Christmas at Candlebark Farm (7 page)

Keira planted her hands on her hips. ‘Excellent. I have an appointment with Mr Aldershot tomorrow. I mean to tell him that I'm considering pressing charges against Selway and Connors. Not that I am—I don't need the hassle—but he doesn't need to know that. I won't let on that I know he's part of it all, and I'll ask him to represent me.' She dusted off her hands.

John threw his head back and laughed. ‘Good for you, Keira. That should put the fear of God into him.'

She hoped so.

John held out his hand. ‘It was nice meeting you.'

‘Likewise—and thank you.' She'd drop around to his workshop tomorrow with a nice bottle of single-malt Scotch. He'd certainly earned it.

‘Great to see you, Luke.'

Luke clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Thanks for all your help. I appreciate it. Ever need a favour in return…'

John nodded and climbed into his truck. Keira lifted her hand in farewell as it pulled away, before turning back to survey her great-aunt's house. ‘It's nice, isn't it?' Homey. She could imagine a family living there—growing into it and loving it.

Luke leant on the ute beside her. ‘Yeah, it is. You won't have any trouble selling it. Especially with the park across the road.'

It
was
a pretty location. A child's paradise. It was the kind of house that if she saw it in the city and could afford it she'd snap up in an instant. A muffled weight settled over her shoulders. She didn't know why selling the house should make her feel sad—except perhaps that it was the only link she had to a part of her family she'd never known. The last of her family.

Now that she was pregnant, family had started taking on
a whole new dimension for her, and at odd moments its lack filled her with nameless fears. What if she died as young as her mother? Who would love and care for her child?

She knew it was pointless fretting about such what-ifs. She had friends who'd be more than happy to step into the breach. But it wasn't the same as being able to rely on family.

She turned to the man beside her. ‘Do you have a large family, Luke?'

He stared out to the front, his eyes narrowed as if against the glare of the sun—only the sun was behind them. ‘Not really.'

She waited. Nothing. ‘Parents?'

‘Yeah, but they retired to the coast nearly three years ago now.'

She digested that. Then stiffened. Tammy had died three years ago, hadn't she? Luke and Tammy might no longer have lived together, but surely Luke's parents would have stuck around to help Luke and Jason through such a terrible time?

She swallowed. ‘Siblings?'

‘An older brother—Evan. He married an English girl and emigrated.'

‘So…none of you are close, then?'

He glanced down at her. ‘We're not at loggerheads or anything.'

She'd never considered herself short, at five feet five inches, but Luke dwarfed her. She didn't want to find that so deliciously appealing, but she did. She didn't want to lean into him and gain strength from his mere presence, his very solidity.

Liar!

Well, okay…yes, she did. She wanted
that
a lot. But she didn't want to want it.

Don't get too used to relying on this man, she warned herself. She couldn't risk relying on anyone too much at present. She had to focus on her pregnancy and creating a wonderful
life for her baby. In eighteen months, two years—maybe then she'd be ready to let someone into their lives, but not yet.

‘My mother called me her change of life baby.'

Keira swung back in time to see him pass a hand through his hair. He smelt of dirt and grease and fresh-mown grass. Not one of those smells made her stomach churn, or had perspiration emerging as she tried to combat nausea. In fact she found herself kind of liking the way he smelled. It was refreshing after the heavy colognes of some of her friends in the city.

‘I came along when she was forty-six and my father fifty-three. Evan was already grown up at twenty-four.'

Wow! ‘It must've been hard, being the lone child among all those adults?'

‘It was all right.'

And that was when she saw it—as if he'd spoken the words out loud. Luke had felt like an intruder in his own family. She didn't know what sixth sense had suddenly fired to life inside her, making her see him so clearly. She didn't know what part of her could be so finely attuned to that same part of him, but her heart started to ache for the little boy he must once have been.

No wonder he'd searched for love with Tammy when he was only nineteen.

She slipped her arm though his and hugged it. He glanced down in surprise, but didn't detach himself. ‘Thank you for helping me out today. You've saved me thousands of dollars and months of delay.'

‘You saved yourself. You were the one who sensed something wasn't right.' His hands clenched. ‘I'm glad you did! I'm sorry you were almost taken advantage of like that.'

Beneath her hand, the muscles in his arms tightened. She rubbed her hand up and down it to ease the tension, dug her fingers into the muscle to find the knots and loosen them. ‘It wasn't your fault.'

He scowled. ‘What a great opinion you'll have of our country hospitality now.'

He glanced down at her hands, and she realised she'd started a full-blown massage on his arm. She leapt away. ‘Sorry.' She coughed to hide her confusion, shoved her hands into her back pockets. ‘Force of habit.'

He didn't move for a moment, but then one corner of his mouth kicked up. He lifted a shoulder. ‘There are worse habits to have.'

Her heart jumped and jerked. Her knees wobbled. ‘I…um…my opinion of country hospitality could take an upward swing if you wouldn't mind dropping in at the supermarket on our way home.'

His smile faded.

‘Don't worry about it,' she rushed on. Of course he had work he wanted to get to. ‘I can come back into town later.'

He shrugged again, but his tension belied the studied casualness. ‘We're here now. I'm figuring it won't take long?'

‘No time at all. I just want to grab some things for dinner.'

 

When they entered the supermarket, Luke scanned the crowd. Keira watched and waited. After a moment his shoulders unhitched a notch, and he insisted on pushing the shopping trolley for her. She let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd held, and handed the trolley over wordlessly.

She sped through the shop as quickly as she could, aware that Luke probably had a million things to do and not wanting to hold him up longer than she had to.

She dropped the last thing in the trolley. ‘There—that's it. Now we can make for the checkouts.' And home.

But when she turned she found her path blocked. ‘Oh, I'm sorry.'

She moved to one side, to let the woman pass, but the woman followed her. And then she pushed her face in close
to Keira's. ‘I hope you know what it is you're doing!' she hissed.

Keira backed up, but the trolley behind brought her up short. The woman was probably in her mid-sixties, and she was grey, drawn, thin. Everything about her was faded except her eyes, which flashed with sparks of bitter green fury.

‘That man you're with—you know he's a monster? That he's a heartless murderer!'

‘G
RAN,
don't.'

Keira blinked. ‘Jason!'

Jason stood beside the woman, his eyes downcast. Keira tried to pick her jaw up. This was…Tammy's mother? And she blamed Luke for Tammy's death? Bile rose in her throat. Luke was no murderer. She knew that as surely as she knew her own name.

‘Gran, this is Keira. She's renting our room.'

The pleading in Jason's voice caught at Keira's heart. He might as well have saved himself the bother, though. His grandmother's venom had already moved from Keira to the man standing behind her.

‘Hello, Brenda,' Luke said quietly. Those grooves either side of his mouth deepened. His skin had turned grey.

‘How on earth can you bear to show your face in this town? I
spit
on you, Luke Hillier!'

Thankfully she didn't literally put the threat into action, but her words made Luke pale even further. His jaw had set so hard Keira feared for it. She remembered what John had told her about the viciousness of small-town gossip and acid burned her stomach.

‘C'mon, love…'

A man—Jason's grandfather, Keira guessed—sent Luke a glare of loathing before leading his wife away. Jason stared from them to his father in anguish. Keira's heart broke for
him. She touched his arm and tried to smile. ‘Would you like a ride home?'

He glanced up at his father. ‘Uh…yeah.'

‘I'll wait for you both in the car. You'll carry the groceries for Keira?' Luke said. ‘Yeah, sure.'

Keira's heart broke for Luke as he strode away too.

She turned back to Jason, took in his school uniform. ‘It's a bit early for school to be out, isn't it?'

‘Last day of term,' he mumbled. ‘There was an assembly.'

‘Right.' She didn't need to ask why Luke hadn't attended. That reason had become startlingly and horrifyingly clear.

‘I'm sorry…' he shuffled his feet ‘…'bout all that.'

‘Oh, Jason, it's not your fault.'

His face twisted. ‘Then whose fault
is
it? Dad's? Gran's and Grandad's?'

‘I'm not sure it's anyone's fault.'

She manoeuvred the trolley to a nearby checkout. Jason started unloading the groceries. Keira didn't try to help. She didn't remonstrate at his rough handling of the vegetables or eggs. She sensed he needed something to do with his hands. Though he did his best to hide it his agitation was evident, and she wanted to do whatever she could to soothe it.

‘People react in different ways when they lose someone they love. Sometimes in irrational ways.'

‘But—'

He broke off, as if he'd been about to say something and then thought better of it. She didn't press him. ‘
My
mum died when I was fourteen.'

He spun to stare at that. ‘Yeah?'

‘It was awful—the worst time of my life. You know all about that, though.'

He shrugged and nodded. He didn't back away from her as he had up until now.

‘But I can't imagine how awful it would be to lose a child. It's the wrong order, you see. Children are supposed to outlive their parents.'

Jason's brow creased. ‘So you think it might be harder for Gran and Grandad to accept that…that Mum's gone than anyone else?'

‘Maybe.'

‘They hate Dad.'

Keira swallowed. That had been all too evident.

‘They say that because they'd separated and weren't living together any more that proves he didn't love Mum.'

How on earth could his grandparents do this to him—tear his loyalties like this? She did her best to keep her voice even. ‘I think there must be more than a hundred different kinds of love in the world. Just because your mum and dad weren't living together any more it doesn't mean they'd stopped caring about each other. What do you think?'

Jason scuffed the toe of one sneaker against the floor. ‘Dunno.'

‘Have you tried talking to your dad about it?'

He glanced away. She recalled how shuttered and closed-off Luke could be, and grimaced. She wasn't sure if she'd be brave enough to broach the subject if she were Jason, either.

She paid for the groceries and went to lift her share of the bags, but Jason beat her to it. ‘Dad told me to carry them,' he muttered.

For a moment he so reminded her of Luke that her lips twitched. She straightened, placed her hands on her hips. ‘Did your dad tell you that I'm pregnant?' She didn't mind if he had. It wasn't a secret. She'd already spread the news far and wide among her friends.

Jason's jaw dropped. He stared at her stomach. ‘Are you?'

‘Yep.'

His eyes lit up. ‘Sweet!'

‘I think so.'

He grinned. It stunned her. She hadn't seen him grin before, and it transformed him completely. It caught the awkwardness of his age perfectly—trapped somewhere between childhood and adulthood. It brought all her maternal urges rushing to the surface, turning her to mush.

‘Am I supposed to offer you my arm or something?' he said, mock gallant, but grinning like an idiot.

Laughter spurted out of her. ‘Try it and I'll box your ears.'

That was when it occurred to her that what Luke and Jason needed was a bit of fun in their lives.

 

Luke couldn't believe it. When Keira and Jason emerged from the supermarket they were…
laughing
!

Keira had obviously told Jason she was pregnant, because all the way back to Candlebark they tossed around babies' names, of all things. As if that incident in the supermarket had never happened.

The ute didn't have a back seat, so they all had to ride in the front. Keira sat in the middle. Every now and again the movement of the car had her shoulder brushing his. Each and every time a wave of vanilla would engulf him.

The scent didn't soothe him. It attacked all his nerve-endings, fraying them with a relentless reminder of all he'd turned his back on, of a life he could never have—a life that held softness and sweetness and bone-deep contentment.

He'd turned all those things to dust for Tammy, and every time he saw Brenda and Alf it was like a scab being ripped off an old wound. He deserved their hate and censure, but
they
deserved to find some peace. Every time he saw them guilt swallowed him whole because he knew they hadn't found it.

And seeing him only made it worse for them.

He bit back an oath. It was why he avoided going into town wherever possible—to try and spare them at least that
much. And look where his Good Samaritan act had landed him today!

From the corner of his eye he glanced at Keira. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find it in him to regret helping her.

‘What do you reckon, Dad?'

Luke shook himself. ‘Sorry?'

‘What's your favourite name for a girl? In case that's what Keira has?'

He didn't know why Jason was so fascinated by Keira's pregnancy. ‘I…dunno.' He shrugged. It was nothing to him.

‘Well, what if it's a boy, then?' Jason persisted.

Luke wanted out of the cab of the ute—fast. He turned into the driveway at Candlebark, eased his foot off the accelerator when what he really wanted to do was floor it.

‘Well?'

‘Uh…Jason.' He latched onto that. ‘Jason is a good name for a boy.'

He pulled the ute to a halt by the barn.

‘What other names did you and Mum have picked out?'

The question froze Luke's blood. ‘I can't remember.' He shot out of the car. ‘Got work to do!' he fired over his shoulder.

‘Need a hand?' Jason called after him.

Luke shook his head and kept walking.

 

When Luke pushed through the back door that evening he stumbled to a halt, half frozen in the act of hauling off his hat and dragging his forearm across his brow.

Someone had stolen his kitchen.

And replaced it with a picture of domestic bliss. He blinked. The scene didn't waver and disappear. He tried to raise Brenda and Alf's faces to his mind, to temper the gratitude that raced through him—he didn't deserve this—but that didn't work either.

Keira stood by the stove. Jason sat at the table chatting to her. The table was laid with a red and green checked cloth and the cutlery shone. A glass bowl of salad sat in the middle of the table, and Keira now turned to set a bowl of warmed rolls beside it. She sent him one of those trademarks smiles of hers, and the weight of the afternoon lifted from him.

‘You're just in time.'

He nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

And then she leant down and pulled a lasagne from the oven. It looked great. It smelled even better. His mouth started to water. ‘Did you make that?'

‘She did.' Jason shook his head in awe. ‘From scratch!'

Luke washed his hands and took his seat. He dragged the scents that filled the kitchen into his lungs. He savoured the way his shoulders and arms ached from the afternoon's hard digging.

Keira set a plate of lasagne in front of him, and he wondered if she knew how lovely she looked with damp tendrils clinging to her neck and around her temples. She'd scraped her hair up into some kind of topknot, obviously to keep it out of the way while she'd been preparing the food. Her skin had a healthy rosy glow. She looked good enough to eat.

‘What?' She touched a hand to her face. ‘Do I have tomato paste on my face or something?'

He yanked himself around. ‘No, I…uh…this looks great.'

He couldn't remember the last time he and Jason had sat at the table and had a meal together. He touched his knife, fingered the tablecloth. They'd used to eat together in the lounge room, with the television on, but somewhere along the way Jason had gravitated towards the computer in the evenings and Luke had holed up in his study to keep on top of the farm accounts.

‘It's the least I could do after all your help today.'

‘Keira told me what you did,' Jason piped up. ‘That was pretty cool, Dad.'

Luke couldn't remember the last time Jason had paid him any kind of compliment either. And it felt good.

In fact it felt great.

Keira must have noticed the way he fiddled with the tablecloth, because she said, ‘I found it in the linen press. I hope you don't mind?'

‘No.'

She took her seat too. ‘It seemed kind of Christmassy, and as it
is
the season to be jolly and all…'

Luke didn't answer. In all honesty he'd forgotten it was Christmas.

‘Tuck in,' she said. ‘Help yourselves to salad and rolls. Eat up while it's still hot.'

Neither he nor Jason needed any further encouragement.

‘So,' she said after a bit, ‘what do you guys do for Christmas?'

He shrugged. ‘Nothing.' Jason usually spent Christmas with Tammy's parents. ‘It's just another day around here.'

Her cutlery clattered back to her plate. ‘What do you mean? You take the day off, don't you?'

‘Nope.'

‘But…but don't you have a special meal, and exchange gifts, and play Christmas carols and charades and pull Christmas crackers?'

Luke shook his head. Since Tammy had died they hadn't had the heart for Christmas.

Luke's forkful of lasagne halted halfway to his mouth when he saw Jason staring at Keira with a kind of enthralled fascination. ‘What do
you
do?' his son asked.

Keira picked up her knife and fork again. ‘There's a group of my friends and we've dubbed ourselves The Orphans. Not that we all are, mind, but those of us who don't have family, or who can't visit them for Christmas, all get together for a
big seafood buffet. We eat too much, play silly games, and just generally have a rowdy old time.'

‘That sounds…kinda cool.'

Luke stared at him. It did?

‘It is.'

He tried to ignore the glare she sent him.

‘Keira was sick this afternoon,' Jason suddenly announced.

‘Ooh, traitor!' She pointed her fork at him.

‘She said it's normal. Is it?'

‘Yeah, sometimes,' Luke assured him. He surveyed Keira through narrowed eyes. ‘How are you feeling now?'

‘Very well, thank you. I had a nice cup of liquorice tea and it settled my stomach nicely.'

‘Keira said you were the one who put her onto that?'

Luke ran a finger beneath the collar of his T-shirt. Was the darn woman set on becoming the all-dancing, all-singing president of his fan club or something? He grunted. ‘It was nothing.' He shovelled the last of his lasagne down. The domesticity in the kitchen was starting to wrap around him too tightly.

‘Did Mum have morning sickness?'

The lasagne threatened to rise again. Luke swallowed hard. ‘For a bit.'

‘Would you like seconds?' Keira asked, sending him one of those shiny smiles of hers.

She half rose, but he shook his head. His appetite had fled.

Jason suddenly burst out with, ‘Were you and Mum as happy about having a baby as Keira is?'

Luke tried to stop his jaw from dropping. Ice streaked from his scalp down to the soles of his feet. He didn't have the energy, the strength…the
heart
for this. ‘Keira's carefully planned becoming pregnant. Of course she's happy to find out that that all her hard work hasn't been for nothing.'

Jason scowled, the familiar surly teenager re-emerging. ‘And I wasn't planned.' It was a statement, not a question.

What on earth…? Jason already knew all this. Luke pushed out of his chair. ‘We were nineteen. We were petrified.'

He couldn't stand remembering that time—the mistakes he'd made…the miscalculations.

Without another word he strode out through the door and into the gathering darkness.

Keira stared in disbelief as the door slammed shut behind Luke. She turned back to the scowling teenager and swallowed. Was Luke deliberately trying to alienate his son?