The Cattleman's Ready-Made Family. Michelle Douglas
kids, Tess.’
She nodded. ‘They really are.’ And they deserved so much more than life had dished out to them. Focusing on the negatives wouldn’t help anyone, though—least of all Ty and Krissie. She sipped tea. Cam had made a pot while she’d sliced the cake. It was the best tea she’d ever tasted.
She lifted her cup. ‘This is seriously good.’
‘My mother was the president of the Country Women’s Association for a hundred years. Believe me, she made sure her sons knew how to brew a proper pot of tea.’
She made a mental note to join the CWA. But for the moment…‘You want to tell me why you’re still so worried about your forty hectares?’
His eyes widened a fraction, but he held her gaze with a steadiness she found disconcerting. ‘I had a contract drawn up. I need you to sign it before I can start planting.’
He whipped out a sheaf of papers, literally from thin air as far as her tired brain could tell. He flicked through to the final page and pointed. ‘I need your signature here.’ He handed her a pen.
She lowered her cup back to its saucer and dropped her hands to her lap. ‘I’m not signing anything I haven’t read.’
‘Fair enough.’ He placed the contract in front of her and leaned back.
‘And I’m not reading it now when I’m so tired.’
He frowned.
‘And if there’s something I don’t understand, I’ll be consulting my solicitor for clarification.’
He was silent for a long moment and the silence should’ve sawn on her nerves, but it didn’t. After a day of chatter and noise in the confines of the car, the silence was heaven.
‘You don’t trust me,’ he finally said, nodding as if that made perfect sense.
‘I don’t know you. Once upon a time I’d have been prepared to take spur-of-the-moment risks and trust my gut instincts, but I won’t now Tyler and Krissie are in my care.’ She leant towards him. ‘Are you saying you trust me?’ She waved a hand in the direction of the back door and his precious forty hectares. ‘By all means start planting tomorrow. I’ll keep my word. I’ll get the contract back to you by the middle of next week.’
His lips twisted but his eyes danced. ‘Nope, don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.’
Given his size and the breadth of his shoulders, she had a feeling he could throw her a long way if he so chose.
This time it was he who leaned in towards her, and that fresh-cut-grass scent danced around her and it was almost as relaxing as silence. ‘But I do need to get started on the planting soon if I’m to meet my obligations.’
‘I promise not to drag my feet.’ She wanted to be on good terms with her neighbours and the townsfolk of Bellaroo Creek. She just had to make sure she didn’t risk the children’s futures in her eagerness to fit in.
Without thinking, she reached out and touched his hand. He immediately stiffened and she snatched her hand back, her heart suddenly thundering in her ears. ‘I, uh…You said you’d bring your dog around to meet the children. Why don’t you aim to do that tomorrow morning some time—say, ten o’clock? I’ll try and have your contract read by then.’
‘If you need more time…’
Her pulse rate refused to slow. ‘No, no, it’s obvious that time is of the essence. Besides, the kids will no doubt be up early and we have a midday meet-and-greet luncheon at the community hall, so I should have plenty of time in the morning to go over this contract of yours.’
He rose in one swift motion. ‘I’ll see you at ten.’ And then he was gone.
She heard him say goodbye to the children. She supposed she should’ve followed him to the door to wave him off, but the strength had leached from her legs and she found herself momentarily incapable of even rising from her chair. She’d spent nearly ten hours in the car today. She was dog-tired. She’d just turned her entire life on its head—hers and the children’s. And if this move didn’t work out…
She shook that thought off. This move had to work out. In the meantime, she refused to allow her sexy neighbour to unsettle her.
She frowned. He wasn’t sexy.
She glanced at her empty plate, and then at Cam’s and realised he hadn’t touched his cake—he hadn’t even broken off the tiniest corner. She hadn’t been hungry for the last three months—ever since she’d received the phone call informing her of Sarah’s car accident. But now…
She stared at the cake. She pulled the plate towards her and then poured another cup of tea. She devoured both, slowly, relishing every single delicious mouthful.
The children made instant friends with Boomer, Cam’s border collie.
‘Will he fetch a ball?’ Ty asked, pulling a tennis ball from his pocket.
Cam’s mouth angled up in a lopsided smile as he surveyed Ty and Krissie and their barely concealed eagerness. ‘Believe me, he’ll fetch for longer than you’ll be prepared to throw.’ With whoops of delight, the children raced around the backyard with Boomer at their heels.
He had a way of smiling at her kids—and, yes, somewhere in the last month she’d started thinking of them as hers—that could melt a woman where she stood. ‘Morning,’ he finally said, the green of his eyes strangely undiluted in the mid-morning sun.
‘It will be,’ she countered, ‘if you’ll teach me the trick to making a perfect pot of tea.’
He laughed and it was only then she saw that while his eyes might be the purest of greens, shadows lurked in their depths. Shadows momentarily dispelled when he laughed.
He followed her into the kitchen. ‘One demonstration coming up.’
He should laugh more often. ‘Jug’s just boiled,’ she said, shaking the odd thought aside. Cam might well laugh a hundred times every single day for all she knew.
‘Did you fill the jug using hot or cold water?’
‘Hot. It makes it come to the boil faster.’
‘There’s your first mistake.’ He poured the contents of the jug down the sink and refilled it from the cold tap. ‘Cold water has more oxygen than hot. That’s key for the perfect cuppa.’
She sat and stared. ‘Well, who’d have known that?’ Other than a chemistry professor. And a president of the CWA… and her sons.
He sat too, his eyes twinkling for the briefest of moments. ‘It’s important to be properly trained in country ways.’
‘I never doubted it for a moment.’ She leapt up to glance out of the kitchen window to make sure the children were okay. When she swung back she could’ve sworn he’d been checking out her backside.
His gaze slid away. Her heart thumped. She’d imagined it. She must’ve imagined it. She frowned, scratched a hand through her hair and tried to think of something to say.
‘Did you get a chance to read the contract?’
Of course she’d imagined it, but the shadows were back in his eyes with a vengeance and it left a bitter taste in her mouth, though for the life of her she couldn’t explain why. ‘Yes.’ She took her seat again.
‘And?’
The contract had been remarkably straightforward. It hadn’t asked her to give up her firstborn or sign her rights away to the house and the acre block it stood on. It simply requested she sign over the attached forty hectares of land and to waive her rights to any profits he accrued from the use of the land. Except…
On the table, one of his hands tightened. ‘You have a problem?’
She hauled in a breath