A Kiss to Seal the Deal (9 page)

It was bad enough worrying that something had happened to one of the longest-standing members of the colony without also worrying about her twenty-grand TDR fixed to her back
and possibly lying on the bottom of the ocean. Or in some shark's belly.

She worked steadily, alone, until a carload of her team arrived.

‘Hey, Happy Birthday, old lady!'

Her lips tightened into the serene smile she'd spent a long time working on. ‘Thank you, Artie. I can always rely on you to remind me when I'm getting older.'

Her field assistant chuckled and threw her a small parcel wrapped in tin foil. Kate stared at it, then at him.

‘I believe it's customary amongst your kind to exchange a gift.'

‘Amongst humans, you mean?' Artie was the result of puberty gone wrong, super-long legs and arms that gave him a rather alien appearance. He traded on it. ‘I think you're finally learning to understand us,' she joked.

She unwrapped the gift as he recited an ode out loud for the amusement of the rest of the team. ‘Things that are older than Kate…'

It was a triple-chocolate cake, small, with melted chocolate inside and the richest of chocolate icings outside. She'd had this before when Artie's mum had sent supplies to one of their most remote field locations.

She clutched it as though it was a bundle of precious gems and interrupted his oration. ‘Artie, thank you!'

The whole team laughed. Every cell of her being wanted to just gobble the chocolate delight, regardless of what was on her hands, but she held off long enough to strip off her gloves, rub alcohol cleanser all over them for good measure and pour herself a steaming hot coffee from the flask.

Once that was done, the cake lasted about six seconds. It was as light, moist and to-die-for as the first one she'd ever had. She probably should have nibbled it. She probably should have savoured it. But after last night, she practically inhaled it.

Fuelled by cake, and feeling infinitely better surrounded by
the relentless banter of her team, Kate got back to her sampling. Even the putrid collection couldn't spoil the happy feeling of a belly full of chocolate cake. She even forgot about Grant for a few minutes.

As they worked amongst the lazing seals and nearly mature pups, a large wave washed up and onto the rocks, bringing a mercury-slick mass with it.

‘Stella!' Kate's heart lifted as she saw her long-missing female come lurching up the rock-shelf. She scrabbled the last of her sample into the bag and then tossed her stained gloves in favour of a crisp new pair. They snapped into place as she reached for the medical kit.

‘She's wounded,' Artie needlessly pointed out; the blood was streaming from a wound on Stella's back.

Together, the team worked to isolate her from the other seals for treatment. She wasn't happy about it, but she lay still enough. Kate examined her thoroughly; the surge of blood had been caused by the movement of her powerful fore-muscles pushing her up onto the rocks and made worse by the water that streamed off her. On closer inspection, it wasn't more than a surface wound and some lost fur. No stitches were necessary, just some antibiotic gel.

But there was no escaping what had caused it. Kate's heart sank as life delivered one of its stomach-curdling twists: Stella's TDR was missing.

‘That's an expensive haircut, girl,' she whispered, gently applying the gel and wondering whether they'd affixed the recorder badly, whether she'd snagged it while hunting along the reef edges or whether something bigger and nastier had torn it from her.

Whatever, it was not good.

Kate saw her research bonus shrivel before her eyes. Mind you, given that she wasn't likely to finish her study before Grant evicted her, even that was looking dicey. No completion bonus meant she'd have to sell her apartment to raise the money to
cover the cost of the missing TDR, as per her contract. Her gut plunged.

‘Hey.'

Then it flipped in on itself.

Oh, yay.
Just when a birthday couldn't get any better.

Kate twisted her face up towards the deep voice. ‘I hope you've come to pitch in. You've used your one free spectator-pass.'

Grant's eyes narrowed and he chose his words carefully—smart man. ‘I can help, if you like.'

She released Stella, who eyed both her and Grant balefully and lurched off, back into the water. Given how long she'd been absent, and given how she'd been man-handled the moment she'd arrived, Kate knew it was likely she wouldn't see her again this season. And, under the circumstances, that meant ever. Her stomach squeezed.

She stood stiffly and glared at the most convenient outlet for her frustrations. ‘You know what would help? Let me finish my research.'

‘Kate…'

‘Thought not.' She marched away from him to repack the medical kit carefully. ‘Then I think my team has everything covered here. I'm sure you have a lot of things to do to get the farm ready to sell.'

In two months. Just a matter of weeks. Panic began to nibble at her spine. She wasn't ready. She wasn't done. Her research was sound but it wasn't complete. She'd been crazy to take her eye off the ball, to let her growing friendship with Grant influence her work. She should have fought harder. Should have pushed the Conservation Commission; maybe it wasn't too late.

Somehow the hurt expression on his face only infuriated her more. He was the one who had skipped out before talking everything through this morning.

‘What?' she all but barked.

The hurt morphed into confusion, then something closer to amusement. ‘I… You have…' He frowned at her mouth. ‘Actually, I'm not sure what it is. You look a little like The Joker. Is that Vegemite?'

Kate's fingers rushed to her lips which tingled where his green gaze touched. She could feel the dark frosting that had marked her skin left and right of her mouth in a macabre chocolatey grimace. Heat flared up her neck and she scrubbed at the offending stain with her long sleeve.

‘Kate and chocolate cake cannot co-exist simultaneously in time and space,' Artie helpfully piped up as he passed them
en route
to a nearby sample. ‘It's a well-known scientific principle.'

‘Cake.' Those eyes became carefully neutral. ‘You guys celebrating something?'

He thought they'd had a research breakthrough. Kate could see a darkness lurking deep and it only served to reinforce how impossible their situation was. How opposed their positions were. ‘Birthday, actually.'

‘Whose birthday?'

She shook out a clean plastic sample-bag with a snap and turned to locate a convenient pile of ick. ‘Mine,' she murmured.

He followed her, carefully stepping between the unfussed seals. ‘It's your birthday?'

‘Pretty sure we just covered that.'

‘And you didn't think to mention that last night?'

She straightened on a huff and whispered furiously, ‘When was the right time, Grant? Just after I told you your father had cancer? Or when you had your tongue in my mouth?'

Artie straightened and hurried his sample over to the storage hamper.

Grant's frown doubled. ‘Are you always this caustic on your birthday?'

She slapped a sealed sample into his hands. ‘No, Grant. I'm
not. In fact, I don't usually even do birthdays. Not since I was a kid.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because Aunt Nancy didn't believe in birthdays; she only marked obscure made-up observances no-one else had ever heard of.' And because Kate had stopped counting birthdays the year her parents had died.

‘So, can I assume that this fine mood you are in today has something to do with me?'

Kate crouched for another sample, her lips as tight as her words. ‘That's why you get the big bucks, McMurtrie.'

‘You're angry that I wasn't there this morning.'

Bits of seal waste went flying as Kate flicked them fractiously into the sample bag, then she steadied herself and tried to collect the disparate particles, like a good scientist. She took her time, taking more care, and then stood and extra-carefully took the first sample from Grant. She glanced around. Her team was well occupied on the other side of the cove.

Too well-occupied. Clearly the excellent acoustics of rocky Dave's Cove had done its job.

She turned back to Grant and lowered her voice. ‘I would have thought we had something to square off today.'

‘I had something I had to…' Even he must have heard the lie in his voice. ‘OK, yes. We should talk.'

She rounded on him. ‘What makes you think I still want to?'

‘Because you're a scientist. You don't like loose ends.'

Loose ends.
‘Is that what I am?'

His eyes narrowed. ‘Kate, what's going on? It's not like we slept together.'

In her periphery, her team got busier and practically climbed the cliff face trying to get further away from the two of them.

Great.

‘I don't…' She pressed the heel of her hand into the space between her eyes, trying to dispel the tension headache thumping
away there, then she lifted tired eyes to him. ‘I don't trust easily, Grant. I wasn't prepared for you not to give a damn this morning.'

His focus dropped for a single breath then lifted back to hers. ‘Kate, I'm sorry. I wanted to give you some space, and there was something I needed to…check.'

She lifted one miserable eyebrow.

‘OK, look— I needed to think some things through too. Last night was not something I'd meant to happen and I wanted time to review it.'

‘Looking for loopholes?'

‘I don't need a loophole, Kate.' He said firmly. ‘We don't have any kind of commitment—implied or otherwise.'

That stopped her cold. True enough; his kissing her wasn't a guarantee of anything further developing between them. It was just a result of the simmering chemistry between two people. Simple cause and effect, like all good experiments.

An experiment she'd been a willing participant in.

She sighed deeply. ‘Grant, I'm sorry. I discovered I lost an expensive piece of equipment today, I don't like birthdays and I slept—”
barely a wink
“—badly last night. You should go. I'll see you later.'
She'd barely slept a wink.

‘Is this what you were looking for?'

Kate turned and nearly fell from the rush of blood to her body core. The TDR sat comfortably in Grant's large upturned palm. She took it from him with shaking fingers. ‘Oh my God. Where did you…?'

‘It was here when I came onto the rocks.'

She turned disbelieving eyes up to him. ‘Here?'

He kept his gaze just shy of hers. ‘Well, over there, actually, just as the path widens out.'

Six highly trained scientists had all missed a twenty-thousand-dollar piece of equipment lying on the rock shelf…?

The hairs on her neck shot up. ‘Show me. Exactly.'

Grant frowned but turned back towards the path. As he got
close he veered closer to the edge of the water. He pointed vaguely in its direction. ‘I guess it washed ashore.'

A tight ball grew in her belly. She lifted her eyes back to his and masked them carefully. ‘Well, thank you. You just saved my apartment.'

‘You're welcome. Will I see you at dinner?'

A tight breath squeezed through her. ‘Sure.'

‘We'll have something special. For your birthday.'

Her ponytail swung. ‘I don't do birthdays.'

‘For mine, then.'

Her head came up. ‘Yours? When's that?'

‘In a few months, but since neither of us will be here…' He seemed to realise, too late, what a dismal pronouncement that was. He let his eyes shift out over the ocean.

Kate swallowed back an ache. ‘I'm going out on the boat this afternoon, to search for the breeding site. Not sure what time I'll be back.'

His face snapped back to hers. ‘The boat—what time?'

She shrugged. ‘Not sure. He only said afternoon.' They'd hot-footed it out of there before she could get concrete details from John Pickering.

‘I'd like to come along—since you're searching my property,' he added, when she was about to decline.

What could it hurt? One more pair of eyes. She could ignore him as thoroughly as he'd ignored her this morning; that would be satisfying. ‘I'll text you when we see the boat.' Any vessel from Castleridge had to pass Dave's Cove on its way to Tulloquay's jetty, closer to the homestead.

‘OK. See you then.' Grant waved farewell to the rest of the team and turned to scale the access path, his long legs giving him a climbing advantage and taking him out of sight in no time.

Kate stared at the place he'd identified, at the two little starfish clinging to the rocks where the water surged on and off
the granite shelf. At the pools of water left behind that couldn't drain away. Her eyes shifted to the TDR in her hands.

Bone dry. And not a shred of blood or fur on it. As though someone had carefully cleaned it up. Her eyes lifted to the path Grant had just disappeared up. Why would he?

And, if he had, why would he lie about it?

G
RANT
braced his legs against the roll and toss of the fishing boat
Nautilis
as the captain swung her around. They'd started twenty kilometres up the coast, just past Tulloquay's boundary line, and had chugged their way back towards Dave's Cove bay by disappointing bay.

Kate had grown more and more despondent as she meticulously notated a coastal map and ruled out every site they'd visited: too steep. Too barren. Too rocky. One was a maybe, given two seals lazed on the sandy shore, but they were both females, so Kate wasn't encouraged.

Grant had always had excellent sea-legs so the churning of his stomach had to be a mix of empathy for Kate's growing distress and nerves as they drew closer to the site he knew she was looking for. Alone, she wouldn't have been able to spot the disguised entrance from the sea. But a seadog like the captain; there was no question he'd see it. And he'd take Kate there.

Outside the bar and away from his grouchy mates, John Pickering was a pretty decent bloke and a good sailor. He chatted to Kate throughout the afternoon, sharing his experiences and listening genuinely to hers. The man wasn't about to join the Seal Protection Society, but he was definitely open to believing seals and humans hunted different fish species.

Which meant he was open to working hard to help Kate. He was no more immune to those enormous, optimistic eyes than Grant was.

‘This is horrible.' Kate flopped onto the gunnel of the
Nautilis
next to him. ‘And it's getting us nowhere.'

‘You think a shore search would have been more effective?' he suggested, confident that she'd never find the bay from the landward side.

‘I don't know. What if it's not even here? It's unusual for the males to choose a site a long way from the female's territory, but it's possible.'

Temptation scraped at his conscience. She'd be busy for weeks if she started looking further up the coast—plenty of time for probate to settle, for him to put Tulloquay on the market and sell it. The bleakness in her eyes was so different from the passionate sparkle that usually inhabited her brown depths. It would be so easy to whisper demons into her ear when she was in this mood—flat, despondent. It was exactly the sort of doubt he targeted in the boardroom.

And he wasn't called ‘the closer' for nothing.

He could probably convince her to look elsewhere. But something about the way she ran the back of a weary hand across her eyes had him tightening his ribs against the desire to lean into her. To lend her strength.

Resignation leached through him. ‘Finish the day, Kate. At least then you'll know, one way or the other.'

They were that close to the breeding site now it was really a question of when, not if. It would take a miracle for sharp-eyed Pickering to miss the entrance to the tiny cove. Grant had the sinking sun on his side; he knew from childhood that the seals generally disappeared from shore in the late afternoon and evening, preferring to laze around in the warmth of the morning when the east-rising sun blazed directly on their beaches.

Pickering took the
Nautilis
closer to shore and Grant noted the changing structure of the rocks. This bay looked a lot like his hidden one, only more open, exposed. The breeding site had to be close. Maybe it was the next bay around? Kate used her field glasses to search every bit of the new site.

‘Nothing.' She shook her head heavily, then turned to Pickering. ‘Are we wasting our time, John? Leo told me lanternfish school on the ocean floor this time of day. The seals will be deep-diving now, if they're hunting at all.'

And that meant they wouldn't be in the cove.
Grant's heart set up a steady thrumming, but he kept his body language relaxed.

John glanced up at the lowering sun as he swung the
Nautilis
back around to proceed. ‘It's not dusk yet. One or two could still be onshore. Let's wait and see.'

Kate moved to stand in the centre of the boat, field glasses raised, eyes on the rocky cliff face as they motored parallel to it. Grant's spine ached from the rigid set of his back. The topography was definitely looking familiar, even from the ocean side. His pulse hammered more definitely as his focus ping-ponged between Pickering and the shore.

Any second and they'd motor straight past it.

‘Well, I'll be blown!' Pickering exclaimed. Suddenly, the
Nautilis
spun round. Kate lost her footing and lurched towards the edge of the boat, her binoculars clattering to the deck. Grant shot up and into her path, catching her against his body and steadying her before she hit the gunnel and flipped into the water. Her hands slid up his arms for support. Out of nowhere, a flash of her stretched out and pressed against him in his Jeep hit him and, two seconds behind that the memory of her mouth, hungry and hot against his. His lips tingled in sympathy.

Her eyes flicked up to his, wide and aware. But then the twin brown depths carefully masked over and she straightened onto her feet. ‘Thank you,' she murmured, before lowering her lashes.

Every part of him tightened. Maybe her memory was just as vivid as his. It had only been a few hours.

‘Sorry, love,' Pickering laughed. ‘Nearly overshot this one.'
He pointed to shore and Grant knew, without turning round, what he'd found: the opening to the breeding site.

Kate's graceful neck stretched as her head tilted and her eyes narrowed. ‘Is that an opening?' she asked Pickering.

‘Yep. Well disguised.'

She bent to retrieve the binoculars. ‘How close can we get?'

He spun the wheel and motored forward. ‘Let's find out.'

Damn; trust a seadog to like a challenge. When he got closer, Pickering would see that he could get right in.

Kate moved to his side at the front of the boat. ‘Slow down, John. Just in case.'

The boat slowed and Grant's stomach churned. They were going to round the opening and the bay was going to be full of seals having a frat party; he just knew it. Kate was going to find the site she needed to slap a conservation restriction on his land and his chances of selling Tulloquay as a going concern was going to be shot. The whole plan fizzled right before his eyes.

His heart started hammering.

He'd been crazy to let her stay. He should never have fallen for those big eyes, or let himself be affected by her idealistic dreams. If he'd booted her out that first day he would never have found himself torn between wanting to hinder her and help her. Never have been so eager to make her smile, half-devouring her in his car, all the while trying to keep her from finding the one thing she really needed.

Even now, the two sides of him warred. He could imagine the look on her face when she found what she'd been looking for all these years. He wanted to see that expression in her eyes. He wanted to see this lonely, focused woman get something that meant so much to her.

Yet, he didn't…because of what it meant for Tulloquay.

He studied her as she studied the map, trying to isolate the
cove's location. Her hair blew out behind her in a blazing tangle in the offshore breeze, natural, wild.

She'd burst to flame in his arms last night the same way Tulloquay's parched fields did when the firebreaks were burned into the land—as though she'd been thirsting for it for years. And he'd blazed right along with her, more of his heart in those kisses than in his last five sexual encounters put together.

A careless slip.

Hearts had no bearing on what simmered away between himself and Kate Dickson. Given what had gone on between them, it couldn't for her either. She was a woman of singular will, she'd never allow herself to develop feelings for the man standing in the way of her dream. It had been an emotional night, that was all. And the two of them had a positively incendiary chemical thing going on fuelled by mutual sorrow.

That was all. Kindred souls for a precious moment.

Kate lifted her eyes to the coastline, a worried tightness to her lips and a deep sadness in her eyes.

It's here, Kate.

The words trembled unsaid on his tongue. One side of him just wanted to throw it out there into the mix, deal with whatever came. The same insane, roaring desire to help her that had made him offer her lab space in his father's house. That had returned the TDR. His subconscious was finding a hundred ways to justify making the sort of decisions that would get him fired in the boardroom.

It'll be too late.

I'll sell before it matters.

The Conservation Commission will make their decision anyway.

He had the burning need to help make someone else's dream come true, whether or not it made his own needs more complicated.

All he had to do was say the words:
it's here, Kate.

But, just as the letters sorted themselves into a cohesive
sentence on his lips, his father's face swam in his memory; those gnarled hands, old even twenty years ago, worn to calloused stubs working the land that he loved. The land he'd lived for.

He glanced at the shore.

Only seconds now…

Thump, thump, thump
…A heavy beat beneath his jawbone.

Pickering deftly manouvered the
Nautilis
towards the edge of the rock face, ready to reverse sharply out if conditions turned treacherous. But the water was deep and free of reef, and in moments he nudged the bow straight towards the opening.

‘I'd best not get us any closer, love,' he apologised. ‘Not if we want to get back out again.'

Without a moment's hesitation, Kate clambered up onto the gunnel and edged her way right out onto the
Nautilis's
bow as far forward as she could stretch. The advance location put her almost in direct line with the rock shelf from where Grant had retrieved the TDR. She raised the binoculars. His chest squeezed so tight he couldn't draw breath. Every muscle coiled tight and painful as she finally turned back to them and called out.

‘Empty.'

Shaking her head, she let the binoculars drop again and shuffled back along the bare edge of the boat, puffing slightly with the disappointment. ‘It's a good site, though. Impossible to tell from this distance whether they come here or not. I would if I was a seal.'

So would I.

‘You could swim in?' Pickering offered.

Kate studied the deep, dark waters around them. ‘Too much risk of shark.' She circled the site on her map and marked it with a bold asterisk. ‘I'll try it from the landward side next week. Before noon; before they start hunting.'

When Grant knew it would be full of seals, like this morning—bulls and cows. And there'd be no question about its
purpose. But he let out a slow, controlled breath. She wouldn't find it easily on land; spotting the access was near impossible and getting down there even harder. It would still take her longer than he needed for probate to settle.

As if he'd read Grant's mind, John Pickering caught his eye as he turned to reverse the
Nautilis
out to clearer waters. ‘Is it true you're looking to sell Tulloquay?'

‘Why? Are you looking to buy?'

The larger man laughed. ‘Me, on land? No fear. I'm happiest with wet feet, mate.'

Kate slumped down on one of the boat seats, and Grant eyed her from behind the privacy of his sunglasses. Deep creases had formed between her eyes; the tension played out on her miserable features. He directed his response to their captain. ‘Fair enough. Spread the word; yes, I'm looking to sell.'

Kate looked everywhere but at him.

‘Should get a decent price. Your father did a good job with Tulloquay. Considering.'

That got Grant's full attention. And Kate's. ‘Considering?' they said in unison.

Pickering swung the boat round and continued south. ‘Considering he was more of a fisherman.'

Grant laughed. He'd fished with his father off the jetty only twice in all his childhood, pretty much the only time he could recall his father having anything to do with fish. Then again, those two memories were amongst the best of his childhood. His father had been rarely relaxed and content. The laugh settled into a wary frown.

‘He did know a lot about fish stocks,' Kate murmured. ‘It was him who put me onto the lanternfish, remember?'

‘There's no question,' Pickering said. ‘It was a joke amongst the seadogs—that we'd lost him at land.'

‘At land?'

‘Some people get lost at sea. Leo McMurtrie got lost on shore. He was a natural fisherman.'

In Grant's periphery, Kate turned and look at him strangely, cautiously. It only tensed his spine more. ‘My father was a farmer,' he said flatly.

‘It was what he did. But not what he
was
. A man can spend a lifetime being something he's not.'

I should know.
Outwardly, he only said, clipped, ‘He was a farmer.'

Pickering's eyes softened a hint. ‘Were you at his funeral?'

‘Of course.'

‘I was there too. One of the six men carrying his coffin.'

Grant remembered. That was where he'd seen John Pickering before. But something held his tongue.

Kate asked the question for him. ‘Who were the other five?'

‘All seadogs, love.'

Grant remembered the tanned, weathered men in their dated suits. One of them had had fish scales on his Sunday-best shoes, as though he'd thrown in a quick line before setting off to bury his mate.

Kate stepped closer, almost imperceptibly, but he felt it. He needed it. Again. But he had no idea why. A deep vibration started up in his gut. ‘So he hung out with the fishing fraternity. So what?'

‘So he was one of us, mate. No matter where he spent his days. And there's a lot of loyalty amongst the fishing community.'

‘And?'

‘And your father gave up his life for that farm so that you'd have something to call your own. Some land to grow roots in. And you're going to toss it away, like those seventy years have no value.'