Grace Under Fire, page 18
She was still sleeping when Ryan returned from the milking. He wandered into the kitchen and stretched his arms above his head to ease the ache in his shoulder muscles. He didn’t miss the early morning starts. It had been bloody brisk in the milk shed this morning. The music for milking wasn’t his usual taste, still there was a certain satisfaction knowing he could still milk a herd and muck out the shed single-handed. A vehicle in the drive brought him out into the grey morning light and a sky threatening more rain.
“Where’s Grace?” Bluey’s immediate concern reinforced Ryan’s decision to insist on lending the farmhand to Grace. The older man formed her first line of defence.
Briefly, Ryan filled him in on the night’s events. “Have you seen anything suspicious?”
“I’ve been watching since the drums were dumped.” Bluey scratched his jaw. “Done a few extra checks on the boundaries. It’s been clear. If they were after the keys, it sounds like machinery theft.”
“Or they were after her cheese,” Ryan suggested grimly.
“Stop talking about me, and talk to me,” a sleep-tousled Grace snarled at them from the kitchen door.
“Scones today.” Bluey held up a basket and headed sheepishly towards the door.
“I should get back to my place.” Ryan started to back away.
“Not until you explain why you turned off my alarm.” The light in her eyes flicked like a whip.
“I’ll put the coffee on.” Bluey sidled past Grace and into the house.
Ryan sauntered towards her, took her chin in one hand and searched her face. “You look a bit better rested.”
She pushed his hand away. “Is that what this is about?”
“No big deal, Grace. I did one morning’s milking. You had a shit of a night and deserved the chance to get a few hours’ sleep before you face the day.” His reference to the attack had her swinging her gunsights toward him.
“My farm, my responsibility.”
“I said I’m leaving,” he snapped. She made it impossible to help her. And that suited him fine. He didn’t want to be involved. Refused to make commitments.
“You said that from day dot, Ryan. You plan to leave. Relying on you is a mug’s game.” She stared him down.
Knowing she was right sparked his temper. “You called me. You opened the door.”
“You’re right.” She huffed out a breath. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“Hell.” Ryan rested his hand on Satan’s head. “You’d try the patience of a saint. I’m here now. If you want to get rid of me, we need to stop the attacks on you.”
“I don’t want to get rid of you.” Her soft admission made up for all her prickliness. Maybe he should call her his prickly pear: thorny on the outside and soft on the inside. “I do want the attacks to stop.”
“I’ve got an idea we could talk about.” He’d planned to work on it a bit more before he raised it.
“Then stay for breakfast.” She pivoted and took off down the hall.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ryan followed the scent of fresh coffee, of a freshly showered woman—soap and her perfume—and each sway of her hips had him pushing his hands further into his pockets to keep them off her. Desire was muted by the need to know she was safe and well.
“A long black for you, Gracie.” Bluey set the cup in front of her.
“I’ll have mine with milk, thanks,” Ryan said.
Bluey set fresh scones, jam and cream on the table, a bowl of sugar, and then poured coffee for Ryan and himself. Bluey set Ryan’s down opposite Grace but stayed leaning against the stove.
“What’s the bank’s current position?” Ryan demanded. Cosseting wasn’t an approach that worked with Grace.
“They want evidence the deposit money is in my account before they approve the loan.” She studied him over the rim of her coffee cup.
“When were you going to tell me?” He sat back in his chair, refusing to believe she’d risk the farm rather than tell him, but the news answered the question bothering him.
“I read the email before bed last night. It kinda slipped my mind.” She waved her cup, encompassing the drama of the night before.
“You didn’t remember when I told Bill I was buying a piece of your land?” Ryan remembered his surprised pride at her instinctive defence of him.
“I couldn’t work out why you were sharing our business with Bill when all it did was make him suspect you?” She’d been discombobulated and had turned to him.
“Let’s recap, Grace.” The new information itched uncomfortably in the part of Ryan’s brain that had bought and sold numerous properties. “One, you’re buying the farm. Two, someone dumps contaminants. Three, news of the poisoning reaches the town’s gossips. It’s possible some people guess I helped in the clean-up. Maybe not. Four, the same day you get told you need twenty-five percent in the bank for your loan to be approved, your cheese store is targeted.”
“Are you saying someone at the bank is sabotaging me?” She slammed her cup on the table.
“It’s possible someone at the bank is indiscreet. General gossip—'What sort of deposit do you reckon Grace’ll need for the farm?’”
“You’re scaring me.” She didn’t sound scared; she sounded ready for a fight.
“We can act today. I transfer the shortfall into your account. We exchange deeds of agreement, guaranteeing I get the poppy fields when you settle on Blue Sky. Make it two separate deals. You and me. You and the bank.” He’d take all necessary steps to protect her. If the goal was to break her financially and force her off the farm, then they needed to get the news out that the sale had gone through. To quash any suggestion that continued sabotage would bring her to her knees, they needed to make it clear she had a steady stream of cash to call on.
“The bank will know you made the deposit.” She was thinking rather than objecting, which was another step forward. “Whoever accidentally leaked the loan requirement will know too.”
“That’s the aim. The bank seems to have been on a go-slow. Where are we? Week ten, eleven. This way they can’t argue.” He pushed because the threat was real, and he couldn’t be with her twenty-four-seven.
“Eleven,” she said.
“We also make sure the community knows. That you definitely have the money for the purchase because you’re selling a parcel of land to me. We broadcast through every conventional and social media channel available.” From where Ryan sat, the connection between the bank’s email and the attack was too convenient to be a coincidence.
“If I announce the bank’s given the go-ahead, that should end the acts of sabotage.” Was she uncomfortable about making the sale to him public? “Blue Sky will be out of reach.”
He shook his head. “You’re still vulnerable. Managing the repayments is still a big load. People need to know your position’s stronger than that. That I’m backing you.” He’d need to sell some shares, slow down some purchases, but he’d make it obvious he was her backer. He wasn’t interested in buying into her business, just ensuring some bastard didn’t steal it from her.
“While you’re here.” She had even more prickles than a thorny dragon and was moving into armadillo class.
“I’m here a few years yet.” Why her repetition of a truth he’d told her himself irritated him, he didn’t know. “Ring Bill and see what he thinks.”
“It might work.” She took another sip of her coffee, as if weighing up the pros and cons. “But I want it watertight. I’m selling you a piece of my land. That’s all. Blue Sky is mine.”
“Of course you do.” The reservation in her agreement stung. That she needed to restate her independence at the end of each conversation. She shed her caution when they made love, and he wanted to get her naked each time she put her clothes back on. “In the meantime, you can ask Bluey if he’s prepared to stay over, or you get me.”
“I beg your pardon,” she sputtered.
“Mum might even enjoy a stint back on a farm.” He swallowed half a scone and licked the cream off his lips.
“This is my life and my house you’re talking about.” She pushed herself upright in her chair and glowered at him.
“Until we’re convinced this is over, you get company every night. You decide.” He wouldn’t be able to sleep if she was on her own.
“I don’t take orders from you. Just because we’ve been to bed a few times—"
“Don’t go there, Grace,” he said quietly. “I don’t need to be in your bed. I do need to know you’re safe. I can sleep in another room.”
Bluey cleared his throat. “I’ll ask your mother if she’d like to stay a few days.”
Ryan stared her down. “That’s Bluey agreeing with me that someone should stay here. I can always call Brian. You called me. You opened the door.” He left unspoken the words you asked for my help.
* * *
Bluey had followed Grace around the farm until she’d answered all his questions at least twice. With his blistering opinion ringing in her ears, she’d rung her parents and repeated the exercise. In her search for a single ally, she’d rung Bill. And struck out. They’d all agreed with Ryan that she shouldn’t stay alone at the farm until the sale was finalised. Even after she’d confirmed the locks would be changed today. Her temper remained on simmer as she worked through her list. A new batch of cheddar, another delivery to the delicatessen, which had agreed to take her meagre production of eggs. Being right didn’t excuse Ryan’s high-handedness. She’d make that perfectly clear. She practised how she’d set him straight:
“Thank you for your help, but ...”
“I appreciate your concern, but ...”
“My home, my business and my decision to make, right down to whether or not I sleepwalk my way through milking my own cows at four in the morning.”
Somehow, he’d been there when she’d stepped out of her shower at dusk. The look in his eyes made her reach for him, as if loving him was the right way to end her working day. The heat and flash of good sex left her body loose and her mind relaxed. Before she’d realised he’d manoeuvred her into letting him stay, she was telling him about her day while he served the dinner he’d brought.
“Thanks for letting me stay,” he’d whispered in her ear later that night after they’d made love again. His clever hands and mouth convinced her it was her choice.
Was falling in love with him a choice? Because she was stupidly in love with him. Also bound by the promise he’d made at the beginning—he was leaving.
A week until the farm was hers, and Grace’s sense of body, heart and mind becoming disconnected from one another and floating in different directions had grown. Day and night belonged to different versions of herself.
During the day, Jake and Ryan’s lawyer negotiated business and the legal niceties. Playing her part, she’d lent on the counter of every business in the surrounding towns and let the shopkeepers into a secret—her purchase of Blue Sky was a done deal. When they’d marvelled at how much money she’d made from cheese, she’d shared another secret. Ryan Wilson, you know the prodigal Wilson boy, had bought a few paddocks, gifting her financial security into the future. At night, she and Ryan entered their own magical world, where the brush of his skin across hers aroused with an exquisite agony, where the scent of their lovemaking triggered the need for more, and where his taste fuelled a hunger in her growing by the day.
She hated the disconnect more each day, hated the big lie acted out in both of her worlds—pretending she didn’t love him.
He—she—hadn’t anticipated the fallout from spreading the word Ryan was her banker. Anonymous and deeply personal, the whispers and social media gossip slapped at her pride and white-anted her self-belief.
“It’s another attack on you,” Ryan had brushed off the taunts. “Hoping to make you pull out of the deal.”
Barbs were being fired from all directions, with some in her community turning on her with the viciousness of hornets defending their turf.
At the supermarket she heard the first whisper. "She’s selling more than some land.”
The next day, it was the post office. "Ms. High-And-Mighty is prepared to roll over and spread her legs if the price is right.”
One afternoon when she was unloading her trolley, two men she didn’t know well hovered, sniggering behind their hands. "The EPA went through his land because he bankrolled the clean-up. Funny if he dumped the stuff so he could play knight in shining armour.”
Some of the comments found their way onto her business social media accounts.
“Lover! Whore more like.”
“Prostituting herself to keep the farm!”
The crude viciousness of some comments disturbed her, while Ryan brushed them aside. He insisted he and she were the only judges of their relationship. She hadn’t accepted every offer he made. She’d drawn boundaries—she’d accepted his improvements to the poppy fields but refused to accept payment for agistment. Her vegetation redesign plans for his property were almost complete. Paying her debts was essential. Both those secrets were known only to herself and Ryan.
Secrets preserved dignity and respect. Her father had kept Mrs. Wilson’s secret that she was destitute when Ryan first left town. Ryan kept the secret Bluey was on his payroll, not hers. Grace was finding it harder to pretend none of the barbs snuck past her barriers.
A whisper, a nasty laugh, a snide remark—each one hammering at defences stretched to breaking point because she loved him. The comments targeted her and Ryan. His association with her was threatening his new-found leadership in the community.
Today her first stop was the delicatessen. She pushed her loaded trolley through the front door. Seeing a crowd at the counter and in the café section, she tucked herself into a corner and waited for Bob to be free.
“You know he pushed to let her into the field day.” Grace recognised the wife of a grumpy committee member. “What’s in it for him?”
Grace froze. The woman was talking about her and Ryan.
“I always thought he was a deep one. Fancy setting her up so early.” The woman’s companion had a distinctive shrill singsong. President of the country women’s association before Bess, she’d sat at Mrs. Wilson’s table and at Grace’s and commiserated about milk prices, the drought, and so many children being forced to work off-farm.
“I heard she seduced him.” Mrs. Grumpy-By-Association dropped her voice to salacious level. “She’s been begging for that stall for years. Knowing she got it by crawling into his bed must shame her parents.”
“They left town pretty fast after that, although my Graham did say crowd numbers were up.” Mrs. Shrill added a judicious assessment.
“They did leave fast. Do you think we should let them know what’s happening—as friends?” Mrs. Grumpy spewed sanctimonious sympathy in a too-loud whisper.
“She can’t be so naïve as to think he’s seriously interested in her?” Mrs. Shrill’s voice vibrated with disbelief.
“With Rochelle Harkiss around, he can do better. Rochelle said she was delighted his new land purchase would bring him closer to her.” At public functions Mrs. Grumpy hung on Rochelle’s every word.
“Grace can’t compete with Rochelle in the looks department.” Mrs. Shrill giggled. “Or the charm department. Have you heard talk he’s not staying in town much longer?” Mrs. Shrill listened to too much talk. “He’ll make a killing when he sells. His place, Donovan’s and Blue Sky. Grace is as gullible as her father. She won’t be so high and mighty in the future.”
“Grace,” Bob called her name. “I can deal with those deliveries now.”
Aware the voices had stopped, Grace broke cover, pushing the trolley towards the counter with her head high. She didn’t dignify the women with a glance.
Her remaining deliveries passed in a blur. Climbing into her van for the trip home, she stared into the distance.
“What’s in it for him?”
“She can’t be so naïve as to think he’s seriously interested in her?”
“Sticks and stones,” she muttered. But the overheard conversation had hit like a giant wave after a series of smaller ones. She’d withstood the earlier surges. This one sucked her under and had her fighting for clear air. These were the town’s matriarchs, often kind-hearted, always small-minded, and frequently spitting out a kernel of truth with the bile.
“What do we have?” she whispered, suddenly cold. “An affair until the fire dies out or he loses interest. He plans to sell up and move on. He’s never lied about his plans.”
What’s in it for him? She hated her doubt, but the question swirled, stinging like grit thrown in a windstorm. What’s in it for him apart from the sex? The gossipy women were right. He could get sex anywhere.
She didn’t know how to stop loving him. Although she knew it wasn’t part of the deal, had known from the moment she’d knocked on his door and confessed to wanting him. Tight bands closed around her chest, squeezing until her heart hurt. Fear of him leaving threatened to choke her. This morning he’d held her tenderly, been reluctant to release her when the alarm sounded. He’d whispered endearments as she’d eased herself out of his arms, and she’d dared to hope that in time he’d love her too. He never used the word. She forced it back each time it rose to her lips.
Anthony Callea’s version of Save the Best for Last signalled an incoming text message. Jake’s address popped up.
There’s a new condition. If you’re okay to go ahead we exchange tonight. Call me when you get this.
Curiosity had her opening the attachment. Ryan hadn’t mentioned any new conditions before she’d left this morning. A flicker of apprehension trickled down her spine. Trying to dismiss it, she summoned an image of her tousled lover as she’d last seen him. He’d been propped up in bed, his broad torso bare, the sheets tangled around his thighs, working on his computer, as he did every morning.
“You do your work. I’ll do mine.” He’d winked at her as she’d left.
He could have told her about a new condition last night or this morning. Why wait until the penultimate hour?
