A Kiss to Seal the Deal (15 page)

‘Only by default. Who else was he going to leave it to? He didn't exactly move heaven and earth to get me back when I left.'

‘Leo was nothing if not proud. And strong. It must have burned him not to come after you. Releasing you to find your own dreams. Doesn't that tell you something about how worthy you were to him?'

He stared at her. ‘I exploit weakness for a living. Do you imagine he would have been proud of that?'

Kate rolled her eyes. He was determined to find weakness in himself. ‘That's one way to look at it. You could just as easily say you fortify. To protect people, the people you work for.'

His nod was far away. ‘If not for the fact I haven't built a contract in years. I only tear them down.'

Kate shrugged. ‘Time for a change, then?'

Green eyes met brown. ‘You make it sound so easy.'

‘It doesn't have to be hard. You have plenty of money. You have a home here. I'm sure there's no shortage of ambitious people working under you who'd kill for your spot in the firm.'

His words were soft. ‘I don't know who I'd be if I wasn't there.'

She stretched her arms up to press against his strength. To share some of hers. ‘You can be anything at all that you want to be.' She pressed her lips against the pulse thumping visibly below his jaw. ‘That's the beauty of having all the cards. You can deal them any way you want.'

‘You think I have all the cards?'

‘You have money, experience, property, looks, reputation…'

You have me.

‘There's something missing from that list.'

‘What?'

Green eyes blazed down into hers and he shifted against her, bringing them into even closer contact. ‘Family.'

Kate's heart lurched wildly in her chest and every bit of moisture in her mouth abandoned her.

‘So I guess I've still got a few cards to collect,' he said.

Just then a short chime sounded from somewhere beneath a pile of their hastily discarded clothes. Grant kissed her, lingering against her lips, and then extracted himself from the comfort of their feathery circle.

‘I'm going to take a shower; I'll be back,' he said. ‘Unless you'd like to join me?'

Kate threw him a wry look. They both knew Leo's shower was barely big enough for one, let alone two. Not if they both wanted to get wet.

‘OK, point taken. I'll be five minutes. Keep a space warm for me.' He reached down to retrieve his mobile and all the muscles down one side of his body flexed deliciously. ‘Then let's see who was so keen to get hold of me last night.'

He disappeared into the adjoining bathroom, loading up with clean clothes on the way, and Kate heard the hiss of the water bursting into life. She turned back to her beautiful sunrise.

How many sunrises like this had she missed while she'd been busy driving back and forth to his farm? How many sunsets? She'd have to hold this one in her head for ever once she went back to the city. Even though the word ‘family' hung tantalisingly in the air, Grant hadn't invited her to stay longer than the end of her project. Tulloquay had come to feel like a second home since she'd first set foot on it. A hard-won, and therefore extra appreciated home. Something she hadn't had for a really long time. Even her apartment was just that, a place to put her head at night. It was too empty to be called a home.

Did Grant know what he was giving up by leaving Tulloquay? Now that he believed his father hadn't lived and died by the place, would he hold onto it or ultimately sell it as a going concern? Could she persuade him to stick around a bit longer?

A lot longer?

Or would it make no difference at all? He didn't want to farm
it. He wouldn't want to stay on it. Just because he was asking questions about his future didn't necessarily mean it included her.

A cold trickle worked its way down her spine. In all those illicit murmurings last night he hadn't said anything about the future. About ‘for ever'. About wanting anything more than right now. She'd written up an emotional contract the moment she'd followed him into this room but it remained bare of signatures.

This feels like a beginning.
That was all. He could have meant the beginning of a great night of all-holds-barred loving. She flexed sore muscles. He'd certainly delivered, but there had been no other promises.

At least not from him. She'd made promises to herself all night. Promises to be open about her feelings, not to shut him out. To take the risk. Something about growing up without a family only made her value it more when she found it. She'd come within a breath of crying out that she loved him several times last night but something—an indefinable, base-instinct
something
—held her back.

She wanted to say it. She wanted him to know. She wanted to take a stick and write ‘Kate Dickson loves Grant McMurtrie' in the dirt and watch the realisation on his face. She wanted to hear the reciprocal words in his gravelly voice. She wanted that first flush of revelation.

She wasn't going to get any of that if she didn't screw up the courage to tell him first.

She'd dealt with cranky Leo McMurtrie before he'd come around; surely confessing her love for his son couldn't be all that hard?

Could it?

She turned her head and traced an unfamiliar sound back to the bathroom. Was he singing? It was hardly bar-room karaoke but it was rich, deep and soft. And joyous.

The water pipes under the house clunked as Grant shut off
the shower, and Kate turned towards the bathroom door on a smile. She pictured him towelling that amazing body dry. Brushing his teeth. Spraying on the deodorant she loved to breathe in so much.

All the things she wanted to be part of for ever.

For ever.

Wow. That was a much bigger mouthful than just ‘I love you'. For ever meant rings. And public declarations. And babies.
Family.
But the idea of a lean-legged, green-eyed little girl running around Tulloquay getting dirty didn't fill her with terror. It just made her smile even more.

Grant would make an amazing father.

The bathroom door opened and Kate looked up, certain every thought she'd just been having was still written on her face, but not caring. He'd know soon enough.

She silently opened the quilt to invite him back in to the warmth of her love.

 

It had been years since Grant had sung in the shower but this morning a tune practically fought its way out of him. He soaped up to its bass beat and rinsed off to the chorus.

He hummed. He smiled.

He shower-danced and nearly took the plastic curtain with him when he over-balanced during a Jackson Five heel spin with a head full of suds.

He prayed for the first time in…for ever. He closed his eyes and he thanked everything out there for the gift of Kate—a woman who could see him for who he should be, not who he had been. An intelligent woman who used her brain for more than just conniving business. A beautiful, loyal woman who wasn't afraid to share herself with him.

A woman that made him forget himself and talk about his mother. About wanting family. About his long, painful history.

A woman he could trust with his future. With his farm. With his heart.

Out of absolutely nowhere, this was the person he could see himself getting old with. Raising children with—doing a damn sight better job with his kids than Leo had done with him. Just when he'd begun to actually believe that he wasn't truly worthy of the love of a good woman any more than he'd been worthy of his father's.

Not that Kate had spoken of love, but her eyes had, and they both knew what a terrible poker face she had.

He killed the water and stepped out onto the mat, briskly drying off.

A few moments later he was dressed, combed and roughly shaved—any longer meant time away from Kate who was cooling her heels in his bedroom. Or maybe back in his bed, if he got lucky.

He smiled and reached for his phone, eager to get business out of the way just in case dressing truly had been premature. But somehow he found it hard to care this morning.

He flicked through a message from his phone-service provider offering to change his subscription, and his daily update from his broker, then his thumb wavered to a halt on the third message—from Mac Davis, his associate.

And his man in the city handling investigations into Tulloquay's conservation status.

Blood surged thick and hard through his heart in a series of painful beats. Twenty years of self-doubt instantly made him fear the contents of the message, instantly had his momentary joy curling up in a cringing ball. But then the memory of twenty hours with a bright, loving woman gave him the strength to suck it up, not to automatically assume the worst. Kate was not his father. He was worth her love.

And she was worth his. The woman he loved had given him her word.

He lowered his thumb and activated the message:

His chest squeezed so hard it gripped him like the start of a cardiac arrest before releasing him into a pool of pain and recriminations so overwhelming the phone clattered from his senseless fingers into the sink.

Lies—every single thing she'd said.

A joke—every single thing he'd said.

How she must have been laughing at him quietly as he'd spoken of family, of his mother, of his fears. As she had taken him by the hand and pulled him into the room his father had died in.
Inspired.
Was it triumph and not love glittering so wildly in her eyes as he'd buried himself deeper and deeper in what he'd thought was her goodness? Her honesty?

Her loyalty.

The time stamp on Mac's message was last night. She must have waited all of an hour before notifying the Conservation Commission of the location of the breeding site. If that.

He braced himself on the edge of the sink and lifted his eyes to the mirror. They blazed dark and furious back at him and he did nothing to mask them.

Let her see what she'd done.

Let her dream about this look on his face for the rest of her life.

The face of her betrayal.

K
ATE
crumpled her arms back into her chest, covering her vulnerability with a feather shield, conscious of having nothing but skin beneath the quilt, while Grant stood fully dressed and seething, blocking the doorway.

For a man who'd just stepped out of a steaming-hot shower, he was awfully pale. His eyes raged darkly at her and he half-strangled the mobile phone in his hand.

What?

She wanted to ask, but couldn't. Words just wouldn't come past the certainty that everything she'd just dreamed about was about to dissolve down into the sort of thing she was used to scraping off the rock's at Dave's Cove.

She just stared and mangled the quilt.

Grant recovered his voice before she did. ‘I've said it before, Kate. You have a terrible poker face. Given how pleased with yourself you looked as I came out of the bathroom, I hope you're not going to pretend not to know what's going on.'

She had to swallow twice before she could speak. ‘I have no idea.'

He tossed his mobile phone at her. She had to drop a corner of the quilt to catch it, but she sagged with it to the ground rather than do this naked in front of a man that was rapidly feeling like a stranger. She scanned the message on the tiny screen.

Her chest squeezed as she sucked in a short breath.

Her seals were safe. But then her gut lurched and tumbled as
she lifted her eyes to Grant's ice-cold ones. She was desperately glad to already be on the floor.

‘Well played, Kate. I have to say, I fell for every moment. The protestations of loyalty. Innocence. You even stooped to the dead-family card.'

Pain speared through her.

‘Those big brown eyes were enormously persuasive. Remind me to get an intern with similar—'

‘You think I did this?' she croaked.

‘Who else? Breeding site one day, buffer zone finalised the next. It's not that hard to connect the dots.'

‘It's government, Grant. They don't move that fast. They would have had to have the paperwork finalised a week ago to send you a confirmation today. That means it was a done deal already.'

‘Also your handiwork, I imagine,' he spat.

Her eyes fluttered shut. The Commission must have decided to ratify on the basis of her early research alone; it was the only possibility. It
was
her fault. She lifted her eyes again. He might hate her—fine—but he wasn't going to think she betrayed him. ‘I did
not
tell the Conservation Commission about the breeding site.'

His nostrils flared and she noticed for the first time how tight his clenched knuckles were. As though he was enduring something unendurable. ‘Irrelevant now. The encumbrance has been added to Tulloquay's title. The farm's unsellable.'

‘Grant, I'm sorry…'

He wrapped one white-knuckled fist around the front of the quilt where she bunched it together and pulled her to her feet, closer to his fury. ‘No, you're not. Or you wouldn't have done it.'

‘I
didn't
do it.' She held out his phone. ‘Not this. I gave you my word.'

‘Which apparently is as valueless as this farm.'

The missile hit its target. Her stomach clenched and she
felt the courage leach from her face. He wanted to believe the worst. It probably fitted perfectly with his view of the world. It probably protected him. But being on her feet did more than just equalise them physically. She felt stronger. Angry.

‘You'd already decided not to sell.'

‘I'd decided not to sell just
yet
. Big difference.'

‘So you weren't even planning to stick around at all? Then what was
this
?' She indicated the rumpled sheets around them, vividly recalling how every crease had been made.

He scooped up her lab uniform and tossed the ball of fabric at her. She let the clothes rebound off her like the insult they were. ‘
This
was an error of judgement on my part.'

The air sucked out of the bedroom as Grant stalked out of it. Kate fumbled her lab trousers on, not caring that they were inside out. In under sixty seconds she was in pursuit, fully dressed. Completely dishevelled.

She followed the sound of crashing and slamming to the kitchen. ‘Grant…'

She stumbled to a halt, unprepared for the ravages on his face as he spun violently. ‘You must have been laughing behind my back, knowing what you were going to do. Is that why you were so…vigorous last night? Celebrating? You heard the messages coming in one by one and you knew what they'd be about. Is that what it takes to get the virtuous Dr Dickson hot?'

Ice water plunged over her. ‘You'd like that, wouldn't you?'

He glared at her, shady and menacing. His enormous pupils virtually eclipsed the green that had once been there, as big and wild as they had been last night. Her treacherous body still found him beautiful.

She forced those feelings away. ‘It suits you for me to be a liar and a user because you have no idea what to do with someone who's genuine. Who's not out to swindle you. You have no idea what to do with someone good, someone genuinely trying
to find a solution that means neither of us had to lose. It's totally outside your experience. You've come to expect nothing but disappointment from life.'

‘You betrayed me.' A wildly unsteady finger pointed at her. ‘I gave you shelter. I gave you a lab. I let you in where no-one else got to go.' He banged his chest with an angry fist. ‘I helped you.'

Her lip curled and it was about as foreign to her as the rage seething off the man in front of her. ‘You helped
yourself
. Let's not dress this up—you gave me shelter so you could monitor my progress. You gave me lab space in the room your father suicided in rather than have to face the reality of what had happened in there. You revealed just enough of yourself to keep me wondering, to make me open up to you. Tell me
that
wasn't boardroom strategy.'

The hoarseness of his groan broke her momentum. ‘I
trusted
you, Kate.'

‘No, Grant.' Her voice cracked on his name and her heart followed a split second behind it. Living her pain, feeling his. ‘You never trusted me. Or we wouldn't be having this discussion.'

She turned and walked down the hall towards the room where her belongings were already packed. She'd send for the lab gear later, or she'd sacrifice the lot. She just didn't care.

When she returned, her belongings in tow, he was standing exactly where she'd left him, a granite monolith simmering like a latent volcano. It helped her to be calm. Like the eye of a cyclone.

‘Just so there's no misunderstanding…' she said, balancing her suitcase on its wheels and walking carefully up to him. She slid her hands resolutely up the warm, familiar arms that had held her so safe the night before and stared up at him hard. He kept staring straight over her head, his jaw rigid. ‘I did not alert the Conservation Commission. I did not betray you. I—' Again, something stopped her. Something that clearly sensed which way the wind was blowing. ‘I
care
for you too much to
hurt you like that. But if you let me walk out of this house you will not see me again.' She squeezed his arms for emphasis. ‘Ever.'

The eyes that she'd been dreaming about since she'd first met him remained locked on the far corner of the room for what felt like eternity. Then slowly—agonisingly slowly—they slid down to fix on hers.

‘Don't.' His voice wavered. ‘Don't you look at me like that.'

‘Like what?'

‘Like you care. Like you have anyone's interests but your own at heart.' He pried her hands off his forearms. ‘I was wrong when I said last night was a beginning. This can only be an end.'

Kate's pulse burst from its relentless hammering and bled out in her throat.

He stepped away from her and threw the kill shot back over his shoulder, hoarse and low.

‘I want you and your “I love you” eyes the hell out of my house.'