Stone Castles (10 page)

But what she could do . . . She retrieved her phone and found the picture Carmen had sent from the sofa. ‘This is Carmen, freezing her ass off in our apartment yesterday.'

Adam's eyebrows tweaked and he smiled. ‘Cute!'

‘Yeah, she is.'

‘Does she work at the investment bank with you?'

‘Not anymore. We started out as interns together but the work didn't suit her. Now she's got an administrative position at Rockefeller University, not far from our apartment on the Upper East Side. Although I think she secretly dreams about going back to California. She seriously does not like the cold.'

He handed the phone back. ‘Maybe you should have brought her with you.'

‘Hey, Pip. Adam.' Tracey said, as she joined them, Chloe gurgling happily in her arms. ‘How's it going?'

‘Hey, Trace,' Adam said, straightening up off the wall. ‘Nice christening.'

‘I'm really glad you could make it.'

Chloe was smiling and cooing like she knew the party was all about her. Pip couldn't resist. She lifted Chloe's tiny hand from her mother's shoulder and grinned at her, earning herself a smile so wide and unconditionally happy in return that it twisted her heartstrings as a long forgotten yearning ached deep inside her. She'd always imagined herself with children. Always assumed it would happen. But the last few years had been filled with career and advancement and babies had slipped off her radar. It wasn't like she was old, exactly, and she loved her job and the pace of life in New York, but now the dull ache of wanting something more awoke and stretched its wings inside her, and it was a battle to fold them back down.

‘God,' she said, trying to keep the wistful note from her voice, ‘this girl of yours is gorgeous, Trace.'

‘She weighs a ton,' her mother said. ‘That's what she does. I've had enough of her. Here, you take her for a minute and give me a break.'

This time Pip was only too happy to comply. ‘Sure, what else is a godmother for?' She reached for the baby, dressed in the long gorgeous christening gown. Chloe chuckled, bouncing on her arm, reaching for the hair working free from the twist behind her head – that damn curl again. Only this time she didn't really mind as she looked down into Chloe's grinning face. ‘Oh my god, you are just adorable.'

Adam reached out a hand and stroked Chloe's short curls. ‘Definitely a beauty,' he said, and Pip noticed his eyes were smiling at her and she wondered if she'd been a bit too encouraging.

Tracey didn't seem to notice anything, but then she was busy mopping up drool from her shoulder. ‘She's a party girl, all right. I can see I'm going to have my work cut out when she's a teenager. Oh, and, Pip, Craig's going to drop his mum and dad back home after the cake but he says he'll drop you around at the nursing home afterwards to pick up your car, if you can wait that long.'

‘Sure,' she nodded. They hadn't bothered to collect the Audi yet. ‘No hurry. He looks like he's pretty busy on the barbie.'

She looked over at the barbecue then, surprised to find Craig alone, wondering where Luke had suddenly disappeared to.

‘I'll give you a lift, if you like.'

Her head swung back to Adam, wondering again if she had given him the wrong idea or whether he was just a really nice guy.

‘Really?' Tracey said, her eyes wide, looking like he'd offered her a lifeline.

‘Sure,' he said, shrugging. ‘We were going to head off soon anyway. Jake's got homework to finish and I've got an early shift tomorrow.' And Pip remembered he had a son here, and so it wasn't like he could pull anything on her. She wouldn't mind slipping away now and skipping cake. The last few days were catching up with her and she wouldn't mind a little downtime.

Tracey beamed at Adam's offer. ‘That'd be great. What do you say, Pip?'

‘What'd be great?'

Luke had heard enough. He'd been hovering on the sidelines, exchanging how-are-yous and comments about the weather with a few people, waiting for a chance to catch Tracey alone and make his excuses. But it looked like she wasn't going anywhere in a hurry and he was in no mood to watch what was happening here a moment longer, not when Pip was standing there holding Chloe and looking like she could be the child's mother and with Adam standing alongside looking like he was ready to step in and play happy families whenever she said the word.

‘G'day Luke,' Adam said. ‘And goodbye. Pip and I are about to head off.'

Like they were a couple. He'd overheard the bit about the nursing home and knew they weren't going far. Still, he attempted a smile.

‘I'm just about to leave myself,' he said, not really interested in Adam, but still finding it easier to direct his attention to him and Tracey rather than at the woman holding the baby next to him. He'd always known Pip would make a great mum. He'd known she'd look great holding a child in her arms. A big family, she'd once told him she'd wanted. At least four kids. And back then he'd thought that sounded just fine.

But when he'd seen her standing here holding Chloe, with Adam's hand on the baby's head, somehow the picture was nowhere near as rosy. The fact it even bothered him meant he had to get out of here. Fast. ‘Just came to say thanks to Tracey.'

‘You're leaving already too?'

‘Harvest,' he said, cocking an eye at the sky. Out here a glance at the sky usually explained most things. He was relying on it now. ‘You know how it is.'

Tracey nodded and reached up to give him a kiss on the cheek, ‘Sure, we know. Thanks for coming, and for being Chloe's godfather. We really appreciate it.'

He let go a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. Because he hadn't wanted an inquisition. He'd just wanted to get away and he was just about home free. Except Chloe chose that moment to squeal, and there was no way he could ignore the child, or, more to the point, the woman who was holding her, a moment longer.

Chloe squealed again and pumped her arms and legs and squirmed against Pip's chest and he looked down to see Turbo sitting innocently at Pip's feet. And he'd have sworn his dog was almost grinning.

‘She's crazy about animals,' Tracey said, taking the baby back from Pip. ‘You guys go if you need to go. We'll see you later.'

Adam called out to his son, ‘Jake, you ready? We're leaving,' and a kid came running up. He took one look at the red stain on his son's T-shirt and said, ‘Bloody hell, mate, can't you even eat a sausage sanger without making a mess of yourself?'

And Luke realised why the kid had looked so familiar. He was like a mini Adam.

Bloody hell.

‘It's not my fault,' said the kid, glaring at Luke and about to earn himself a clip around the ear from his dad for his efforts when a mobile phone beeped and Adam reached for that instead.

He scowled when he looked at the screen. ‘Damn.'

‘What is it?'

‘Crash on the Wallaroo Road. Caravan's flipped. Ambulances are on their way. Jake, get someone to drop you home. Pip, I'm really sorry, but we'll have to take a raincheck. I'll give you a call about having that drink. I've gotta run.'

‘You get going,' Tracey said. ‘Back to Plan A. Craig'll drive Pip.'

‘No,' said Luke. ‘No need to bother Craig. I'm going that way. I can drop her off. There's something I have to talk to her about anyway.'

Chapter Fourteen

I
t would have been churlish to refuse. Despite the sizzling rush of sensation down her spine at his offer, despite the thunderous voice in her head warning her that being anywhere near this man who looked far better than any ex had a right to was the last place she wanted to be, it would have been out and out ungrateful to turn his offer down. Let alone protest there was nothing he needed to talk about that she'd want to hear.

It would have looked like she cared.

Which is why five minutes later she found herself in the front seat of Luke's ute.

Not that she was sitting next to Luke, by any means.

There was a dog between them, a red kelpie with intelligent eyes and a keen sense of atmospherics, judging by the way it looked from Luke to her and back again with something approximating a questioning glance. She'd never realised dogs could cock an eyebrow until now.

In fact, if she didn't know better, she'd have said the dog was protecting him.

Not that that she was about to throw it any challenges.

She stared out the window to assure the dog she wasn't interested in its master, and watched the passing parade of houses. Even out here, new suburbs had sprung up in places where there'd been nothing but bare paddocks before.

Evidently Luke noticed her looking. ‘Been a while since you've been back then? Place has changed a bit.'

‘Eight years. Came over for Fi's wedding, the last time.'

He nodded at the wheel. ‘Long time then.'

She shrugged. Eight years had gone quickly enough. ‘So what was this thing you needed to talk to me about?' Because she sure as hell wasn't here to make small talk.

‘Oh that, yeah. I've got some furniture I've been storing for you.'

‘Furniture? How come?'

‘From your old place. Just a few pieces that were worth saving. I've been storing them until you decide what you want to do with them. I forgot to mention it the other day when we ran into each other, and today seemed like a good time to ask, with the christening 'n' all.'

She stared at his profile, the profile of the face he absolutely refused to turn her way, no matter how intently she watched him. ‘That's very good of you,' she said flatly. ‘Only, why are they at your place?'

It was his turn to shrug. ‘Someone had to look after it.'

‘Why? I thought the house was let out furnished. I thought that was the deal when I moved to Sydney for uni.' She sure as hell hadn't been interested in hauling the furniture with her back then, and it had seemed the easiest solution to let the owner of the property deal with it.

This time he did turn and look at her, his brow knotted. ‘Didn't you know?'

‘Know what?'

‘Bloody hell,' he said on an exhalation, looking at the road again.

‘Why? What is it?'

‘The house is gone, Pip. Didn't anyone tell you?'

‘Gone?' She laughed. ‘What do you mean, it's gone?' But there was a note to her voice she didn't like, one that sounded more panic than challenge. ‘The last time I was here . . .'

‘That's eight years ago, Pip.'

‘Yeah, I know, but the last time I was here, the house was fine.' Looking shabbier than she remembered, but you'd expect that with tenants rather than share farmers. Even so, it had still been there, all late-nineteenth-century stone walls and tin roof and a wraparound verandah protecting the windows from everything the weather could throw at them. A big expansive house. A solid house. How could it be gone? ‘What happened? Did it burn down or something?'

‘It was levelled. Knocked down.'

‘Someone knocked down our house?' It had never been their house. Not really. It had come with the share farming job her father had done for a local named Sam Riordan, and they'd lived there for so many years it had felt like their house. But still she felt sickened to think it might be gone.

Was gone.

The sprawling kitchen with its original wood stove. The big lounge room with Gran's old pedal organ around which they'd gather and sing carols at Christmas. The big bedroom where she'd lain at night looking up the ceiling rose and dreaming of Luke, dreaming of the day they'd spent building castles in the mounds of limestone piled up between their adjoining properties.

Don't go there . . .

‘The tenants trashed it,' he said. ‘Pulled up the floorboards and planted marijuana crops in the ground beneath. Then they took off and left it with broken windows and a rusting roof letting in the rain along with the possums. It was a mess. It's a wonder there was anything left to salvage.'

‘But to knock it down?'

‘It would have cost a bomb to fix it and now his sons are old enough to help him out, it's not like Sam needs a share farmer. He figured he might as well use the land for cropping.'

She nodded, too choked up to talk. But they were nearly at the nursing home. There was no need to speak.

She fumbled with her bag as he pulled into the car park, pulling up alongside the red Audi as the sick to the stomach realisation dawned on her.

Crap.

She'd changed bags today, to a sleek little clutch purse instead of her usual carryall, and she'd forgotten one little thing.

‘I don't believe it,' she said, closing her eyes and leaning back on the headrest.

‘Problem?'

‘Slight problem, yeah. Seems I left the key in my other bag. Shit!'

‘So,' he said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘How do you want to play this? Do you want to go visit your gran, seeing you're here, and worry about getting back to Craig and Trace's later? Or go back to the party for now?'

Pip blinked at him.

Oh, god. He doesn't know.

‘Haven't you heard? Gran died two nights ago.'

*

He wished for a hole to swallow him up. ‘Aw, damn. I'm sorry, Pip, I didn't know.'

He should have realised, but he'd been so fixated on what she was doing with Adam that every time someone had said to him today that it was such a shame about Violet, he'd nodded and shaken his head and assumed it was because she was fading.

So much for the bloody bush telegraph.

But then he could hardly blame it when he'd been the fool who hadn't bothered to join the dots.

‘Craig and Trace wouldn't let me drive home that night.'

He nodded. Well, that would explain why her car was still here. He hadn't thought to ask that either.

‘I'm real sorry. She was a good woman.'

Pip nodded and sighed, not wanting to dwell on Gran or she'd start crying again, and she would not go there while she was sitting next to this man. Least of all when what she needed to do was work out what she was going to do next. She couldn't call Tracey and expect them to come pick her up. She'd call a cab and wait inside, that's what she'd do.

‘Well, thanks anyway for the lift,' she said, unbuckling her seatbelt.

‘What are you going to do?'

‘I'll call for a cab.'

‘You're kidding. A taxi all the way out to Craig and Tracey's? You'll have to pay for it to come back too. That'll cost a fortune.'

‘It's not that far.'

She heard him draw breath and readied herself to decline his offer to run her all the way back to the farm – she was pretty sure that was coming next.

‘Do you want a lift back to the party, then?'

She frowned. She wasn't bothered about going back for cake. ‘Not particularly.'

‘In that case, do you want to come out to my place and check out this furniture?'

‘Now?'

‘Unless you already have plans?'

Turbo sat between them, his head going from side to side like a spectator at the Australian Open tennis final, waiting to see who won the point.

Pip blinked. All the way out to his place? Together? Her teeth found her lip. Even with the dog riding shotgun, it was going to be a big ask. ‘And then what?'

‘Then I can run you back to the farm, you pick up the key and I'll drop you back here again. Problem solved.'

‘That's miles out of your way. Don't you have a harvest to bring in?'

‘Pretty much done. The weather's holding and I reckon I'll be done by Tuesday. So, how about it?' He paused. ‘You have to decide what you want to do with it at some stage.'

‘What kind of furniture?' she asked, wondering about the small table she'd found in Gran's room. ‘Any of it any good for Tracey's B&B? She's looking for some pieces.'

Any good and it might repay Tracey for her hospitality – and then she wouldn't have to think about it again.

‘I dunno. Come and have a look and you tell me.'

She guessed he was right. Might as well get it over with.

‘Okay,' she said, and clicked her seatbelt around her again as Turbo snorted and dropped his head on his front legs.

‘You know, I never picked you for a sports car kind of girl.'

Her lips pulled tight. They'd left the town limits behind, the ute cruising along the Copper Coast Highway at an easy one hundred kilometres an hour, and she'd been enjoying the quiet. They'd discussed the furniture and her gran. Surely that should have exhausted the things they had to talk about?

‘Or is that,' Luke continued, ‘the type of car you drive over there in New York?'

Apparently not.

Trust him to zero in on her least favourite topic of conversation.

‘I don't have a car in New York. There's no point in the city.'

‘So you thought you'd live it up a little when you came home.'

‘Not exactly. A friend booked it for me. I had no idea until I picked it up.'

‘A friend booked it.' He smiled at that, and she would have hit him if he hadn't been more than an arm's length away and if there hadn't been a dog sitting between them that would probably take her arm off if she tried.

‘Yes, a friend. And for the record, I would have been perfectly happy with a Toyota.'

He glanced at her, one eyebrow cocked. ‘But that would have been nowhere near as flashy.'

‘You think?' She looked out her window and her hand twitched and she thought maybe the dog and his fangs were worth risking.

‘So when are you heading back to the big smoke?'

She rolled her eyes. ‘Why?'

‘No reason. I just figure you won't want to hang around here any longer than you have to. Makes sense you'll leave the first chance you get.'

Her head snapped around, her lips tightly pressed. Was he judging her?

‘So when's the funeral?' he continued, seemingly oblivious to her bristling on the other side of his dog.

‘Wednesday.'

‘So, Thursday or Friday you'll head off then?'

She hated the way he sounded like he knew how her mind worked.

She hated even more that he was right. Her travel agent had confirmed a Friday afternoon flight out of Adelaide to connect with a late night flight to San Francisco and onward to New York. And the beauty of it was that she'd get home late Friday New York time, make her emergency hair appointment with Rikki on Saturday afternoon and be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for her interview on Monday.

It was seamless. Perfect.

It was a sign her life was getting back under control and she liked it.

‘So what if I am?'

He shrugged. ‘Just making conversation,' he said, but the smug tilt to his lips told her he was doing a hell of a lot more than that. He
was
judging her.

She looked out at the endless stubble-covered paddocks, gold on gold, the clouds of dust in the distance signalling another header at work, bringing in the harvest.

It wasn't a bad view. It sure beat looking the other way, with him sitting there in that grey suit and white shirt undone at the neck and with his big sure hands on the steering wheel.

She knew those hands.

She remembered them.

She remembered what they could do.

God, the man was infuriating!
If he wasn't baiting her with his comments, his very presence was reminding her of their shared past and all the things they'd once done together. She didn't want to remember.

She stared intently out the window, concentrating instead on the view.

She could see for miles here. So strange when she was used to seeing no further than the next intersection or the next building, and where the only gold was the endless sea of yellow cabs, and when the sky was a tiny patch of blue where the skyscrapers couldn't reach.

‘So what do you actually do over there?'

‘You mean my work?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I work for an investment bank. In the finance division.'

‘But what does that mean? What do you actually do?'

‘You really want to know?' She was wary. Most people's eyes glazed over when you mentioned investment banking.

‘Yeah, I really want to know. I've got no idea what you actually do for a crust.'

And because she knew her job and because she couldn't find an angle in his questions that came with some kind of attack, she relaxed a little. ‘Okay. Seeing as you asked, I work in market risk management. That means I get to analyse and report on the firm's exposure to risks in various markets. My area of expertise is the US market and I have colleagues looking after the European region and others in Asia, and together we build up a picture of the bank's global market risk.'

‘Wow.'

‘Sorry you asked?'

He shook his head. ‘Very impressive.'

‘Yeah,' she said, liking that he was impressed and relaxing into this other world she knew so well on the other side of the globe, a world where she felt in control and valued and somebody. Because her job
was
important and she'd ploughed herself into it one hundred and ten per cent. ‘It's a career you have to have a lot of passion for, of course,' she continued, echoing the sentiments she'd heard plenty of times from her superiors in the bank, and liking how it sounded. ‘It's intensive at the best of times, with long days and hard work, but there are rewards that come with that too, of course.'