The Wednesday of Seth’s scheduled vineyard inspection dawned skittish and cloudy as Remy’s mood. The day threatened humidity and every now and then the clouds would part and let a fickle blue sky poke through.
It had been the hottest start to February in five years, yet Remy couldn’t get her hands or feet warm.
She’d roast if she wore jeans. Shorts were out of the question. She didn’t own a suitable work skirt. In the end she chose a pair of long fawn-coloured cotton pants that tied with a drawstring around her waist and a long-sleeved shirt over a tank top to cover her skin. Put all that with a pair of Blundstone boots and she felt country without being try-hard. The last thing she wanted Seth to think was that she’d tried hard.
Why would she want to look good for him anyway? What was the point? The photos she’d seen of Helene Bouchard—when the French wine heiress came out to Australia and all the wine sites on the internet had carried photographs of the pair together—were enough to make any girl keen on Seth weep. Their so-called engagement hadn’t lasted long. It was a rumour the Lasrey PR machine quashed almost as fast as it arrived. If elegant Helene hadn’t been enough to hold Seth’s interest, what chance did Remy have?
The longer she dicked about over whether to wear her hair loose or tied, or in a headband, or under a hat, the more pissed off with the world she got. Hell and Tommy. Who cared? Seth was coming to inspect her grapes. Not her.
She didn’t know where to put herself. She didn’t know what to do with herself. Wait inside for his knock? Wait in the vineyard, leaning on a post like a model in a fashion shoot? Loiter on the front steps with Breeze at her feet, like he’d surprised her on a tea break?
She wished he was here already. She wished it was over with already. Anything would be better than this bloody anticipation squeezing her from the inside, out.
At 10.30 am, she sat on the front steps of the cottage with Breeze at her feet.
At 10.35 am she locked Breeze in the backyard, before resettling on the front steps.
At 10.40 am, she raced into her ensuite and slapped lipstick on: a new muted colour called dusky-rose that was so barely-there it couldn’t be called a colour at all. She pulled a hairbrush across her scalp and on impulse changed her headband from green to cornflower blue with pretty white squiggles. She made a face at her reflection, at over-bright eyes and the flush in her cheeks that put dusky-rose lipstick to shame. Then she went back outside to wait.
And wait.
Maybe she had the date wrong.
Perhaps he wasn’t coming.
Maybe he didn’t want to buy her grapes at all.
At 10.50 am, after racing inside to rub dusky-rose lipstick from her lips and plait her hair, she heard a vehicle change gears on the bitumen road. Flicking out the unfinished plait, she tugged the headband back over her crown then scuttled through her bedroom and out the front door, jumping as it clanked closed behind her.
A shiny new black utility sharked into her driveway, nosing its way into the shade of the Redwood Pine. The pine dropped sap and usually Remy told her guests to give it a wide berth. Seth, however, wasn’t exactly a guest. So he didn’t count. Let him park there at his peril.
The engine shut off, and in the quiet it was as if her garden and everything in it held its breath. Then the dog in the back of Seth’s ute whined and from the rear of the cottage Breeze let out the kind of high-pitched bark that could break windows.
Thank goodness she’d locked Breeze away. Imagine kicking off this strange new relationship with Seth with a massive dogfight at Ivy Lodge.
I’d like $3000 per tonne for my sauvignon blanc, and you can pick up the vet bills, Seth, thank you.
The driver’s side door opened and Seth buried his boots in her gravel and straightened. He turned a slow circle, taking in her cottage and her farm, a bit like Neil Armstrong might have looked before he planted that American flag on the moon.
Adjusting her headband, Remy realised she was sweating beneath it.
‘Morning,’ she called.
‘Remy,’ he acknowledged. ‘Sorry I’m running late.’
The dog in the utility whined.
‘No problem.’ I hang out on my front steps worrying about lipstick and headbands every day. She could look at Seth now, as she hadn’t been able to during the growers’ meeting. There wasn’t much point hiding anymore, not now he knew she was here. Or had he always known?
He lifted his sunglasses to the top of his head and stared out from eyes dark as ever.
‘So how are you finding things at Montgomery?’ she asked.
‘Fine. Busy.’
Remy ran a quick scan as he cleared the bonnet of his car: hair short as she’d ever seen it and no grey, or not from this distance; short-sleeved black shirt with a bold L emblazoned on the pocket; dark hair where the shirt opened at his throat. Khaki pants. His uniform clung to his body in a way that really wasn’t fair to single women everywhere.
‘Nice place.’ He extended his arm and waved a red clipboard at the dam and the vineyard beyond it.
The two dogs whined again. Much more of this and they’d have a canine version of duelling banjos.
‘Occhy. Shut up,’ Seth growled.
The dog shut like an obedient clam and Remy didn’t blame it. Seth’s voice startled her off the step and she stumbled as the ground leapt up at her boots. When the earth stopped trying to trip her, she said: ‘Don’t tell me that’s Occhilupo?’
The big brindle male couldn’t resist a whine as Remy said his name, stretching his bowling ball head over the rim of the ute’s tray, putting one massive paw on the ledge like he’d give anything to be allowed to jump.
‘Stay there,’ Seth said, and Occhy retracted his paw as if to say the whole paw-on-the-rim thing was a mistake. ‘I’m dog-sitting for Blake.’
‘I’m surprised you’re over here long enough to make it worth bringing him?’
‘I’m here for a while.’ He didn’t smile. Nor did he elaborate.
He’s got so hard, Remy thought. When did that happen?
‘Can I pat him?’ She moved toward the ute, then stopped. ‘I don’t want to get him in trouble.’
‘Pat him if you want.’
Remy held out her hand for Occhy to sniff then scratched behind his ears where the short, dark fur was so soft. His coat had a faint light stripe through the darker brindle. He was all muscle, an American Staffordshire male in his prime. Breed-perfect.
‘I know some people in Adelaide who’d love to see him in the show ring.’
‘Yeah?’ Seth said, politely enough, but with no real interest.
Remy took hold of the fur on either side of the dog’s jaw and tugged it, like she used to do when Occhy was a puppy; like she did all the time with Breeze.
‘He’s beautiful,’ she said to Seth.
She’s beautiful, Seth said to himself, and he had to tamp it and tamp it hard and remind himself about who was really under that gorgeous skin. This woman was a gold-digger. Blackmailer. Liar. Thief.
Her attention slid from the dog and she fixed her gaze on him. ‘You didn’t seem surprised to see me the other day at the grower meeting?’
He thought about it for a beat, thought about lying, and decided it didn’t matter. ‘Your mother’s maiden name wasn’t much of an alias. I’ve known where you’ve been for a while.’
She let Occhy’s face go. Her hands curled to fists at her side. ‘For a while?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How long is a while?’
‘We should look at your fruit, Remy.’ He heard her suck a big angry breath, and enjoyed it. ‘So how about we do that so I can tick you off my list and call you done.’
‘Fine.’ Head down, she turned on her heel.
‘Stay there, Occh.’ Seth leaned into the back of the tray and checked the clip on Occhy’s chain. He didn’t want the dog getting off and eating whatever mutt was barking at the back of the house. If Remy was into dog shows these days, it was probably a poodle with a pretty haircut. Occhy would toss it like a rat.
Remy didn’t wait and Seth didn’t hurry. He walked behind her, watching her shirt tails flap in the breeze, listening to her boots slap dirt. Last time he’d seen this woman, shirt tails and boots had been flapping too. That was the night she’d run from his office. The last night he’d seen her before she tried to fleece him. Tried to? Make that did fleece him.
She paused for a few seconds at a pump shed beside a puddle masquerading as a dam. There she washed the smell of dog from her hands under a tap. Then she was off again, climbing the slope toward the vines, walking fast enough and far enough to make sweat dampen Seth’s back.
Remy opened the gate into the vineyard, held it for him while he caught up. It swung easily on oiled hinges.
‘Vineyard looks good,’ he said, as she shut the gate behind him, hands expertly finding the perfect angle to slot the pin mechanism into place. ‘Why don’t you tell me what I’m looking at here?’
Remy nodded toward the green vines striping the north-facing slope. ‘It’s all sauvignon blanc. That’s all I grow. I’m sure that’s in your notes. I have an integrated pest management program. I don’t spray for pests unless I have to. I don’t irrigate unless I really have to.’
‘Lewis Carney says you got these old vines back from the brink. He sings your praises.’ Christ on a stick did the man sing her praises. Everybody did. Max Montgomery never shut up about Remy Roberts and how good her sauvignon blanc fruit was.
‘It’s been a lot of work.’ She set off purposefully, like she wanted to get this over, angling for the nearest entry to the vines. He stayed with her this time, a pace off her left shoulder, close enough to hear her breathing.
When did she start wearing headbands? They suited her. Caught all that wheat-gold hair up from her face and let it flow down her shoulders as she walked.
‘About four months,’ he said.
She glanced sharply sideways, slowed a little. ‘Pardon?’
‘That’s how long I’ve known you were here. I saw your name on Max’s grower lists during due diligence on the sale.’
‘Oh.’ The word dropped like an iron curtain between them.
They walked some more. Seth could almost hear the way her thoughts churned in her head. His churned too. Then he heard the faint pop beside him as her lips opened to speak. ‘Did you ever … I mean, you or Blake—did you ever try to find me?’
‘You didn’t make it easy, Remy. You were gone by the time I came back from France. You changed your name. Trust me, I wanted to find you. There was a helluva lot I wanted to say. I can’t speak for Blake.’
All that seemed to confuse her. Why, he had no idea. She must have known the day would come when every lie she’d told would catch up with her.
‘I rang Greg Trimble once,’ she said.
‘You talked to Pops?’ She rang Greg Trimble after she left, but she couldn’t bring herself to call him? ‘When?’
‘A few weeks after. I wanted to know if the vines made it,’ she said. ‘Greg was really nervous. He said he wasn’t supposed to talk to me, but he told me he thought the vines would make it. He said all the staff had been banned from speaking to me because it was an ongoing investigation with the insurance company. I didn’t want to get him in trouble. He’d already gone out on a limb for me.’
Pops kept that fucking quiet. Or, it never happened. It was hard to know when it came to Remy. She’d told so many lies.
Now it was her turn to press him: ‘So did the vines make it, Seth?’
He wondered what answer would please her most? Yes or no? ‘Yields were down that year and it put the vines back a bit, but all in all, they were fine. Pops did the right thing to treat it. He and Rina did a good job.’
‘Thank God for that.’ Her hand fluttered to her throat. ‘I’m so glad.’
Don’t get too glad, Pollyanna. ‘It doesn’t change anything, Remy. Whether you called us or I called you. Or Blake called you, or whatever.’ Something else hadn’t changed, he discovered. He still didn’t like putting his brother’s name and Remy’s in a sentence together. ‘It doesn’t stop what happened. It doesn’t change that you ran away.’
‘You’re right. It doesn’t change anything. I know.’ She dug her hands in the pockets of her pants, making the fabric pull tighter across her curves, making the air squeeze tight through his lungs. ‘I just want to say this, okay, so that you know I said it. I’m really, really, sorry for what happened. I felt terrible that day. It was the worst day of my life.’
‘It wasn’t a great day for me either,’ he said.
‘I can imagine.’
He stared hard at her face, saw only sincerity there. Didn’t trust it. ‘You could have told me that before. You could have apologised to me years ago.’
‘No I couldn’t. Your mother said I couldn’t.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Remy crossed her arms over her tummy, glared at the vines for a moment, then muttered more to herself than to him: ‘Fuck it. It wasn’t me who broke my promise.’ She lifted her chin and locked her gaze to his. ‘Ailsa said if I stayed in Margaret River she’d make sure I never got work in the wine industry again. She offered me the money on the condition that I’d resign so she didn’t have to go through the process to sack me. I had to get out of Margaret River and promise never to contact you, or Blake, again. She didn’t want me to tempt her precious boys to go slumming. So she offered the money to me and I took it. I’m not proud of that decision, but it’s the one I made at the time.’
It took every year of standing up in boardrooms and making wine deals across the world to keep his face straight. What she said was ludicrous. He didn’t believe her. He didn’t. Yet ‘slumming’ was a word Ailsa would use. It sounded right.
‘Why— Nah, forget it …’ Everything between them couldn’t be sorted on one morning’s walk in the vines. Ten minutes he’d been here, and he’d let her get to him. Already he’d let himself think about burying his face in her hair. Seth adjusted his grip on the clipboard. The fingers on his left hand had held it so tight, they’d gone numb. ‘I don’t have time to go into it properly now.’
Get it back to business. Flicking the clipboard open, he stopped walking. ‘These vines, Remy—they look thirsty to me.’
‘You’re seeing them with Margaret River eyes,’ she said, coming to a standstill a few steps further uphill. ‘Rainfall patterns are different here. My fruit style is different too. I don’t irrigate unless they’d die otherwise, and I haven’t had a full dam to start the summer in three years. These only drink what falls from the sky.’
Seth reached for a bunch of grapes, testing the weight in his hand. The berries plucked free when he pulled them, but not without a firm tug. He put three sun-warmed berries on his tongue and slowly crushed the mass.
Remy’s cough caught his attention. Her eyes were wide and the heat or exertion had tainted her cheeks. She covered her mouth with her hand, burying another series of jerky coughs in her palm.
Seth felt a kick of alarm. Spitting the fruit pulp to the ground, he took a step toward her: ‘Are you okay?’
‘No. Yes.’ She batted at him one-handed, took a hasty step back. Her face coloured to crimson.
Damned if he didn’t suddenly think he might have to perform mouth-to-mouth right out here in the vineyard. His eyes snuck to her lips. A jolt of pure lust came out of nowhere and he almost had to cough himself to cover how much it rocked him.
One of her hands kept batting at him, a clear signal to stay away.
‘I … just need a drink of water. You don’t need me here anyway, do you?’ She dove past him, down hill—gone before he could say Heimlich, leaving him in the middle of the vineyard with the view and a hint of air scented with flowers and fresh hay.
He chose to focus on the view, rather than what remained of the scent he’d forever know as Remy’s.
It was easy to see why she chose this farm. He’d seen some of the most spectacular vineyard regions of the world in his day, but this view was right up there.
His family’s money had helped buy it. In a way, he even owned it. Part of it at least.
Seth tasted another couple of berries and decided he’d seen enough. He couldn’t fault her fruit. He’d wanted to fault her fruit. Wanted to a whole damn lot.
On a whim, he dug his phone out of his pocket and thumbed through it for Pops Trimble’s number. It was still early in Western Australia, but Pops was an early riser.
His vineyard manager answered fast. ‘Hi, Seth. What’s happening?’
‘I know it’s going back a while, but do you remember when Remy Hanley left Lasrey?’
‘Yeah. That was all pretty hard to forget.’
‘Did she ever ring you after she left? Did you talk to her?’
Greg hesitated. Seth could almost picture him slowly taking off his cap, putting it back on his head. ‘Yeah. She rang. We weren’t supposed to talk to her. Ailsa was pretty hard on that—a memo came round.’
‘What did Remy want? Can you remember?’
‘Yeah. She wanted to know about the vines. She asked if they were going to be okay.’
‘What did you tell her?’
‘Well … it was still pretty early days then, but I remember right off the bat we lost a lot of leaves, but within two or three weeks secondary buds started swelling. So I told her I thought they were going to be okay.’
‘Okay. Thanks Pops.’
‘We good?’
‘Yeah. No worries. Look after things, hey?’
Pops assured Seth he would, and they hung up. Seth shoved the phone in his pocket.
It confused him. If he believed his mother—and he’d struggled with believing her for a long time after France—Remy had purposely tried to kill the vines. Why she’d call Greg Trimble to check on them, why she’d be so happy they’d survived, didn’t make sense.
And where did sexual harassment and the $100 000 fit with what Remy just said?
It didn’t. She said Ailsa offered her the money to get out of town.
Nothing fit at all.