Blackpeak Station (16 page)

‘It’s all right,’ said Charlotte, as kindly as she could. ‘You’re just winded.’

‘Don’t listen to her,’ hissed Bella. ‘It’s all her fault — she did it on purpose.’ The whininess returned to her voice. ‘Help me, Daddy, it hurts, it hurts.’

‘Shh now, you’re okay.’ Crompton helped her sit up. ‘Nothing broken, is there? Come on, up you get.’

‘I can’t! It hurts too much.’

‘Okay, okay, Daddy’ll carry you, then.’

When Charlotte and Jen got back to the homestead, having finally managed to catch Archie again and unsaddle him, they were informed — rather stonily — that Bella was lying down.

‘The poor little thing’s really knocked about,’ added Erica with a glare.

‘Well, I did warn you,’ said Charlotte.

Erica walked out huffily. Crompton sat down at the table and let out a huge sigh.

‘Sorry about that. Erica lets the kids get away with murder. Should have listened to you in the first place.’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ She summoned a smile. ‘So. What would you like to do for the rest of the afternoon?’

‘Well, Erica wanted me to take Bella to the doctor to check for concussion …’ Charlotte stared at him in disbelief. He smiled. ‘… but I managed to talk her out of it. She’ll want to stay with Bella, though, of course. Perhaps you and I could go for a tour of the farm?’

She jumped at the chance to be rid of the other Cromptons for a few hours. ‘Sure — shall we go now?’

‘Me too!’ A shrill shriek rose from under the table. ‘Me too, Daddy!’

‘Well,’ said Jen, ‘I’m off to the woolshed. Have a good time.’

Charlotte stopped the truck at the top of the ridge and climbed out of the cab. The silence of the hills wrapped around her, soothing her frayed nerves. Even Jack was quiet. Having whined constantly for the first half hour of the tour, he’d turned a bit green as the track got rougher, and subsided into the occasional moan of ‘Daddy, I don’t feel well’ before finally going to sleep.

Crompton, untangling himself carefully from Jack, got out and stood beside her. In front of them, the golden tussock stretched over wave after wave of hills, away and up to the alps, snow-capped against the blue sky. Already, the valleys were in shadow.

‘Christ, it’s barren, isn’t it?’ Crompton shivered. ‘You’d hardly think sheep could live on it.’

Charlotte was silent.

‘Beautiful, though,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘in a way. Great view of the mountains. What’s the heli-skiing like up there?’

She smiled to herself. It wasn’t for everyone, this country — and just as well. Too many eyes could suck the soul out of a landscape, reduce it to postcard size. ‘If you look this way, you can see the flats and the homestead.’

He turned, with obvious relief, to the more manageable view, the ordered spread of paddocks with their toy-town buildings, the river gleaming silver between the willows before the tussock rose again on its far side. ‘Pretty. How much of it is our station?’

She hid a shudder at his choice of pronoun. ‘The main road you can see there, on the other side of the river? That’s the eastern boundary. The alps are the station’s boundary to the west, and the tops of the ridges at each end of the valley are the northern and southern boundaries.’

‘As far as the eye can see, eh?’

‘A bit further, actually. That hill over there’ — she pointed — ‘that’s Black Peak itself. If we stood on top of that, then we’d see the whole station.’ It’d been a long time since she’d done that, she thought, suppressing an image of a hot Land Rover bonnet and her small self pressing close to her father’s bush shirt.

‘Not much flat land, though, is there?’

She couldn’t help but smile. ‘There never is on a high country station.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ said Crompton wryly.

‘We’ve got enough, though. We can winter over more stock than a lot of places around here, and that’s all that counts.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

They stared down at the river flats in silence. Charlotte sat down on a tussock. Crompton, having carefully surveyed the ground, did the same. She picked at a strand of grass.

‘Why are you lending me money?’

He laughed. ‘You’re not exactly a loss to the diplomatic corps, are you?’

‘Sorry.’ She blushed. ‘It’s just — well, it seems like an odd investment for a man like you …’

‘A man like me?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I back
anything
I think’ll make me money. And nothing that won’t. It’s that simple.’

‘But there must have been any number of things you could have put your money into,’ she persisted, against her better judgment. ‘Why this?’ And why am I interrogating him? If there’s a reason, he obviously doesn’t want to tell me.

Crompton kicked at the grass. ‘I liked the idea of having a stake in a high country station, I suppose. It’s sort of — romantic, historic, I don’t know.’ He paused, staring into the distance. ‘Everything I have, I got for myself, by myself.
My parents had nothing. My father worked on a factory line.’ He snorted. ‘Forty-five years, he was there, and never even made foreman — never got a raise that didn’t come through the union.’

Charlotte nodded, hoping sympathy was the right expression to have on her face — where the hell was all this going?

‘I left school at sixteen with nothing. And here I am’ — a note of satisfaction crept into his voice — ‘at fifty, a wealthy man. A self-made man, as they say.’

This is not the first time he’s told this exact same story, she thought to herself.

‘Now, let’s take you,’ he continued. ‘Everything you have, you got from your father. And he got it from his father, and so on. Your family hasn’t had to work for it for generations.’

Charlotte was almost too taken aback to be offended. ‘Um, we’ve had to work pretty bloody hard to keep it.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He waved her objection away with an airy hand. ‘And I know, you’re trying to do something with it now. But the point is, you’re old money. You come from a long line of rich men — respectable men. You’ve got class.’

Ah — so that’s where he was heading.

‘I could buy and sell the lot of you. But you still look down on me.’

‘I don’t look down on you.’ And he sure as hell couldn’t buy her — except … oh … well, not all of her, at least.

‘Okay, maybe not you. But a lot of them. They have their clubs, you know, clubs that guys like me don’t get invited to join, and their old school ties …’ He shrugged, then grinned. ‘Sorry. Bit of a hobby horse of mine. I get carried away.’

‘It’s okay. I get it.’

Crompton smiled his doubt.

‘I know what it’s like to be left out of the club,’ Charlotte added softly.

He looked at her, reappraising. ‘Yeah. Maybe you do.’ He shifted awkwardly on his tussock. ‘My bum’s gone to sleep sitting on this thing.’

She laughed. ‘Come on, let’s head back down.’

Back in the kitchen, Kath was sweating over a sink full of new potatoes.

‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Charlotte offered. There was nothing like other people’s bad manners, she thought, to show up your own.

Kath stared at her. ‘You?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Actually, I’m just about finished, thanks.’ Kath paused and frowned. ‘Oh, that’s right — I’ve been meaning to ask you, where’s Luke going to sleep?’

Charlotte grimaced. Yep, that was the question.

‘Do you want to put him in your mum’s room? The Cromptons are in the guest room, and the kids are in Nick’s. We could put him in with them, I suppose. Or do you and Jen want to share, and give him Jen’s room?’

‘I’ll have a chat to Jen.’

‘He could always sleep over at our house, I suppose — or at the cottage, or in the quarters, though I can’t see him liking that much …’

No, thought Charlotte, neither can I.

‘I’d have made up a bed, but I didn’t know where you’d want him …’

‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll sort it out.’

Kath wiped her hands on a tea towel. ‘Thanks, dear —
just as long as you let me know.’

‘Do you know where he is — Luke, I mean?’

‘Outside talking to Erica last time I saw him.’

‘Thanks.’

She found Luke on the front verandah, reading one of her books in the shade of the wisteria.

‘Hi.’

He put the book down lazily and smiled his teasing smile. ‘Hi.’

She sat down on the step beside his chair. Further down the garden, she could see Erica Crompton stretched out on a sun lounger and Michael rubbing lotion into her back. Charlotte struggled for the right question, the proper phrasing, to get at what she needed to know — why was Luke here? For Crompton? Or for her?

‘How are you, Charlotte?’

She gave a little inward groan. How did he do that? Make a perfectly normal question sound so … what, sexy? Suggestive? Gut-twistingly hot? She stared up at him, sitting there so relaxed in her mother’s cane chair. Oh God, those were the same jeans he was wearing when he … she shook herself.

‘Good, thanks. How are you?’

‘You look good. I’ve missed you, you know.’

‘Have you?’ Somehow the sarcasm got lost between her brain and her mouth.

‘Yes.’ The green eyes caught her. ‘I have.’

‘Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming, for Christ’s sake?’

The corner of his mouth twitched. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

‘You did.’

‘Besides, if I’d asked, you might have said no.’

She tried to will some steel into her gaze. ‘I might.’

His eyes moved slowly, deliberately, over her mouth, the line of her jaw, then snapped back, full force, into hers. ‘Would you have said no?’

‘I don’t know.’

He leaned forward. ‘And now that I’m here? Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice seemed to be getting smaller.

Reaching down, Luke ran a finger under her chin, tilting her face towards him. Helplessly, she felt her lips part. He kissed her gently, then drew back, looking questioningly into her upturned face, a trace of amusement in his eyes.

Oh fuck it, she thought. I am pleased to see him. And he knows it, too, the bastard. ‘Well, maybe I am,’ she told the eyes, grudgingly.

‘Good,’ he said softly, taking her hand and guiding it over his jeans. ‘Because I’m very pleased to see you.’

God, he certainly was. Just in time, she remembered the Cromptons were out on the lawn. ‘Kath wants to know where you’ll be sleeping,’ she smiled.

‘Sleeping?’ He recaptured her hand. ‘I don’t know about that. But come here and I’ll show you exactly where I’m going to spend all night.’

‘One day down, one to go,’ groaned Jen after dinner, sprawled across an armchair next to the unlit fire,
massaging
her temples. Across the lounge, Charlotte glanced at the clock. It was ten o’clock. Having tried and failed to get the children to bed so many times Charlotte had lost count, Erica had finally dragged her husband off to give them a good talking to, and Rex and Kath had run for the hills as soon as the dishes were done.

‘Where’s Luke?’ asked Jen, without enthusiasm.

‘Gone to get a bottle of Scotch from his bag, I think.’ He and Crompton had quickly exhausted Blackpeak’s supply.

‘Ah.’ Jen examined the upholstery. ‘And where is his bag, exactly?’

Uh-oh. ‘My room,’ Charlotte muttered.

‘Christ, Charlie, what do you see in him? I mean, I know he’s pretty, but — seriously?’

Charlotte laughed. ‘I don’t know — there’s just something about him. It’s like he’s magnetic, or something.’

Jen rolled her eyes. ‘Just be careful, that’s all I can say. It’s all a game to men like that — and you’ll probably end up losing.’

Hmm. Was that what this was — a game? ‘Well, maybe that’s part of what I like about him, too,’ she smiled. ‘The challenge.’

‘Talking about me again, ladies?’ Luke stood in the doorway, holding a whisky bottle.

‘Christ, I wish you’d stop doing that,’ hissed Jen. ‘How long have you been standing there?’

Luke grinned. ‘Oh, not long. Who’d like a Scotch?’

‘I’m off to bed,’ snapped Jen. ‘Night, Charlie.’

‘Goodnight, Jen,’ Luke called, as she disappeared down the hall.

‘How long were you there?’ asked Charlotte, cheeks burning.

Luke put the bottle down and, sauntering over, pulled her up out of her chair. ‘Come with me.’ He gave her his most predatory smile. ‘It’s game time.’

Chapter
FOURTEEN

Charlotte parked outside the homestead with a heart full of cheer and a ute full of goodies. On top was tied a huge Christmas tree, only slightly worse for wear after its
two-hour
journey. Rex and Jen emerged from the kitchen to help her unload.

‘Leave that!’ she yelled, as Jen tried to pick up the last box. ‘Your presents are in there.’

Hiding the box in her wardrobe, Charlotte thought she couldn’t remember a Christmas she’d looked forward to this much. It would be her first with a — man. Thinking of Luke, she struggled to use the word ‘boyfriend’. But that’s what he was, wasn’t he? Since that night … she shivered and smiled to herself. Since he’d flown out with the Cromptons two
weeks ago, he’d called every day. And now he was coming down to spend Christmas and New Year with her. Ten nights. God, she was getting weak-kneed just thinking about it, and he didn’t even get here until tomorrow.

‘Get a grip,’ she said out loud.

She headed back to the kitchen. ‘Any messages?’

Kath, busy with the grocery bags, stuck her head out of the pantry. ‘Your mum called. And Siri rang to say she’ll bring the turkey with her tomorrow when she comes.’

Much to everyone’s amusement, Matt was taking Siri down to spend Christmas with his parents.

‘Nothing else?’

Kath smiled sympathetically. ‘No, dear — he hasn’t called.’

Wrapping her presents after dinner, Charlotte tried not to notice that the phone still hadn’t rung. She checked her watch. Ten o’clock. Well, of course, he didn’t have to call
every
day — that would be silly. She moped through to the office to shut the computer down.

New message.

God. Charlotte blushed. She really should put a password on this thing.

On Christmas Eve, the temperature hit thirty and activity in the kitchen rose to fever point. Rex brought in the ham, then made himself scarce. Charlotte and Jen got to work on the tree.

The crunch of car wheels sent Charlotte scurrying to the back door, but it was just her mother’s Prado. Nick was driving. Andrea sat beside him, with Flavia and Caddy the Labrador sharing the back seat.

Flavia flung open the door. ‘
Ciao
, Carlotta!’

Caddy scrabbled over her and jumped out, barking with excitement.

‘Charles!’ Looking tired, Nick gave her a hug.

Flavia followed. She was just wearing jeans and a plain white shirt that had probably been crisp before it got covered in dog hair — but even so, she was stunning, and Charlotte tried not to stare. She’d forgotten quite how beautiful Flavia was.

‘Hello, dear.’ Andrea enveloped her in a wave of blonde hair and perfume — the fragrance, taking Charlotte straight back to ‘brunch’ with Luke, made her blush. She’d better buy some of her own. She hoped he wouldn’t recognise it.

As it happened, her mother’s perfume had plenty of time to wear off — it was nearly seven o’clock before Luke pulled up outside.

‘Sorry I’m so late.’ He kissed her — somewhat
inattentively
, she thought. ‘I got caught up at the office.’

‘Right.’

He stopped, searching her face, and smiled. ‘Are you pouting at me?’

‘What if I am?’

Taking her by the belt-loops, he pulled her hips hard against his and repeated the job, more thoroughly this time.

‘Whoa,’ she warned him, swaying slightly as he drew back, ‘my mother’s in there, you know.’

‘I can’t wait.’ Luke gave her his wickedest smile. ‘To see your family, I mean.’

‘Come on.’ She slipped from his grasp. ‘Dinner’s been waiting for an hour.’

‘Excellent. I’m starving.’

Charlotte opened the door to the kitchen, hoping the results of that kiss weren’t written all over her face, and ushered him inside. ‘Mum, you remember Luke?’

‘Luke!’ At her gracious best, Andrea rose from the table to give him a peck on the cheek. ‘Lovely to meet you again. It’s so nice you could make it down.

‘And of course you know just about everyone else.’ Charlotte watched him carefully. ‘Except Flavia.’

The green eyes flared as they came to rest on Flavia’s face — but only for a second.

‘
Piacere
.’ Flavia flashed her brilliant smile.

‘The pleasure is mine.’

Oh great, Charlotte thought — he knows Italian. Of course he does. She shot a glance at Nick, who was glaring at Luke from the other end of the table. But as Luke took Flavia’s hand, his smile, she was pleased to see, looked innocent enough.

‘Can we eat now?’ snapped Nick.

Rex sharpened the carving knife. ‘Sounds good to me.’

Charlotte took her seat.

Luke sat beside her. ‘Sorry to have held you up.’ Under the tablecloth, his hand slid into its usual place over her thigh.

With some difficulty, Kath manoeuvred the glazed ham onto the table. Rex hovered over it with a critical eye. ‘Looks beaut, love,’ he pronounced. ‘Right then.’ He sliced in. ‘Let’s see how she’s turned out this year.’

‘You know,’ Luke breathed in Charlotte’s ear, his hand inching higher, ‘it’s the weirdest thing, but something about your mother is really turning me on.’

She jerked her head round to look at him, horrified.

His eyes laughed into hers. ‘I never forget a perfume.’

After dinner, Andrea shepherded everyone into the formal sitting room, which she’d spent the afternoon dusting off for its annual starring role. A gentle breeze was blowing in through the French doors that stood open on two sides of the room, and the scent of jasmine drifted in off the west verandah. The midsummer sky was still light, but the sun was behind the hills and the garden soft and shadowed.

‘Put the Christmas CD on, will you, darling?’

Charlotte obeyed, while Nick poured the drinks. The tree twinkled in its corner.

‘Could you grab us another bottle of pinot gris, Charles?’

When she got back from the fridge, Luke and Flavia were out on the verandah. Luke had his back to the room, while Flavia leant against the rail, waving her hand as she talked, her lovely face animated.

‘We are just speaking about Milano,’ she said happily, as Charlotte walked up. ‘Luca knows it so well. He has been to my favourite
trattoria
! Imagine!’

Charlotte smiled politely. Five minutes later, she slipped away, leaving them to it. Of course Luke had been to Milan — suit-shopping, no doubt. She definitely didn’t want to be there when they got onto that one. Walking back inside, she saw that Nick was watching them too, looking over Kath’s head from his perch on the arm of the sofa.

It was getting dark when the two of them came back in, Flavia rubbing her bare arms. Andrea got up and closed the doors behind them. ‘Shall we light the fire now?’

Flavia shivered, and smiled. Nick did the honours, and orange light flickered over the old stone walls. Charlotte put on another CD. Andrea pulled the curtains.

‘So.’ Luke settled himself on the arm of Flavia’s chair. ‘How many mills does your family have?’

Oh, for Christ’s sake! Unnoticed, Charlotte stomped off to get a jumper. Thinking of Flavia’s trademark cashmere, she rifled her wardrobe for something that wasn’t too chunky. Her old cricket vest, would that do? Maybe not. Her mother was right — she needed to buy some clothes. Her black v-neck — that was more like it, if she didn’t wear a shirt underneath. She shed her top and pulled it on. Checking her reflection in the bedroom mirror, she redid her
make-up
— not, she fumed, that there was much point in any of this, since nobody was looking at her.

She walked out of the bedroom to find Luke coming down the hall.

‘There you are.’ His voice fell to its suggestive best. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to.’

‘Who, me?’ Charlotte glared at him.

Taking her by the shoulders, he looked into her face. ‘You’re pouting again.’

‘You were so busy talking to Flavia, I’m surprised you noticed I’d gone.’

‘Ah.’ He pushed her back against the wall, pinning her next to the grandfather clock. ‘I like it when you’re jealous.’

Charlotte caught her breath as his hand slid down her jeans. Suddenly, the green eyes wavered to the side. ‘Christ — is that a van der Velden?’

‘Yes,’ she managed, thinking this was hardly the time for art appreciation. ‘We’ve got a few. He stayed here for a while.’

‘Did he?’ Luke’s attention was back, his eyes studying her face as his hand resumed its pressure.

‘We can’t,’ she gasped, ‘do this here.’

‘No,’ he said, not stopping, ‘I suppose we can’t.’

Charlotte groaned. Abruptly, he released her. ‘Come with me.’ He led her towards the front door.

‘Where are we going?’

‘I’m taking you outside.’

When they got back to the lounge, Andrea had gone to bed and Rex and Kath had gone home. Jen glared at them and shook her head.

‘Bloody hell. Right, I’m turning in — Merry Christmas, everybody.’

Nick glared even harder. Unabashed, Luke poured two glasses of wine and, handing Charlotte one, sat down on the sofa.

‘I’ve been waiting to talk to you,’ said Nick frostily, ‘about the contract.’

Flavia, brushing by, smiled and picked a leaf off Charlotte’s shoulder. ‘You can talk in the morning, Nikki. It’s late.’ She turned in the doorway, looking back at him. ‘I need you to take me to bed now.’

Now
that
, Charlotte thought, is a pout. She was glad Luke couldn’t see it.

Nick rose, and, with a final look of disdain, swept Flavia out, closing the door behind him.

Phew. Trying not to giggle, Charlotte collapsed into a chair.

‘Oh no you don’t.’ Prowling over, Luke pulled her back to her feet. ‘I need to take
you
to bed. Now.’

Her eyes widened. Again?

‘What?’ he smiled. ‘You didn’t think that was it, did you? Baby …’ He shook his head as he stroked her lower lip. ‘I’m just getting started on you.’

Christmas Day dawned bright and sunny. It would have done so unnoticed had Charlotte’s alarm not gone off — as
it always did — at five-fifteen. She rolled over to silence it.

‘Ugh.’ Luke stretched. ‘Do you never sleep in?’

‘This morning I do.’ She settled back into his arms. ‘I meant to turn it off last night — something must have distracted me. I can’t think what it was.’

‘No? Let me remind you.’

She finally dragged Luke out of bed just before
eight-thirty
.

‘Five bedrooms and only one bathroom,’ he complained. ‘It’s like living in the Stone Age.’

‘Ah.’ She passed him a towel. ‘But we do have a billiard room.’

‘Handy.’

Charlotte left him to it. She opened the kitchen door on a blur of activity — Kath was stuffing the turkey on the bench, while, on the kitchen table, Andrea was attempting to do something dangerous looking with toothpicks and chorizo. Charlotte made a plate of toast as inconspicuously as she could and beat a quick retreat to the verandah. Evicting Caddy from the cane sofa, she tucked her feet up and yawned. How much sleep had she actually had? She felt completely … she stopped, smiling to herself, and stretched happily.

‘Morning.’ Nick’s tousled blond head emerged from the window beside her. ‘Happy Christmas.’

He certainly looked in a good mood. ‘Happy Christmas,’ she smiled. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Never better.’

Flavia leaned out over his shoulder.
‘Buon Natale, cara.’

They gathered back in the sitting room for presents at ten. Charlotte gave Luke a copy of
Offroading for Dummies
.
Luckily, he laughed. Stuffing everyone’s wrapping paper into a rubbish sack, she tried not to be hurt that he hadn’t given her anything personal at all. He’d bought that huge hamper for them, she told herself. Not to mention all the champagne.

‘Hey.’ Luke followed her through to the dining room. Taking the rubbish bag from her and putting it down, he circled her wrist with his fingers. ‘There’s one more present.’ He reached into the pocket of his jeans. ‘Close your eyes.’

He lifted her hand. She felt his lips brush the inside of her wrist, and then something cold slide over her skin.

‘Open them.’

Wow.

‘Do you like it?’

‘I love it.’ She turned her delicately sparkling wrist to the sun. ‘What is it?’

He laughed. ‘It’s called a tennis bracelet.’

Charlotte studied the fine band dubiously. ‘Are you supposed to play in it?’

‘Most definitely.’ Luke brushed a finger up the inside of her arm. ‘All kinds of games.’ Pulling her closer, he put his lips to her ear. ‘It’s also what you get when you win.’

Her heart stopped. Double wow.

‘
Che bella.
’ Flavia, en route to the kitchen, paused to examine Charlotte’s wrist as it lay draped over Luke’s shoulder. She grinned. ‘Very nice, Carlotta.’

‘What is?’ Jen stopped to look too. Seeing her friend’s double take, Charlotte couldn’t help a small surge of triumph. ‘Just what you needed,’ said Jen bitchily.