A Kiss to Seal the Deal (6 page)

‘I'll come along to keep you out of trouble with the locals.
They might not take kindly to a conservationist in their territory.'

Kate grinned. Finally something they agreed on. ‘If there's something I know all about, it's territorial mammal behaviour. Especially the bulls.' She kept her gaze innocent and open, but his narrowed eyes told her she wasn't fooling anyone. ‘Do you think we'll need some kind of secret signal if I get in trouble?'

‘No need,' he assured her, a tasty twist to his full lips. ‘I'll hear the sounds of the gallows being erected and come running.'

Kate bent for the final box of equipment. ‘To help them with the finishing touches?'

His gaze smoothly shifted from her back end to her face as she straightened. ‘That remains to be decided.'

She held a cupped hand to her ear and tipped her head towards the floor. ‘Why, I do believe that's the sound of ice cracking in hell.'

His indulgent smile shouldn't have been steamy, but it was. Somehow teasing Grant was turning into a specialty of hers, even when she didn't mean to. How could it not be, with positive reinforcement like that? When she teased, he smiled. And those smiles were rewarding in a way she was only just beginning to understand.

‘The only thing cracking around here is my back under the weight of these boxes,' he grumbled. ‘What's in this stuff? Gold bullion?'

Kate paused a moment, deciding whether to let him retreat from their flirtatious exploration. But then reality came creeping back in and she realised that putting things back on a professional footing was not only wise but overdue.

Even if it was also a lot less fun.

Grant stood directly between her and her project. He was the
man robbing her of the choices she'd worked so hard to assure, taking control out of her hands.

And no-one was doing that again.

No-one.

E
VEN
though they'd joked about the townsfolk stringing her up, Kate hadn't actually believed it would happen. But here she was, metaphorically at least, being marched to the gallows by the fishing fraternity of Castleridge. She'd come to find a man with a boat. What she'd got was a whole lot more complicated.

‘Not a single hour free in the next month?' She gaped. ‘Seriously?'

Joe Sampson was the fourth fisherman she'd tried. How could they all be busy?

‘Not for the sort of job you want.'

Oh, here we go.
‘You charter your vessel. Isn't a job a job?'

‘Not around here, love. I can afford to pick and choose.'

Another person ripping options out from under her. ‘So why are you choosing to turn down my charter?'

Joe turned his grizzled face and his beer breath her way. The whites of his eyes were stained as yellow as his nicotine teeth. ‘I told ya. I'm busy.'

Kate narrowed her eyes and raised herself to her full height. She raised her voice, too. ‘Not too busy to find time to get drunk with your mates, I see.'

Two of those mates laughed, booming, gusty guffaws; Joe Sampson turned and glared at them. When he came back to her, his eyes were sharp like a fox. ‘That's right, love, I like
a drink. The last sort of person you want driving you up the coast.'

She'd heard that about him. She planted her fists on her hips and glared at him. ‘Beggars can't be choosers.'

His friends burst into fits of laughter again, one of them coughing and spluttering with the effort. Kate distantly wondered whether he'd ever tried kombucha for
his
lungs.

Out of nowhere, a steely hand closed around her upper arm and pulled her away from the fuming Joe Sampson. ‘Kate,' a familiar, velvety voice said. ‘Sorry I'm so late, got a call from the city. Let's get our table, shall we?'

The words triggered a delicious tingling through her body. She spun around to face Grant. Table? What was he doing here?

‘She's a guest on your land, McMurtrie,' the old fella wheezed. ‘And it's out of respect for your father that I haven't told her exactly what she can do with her request to charter my vessel.'

‘Joe…'

Grant and the bar manager spoke at the same time but the older man wasn't deterred. ‘Leo might've gotten himself all addled by a piece of city skirt, but not everyone is as easily swayed as he was.'

Kate spun around again, not sure which insult boiled her blood more. ‘Easily swayed? Had you
met
Leo McMurtrie?'

Joe finally put down his beer, ready for a battle. ‘I grew up with him, love.'

Then something else hit her. ‘And I am
not
a piece of city skirt. I grew up in a town smaller than this one.'

‘Good for you,' Joe snapped. ‘Why don't you head back there? Your kind is not wanted here.'

Even his own mates stepped in then, taking Joe's beer from the bar and moving away from their seats as if he'd follow, pied-piper style. They underestimated him.

She straightened to her full height. ‘Is that so?'

‘Kate…'

Grant's warning was warm against her ear but she was too far gone to care. She ignored his plea and shot back at Joe. ‘And what kind is that, exactly?'

The whole bar stopped to listen. People peered in from the dining area next door.

‘You greenie mob. More interested in saving a bunch of thieving sea-dogs than the lives and livelihoods of the people living here.'

Grant's hand tightened further on her upper arm. He slipped his body closer to hers and tried to nudge her away from the bar with it.

Kate leaned around him. ‘Those
sea-dogs
have more right to be here than you do. They've been fishing here for millennia.'

‘Rubbish! I've been around a lot longer than you have, love, and there were hardly any when I was a boy. Just those few out on the McMurtrie farm.'

‘That's because morons like you hunted them nearly to extinction. They're only just now getting back to—'

‘Kate! Enough.' Grant physically pushed his way between the two opponents and forced her back a step.

‘Get out of my way.' Her verbal warning was for Grant, but her narrowed gaze and her furious attention were all for the ageing fisherman at the bar. Although not so much she didn't feel the strength of Grant's body pushing back against hers.

He dropped his head low against her jaw and whispered warm against her skin, ‘Don't do this, Kate. You're not going to do yourself any favours.'

Behind him Joe Sampson snorted. ‘Oh, not another bloody McMurtrie man addled by a nice pair of legs,' he sneered, before turning back to the bar and speaking too loudly to be to himself. ‘Or what's between them.'

Grant spun faster than Kate could blink and his body was hard up against Joe's. Both the old man's friends stepped in,
hands raised, to head off the conflict. Joe stumbled backwards off his chair and looked every year of his considerable age.

Grant caught him and held him with the steeliest grip Kate had ever seen. ‘Apologise.' His voice was low and hard, and she got her first inkling of what he might be like as a boardroom opponent.

‘I'm not apologising to no city skirt.'

Grant shook the older man and spoke low and hard. ‘I'm not talking about Kate. She can look after herself. Apologise for what you implied about my father.'

Kate held her breath. So did the rest of the pub.

Joe Sampson eventually dropped his gaze from Grant's. ‘Yeah, all right. I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, I s'pose.'

Kate stepped up behind Grant and put her hand gently on his back, moral support, for what it was worth. He didn't even notice. Furious heat radiated through his shirt.

‘My father negotiated access with Kate's team. As was his right on
his
land. Nothing more.'

‘That we know of,' Joe threw out stupidly.

Grant's whole body tensed but one of Joe's mates stepped into the simmering tension. John Pickering, the one with the bushy beard. ‘Look, I'll take her out. I don't mind,' he said.

Joe turned on his mate. ‘Traitor!'

‘Let it go, Joe. What's one boat trip to keep the peace?' Pickering looked past Grant at Kate. ‘This has gone far enough. Take this as my way of saying sorry for not stopping it sooner. I'll take you out tomorrow afternoon if that suits. Half price.'

Kate just nodded dumbly. The bearded man matched it and then steered the belligerent Joe Sampson away from her. Grant straightened up but didn't turn back to her. He spoke quietly to the bar manager over the counter, who nodded and then wandered off to wipe down a surface at the far end of the bar.

Kate stared pointedly at Grant's back. Eventually, he turned and faced her. She lifted both eyebrows.

To his credit, he didn't even pretend to misunderstand. ‘You would have made things so much worse.'

‘You were right when you said I can look after myself. I don't need your help.'

‘Kate, you were warming up to a bar fight. With one of Castleridge's longest-standing residents.'

‘He's an idiot.'

‘
Moron
I think was your professional estimation.'

Smiling now would be a mistake, but Grant with his super-solemn face was hard to take seriously. Her lips twitched.

‘I'm serious, Kate. You could have ruined everything you've worked for.'

‘By having a vigorous discussion on a subject I can argue convincingly in a room full of potential allies?'

He stopped and stared at her. ‘You did it on purpose?'

‘Not stir up Joe Sampson—although I'm glad I'm not getting on a boat alone with him now that I know what a misogynist he is. But it wouldn't hurt if word began to spread in town that the seals aren't threatening human fish-stocks.'

Green eyes blazed. ‘You actually think that's a good idea?'

Whose side was he on?
Oh, wait…stupid question.
‘Why are you here?' she asked irritably.

‘I told you I'd come if I heard the sounds of scaffolding being erected.'

‘From the other room? You were supposed to be at the movies.'

‘A man's got to eat.'

‘Dine alone often, do you?'

He shrugged. ‘It's Friday night. Always someone to meet.'

He looked entirely innocent. If he was lying, he was good at it. ‘There really is a table?'

‘There was. If you haven't got us banned.'

Kate smiled and followed him into the dining hall. All eyes
were on them, which barely registered, because her eyes were entirely on Grant.

Kate can look after herself.

Uncertainty nibbled. On one hand, it was enormously validating to have someone like Grant McMurtrie display such confidence in her ability to handle herself, after years of being talked down to as a pretty, young woman in the male-dominated scientific community. But, on the other hand, feeling Grant's hard body slide in between her and danger had generated a heady, primitive kind of rush, and the tingles it caused were still resonating. Kate stared at the back of those broad shoulders crossing the dining room and remembered how they'd shielded her from Joe Sampson.

She smiled. Or perhaps protected Joe from her.

‘Table for two?' A tall, toothy waitress appeared from nowhere with two menus. She gave Kate an approving wink before placing the menus on a neatly laid table and parting on, ‘Hope the company's more agreeable in here.'

It couldn't be hard. Still, for all the drama, at least she was walking away with a boat and someone to captain it. So something positive had come from the evening.

A few moments later they were settled and seated and everyone in the bar had gone back to minding their own business. Mostly. Kate could feel Joe Sampson's malevolent stare on her back from across the adjoining bar-room. Her heart slowly got back to its normal rhythm.

‘So, you weren't kidding about being farming blood. You're a country girl,' Grant said by way of a conversation-starter.

Kate looked up. ‘Sunbrook. We ran dairy, mostly, but had sheep and some alpacas.'

‘What happened to the stock when you moved to the city?'

‘Sold, apparently.'

‘Apparently?'

Her hands tightened under the table. ‘I never asked. I never wanted to know. Two of those alpacas were like pets to me.'

Grant shook his head. ‘And no-one asked your permission? Asked you what you wanted?'

Defensiveness surged through her for the people who'd been left with the awful task of sorting out her life. The people who'd done their best. But deep down she knew that Grant only voiced the same question she'd had her entire adult life. How hard would it have been to ask her what she needed?

She shrugged and studied the menu. ‘I was twelve. What was I going to say? There was no way Aunt Nancy would have moved onto the farm, so what choice did I have?'

Conversation stalled while they ordered meals and their drinks arrived—a tall beer for Grant and a wine and soda for Kate.

‘It's funny,' he finally said, breaking the silence. ‘While I was doing everything I could to get out of this place, you would have given your life to go back to your farm.'

Kate sipped carefully then lowered her glass. ‘I still would.'

‘Did you ever go back?'

She'd driven south especially to see it a few years back but, even with the shielding of time past, it hurt too much. ‘Only once. I couldn't bear to see someone else's children climbing my trees. Someone else's washing on Mum's line.' Her voice cracked slightly and she took another sip. He hadn't touched his beer; his attention was completely on her.

‘What did you do with the money?'

‘Most of it went back to the bank to pay off the agricultural loan. Some of it went to Nancy for taking me in. What little was left I got when I was eighteen. I used it as a down payment on my apartment.' She folded her hands on the table and leaned towards him. ‘Grant, why are you selling Tulloquay? I completely understand your desire to keep it in one piece, but why sell it at all? Why not lease it, or get a caretaker in? Keep it in your family?'

His lips thinned. ‘What family?'

That was right; he had as little as she did now that his father was gone. ‘Your future family. Someone should look after it. Until you need it.'

‘Angling for a new job, Kate?'

She didn't laugh. ‘No. But I would give anything for a chance to come back to country living, to have something to call my own: land. A future. A home. I can't understand how selling it is better than keeping it. Even if you kept it empty.'

‘An empty farm is soulless, Kate. I'd rather see a stranger take it and make it great than let it run fallow.'

Her heart softened. She considered not voicing her thoughts. ‘Every now and again I look at your face and I see Leo staring back at me.'

He stiffened.

‘I meant that as a compliment, Grant. He was a complicated but dedicated man. And he was determined to strengthen Tulloquay, to keep it relevant.'

‘Then he should have left it to someone else.'

‘Because you're not interested?'

‘Because I'm not a farmer.'

‘That's not the first time you've said that. Do you think farmers are born knowing what to do?'

‘They're raised. Trained.'

She frowned at him. ‘Leo didn't teach you?'

He thought about that long and hard, staring into his beer. Eventually he lifted his head. ‘I didn't want to learn.'

The dark shadows in his eyes called out to her. ‘You didn't want the farm—even then?'

‘I didn't want my future mapped out for me. If he'd said he wanted me to go into the army, I probably would have wanted to be a farmer. He pushed too hard.'