Trouble in Nirvana (18 page)

“About March.”

“Is Delilah your truffle hunter?” The grey ears pricked up at the mention of her name.

Tom laughed. “No, she’s a bit past it. I’ve hired in an expert for the last crops but I think I’ll buy another dog and train it myself. Doesn’t take long apparently.”

Primrose gazed around the field. The trees stretched along the river bank and back up the slope toward the buildings. Must have taken ages to plant them all. By comparison Danny had done nothing. His land was all natural bush or cleared pasture land—empty of stock apart from the small orchard and the garden patch. Now Tom owned the land on the far side of the river as well and he’d put it to good use. Profitable use from what he’d told her. Even she knew truffles were an expensive and highly sought after delicacy.

Didn’t seem to need much cultivation. They grew themselves. Why couldn’t she and Danny plant their land the same way?

“Could Danny grow truffles?”

Tom tilted his head in thought. “He could. It’s like any other crop, takes hard work, knowledge and luck with the weather.” He scanned the newly washed blue sky, empty save for a few billowy white puffs of cloud over the hilltops.

“But you could advise him, couldn’t you?”

His gaze swung from the heavens down to her, assessing. Very sceptical. “If he wants to go into it, sure. The trees aren’t cheap to buy and there’s a fair bit of work to get things started. It’s pretty hit and miss crop wise. May not get anything for years. I’ve been lucky, but it’s been five years.”

“But he’ll have the money you’re paying him for the land.”

He raised an eyebrow. “He might have other ideas about where to spend it. Anyway, I thought he wasn’t going to be selling any more land. And if he does where are his trees going to go?”

Why couldn’t he be a little bit positive? “We wouldn’t need as many acres as you.”

“True.” Tom nodded. “In theory there’s no problem.”

“In practice?” His calm stonewalling made her want to grab the front of his shirt and give him a good shake. Where was that passionate man who could barely wait to make love to her? He spoke to her as though she was an interested stranger rather than a woman he’d chased after in the middle of the night. How could he switch it off so completely?

“Danny may not want to grow truffles. It’s very risky. It’s really an untried crop and market in Australia. All speculation. And he may want the money for something else.”

He’d said that before. Did he know something she didn’t? They’d looked very comfortable together in the shed yesterday. Tom and Danny had some man thing going. Secrets. “What something else?”

“The baby? Fixing the roof?” He shrugged and strode away down the slope to the river. Primrose clumped after him in her large boots which were fine in the henhouse but too sloppy for comfortable walking on the uneven ground. “Water level’s dropped,” he called. He turned and came back. “I’ll drive you home.”

Home? She’d forgotten about leaving, forgotten she was a visitor here. Nirvana didn’t feel like home. Fairview did. Maybe the bridge would still be impassable. With any luck. Except Tom didn’t want her here. What was she thinking? Of course he didn’t want her here, and she didn’t want to be any more beholden to him than she already was.

“Or you could go cross country,” he suggested with a little snort of laughter. “Much shorter.”

“Is the river passable?” Was he serious? Did he expect her to swim?

“There’s a ford—the water comes to Cindy’s knees normally but the current’s up today and there’s a fair bit of storm debris so no, it’s probably too rough.” His glance caught hers with an unmistakably amused glint. “Unless you feel like a swim.” He continued tramping solidly up the slope.

Primrose jerked her legs into action. Uphill was harder work. Her feet slipped about inside the boots so she floundered along behind his competent figure like a beginner ice skater. “Not really. Do you swim in there?”

“Yep. There’s a good deep pool just near the bend.” He stopped and pointed to the right. A small shed stood on the bank and irrigation pipes meandered out across the paddock.

“Kurt swims in the creek. It’s his bath.”

“No leeches?”

Primrose stopped, adjusting her posture to relaxed casual before he turned around. “Yes but they don’t bother him.” Smiled. “So he says.”

“It'd be the other way around, I reckon.” Tom grinned and she giggled.

But the whole Kurt issue loomed in her mind, a dirty, foul-smelling cloud of pollution. Returning to the commune meant returning to the tension and the mania and the total uncomfortable lunacy of the situation. “I wonder if Danny’s done anything about him yet.” Impossible to keep the unease and dread from her voice.

They reached the gate to the driveway. Tom swung it open and waited for Primrose to walk through. He slipped the chain back on the hook. “No idea.” So calm, so uninterested. No, that wasn’t the word—disinterested was more like it. The goings on next door didn’t affect Tom one way or another, other than to provide the occasional entertainment.
She
didn’t affect him one way or the other. Except in regard to his friendship with Danny.

Maybe he’d give her a straight answer if she took him by surprise.

“What did Danny come to see you about, Tom?”

He didn’t, he took evasive action. “He often comes over for a chat.”

Primrose gave up. “I’ll get my shoes,” she said as they walked around to the back door.

“Keep those boots if you like.”

“Thanks, I will.” She levered them off on the step before going into the house to retrieve her ruined sandals.

She nipped into the bathroom. What a mess. Her hair was all over the place and somehow the clean T-shirt had dirty marks on it. That would be from hosing cow poo. And her face! A streak of what she hoped was plain mud and not something worse stretched from eyebrow to chin. Courtesy of Daisy’s tail. Tom hadn’t even commented. Probably just laughed to himself. She scrubbed her face, hands, and wrists. That nasty chook hadn’t broken the skin, thank heavens.

She dried herself with the green towel but hesitated before hanging it up. Should strip her bed and wash the sheets and towel before she left. Tom didn’t need extra work. She went to the spare room.

“What are you doing?” Tom from outside. He sounded annoyed.

“I’m stripping the bed,” she yelled.

The back door banged and his feet sounded in the hallway. “Don’t bother.” He lounged in the doorway watching.

“Too late.” She faced him with her arms full of bedding. Why did he have to be so sexy, and so relaxed, and so nice, and so frustrating, and so...so...downright annoying. “I’ll put it in the machine and you can hang it out later.”

He straightened, frowning. “I can do it.”

“So can I.” Primrose marched toward him so he had to step aside quickly and allow her space with her bundle of linen. He followed her to the laundry.

“Why do you have to be so bossy?”

Primrose dumped the washing on the floor. “I thought I was being helpful by not leaving you with my dirty sheets.” She opened the lid of the machine and crammed in the bedding and the towel. As an afterthought she yanked off the socks and dropped them on top.

“You are, thanks. It’s not...” The hesitation made her pause with the washing powder ready to pour. He sucked in air and folded his arms. Grey eyes studied her from under the flop of brown hair. If she had scissors she’d give him a quick trim. “You won’t let people do their own thing. It’s as if you think you know best about everything.”

More powder fell in than necessary. “I don’t! It’s obvious I don’t know anything about cows, for example.” She glared at him. “And only an idiot would leave me alone with one.”

He unfolded his arms and stuck his hands on his hips. “So you think I’m an idiot.”

Primrose slammed the lid closed and pressed the start button. “In that respect, yes.” He was too close and too good-looking and the memory of their night together flared suddenly, far too fresh in her mind. Would he ever want to kiss her again? Her lips tingled.

“You always manage to turn things around so in your mind someone else is in the wrong.”

Anyone looking less inclined to kiss her she had yet to see. She braced herself against the washing machine. “You’re still angry because I went home without waking you, aren’t you?”

“See?” he cried. “You’ve just done it again.
You
planned your way into my bed,
you
sneaked off and somehow it’s all my fault for finding you sexy and desirable and wanting...”

“Wanting what?” she demanded harshly as the guilt crashed in. He was right. She’d behaved abominably. She didn’t dare look into his eyes. Afraid if she did she’d cry because of how kind he was and how nasty she was. How petty and small his straightforward honesty made her seem. And how he wouldn’t want her again and how deeply that hurt. Really hurt.

He didn’t answer the question—he shook his head. “I don’t mean just me, we’ve been all through that. I mean Danny, too.” He wasn’t a man to waste his time where he thought he wasn’t appreciated. Once bitten stay right away. “You’re somehow trying to blame Danny for the situation you’ve caused next door.”

Safer topic. Unpleasant, uncomfortable too, but much safer. The best defence is attack. “What about Danny, Tom? You’re not telling me something. What is it?” Maybe you should try being less of a controlling bitch. Danny’s words. Had he reported the fight to Tom or had Tom had the same thought?

“Why do you have to know everything? Why should I tell you what Danny and I discuss?”

“Because if it’s about the land it’s my business.”

“And if it’s not about the land?”

“What else would it be?” The words sprang out, stupid and ill-considered, and unreturnable.

“Oh, Christ.” Tom emitted a laugh completely devoid of humour. “Get your shoes, I’ll drive you home.”

****

The hail had flattened Kurt’s vegetable garden.

“All gone. Kaput,” he said with a sweep of his arm. He glared at Tom’s ute bounding back up the slippery driveway and over the ridge as if Tom had brought on the deluge and aimed it deliberately at this derelict patch of ground.

“Gosh, that’s awful.”

Two heads were silhouetted in the rear window. Danny had gone back with Tom to collect his motorbike. He’d emerged from the house, greeted Tom and ignored Primrose before climbing into the seat she’d just vacated. Kurt came charging up from the veggie patch too late to do his usual growl and bark at Tom. He looked so miserable when he stopped glaring she almost felt sorry for him, standing there in the muddy yard with a woebegone expression and a battered wheelbarrow load of shredded plants.

“Ja. Farming is a mug’s game.” The wheel squeaked as he gave the barrow a shove and trundled away toward the goat pen.

Primrose went straight to her room to change. She pulled on a blouse and skirt and, grabbing one of her two towels, went to the bathroom to clean her teeth and rewash her face with cleanser and toner. Tom’s facilities were much better but he didn’t run to moisturiser and deodorant.

And at Tom’s place the bathroom wasn’t shared with six other people. No way was she leaving her cosmetics and either of her precious, thick, expensive blue towels in there. Someone else was just as likely to grab her toothbrush by mistake.

She tucked her towel onto the rail next to the other one. The other one? Thick and blue. Hers! It should have been in the laundry basket with the clean clothes, brought in by Fern the day before the storm. The day she’d been fighting her brother and sulking all afternoon in her room. The day she’d set out to seduce Tom and ruined a promising friendship. Bringing in the washing was the last thing on her mind that day.

She stared at the blue towel then assessed the others hanging on hooks and railings. Fern’s family used large striped towels, Nirupam and Danny had plain purple or blue, Kurt’s were striped but smaller, cheap, threadbare and instantly recognisable. His was missing. He’d pinched her towel. The bastard! She eyed it with distaste. It would need soaking for days, maybe disinfecting. She snatched it off the railing and bundled it with her cow muddied clothes to take to the laundry for a lengthy session in stain remover.

Nirupam and Fern were in the kitchen.

“Hi.”

“Hello. Have a good time at Tom’s?” Fern and Nirupam exchanged glances and smiled knowing smiles.

They didn’t know anything whatever they thought. “Fine, thank you. Kurt used my towel!”

“Don’t change the subject,” said Nirupam.

“What subject?” Primrose strode into the laundry and dumped her dirty clothes in the sink.

“The subject of you and Tom alone in his house for twenty four hours,” called Fern. Nirupam giggled.

Primrose attacked the stained yellow pants with Sard's soap. “He lent me dry clothes, I cooked sausages for dinner, I slept in his spare room, I cooked him bacon and eggs for breakfast, he showed me the truffle paddock, and he drove me home. End of story.”

“Hah. If that’s the end of the story I’ll be very disappointed.”

“Prepare yourself for a big disappointment.”

Fern appeared in the doorway with her big psychic smile. “The cards say otherwise, Rosie.”

Primrose stuck the plug in the sink, shook the stain removing powder in and turned on the tap full bore. She rammed the towel down into the cleansing suds with a shudder of distaste.

“I doubt it very much.”

“I don’t and neither does Nirupam.”

“Well you both know more than I do. Or Tom.” She turned off the tap. “Especially Tom.”

“Sometimes others can see something far more clearly than those involved.”

“Sometimes others are just stickybeaks.” She pushed past Fern into the kitchen but stopped, turned, biting her lip. Fern was gazing at her with sympathetic eyes, all-knowing and all-seeing, the soothsaying expression. Except fortunately she wasn’t any of those things. She was just a kind, well-meaning woman. A friend. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

A hand heavy with rings raised in protest, bangles jingled. “Don’t worry, Rosie. When a soul is troubled words often come out the wrong way.”

A troubled soul? Maybe that was true. She gave Fern a feeble smile. Nirupam sat smiling like a pregnant Buddha both hands resting on her belly.