A Kiss to Seal the Deal (16 page)

T
HREE
weeks had changed nothing about Tulloquay except the shiny new padlock on the gate. Kate stared at it and struggled not to weep.

She might as well not have come at all.

But Grant had not responded to her emailed requests to provide a date for her movers to collect the lab equipment and he certainly hadn't boxed it up and shipped it himself. So what choice did she have? Having made the enormously painful decision to come and collect it personally, having driven three agonising hours, she wasn't about to let a locked gate stop her. She climbed back into her car, reverse-parked it hard against the road edge then locked it behind her. Then she wiggled her way over the top of the locked farm gate and dropped down the other side, glancing around nervously, convinced she should be wearing a black balaclava.

Except she was stealing her own property. From inside Grant's house—officially, now that probate had settled. Today, in fact. Tulloquay was Grant's, and the Atlas colony was off-limits. But at least they were protected. The conservation buffer had seen to that.

And—despite everything—that was still an enormous achievement. One she was not sure she deserved.

After all, she'd been prepared to compromise them for love. Probably not the craziest thing anyone had ever done for a man, but certainly most out of character for her. She just didn't put
people before her work. Not usually. Her work was all she'd had for so long. It was certainly what was holding her together now.

Well, karma had certainly sorted her out, hadn't it?

She straightened her clothes and set off for the two-kilometre walk down the drive to the homestead. Fingers-crossed, Grant wouldn't have locked the house completely up so she could get a little packing done until he got home. The last thing she wanted to do was waste this entire journey just because McAss had somewhere better to be.

Just because she was too scared to call him.

Because she'd fall apart if she heard his voice.

She was counting on her Dickson pride saving her when she saw him in person, not letting her shed a single tear. She was counting on him still being so angry that he'd rile the beast inside her and she'd be too busy being furious to indulge the tears and tremors that she saved for under her pillow. That she tried to muffle even though she was totally alone in her apartment, the same way she'd cried in her first nights at Aunt Nancy's.

She picked up speed.

She was counting on it.

The south-coast sunshine streamed gently down on her as she jogged past paddocks devoid of sheep, the resulting grass longer than she'd ever seen it. Grant hadn't wasted any time in re-homing them—or butchering them. The man she left standing in the kitchen would be capable of it, for sure.

Figures.
He didn't strike her as a man to wallow long. If at all.

Ten minutes brought her to Grant's locked front door. For the first time, she worried that he might not even be here. What if he'd gone back to the city right after she had? Maybe that was why the gate was locked. A horrible thought streaked across her consciousness. What if he'd sold it, after all, and the shiny new padlock belonged to shiny new owners?

What if she really, truly
was
trespassing?

Heart in her mouth, she crept around the side of the house, hoping that old habits might die hard. Grant's city existence meant he locked the front door religiously but he'd not even been able to find a key for the back door, so that almost always stood unsecured. Unless he'd had the locks changed.

Please, please…

The knob turned easily in her hand.

The moment the door swung open, Kate's eyes began to water. The closed-up house smelled just like the man living in it, with the residual hint of the older man that had lived there for seventy years. The two McMurtrie men.

Both lost to her.

Had old Leo really got so deeply under her skin? She knew his son had. She should be in there packing her gear right now, not mooching around the kitchen door sniffing walls.

Caring like this was so foreign.

She threw her shoulders back and pressed on through the house. Nothing had changed inside but, for the first time, she realised that Grant had never really
had
much of his own to display. He'd lived in the same few outfits. He'd resisted letting any part of himself get comfortable in his father's house.

Stepping into the garage, she sighed. Everything was exactly as she'd last seen it—no, not exactly. A number of items had been carefully packed up into boxes but the rest lay where she'd left them. As though someone had begun to pack for her but then thought better of it.

He'd probably decided she wasn't worth the trouble.

She pulled a flat-packed box from the stack wedged down the side of Leo's ancient beer-fridge and folded it out into shape. Then she criss-crossed tape on it, placed a steriliser neatly in its centre, and padded it out with lighter, protective items. She wanted it to be light, given she'd likely be carrying these boxes to her car alone. As soon as she could get her car close.

Several other boxes joined the first before she paused for
a break. Not that she was tired from the packing, but she was tired from not sleeping. She was tired from all the crying. Tired from her two-kilometre jog here. Tired from over-thinking everything. Of having nothing but her work to keep her warm at night.

She was tired of being alone.

She'd been so careful her whole life not to let herself come to rely on anyone, not to let anyone too close—close enough that she might come to care for them. Close enough that it might break her heart to lose them. It had all but torn free back when she was a child and had lost her parents. She'd been super-careful to encase it ever since.

But Grant had snuck up on her, wiggled in under her radar and nestled himself deep in her limping heart. In some ways he'd even started to heal it, careful scabs forming over the old wounds. Until he'd brutally finished the job three weeks ago with his ugly accusations.

But she hadn't counted on him being more damaged than she was. That he could believe her capable of betrayal.

Leo's old chair beckoned from the corner. Kate crawled up into it, curled into a comfortable lump, and set the chair to spinning with a foot braced against the onion-pickling table that had become her lab workbench. She spun and she spun, pushing beyond dizzy, her eyes drifting shut with the hypnotic movement.

‘Leo…' She whispered to the empty space around her. ‘Help him.'

Everything around her was silent.

Her words were little more than a croak. ‘He's your son and he's hurting.
I'm
hurting. You raised him like this—untrusting and cautious—this is your mess to fix.'

Help him. I love him.

A single tear squeezed out from between clenched eyelids as she spun.

Immediately she was under water. Deep under water, where
the seals dived for the best, oiliest fish to sustain them through winter. She swam amongst the seals she knew so well—Stella, Dorset, Amy. She swam amongst their pups who'd grown big and lithe. All of them twisted and frolicked towards an underwater cave. She kicked out toward it.

Her face broke surface but it was dark inside the cave. Cold. The bitter air stung as it dried the salt water in her eyes and she searched around her for…what?

That man?

Suddenly there was an old man standing on the shore, with eyes as brilliant and green as the gems in the cave all around her. She swam towards him, towards shore, but never drew any closer. She grew exhausted from the exertion and still he just smiled. He radiated enormous rightness, standing on the shore of that hidden cove, a fish frying on a pan in the corner. Dry. Warm. At peace.

Leo.

His lips moved but she was too far to hear. Too much water filled her ears she was so far from him, yet she could see those eyes so clearly.

I can't hear you, Leo.

A pillar of bubbles surged to the surface. She was still underwater. Her lungs ached for the air she'd only dreamed she'd been taking in. Leo shook his head, unable to hear her. He smiled. Pointed up.

The seals called, high-pitched and luring, from the light above her.

Kate tipped her head back. A pinprick of light shone far above, far from the darkness of the deep sea. Too far to get to on what little oxygen she had left. She looked again at Leo.

His left hand pointed up. His right slid up over his heart.

She raised hers in farewell.

Seals twisted amongst her limbs, buffeting her, catching her up, surging with her to the surface. Salt water streamed past her eyes, blinding her, but she kept them focussed on the
pinprick of light that grew as she powered to the surface, closer and brighter.

The blue of the sky, except golden. The gold of Tulloquay's empty paddocks.

A comforting warmth seeped through her, radiating outward from her shoulder. Its existence registered dimly in her unconscious mind but grew in confidence as she pressed for the surface. So close.

So close.

Her eyes opened.

‘Hey.'

The verdant green of Grant's eyes were as warm as the whisper of his voice. Kate sucked in a huge breath and swiped at the salty tears running down her cheeks.

‘Please don't cry, Kate.'

Her heart contracted. Grant.

Every unconscious, sleep-deprived cell in her wanted to lurch into his arms, regardless of everything. But her conscious mind raced to catch up, censored. She shuffled backwards in Leo's chair instead.

Grant leaned back on his heels and lifted his hands carefully to his side away from her shoulder. ‘I'm sorry if I startled you.'

Her eyes felt like dinner plates in her head. ‘Why are you here?'

‘I live here.'

Right.
Everything was muddled but she had no idea why. Had she been asleep? The last thing she remembered was spinning in Leo's old chair. She frowned.
Leo.
Something about him…The harder she thought about it, the further away it slipped. ‘Why are
you
here?' Those gentle eyes narrowed.

But her subconscious reminded her how un-gentle they could be. She struggled to her feet, her limbs heavy and stiff. She turned back to her packing. ‘What time is it?'

Grant glanced at his watch. ‘Just after six o'clock.'

Kate snapped her face back to his, still muddled. ‘Six? I've been asleep for hours.'

‘I saw your car by the gate. You didn't hear me come in. I called out. I'm glad you came.'

She stared at him warily. ‘Why?'

‘Because I have a lot to explain. Because I'm sorry about how we parted.'

But not
that
they'd parted?

Sense was slowly returning. ‘I came for my gear. To pack.'

‘I started it for you.'

‘Yes. Thank you.'

‘But it killed me. Packing up your life. I couldn't finish.'

Kate's breath caught. Not because he couldn't be bothered. Not because it was in the room his father had died in…

Because he couldn't pack her up out of his life.

The tiniest glow of hope glimmered to life deep in her soul. She wrapped metaphorical hands around it to keep it from growing naïvely bright. Or was it to prevent it from extinguishing completely now that it had flickered to life again? Having found love, she was loath to let it go entirely.

‘I didn't alert the Conservation Commission.' For some reason that was still the most important thing for him to know.

He shook his head. ‘It doesn't matter now.'

‘It matters to me.'

‘Why is it so important that I believe you?' he asked.

Because I love you.
‘Because I honoured my word. I meant what I said about never wanting to tear someone's choices away from them. That means something to me.'

He frowned. ‘You still carry that with you?'

Being torn away from her home and community…? ‘Every day. It made me who I am.'

‘And who are you?'

She blinked at him. ‘Kate Dickson. Champion of seals.'

His smile was weak, but it was something. He dropped his eyes to his shoes for a moment, then lifted them back to hers—clear, open. As green as gems deep under the sea.

Again she frowned at the image her sub-conscious threw up.

‘You were right about more than just my father, Kate. You were right about me. I've become so accustomed to sniffing out the weaknesses in contracts, the crack through which the roots of exploitation twist… It's skewed my vision.'

‘You really believed I did it.'

‘I think I look for deception where there is none.' His large hand settled against her cheek.

She leaned her face into its warmth. ‘There's none here. I've tried so hard to be only honest with you.'

Grant stared at her. ‘Alan Sefton told the Conservation Commission about the breeding site.'

The mayor?
‘How did he know?'

‘Dad. I was arrogant to imagine there was an inch of this property he didn't know intimately. He lived on it fifty years longer than I did. Dad told Alan when he was getting his affairs in order. He wanted you to have it if you didn't find it yourself.'

‘Why would he not just tell me himself?'

‘It seems he wanted you to find it. To give you that joy. Alan was just biding his time in case you
did
find it yourself.'

‘Then he's known all along…' Lord, all the pain that might have been averted.

‘Timing's everything when you're a politician. He did what he believes is best for Castleridge.'

She nodded and stared at him. ‘It wasn't me.'

The grin dropped away. ‘No. I think I knew that. Once I stopped and thought about it with my head instead of my heart.'

His damaged, fearful heart.