, but apparently that’s quite normal in many pregnancies.’

  She turned to face him. ‘It was a long time ago.’

  He nodded. ‘The baby?’

  ‘She was only a few weeks pregnant. The baby didn’t have a chance. Of course, we were devastated. My father was absolutely devoted to Mum and he never looked at another woman for years. He remar
ried, but only a few months ago.’

  Sam nodded. ‘She would have been proud of you—your mother, I mean,’ he said presently.

  Her throat tightened and she blinked against the unexpected moisture in her eyes. She felt his stillness beside her and hoped he wouldn’t touch her. For several seconds, she didn’t trust herself to speak.

  ‘I’ve never thought about how she would see me if she was still here, only how I would see her,’ she said at last. ‘I imagine she’d be a pretty smart-looking woman, even in her sixties. She loved clothes and always took good care of herself. Sometimes I deliberately try to pick out an older woman in a crowd who looks as I imagine my mother would now.’

  Her eyes sought his. ‘That’s silly, isn’t it?’

  He shook his head, his eyes dark pools. ‘Not at all. In fact, from my own experience, I think it’s quite normal to let your imagination fill in the gaps.’

  Kate nodded. ‘I do miss her sometimes. On odd occasions I have this really strong desire for her to be with me, to share a moment, or an emotion, whether it be sadness, or joy, or just wonder at a scene of beauty.’

  ‘Like this?’ He lifted his hand towards the lake.

  ‘Exactly like this. A while ago, I was at the bay at my grandparents’ farm, walking along the sand in the early morning, watching the most beautiful pale green translucent waves roll in, and I desperately wanted her to be there to see it with me.’

  She paused, hearing again the roll of waves onto the shore. ‘I’ll miss her, too, when I—if I—have children. I know I’ll be sad that she’s missed out on seeing her grandchildren, that she’s missed out on making Christmas mince pies with her granddaughters and teaching them to be little ladies, like my grandmother did with me.’ Happy memories of Grandma Doris’s efforts in that direction made her smile.

  ‘Daughters and no sons? You’ve planned that already?’ She heard the amusement in his voice and hoped he wouldn’t see the flush that warmed her cheeks.

  ‘Sons too. No, I mean if I should happen to have children, and at this stage it’s by no means a certainty. My business is very important to me. It’s very likely I will remain childless and concentrate on my career.’

  But even as she spoke, she thought of her friend Teresa who’d phoned the other day to tell Kate she and her husband were newly pregnant. Teresa positively buzzed with excitement—and Kate clearly remembered her own feelings on hearing the news.

  Now, as she sat on Henry’s jetty, gazing unseeing over the moonlit lake, she allowed a deeply closeted truth to surface: for some time, she’d felt an inexplicable yearning to hold a tiny human being in her arms. Teresa’s news had filled her with a wholly self-centred sadness.

  ‘And is there a prospective daddy in your life?’ His question interrupted her thoughts.

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t had a serious boyfriend since uni days. Oh, I’ve been out with a few guys, but they haven’t been important to me.’

  She realised her mistake immediately. ‘Maybe I could adopt as a single mother,’ she said quickly. ‘You know, Hollywood-style, with a nanny and a housekeeper to do all the work while I carry on with my career.’ It was a flippant remark, tossed off to cover her gaffe and steer her out of the conversational quicksand.

  She sensed the stiffening of his body beside her.

  ‘Is that what you think of adoption, Kate? That someone gives up her baby to a woman who wants motherhood without commitment?’

  ‘Of course not! I was joking—that’s all. I’d never do that to a child.’

  ‘Never do what? Never take another woman’s child? Never give up a child you know you couldn’t care for?’

  The question was casual, but there was a stillness about him, as though her answer was terribly important to him.

  He’d turned towards her, his eyes searching her face as he waited for an answer.

  ‘I honestly don’t know. It’s not … it’s not something I’ve ever had to think about.’ She turned away from his eyes, vaguely ashamed of the inadequacy of her answer. I’ve got a master’s degree in business, and I’m a senior executive, ultimately responsible for thousands of employees, yet I’ve never given any great thought to this common and important human occurrence.

  ‘My mother and I gave away my sister,’ he said quietly.

  Kate turned to look at him again, half-smiling, thinking perhaps it was some kind of joke, but one look at his face told her he was deadly serious. His voice was unemotional and controlled, but she could see the bleak, hard lines around his mouth.

  ‘I left it out of the sanitised version of my family history—the one I gave to Sandy. I didn’t think she’d cope.’

  ‘Tell me.’ Her words were little more than a whisper.

  He paused for what seemed an eternity. And then spoke.

  ‘My mother was left carrying her second child when my dad died. The people on the sheep station wanted her to stay on. They said they’d look after the three of us. But my mother was sickened by everything that had happened. She just wanted a fresh start.’

  Kate nodded, afraid to speak.

  ‘So she took me to Australia, only things were far worse for her there. We rented a poky little flat in Sydney and she took a job washing dishes in a restaurant to make ends meet. She planned to have the woman next door look after the baby and me while she worked in the evenings, in exchange for her caring for the other woman’s children during the day.’

  He dragged in a long breath.

  ‘When my sister arrived, a band of busybody social workers in the maternity hospital persuaded her it was in the baby’s best interest that she be given up for adoption. They gave her the whole line—there were desperate couples just waiting for a baby of their own to love and lavish gifts on; they could give her a better education, it wasn’t fair to deprive a child of two parents, she should give up the baby and get on with her life—you can imagine the sort of thing they told her. They had the adoption papers under her nose before she had a chance to think.’

  ‘And I suppose your mother was in no fit state to make such a decision rationally?’ Kate was shocked by his story, but, following his lead, she stripped her voice of emotion.

  ‘You’re right there. They gave her a couple of day’s grace. She left the hospital, came home without the baby and explained to me why it was preferable we give our baby to a family better able to care for her. I was more than agreeable.’

  He pushed his fingers through his hair and now Kate heard anguish in his voice.

  ‘I knew what babies were like. The woman in the flat next door had numerous babies. I knew they cried a lot and made mothers crabby.’

  ‘But you were only a small child. You couldn’t know—’

  ‘Of course I couldn’t. My mother made the decision. I think she always knew she’d done the sensible thing, but emotionally I don’t believe she’s ever quite come to terms with what she did.’

  And neither have you, thought Kate.

  ‘Do you know what became of your sister?’ she asked. He smiled then and her heart lightened.

  ‘The social workers kept us up to date. She was brought up by an affluent family, with all the privileges my mother would never have been able to give her.’

  ‘And was she happy?’ Kate’s question was as soft as the breeze which whispered across the lake.

  ‘Oh yes. Happy and very successful in her education, her career, everything. We couldn’t have asked for more for her.’

  He fell silent. Kate heard the luff-luff of a morepork’s wings as it flew low along the bush line, and after a while, she heard the little owl’s mournful call. They sat quietly for several minutes, then Sam asked, ‘Would you be happy, Kate, if you discovered you were adopted?’

  He delivered the question carefully, and it hung between them, as delicate as an unexploded incendiary device.

  She cleared her throat. He was testing her, she understood that, and perhaps, giving her a chance to save face after her earlier insensitivity.

&
nbsp; ‘No one could have asked for more love and affection than my parents gave me,’ she said.

  ‘But would you feel different—be a different person?’

  Kate tilted her head back and looked at the stars. She closed her eyes while she thought, and ran her hands under the back of her hair, lifting its dark heaviness off her neck.

  At last she said, ‘I can’t imagine being a different person. I am what and who I am because of the genes my parents gave me, and because of my background. The business is my life, because I was born to it, because Dad and Grandad were passionate about it. It’s not just a job, it’s in my blood.

  ‘In your McPherson blood?’

  ‘Absolutely. The McPherson’s were battlers, pioneers. They came here to New Zealand in the 1860s, from a windswept little island off the coast of Scotland called Islay. They were tough characters.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  She heard the rich warmth of laughter in his voice and smiled.

  ‘Thank you. Actually they came from a place renowned for its proliferation of whisky distilleries. My father took me back there when I was sixteen. We found McPherson headstones dating back hundreds of years. We drank some whisky too.’

  ‘I should hope so.’

  ‘Anyway, one of the sons of the original family to emigrate was James McPherson, my great-grandfather. He trained as an apprentice carpenter and started his own building business at the age of twenty. That was the start of McPherson & Co. Old James worked right up until he died at ninety-two. I have his blood running through my veins and for that, I’m thankful and proud.’

  ‘Treasure it, Kate McPherson,’ he said softly, and stood up.

  He held out his hand to her. ‘Come on, it’s been a long day.’

  They walked up the lawn to the house together, and she declined his offer to make her a cup of tea.