So Far Into You (18 page)

This time, Remy, did drop the wheelbarrow. It knocked the trowel to the concrete path, making a metallic scrape that hurt her ears. ‘Ailsa said
what
?'

‘She said two weeks' later you called and said you wanted more money. That if she paid you another eighty, you'd be gone for good and we'd never hear from you again.'

‘Wow,' Remy muttered, standing the barrow straight, kind of slumping against it to cover her shock. ‘No wonder you think I'm the lowest of the low. I told Ailsa I'd pay her the money back. I've been saving to pay her back.'

The muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘And how's that savings plan going?'

She swapped her weight to the other foot. ‘I have $78 000 sitting in a high-interest account. I had more. I had most of it at one stage but then—' she took a deep, noisy breath and let it go with a whoosh: ‘look, I had trouble with a tradesman working on my renovation and my roof started leaking, okay? And the Nissan blew a head gasket. I had to trade it in on the Rodeo. All anybody was talking about was drought and grape prices went down the gurgler. I had a perfect storm of crap.'

‘So you spent the money on your house and a new car?'

‘You make it sound like I bought a palace and a Porsche. Every spare dollar I make goes into that account so I can pay Ailsa back.'

He frowned, and she knew immediately what he was thinking—that it was phone sex paying those extra dollars. She would have told him then that she didn't work for White Knights anymore—that she hadn't in years—but before she could get out the words, Occhy's chain grated across the tray. The scream of the chain on the rim ripped the air, and the dog launched himself from the back of Seth's ute.

Remy shouted, and both she and Seth lunged forward. Neither made it before the leather collar pulled tight and Occhy fetched back with a jerk, paws scrabbling thin air. Then mercifully, the dog slipped the collar and thudded to the ground. He sat there for a few seconds like a boxer trying to work out if he had it in him to stand up.

Breeze's next squeal cleared Occhy's wits fast. The dog scrambled for the verandah and they watched his tail disappear as he raced for Breeze and the gate.

‘That bloody dog,' Seth muttered. He didn't climb her newly-repaired steps. He made a running leap through the agapanthus clumps and landed on the verandah.

Remy was a step behind him all the way and that's why when Seth stopped at the timber gate like he'd smacked into the side of a barn, she almost collided with his broad back.

She expected him to grab Occhilupo by the scruff of the neck and drag the dog away. At the very least she thought he'd give both dogs such a telling-off, they'd stop their whining and yelping for a week. But he did nothing like that. He stood stock-still, staring over the gate at her garden.

Slowly, he shunted his sunglasses to the top of his head then snuck his hands into his pockets. ‘I guess that answers my question.'

‘What does?'

As best she could tell, he was mesmerised by the silver birch grove in the far corner, where white trunks gleamed against leaves coloured mustard yellow. If it wasn't the birches, then maybe the rustic timber bench in the foreground where her mother had liked to sit and read; or perhaps he was a closet salvia nut—she had about twenty varieties growing.

‘No one who could grow a garden like that could try to kill a vineyard. I can see that now.'

Remy's heartbeat skipped, and it took a few seconds to kick properly again. ‘I'm glad you think that, finally.'

For the first time in a long time, he turned directly toward her. ‘My mother said you heard a rumour I was visiting Helene Bouchard in France, and you were jealous. You told her you had a “brain-fade” that day. Ailsa didn't believe it.'

Remy laughed.

Seth got right up in her face. ‘It's not funny.' He didn't shout it. He didn't need to.

‘Sorry, I know it's not funny.' She wiped the smile from her face but held her ground. ‘I didn't even know Helene existed until Ailsa told me about her, and that happened after the whole spraying thing.'

‘Blake never believed you'd poisoned the vines on purpose. You never fell off his pedestal.'

‘Like I fell off yours, you mean?'

There was a flat spot on the stone windowsill. She sat there, rubbing her hands on the fabric of the shortest pair of shorts Seth had ever seen. The gesture tugged at a memory he couldn't quite place.

Eventually, she lifted her gaze to meet his. ‘I wanted to give the money back to Ailsa, but I wanted to give it to her in one go. Pride, I guess. I wanted to see her face when I handed her all those zeros and she'd know she didn't have anything to hold over me anymore. Then I was going to come find you and Blake, and explain everything.'

Seth ran a hand through his hair. What with those two idiot dogs and all their snapping and snarling, and Remy being gorgeous, beautiful, independent Remy—turning everything he thought he knew as fact into fiction—he couldn't think. She made it impossible for an honest-to-God thought to actually hit his brain and transmit a sensible message. Nothing about Remy made him sensible and he could trace that right back to the day he'd put his hand up to plank-walk with her in the park.

Plus she kept talking with her hands. She'd take one from where it pinched at the material on her thigh and she'd wave it at him as she made each new point. Her arm would jerk and weave and the tank top scrunched higher up her waist. He could see milky skin peeping beneath the bottom of her shirt and the top of those shorts.

And she'd gone and put Blake's name in a sentence.
Again.

So he took two steps forward, bent low, and kissed her.

Chapter 15

It wasn't the same kiss as they'd shared at Ellen Brook years ago. There was nothing questing or careful about it. It was filled with yearning, desperation, confusion, and he had nothing to give. It was a kiss that tried to take.

Remy put her hand on his chest and shoved. Two fingers caught inside the vee of his shirt, touching crisp hair and warm skin over a fast-beating heart, and it sent a zap through her fingers like static off steel.

‘Remy,' he said on a groan, before he returned to her lips, and the kiss changed. Got tender real fast. She could have coped with his frustration, even anger, because it mirrored how she felt, but tenderness was something else. Tenderness played and plucked on her heart, made her mind and her body dream. It meant she'd start hoping again, and she'd wished her last wish for Seth.

So she kicked him, because her hand on his chest had given up pushing. All it wanted to do was wrap itself in a fistful of his shirt and tug him closer.

From the windowsill her leverage was off. She miscalculated, kicked the concrete before she got to his shin and her howl of pain was loud enough to snare the dogs attention.

‘The least you could do is hop about a bit. I think I broke my bloody toe.' She rubbed her toe through the cap of her boot.

He let her go.

Her toe was going numb but her lips felt sweet and tingly, kind of like they did when she ate fresh pineapple. She took a tiny taste of her top lip, checking if it really
did
taste of pineapple. It didn't. It might have tasted of grapes, though, and sunshine.

She tried to slide away. The problem was, sitting on the windowsill with Seth's leg between hers made sliding difficult if she didn't want to look like she was humping his thigh.

Hell and Tommy, did I just think about humping his thigh?

At the edge of her vision Occhy crouched low on his front legs, wagging his tail. Breeze snapped and snarled at him.

‘Tell her she should make love, not war,' Seth said.

Remy smiled, but only for a second. This was serious. The kiss, the aftermath—something in Seth had softened today, she could feel it. If she could only work out how to get through to him, maybe they'd end up okay. Maybe she could find the way to put the past behind them. If she was brave.

Remy dragged her courage all the way from her throbbing toe. She looked up, met dark eyes staring down and said: ‘We never had any time to get to know each other, Seth. We only had two days. I mean … you never did take me for that cup of coffee. I think if you knew me, you'd know I'm honest. I try to be a good person. A good friend. I don't lie.'

The warm pressure of his hand on her neck stilled. ‘I don't think I know how to be friends with you, Rem.'

Slowly, he leaned closer and as gravity opened the vee of his shirt, she could see the springy mat of dark hair on his chest. She wondered how it would feel if she tangled her fingers in it and the part of her thinking about
humping
and
tangling
and
kissing
woke like a slumbering daisy in the morning sun.

‘Remy?' A voice shouted.

Footsteps pounded the verandah.

Zac Williams burst around the corner, skidding on the concrete. He took one look at Seth and the dog near the gate, dropped the carton of eggs and cast about for something more lethal to use as a weapon. Fleetingly, his eyes settled on the solid handle of an old hoe propped near the shed door.

Seth dropped his hand from Remy's throat. Both dogs barked. Occhilupo growled.

‘Occhy! Down!' Seth ordered. Occhy dropped his hindquarters to the concrete and sat there like a lit gunpowder barrel on paws.

‘It's okay, Zac.
Don't.
' Remy sprang from the window at the same time as Seth stepped lightly back, clearing a space for himself.

‘Thought there was a pack of dogs trying to kill each other up here … and I get round here and this guy's got his hand 'round your throat,' Zac said, eyes darting everywhere.

‘
On
her throat, mate,' Seth responded. His confident tone didn't help Zac's face brighten from thundercloud.

Zac advanced. He looked alert, but not scared. Between the dog and the men, Remy had more testosterone under her verandah than an all-boy dorm.

‘Zac, it's okay. He's a—'
friend
didn't quite cut it so she took a slightly hysterical, steadying breath and started again. ‘Seth, this is my neighbour, Zac Williams. Zac, this is Seth Lasrey. He bought Montgomery Wines, remember?'

They were close enough now to shake hands. Seth held his palm out first and Zac hesitated before he shook it. ‘I didn't realise you two knew each other … like that.' The hand not shaking Seth's motioned between Seth and Remy.

‘We don't! Not like that,' Remy said. ‘Seth's here to assess my grapes.'

Zac's eyebrows quirked. ‘Is that what you call it, hey? Well, sorry to interrupt.' He glanced over his shoulder, where twelve eggs had smashed themselves on Remy's concrete. ‘Shit. Sorry about those eggs, Rem. False alarm I guess.'

‘Never mind, mate. It's good to know Remy has friends who look out for her,' Seth said.

‘It's okay,' Remy said, feeling for Zac. ‘I didn't hear your ute. I would have come out.'

‘I'm driving Mum's car. Mine's getting new tyres.' He kept a wary eye on Seth, and Occhilupo.

‘I've got to go anyway, Rem,' Seth said. ‘I'm seeing Dave and Nance Hackett at noon.'

‘They grow for Chameleon too,' Remy said.

Seth nodded in a way that told Remy he already knew. ‘I'll be in touch. Good to meet you, Zac.'

He called Occhilupo. It took a few seconds, and a sharper, ‘Occhy, get here,' to break through, but eventually the man and his dog were both in the ute, and gone.

‘So that's Seth Lasrey, hey?' Zac said, leaning his backside on the same stone window ledge where Remy had been thinking about
humping
exactly three minutes ago.

‘The one and the same,' she said, listening to the sound of Seth's ute engine grow fainter.

‘You two looked pretty cosy, Rem. You never said you knew him.'

‘I used to work for Lasrey Estate in Margaret River, before I moved here. I had some trouble there and he sacked me. Well, his mother sacked me. It's a long story, and if I tell you, I'd have to kill you.'

‘Hey! My lips would be sealed.' He made a zipping motion.

‘You're a bigger gossip than any of your sisters, Zac Williams, and don't think I don't know it.'

‘Harsh, Rem. That's harsh.'

***

By the time Seth reached the end of Remy's driveway, he was planning when he might see her again. He slowed, checking for traffic before pulling out to the bitumen, picking up speed.

Occhilupo plunged his head out the side of the ute. Tongue hanging out, mouth open into the wind, rocking and rolling with every bounce of the tyres. He seemed none the worse for wear for his dive off the chain.

Pity he couldn't keep Occhy with him all the time. Days like this when he was out and about, Occhy could come along. The days when Seth was at the winery, or in back-to-back meetings in the city, Occhy had to stay on a very short chain at the dog-friendly motel. It was the only pet-friendly accommodation close enough to Montgomery to make the travel time feasible.

‘Nothing like what your girlfriend's got to run around in, hey, buddy?' Seth said to the big mug head that was so close to his driver's side window, he could have reached back and given it a pat.

Whoa. There's an idea. Maybe he could talk Remy into keeping Occhilupo at her place?

He tossed that idea around all the way to his next appointment and when he was almost there, he had the plan together.

Seth used the blue-tooth connection in his car to dial Maggie at Montgomery Wines.

‘Welcome to Montgomery Wines, this is Margaret speaking,' she said.

‘Maggie. I'm on my way to the Hackett's. Then I have to go back to Remy Roberts' place. I'm a couple of hours away if anyone's looking for me. I'm about to lose the battery on my mobile though. Anything urgent, you can get me at Remy's.'