So Far Into You (4 page)

Was Remy with Blake?

Was she running on some lonely wild beach, chasing Blake's puppy along the shore?

The vision seared his brain before he could block it. Remy's golden spray of hair blowing in the salt breeze; her feet digging into the heavy sand, gorgeous legs working overtime.

Not good.
He banged the empty coffee cup on his hip.

Seth couldn't remember a time when the most important thing in his life wasn't work: the next deal, the next acquisition, the next export push. That had changed in less than twenty-four hours and his world felt off-kilter as a result, but brighter. Like Tinkerbell had sprinkled him in fairy dust and he couldn't shake off the glitter.

For the first time in a long time, he wanted to empty his suitcase and hang the stuff in the cabin in the big wardrobes he never used. He wanted to know if his fishing gear was still in the shed out the back and whether the boat would start if he kicked the engine over, whether there was bait buried in the bottom of the big chest freezer.

He wondered if Remy liked fishing.

Seth packed his breakfast cutlery into the dishwasher, threw a week's worth of jocks and socks in the washing machine and contemplated the day ahead. His head felt thick, whether from lack of sleep or too much of it, he wasn't sure.

How did Remy spend her Sundays? Her work mobile number would be in the staff list on his computer. He could ring her. Find out.

Or not.

It went on like that for a while. He weighed the pros for seeing her again outside of work (of which there were few) stacking up against the cons for not calling her (of which there were many). They included the mountain of emails and paperwork he had to get through before he left for Bordeaux on Tuesday.

The pros were by far the more tempting.

Then a vehicle on the driveway into the cabin snagged his attention.

It was Blake and judging from the surfboards on the roof-racks, he'd already been for a surf. He'd be hanging out for a coffee. Pity the cabin pantry wasn't stocked or Seth could cook him bacon and eggs. For now, toast was the best he could do.

***

Seth filled ten minutes or so answering Blake's questions about his latest overseas trip and he was itching to get to the harder stuff.
Remy.
He knew how she felt about Blake. Now he wanted to know how Blake felt about her. If Blake intended to make a play for Remy, Seth would step back, no questions asked.

Blake had seen her first. It was the honourable thing to do.

‘So, big day yesterday?' Seth said, when they each had a coffee cup in their hands and sat sprawled in the two cane chairs in the front room.

‘Too big.' Blake downed the last of his coffee in a gulp and let out a deep groan. ‘I needed that.'

‘Things kicked on after I left?'

‘Kicked like a steel-capped mule.' Blake made a face. ‘A few of us ended up back at my place. Busted out a bottle of Jimmy Beam about two o'clock.'

‘Glad I went home.' Seth was glad he'd taken Remy home, too. She didn't need to get caught up in Blake's circle. Those boys partied hard. ‘So, I got a few questions for you, bro. Are you up for 'em?'

‘Shit.' Blake winced. ‘What did I do now?'

‘Mum and Rina cornered me yesterday at the festival, about you and Remy Hanley.' Seth tried her name on his tongue and found he liked it.

‘Me and Remy?' Blake scrubbed his salty mess of hair. Grains of sand somersaulted to his shoulders then the floor.

‘Yeah.' Seth held his breath, waiting for Blake's answer.

‘Sure I kind of sussed her out the first few weeks, when she started working for us. What guy wouldn't? She's gorgeous.'

He had to stop himself nodding agreement. He waited. Waited some more. Blake would fill the silence eventually. He always did.

‘But you know? I never got the sense she was interested not really, and shit, man—' Blake crossed his opposite foot and rested it on his knee, knocking more grains of sand that had stuck to his foot. ‘I mean, you wrote that damn workplace policy for all the staff. No bonking in the barrel hall, remember? No personal relationships in the workplace. Remy needs her job. I don't want to make that hard for her. She's had a rough enough trot as it is.'

‘What sort of rough trot?' It annoyed him that Blake knew Remy best. It annoyed him that Blake knew her at all. It shouldn't, but it did.

That annoyed him too.

‘Her old man died at the start of the year. Now there's a bloke that you wouldn't piss on if he was on fire.'

‘Why?'

‘He drank everything he ever earned, and pretty much everything Remy's mother ever earned. He wrote himself off the night he crashed his car. Remy says they're just lucky he didn't take anyone else with him. She cut her last year of viticulture at university short to come home when he died.'

The conversation lapsed while Seth thought that through, and then he remembered his original thread: ‘So there's nothing going on between you and her? When you take off surfing full-time next year, you won't be zipping her in your board bag or anything?'

‘She wouldn't come with me. I just told you she needs her job. She's serious about her career.' Blake squinted across the space: ‘And who told you about the surf tour anyway?'

‘Ailsa,' Seth conceded absently, as the knowledge Blake and Remy weren't a
thing
pulsed through him. ‘But you've talked about it before. No surprises there.'

‘So what do you reckon my chances are?'

Seth shrugged. ‘You'll have to get your shit together. Quit partying.'

‘That's easy if I've got something to work for.' Blake's eyebrows quirked. ‘What? You don't think I can do it?'

‘On your best day you can mix it with anyone. But day in, day out? Big surf, crap surf? Whether you're in the zone, or not? That's another thing. You've never stuck at anything long enough to find out how good you could be.'

Blake launched into the same theme Seth had heard for years. How this time he was serious. How this time he was sure.

Seth tuned out. His brother cycled through life. Every six months or so he'd decide to knuckle down at something, whether that was surfing or work or study, then next time they spoke it would be travelling through Europe that was the hot idea, or buying a motorbike and riding around Australia. Blake was a spinning top. You never knew what he'd turn to next.

Seth crossed his right ankle over his left leg and the two men sat there for a while, mirror images, thinking. Although Seth guessed they were thinking very different things.

‘Ailsa and Rina say Remy's only after one thing, and it's not your body,' he said.

‘She's not after money,' Blake snorted. ‘Not Rem.'

Rem.
The familiar way Blake shortened her name annoyed Seth too.

Blake said: ‘I can't even buy her a cup of coffee without her getting all huffy. I took her fishing to Augusta in your boat a few weeks back and she wanted to pitch in for the petrol.'

‘You took my boat to Augusta?' What Seth really wanted to say, so hard it hurt his chest was:
you took her fucking fishing?

‘Hey, it's been sitting in the shed most the year doing nothing. I thought I was doing you a favour.'

Seth forced himself to relax. He couldn't shake the feeling this was something else his brother got to do with Remy first. ‘Did you catch anything?'

‘Half a dozen whiting, some crabs. It was fun. She baits her own hooks. Casts like a pro. She guts her own fish. She bought me a beer at the Augusta pub after and then she beat me at pool and won her fuel money back. She likes dogs. Powderfinger is her favourite band. She never orders pineapple on pizza but she loves anchovies and extra chilli.' Blake rose from the cane chair, stretching his back. ‘Remy's a mate. I like her a lot. Don't think I don't know when you're on a fishing expedition of your own, big brother. I may look like a surfer dumb-arse, but I'm not stupid.'

‘I never said you're stupid. Dumb-arse, on the other hand—'

Blake wasn't finished. ‘Mum never thinks any girl we meet is good enough, going way back since school. You know that. And if Rina saw what I saw yesterday at the park, she'd be filthy about it too.'

‘What the hell?' Seth's foot slipped from where it had been propped against his knee and met the timber floor with a thump.

Blake put his cup on the kitchen countertop. ‘Rina has been trying to work out where her toothbrush could fit in your bathroom from the day you hired her. I might have been pissed yesterday, but that doesn't mean I missed your superhero act with Remy. Neither did Rina. Count on that.'

‘Bullshit,' Seth said.

‘Bullshit nothing,' Blake declared. ‘You and Mum think the sun shines out of Rina's pointy little arse. You don't see what I see, or what the rest of the staff put up with. She takes credit for ideas that aren't hers. You guys promoted her into the executive team—against my vote by the way—and now she uses that to intimidate people. Staff are worried if they do anything to piss Rina off, they'll get the sack. Everyone knows she sucks up to you and Mother like you wouldn't believe—'

Frustration brought Seth to his feet. ‘Don't chime in now after swanning around in logistics for a few years pretending to work. You and Rina don't see eye to eye because you are polar-fucking-opposites. You take a sickie if you stub your big toe. Rina'd have to be dying before she didn't show up for work.'

‘How many female winery staff has Rina employed since she's been with us?' Blake said, his frustration matching Seth's, voice rising.

‘Jesus, I don't know, Blake. Not many, but what the heck? It's a male-dominated industry.'

‘She hires men because she doesn't want any women working around you on the off chance one of them catches your eye. If hiring Remy had been Rina's decision, Rem wouldn't be here.'

‘Rina is the reason I've been able to spend the time growing the brand this last few years. I don't have to worry about the day-to-day winemaking program anymore because she handles it. She's damn good at her job—'

‘Whatever, dude. Saint Rina lives. At least I've said my piece,' Blake put his hands up in mock resignation, but clearly he was ready to go. As he walked out the door he looked back and added, ‘For what it's worth, I think you and Remy would be good together. You need someone who can lighten you up a bit, make you laugh. Thanks for the coffee.'

‘You think I don't laugh enough now?'

‘Seth … come on, man. It's me here. You don't laugh at all.' And he was gone, leaping down the front steps to his car.

Seth shut the door behind him.

It was fine for his brother to take life as a big fuck-off rainbow. Blake didn't have a multimillion-dollar wine business to build. He didn't have twenty staff dependent on him making good decisions about that company's future growth.

So he didn't laugh enough, hey?

In the end, it made the decision about what to do with his Sunday easy. Seth grabbed his jacket from the hook beside the front door. A minute later he dug a picnic rug out of the linen closet in the cabin's spare room, and snatched up his wallet and keys.

***

Remy was in the sunroom, contemplating the broken flyscreen and the flies caught between the wire and the glass, when she heard the dog bark next door. Then one of the kids shouted, ‘Hey, Leo, that car's back again. The black one.'

‘The black one? Sick!'

Dashing through the kitchen, she peered out the front window and was in time to see Seth's GTR nose behind the hedge. Seeing it was enough to start the rapid thud in her chest. Thank heavens for the dog and those boys. Seth's car was so quiet she'd never have known it was there.

His car door slammed.

Hell and Tommy. He's coming in.

Remy ran to the kitchen and grabbed a grey plastic shopping bag. Then she ran to get the jacket from the back of the chair and folded it, laying it carefully inside the bag. She contemplated the resilience of the package for a full two seconds then ran back to the kitchen, grabbed a second bag in which to wedge the first, and fled for the front door. That put her on the porch clutching the precious bundle before Seth reached the steps.

‘Hi,' she said, knees like jelly, heart like a hammer, hoping with every breath that Seth wouldn't look too closely at the house or at her. She had no make-up, no jewellery. She must look as much of a wreck as the house.

‘Hey.'

They spent a mini-age just looking at each other before he smiled. Not a proper smile, more a tilt of his lip and a light in his eyes, but it was sexy as all hell and it made her smile too.

‘Did you need your jacket early?' she asked him, holding out the package. She couldn't think of any other reason why he'd come here.

Seth took the jacket, but said: ‘No. Not really. I came to see if you'd like to take a drive with me.'

‘A drive?'

‘Yeah. I thought maybe a picnic.'

‘A picnic?' What did that mean exactly?

‘Picnic.' He said it nice and slow, like he was teaching math to the dog next door. ‘We take a rug and some food and a picnic basket. Except all I have is a cardboard box. I've been to the markets at the Old Hospital. I have crackers and brie, olives and a smoked salmon dip, and I bought a container of dolmades.' He stopped. ‘Do you know dolmades?'

‘Of course. I can tell you the difference between sushi and sashimi too.' The minute she said it, she kicked herself for showing off. Pride would be her ruin—wasn't that what her mother said? Sushi was raw fish, and sashimi was a style of raw fish. Wasn't it? Something like that?

It didn't matter anyway, because he never asked her to substantiate her raw fish know-how.

Remy stared at her feet. They were bare, which was the norm when she was at home. She was wearing a white t-shirt, because it was warm and she'd been about to start work. Making phone sex calls for White Knights was water off a duck's back after two and a half years, but that didn't mean the sexy storytelling didn't get her temperature up. She'd paired the t-shirt with three-quarter denim jeans that had butterflies stitched on one thigh.