Kiss It Better (3 page)

They both turned and studied Theo.

He was taste testing edible body-paint, licking it from a finger. The paint was from JayBay’s Daredevil line.

‘If he’s not, hurry up and introduce yourself,’ Aunt Gabby continued. Then she peered dubiously at Cassie and her voice rose. ‘Give me that coat. I’m sure I’ve got a comb somewhere.’

Cassie pulled away. ‘Theo is Dad’s friend.’ He ambled over and she made introductions. ‘Theo wants to see the factory.’

‘Of course he does.’ Aunt Gabby beamed. ‘It’s small but perfect. A jewel. Cassie, nip home and change. Put some shoes on. Then you can show him around.’

As if she was eight years old
. ‘He’s already peeped in the windows.’

‘That’s for visitors. Theo’s a friend.’

‘Hardly, Mum.’ Leighton stood in the doorway between the shop and factory floor. ‘More like a competitor the size of Tyrannosaurus Rex. I Googled you, Morrigan. Cassie, I told you to get rid of him.’

‘Leighton,’ Aunt Gabby chided.

‘It’s all right, Mrs Frazer. Mick is expecting me at noon. I can wait outside for him.’

‘Nonsense. I’ll make you a cup of tea and there are muffins in the kitchen. Poppy brought them in. Carrot and walnut.’

‘This is not a bloody high tea,’ Leighton exploded. ‘Get out, Morrigan.’

‘No.’ Who did Leighton think he was? ‘Dad invited him.’ Cassie went into a stare-down with her cousin.

Aunt Gabby’s head tilted to the window. Cassie heard it, too. Her dad’s car. ‘Dad’s here.’

‘Screw it.’ Leighton shifted in the doorway, half ducking back into the factory before reclaiming his ground. His body language screamed defiance.

Why? Her dad had invited Theo. It wasn’t as if he were an enemy invader.

Her dad opened the shop door with typical impatience. Mick wasn’t tall or imposing, but he had presence. Blue eyes, like Cassie’s own, scanned the room. He nodded at Theo. ‘I guess you’ve introduced yourself.’

‘He failed to give a few pertinent details,’ Leighton said. ‘Like the fact that he’s CEO of Brigid Care.’

Cassie blinked. Every family in Australia had something by Brigid Care in the bathroom cabinet: antiseptic cream, painkillers, vitamins, first-aid kits…They were a trusted name and had been for generations. The company was more than a century old and competed successfully with multinational pharmaceutical corporations.

‘And that’s partly why I asked him here.’ Mick pushed the shop door closed behind him. The click echoed in the sudden silence of the recorded music ending. ‘But mostly I asked a favour.’

‘I’ve read the financials,’ Theo said, abrupt and cryptic.

‘Is it Leighton?’ Mick asked starkly.

‘Is what Leighton?’ Cassie demanded.

Her cousin swayed in the doorway. ‘Uncle Mick…’

Theo gave her a push towards Aunt Gabby. ‘Mick, let’s talk in your office.’

‘No.’ Cassie caught Theo’s hand. His was warm and strong. ‘Dad?’

‘Someone’s been stealing from JayBay,’ Mick said. ‘I asked Theo to look into things. I needed someone from outside, someone without an emotional entanglement.’

‘A competitor?’ Leighton’s voice was raw with disbelief and strain.

‘Theo understands the complexities of a family business.’ Mick wore a red flannel shirt, faded from many a washing, over a grey T-shirt and grey work trousers. His boots were muddy. He was no one’s conception of a beauty product manufacturer, but he had the strength that Leighton, for all his professional appearance, lacked. He could also look a person in the eyes.

‘Dad, if someone,’ she carefully refrained from staring in Leighton’s direction, ‘borrowed some money,— ’

‘I inspected the records,’ Theo said. ‘It’s systematic fraud.’

Aunt Gabby gasped.

‘No.’ Cassie put an arm around her aunt’s shoulders. Leighton might be the obvious suspect. He was responsible for JayBay’s accounts. But he was her cousin. She’d grown up with him, accidentally bloodied his nose in a game of beach cricket and wedgied the girlfriend who’d dumped him in high school. He’d been there when the tissues fell out of her training bra — and he hadn’t told anyone. ‘It can’t be Leighton.’

Except that Leighton was crumbling before their eyes. His face had flushed red and was now very pale. He had a white-knuckled grip on the doorframe. ‘Uncle Mick, if we could talk privately.’

‘No more secrets,’ Mick said. ‘I won’t prosecute, Leighton. I won’t even ask for the money back.’ His sister burst into incoherent tears and vows of reparation. ‘No, Gabby. JayBay can cover the loss. I bear some of the responsibility. I wasn’t watching things at JayBay. I got interested in the Kimberley project and — ’ He broke off. ‘Leighton, I can’t keep you on. You’ll always be part of the family, but I can’t trust you with the business. Pack your stuff and leave.’

Leighton had cheated them all, everyone who loved and supported JayBay. The security that JayBay had always represented to Cassie, shattered under her feet. There was no solid ground anywhere, only pain and confusion. Aunt Gabby pulled away from her.

Mick watched Leighton stumble back onto the factory floor and on to the office. Aunt Gabby followed him, head down and weeping.

Theo tugged Cassie back and wrapped both arms around her, keeping her there.

‘Let me go.’

‘You can’t soften heartbreak. Give them time to get over the shock. Thieves never think they’ll be caught.’

She flinched at the dismissal of her cousin.

‘Secrets and lies,’ Mick muttered. ‘I’m finished with them. Cassie?’

She looked at her dad.

Booted feet braced and arms folded, Mick made his announcement. ‘I’m selling JayBay — to Theo.’

Theo felt the moment when Cassie’s shock at her cousin’s fraud and her aunt’s pain changed into something far more volatile. She stiffened against him and then wrenched free, whirling around to glare at him. The glare might have been more effective if she didn’t have to brush the hair out of her eyes first.

They were startling eyes, though: a deep blue, the colour of summer seas, intense and honest: qualities he could appreciate.

Her brown hair frankly needed a cut and the comb her aunt had suggested, but it was a rich chocolate colour and felt like silk when he touched it. Those incredibly blue eyes dominated her thin face, but it was a face tanned from living and doing, and the underlying bone structure guaranteed beauty even as she aged. Her figure…well, he was taking a chance on that, what with the horrendous jacket and baggy trackie pants, but her toes were cute, somehow vulnerable with their lack of nail polish. She was a mess, but an intriguing mess.

And she was a fighter.

‘What evidence do you have that Leighton stole from us?’ she challenged him.

‘Apart from his reaction?’ He sighed, sharp and annoyed, even as he understood her desire to lash out a stranger and to protect family. ‘Leighton didn’t try very hard to hide his fraud. He added a fake supplier that got paid regularly.’

‘I didn’t notice one,’ Mick said. ‘I looked at the financials when I felt something wasn’t right. Growth plateaued too abruptly. I wouldn’t have missed something so obvious.’

Theo didn’t argue, but he doubted the assertion. Mick Freedom was an enthusiast. The wonder of it was that he’d run JayBay this long. Perhaps the dedication of all involved had made up for his wandering interest. Mick had already moved onto a new project, the idea of commercialising the farming and utilisation of some of Australia’s indigenous plants. As he gave more and more time to getting it off the ground, he would have trusted Leighton to manage JayBay’s finances…and opened the door wide for fraud.

‘Leighton used a name very similar to an old supplier, one whose contract with JayBay terminated soon after Leighton took up his role as finance manager.’

Cassie gripped the edge of the shop counter. ‘But then where would the supplies have come from? If the product wasn’t arriving someone would have noticed.’

‘One of your current suppliers expanded their product base. Leighton took advantage. Actually, he negotiated a pretty good new contract with them. The increase in their payment would have appeared to Mick like an inflated but just barely acceptable change.’

‘Pict Blue Chemicals,’ Mick said.

‘That’s the company.’

Mick stared at the floor. ‘I thought Leighton just needed to toughen up at the negotiating table.’

‘It can’t be Leighton.’ Cassie crossed the room to Mick. ‘Leighton isn’t stupid and that sounds like a really simplistic method of fraud. Someone must have set him up.’

‘Who?’ Mick put an arm around her. ‘He’s the only one with the knowledge and the access.’

‘But he came back to Jardin Bay to be with family. Why would he do this to us?’

‘Maybe he didn’t have a choice,’ Theo offered.

That won him another glare from Cassie. ‘Meaning what?’

He met Mick’s frowning gaze. ‘Getting a job with family doesn’t require references. If he was let go from his previous position…’

Mick understood. ‘You think Leighton has stolen before?’

‘I’m a realist. People don’t tend to change.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Cassie said passionately. ‘People change all the time. They do the best they can, but things force them to compromise, to fail.’

‘To steal?’ Yes, he was a cold bastard. His family had told him often enough.

She flinched. ‘You’re a cynic.’

‘Theo’s not blinded by emotion like we are.’ Mick patted her shoulder, clumsily. His own shock showed in his paler skin and an uncharacteristic blankness of expression. ‘I’ve suspected something for a couple of months, but I didn’t want to believe it. Now it’s out there. I thought about oversight or regular audits…but the bottom line is he betrayed us. It’s up to Leighton to rebuild our trust, not for us to offer it for abuse again.’

‘Dad, that’s harsh.’

‘It’s nothing to how I feel,’ Mick said.

Theo looked away from Cassie’s face and saw the emotions Mick, standing beside her, was fighting. Leighton’s actions were more than fraud. They were a betrayal.

Mick laid it out. ‘He’ll still be family, Cassie, but he has to stand on his own feet. There has to be consequences for what he’s done.’

‘But Aunt Gabby will pay them.’

‘Whatever you do she’ll suffer. We all saw that,’ Theo intervened. ‘You can’t let Leighton hide behind her. Family loyalty and love makes things difficult, but I agree with your decision, Mick. Loving Leighton as your nephew is separate to honouring your responsibilities to JayBay and everyone who works there. They’re family, too.’

‘Stop talking about family, you hypocrite.’ Cassie stormed up to him. There was a counter between them, but she leaned over it to stab a finger at his chest. ‘You want to steal JayBay.’

‘Buy it,’ he corrected. He’d known Mick would be unhappy with the news of Leighton’s responsibility for the fraud, but that was the extent of the emotion Theo had anticipated dealing with. Cassie was a wildcard. He glanced at Mick, but Mick had his own problems, his head turning to watch them.

Rather than walk through the factory — where the workers had to be aware of strange happenings — Leighton and Gabby had exited through some side door, rounded the factory and were now making their way to the car park out front.

‘Oh damn.’ Cassie sagged against the counter as she too saw the departure.

Theo decided on his own tactful retreat. He’d intruded because he had a commercial interest in assessing Mick’s commitment to the sale of JayBay, and less rationally, because having helped identify the fraudster, he felt emotionally involved in the Freedoms’ difficult situation. He looked away from Cassie’s downturned head with its tangle of messy brown hair. Despite the unexpected tug of attraction between them, they were strangers. He had no right to respond to her pain of disillusionment. ‘Mick, I’ll leave you to talk with Cassie. I’m here for a week, so I’ll book a room in town.’

‘You’ll stay with us.’

‘Dad!’

‘Cassie, I’m selling JayBay. You don’t want it. I don’t want it. We have other plans. When Theo buys it, he’ll become part of life here. Bringing him into the JayBay family will make it easier on everyone.’

‘Huh,’ was her brilliant response.

Theo nearly echoed it. He didn’t need another family. The one he had was problem enough. Moreover, he wouldn’t become part of the JayBay family. That would be the role of whomever he appointed as manager. He might have argued the point, about his residence at any rate, but Gabby came crashing back in.

Outside, a sports car tore out of the car park and, tyres squealing, vanished down the road; Leighton, presumably, leaving Cassie and Mick to deal with the results of his selfishness and theft.

Gabby was crying, trying to say something and failing.

Mick waved Cassie off. ‘Gabby and I need to talk. You take Theo home. We’ll be in the office. I’ll send Poppy out to mind the store.’

Unless she wanted to prolong the fraught scene, Casse was left without options. She led the way out.

‘I’ll stay in town,’ Theo said.

She shook her head. ‘You heard what Dad said.’

‘Making a difficult situation worse won’t help anyone.’

‘It’s a bit late to worry about that now. Hell. Look, come home with me. We’re just next door. Whatever happens, Dad will have to talk to you. The house is through those trees.’ She pointed south, along the coast. ‘But since you’ve got the bike, you’ll have to take the road. I’ll meet you there.’

He nodded and shrugged on his jacket, acknowledging the truth of her comments even as he accepted the lack of welcome. Cassie was bound to resent him. Blaming the stranger was a lot easier than accepting a screw-up in the family. He ought to know.

***

Cassie dropped down from the veranda, landing on the soft earth of a flowerbed and causing a couple of bees to buzz angrily. She wanted to growl back at them, to snap and snarl and release her tension.

How could Leighton do this to them?

She crossed the lawn, which was green from winter rain, and entered the replanted bushland. The shrubs closed around her and the trees provided privacy for the house from the factory and its visitors. The crushed limestone path was hard, cold and damp underfoot, with moss growing in a couple of shaded patches. She stubbed her toe and swore.