A Kiss to Seal the Deal (17 page)

Relief rushed through her as fast and furious as her seals on
the hunt. ‘Thank you. That means—'
everything
‘—a lot.' But then she pinned him with her gaze again. ‘Why didn't you tell me? Why let me go on thinking…?'

That you hated me.

‘I've made rather a specialty of pre-emptive strikes, Kate. It's an effective survival-tool. I cut Mum out of my heart. I left farming before Dad could tell me I sucked. I cut you free before you could hurt me.'

Kate's lips thinned. ‘Is that your excuse?'

‘No. But it's the truth. I didn't call you because I had no idea where to start to apologise for what I'd implied. For what I said.'

I want you and your ‘I love you' eyes the hell out of my house.

‘And now you do? Or have I forced your hand by being here?'

He stroked her hair from her damp face. ‘You answered my prayers.'

‘You don't pray.'

‘I didn't use to. I find myself…talking here. Out loud.' He frowned. ‘To someone.'

Kate stared at him gravely. ‘Do they talk back?'

‘No.' Those lips twisted again. ‘The sheep did…sometimes.'

Laughter felt like a gift as it spilled over her lips. Her mind immediately filled with images of whooshing through the ocean at high speed, the water streaming weightlessly over her mouth, her eyes. But she couldn't for the life of her work out why.

Grant chuckled, too. Then sobered.

‘So, you're still here?' she said after a long silence.

‘I am. I'm considering my options. Figured this was as good a place as any to do it.'

‘What options?'

‘You accused me of repeating the mistakes of the past, Kate. I've thought about that a lot since you left.' His eyes suddenly
seemed flat. Lifeless. ‘I'm rotting at the firm. From the inside out. When I was younger, I never would have jumped to some of the conclusions I have with you. But I've stuck with law because I've put so much of my life into it.'

‘Sometimes you have to walk away from a bad investment.'

He nodded. ‘That's exactly it.'

‘Are you going to become a farmer?'

He laughed. ‘Uh, no. Not a conventional one, anyway. But something else you said has stayed with me, and lord knows it's stayed with the mayor, who has nagged me until my ears bled.'

Kate held her breath. ‘The wind farm.'

He nodded, his eyes bright again. ‘I spoke to some friends of mine—engineers. They believe we could accommodate two hundred turbines, long-term. More than enough to power Castleridge and have some left over to feed back into the coastal grid. And allowing for revegetation below it.'

Kate held her breath. ‘Can you afford it?'

‘No. But we can start small. A dozen. And between the profits and rebates we should be able to expand. Slowly. Gently. Over a lifetime.'

‘It's a big risk.'

Grant shrugged. ‘A risk shared…'

‘Shared? Who with?'

He shuffled more comfortably in his squatted position. ‘I'd provide the capital but I'd need a partner to provide the land. A local landholder.'

‘Just how far are you planning on expanding?'

‘Only to Tulloquay's borders.'

‘Then who are you planning to partner with?'

Grant reached behind him and pulled out a document folder, flipped it open and turned it towards her. ‘You, Kate.'

Kate frowned. She tried to read the document sideways, then grabbed it and spun it more fully around. ‘This is the deed
to Tulloquay.' She looked up at him. ‘You only received this today.'

‘And I signed it right over to you.'

‘What…?' The breath sucked clean out of her chest. Her heart started up a furious thumping. ‘How did you know I'd be here?'

‘I didn't. But it was always going to be yours. Whether I was around or not.'

The pain of three awful weeks bled out of her on a disbelieving grunt. ‘Since when?'

‘Since I woke up the morning after you left and realised what I'd done. What it meant.'

What does it mean?
She wanted to scream it at him but aloud she just said, ‘Why me?'

‘You once said that Tulloquay wasn't the same without a McMurtrie on it. I feel the same way.' His eyes blazed. ‘This land is meaningless to me empty. Or filled with rambling sheep. It's just one hundred-and-seventy square kilometres of pasture.'

‘Besides,' he went on. ‘You're the only person I trust not to sell out to the land barons who want to build their pesticide factories on it.'

Trust.
She began to hyperventilate and slumped back into Leo's chair.

Almost as if he read her mind, Grant added, ‘I think Leo would have approved. He seemed to have taken a shine to you if half the town is to be believed. And giving Tulloquay back to the ocean is about as close as he'll ever get to giving himself to it.'

‘You're giving me Tulloquay?'

‘There are a couple of conditions—two compulsory, one optional. I had them written into the deed contract.'

Kate scanned the pages of legalese but the words swam, meaningless, on the page. ‘What?'

‘You have to live here. Make it the country home you lost all those years ago. That's the first compulsory one.'

Live here. On Tulloquay. With her seals.
For ever.
‘OK.' The reality hit her; her eyes glistened and a wobbly smile followed. ‘I think I can manage that.'

His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you sure? You haven't heard the other clause yet.'

She frowned, confused, overwhelmed. ‘Is it about the wind farm?'

‘No, that's entirely up to you, Kate. It's your title. You might want to build that environment centre instead. Or a museum. Or a school. I know you'll do the right thing by Leo. By the land.'

‘Then what?'

‘Whatever you choose to do with the property, or your children choose, or
their
children choose, it stays in your family. I don't want Tulloquay passing out of the McMurtrie name ever. No matter what it gets used for.'

The dream of having children, having a family and raising them here, on Tulloquay…Tears flooded her eyes.
Wait…
Kate lifted her watery gaze to Grant's. ‘McMurtrie?'

He blazed, bright and true. ‘That was the optional clause. Again, your choice.'

Her breath ached and swelled in her chest like she was deep diving without scuba gear. Striving for something just out of reach underwater. ‘What are you asking?'

‘I was in town when you arrived, looking for something special.' He pulled a small, ornate box made by one of Castleridge's craftsmen from his pocket and placed it on the arm of the chair. ‘A message I was going to leave you amongst your lab equipment. A message I hoped would bring you back to me.'

He took a deep shuddery breath. ‘Except fate brought you back to me anyway.' He dropped into a squat beside her. ‘I can't promise not to make mistakes, Kate. I can't promise that I won't be an ass again in the future and hurt you without meaning to.
I'm just not that good at this stuff.' He appealed to her. ‘But I can promise you that I won't ever walk away from the challenge. From something I'm not good at. From things I don't understand. I'll worship you, and honour you, and trust you as long as you'll let me.'

He shifted more comfortably onto one knee. On bended knee. Kate's heart stopped. ‘I'll respect your opinion and only disagree with you sometimes, and I'll believe in you when everyone else thinks you're crazy. I'll boil your eggs just how you like them and I'll carry your heaviest equipment. I'll even kiss you when you smell of seal poop. ‘I will make love to you long and late into the night, or morning, or afternoon, or whenever you can spare three-and-a-half minutes.'

Kate laughed through her tears.

‘And I will do all of this because I love you, Dr Kate Dickson. Desperately. Entirely. And I would love you even more if you would please,
please
say some thing sometime soon.'

Kate silenced him—and his uncertainty—with a kiss to his gorgeous lips. The lips she'd missed for so many weeks. The lips she'd expected never to see again except for the pained sneer of her memory.

Heat burbled through her. ‘You love me?'

Grant nodded. ‘Completely.'

‘You want to marry me?'

‘If you'll have me. And I understand why you might not…'

‘But Tulloquay is mine regardless.'

A shaft of doubt shot across his eyes. ‘Regardless.'

She tipped her head and thought about her dreams that morning in Grant's bedroom—the green-eyed little girl—before it all went so horribly wrong.

‘I'd like to be a McMurtrie,' she said softly, finally, and saw Grant nearly sag against the chair. ‘I'd like to have your children. I'd like them to have a home here regardless of what they choose to be later in life. Farmers, fishermen, scientists, politicians…'

‘Contract lawyers?'

Kate smiled. ‘Just as long as they're happy and always have somewhere safe to come home to. Somewhere like Tulloquay. Somewhere with a mother and a father who will always be there for them.'

‘Always?'

‘Until death rips us away when we're old and grey.' Her eyes widened on an afterthought. ‘And I want the fauna protected.'

His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you negotiating acceptance terms, Kate?'

‘How badly do you want this merger?'

‘No price too high. The wildlife will have whatever protections we can write in.'

She fell into his arms. ‘Then, yes, Grant McMurtrie. I accept this deed of title. And I accept your proposal. Not that there actually has been one.'

He smiled. ‘Let me rectify that technicality.' He lifted the lid off the tiny box and tipped a fine gold ring into his palm.

Kate's breath caught. ‘Your mother's ring.'

‘Yes.'

‘You were sending it to me?'

‘I can't imagine anyone else ever wearing it.'

‘What if I'd said no?'

‘Then you would have sent it back. But it always would have been yours in my mind. I would have put it back around my neck and kept you close to my heart.'

She wanted to smile, so badly. But if she did more than carefully speak, she was going to burst into tears. ‘But you've worn that your whole life.'

He shrugged. ‘Now I'll have you. And you'll have the ring.' His eyes grew serious. ‘Katherine Dickson—will you marry me and give me a lifetime to make up for what a clutz I've been about everything?'

Kate held her breath. Every moment of every day since they'd
met showered before her eyes in a three-D action replay. His first smile. Their first kiss. Every squeeze of her heart. Was this what love was all about? Knowing you could lose everything at any moment but knowing with blazing certainty that it was worth the risk? Those moments of pure connection. For the chance to make something beautiful and keep it for ever.

Was that what her parents had for a few blissful years? No matter that it had been so agonisingly short, had it been totally worth it?

Only one way to find out.

A ball tightened her throat. ‘Yes. I will.'

Their kiss went on for ever, making up lost time, reacquainting their lips, promising a future. She clung to his strength and let the hurts and sorrows of the past few weeks dissolve away. She shivered as his hands trailed down over her hip, sliding under her tight T-shirt.

‘My bedroom's all packed up,' she whispered, a sultry kind of déjà vu.

‘That's ok,' he murmured. ‘We can use mine.'

And, as she led the way into the house, out of the corner of her eye she saw her future husband—father of her future green-eyed little girl—standing in the room where his own father had given up on life, with his right hand on his heart and his left hand pointing to the sky, as if acknowledging the man that had brought the two of them together. Thanking him.

Kate frowned at how familiar the image seemed. But then Grant turned and captured her eyes in jade, gave her the most heart-stoppingly, leg-crossingly radiant smile and reached for her hand.

And everything but the man she loved blew like fallen leaves from her mind.