Morgan's Law (27 page)

‘They're not all like that dickhead back in London, Sarah.'

Sarah sank back in her chair and groaned into her hands. ‘I'm just so confused. Nothing about this makes any sense and I'm tired of going around in circles. Maybe I should just do what I came here to do and go home.' What was the point of figuring out this stupid puzzle when there was no one else to care about it?

‘Seems a shame to have come this far and leave it unresolved.'

‘What good is it going to do anyone? I brought Rose back—that's all she wanted me to do.'

‘You sure about that?' Tash asked quietly. ‘She could have made other arrangements to have her ashes brought back here if she'd wanted to keep this a secret, but she didn't. She made it so irresistible you wouldn't be able to ignore it. I reckon she planned on you coming out here and figuring it all out.'

‘But why? For what reason? I don't need anything out here—the Morgans are quietly going into damage control as we speak and, I would imagine, counting down the minutes until I go back to where I came from. What could Gran have possibly wanted me to come out here for?'

‘No idea. But if you stick around long enough I bet you figure it out.' Tash raised an eyebrow, as if challenging Sarah to do just that.

Sarah looked up from her computer screen as she dealt with emails the next day and her heart gave an involuntary flutter as she saw Adam walking into the pub.

‘Hi.'

‘How's William?' she asked. ‘Is he okay?'

Adam gave a small smile and nodded. ‘He's fine. I think getting all that off his chest yesterday did him good. Said last night was the best sleep he's had in a long while. How are
you
?'

‘Fine.'
Terrible.

‘Feel like coming for a drive?'

‘I don't know, Adam. I have a bit of stuff to catch up on here for Tash.'

‘It's okay, I can manage,' Tash called out from behind the bar cheerfully, ignoring the glare Sarah sent her way.

‘Come on, I think you'll like it.'

She was really not in the mood for this today. Unlike William, she'd had a terrible night's sleep and she knew some of it was due to the fact that she missed Adam being there beside her. If she couldn't handle that now, how was she going to cope once she went home?

Neither of them spoke as they made their way out to Adam's ute parked at the front of the pub. Adam reached to turn on the ignition, then he paused. ‘Look, I'm sorry about yesterday. I didn't mean to send you running off like that . . . I was worried about Pop.'

‘It was fine.' She waved off his apology, staring out the windscreen, too afraid to look at him for fear of losing what little composure she had left.

‘Sarah . . .' he began.

‘Do you realise we could be
related
?' Bugger composure. This had been weighing heavily on her mind all night.

Adam crossed his arms and stared at her. ‘You don't believe Pop's telling the truth?'

‘The only person who knows for sure is Gran, and she took her secret with her.'

‘If Pop said he wasn't the father, then I believe him.

You don't know him, Sarah—he raised me to be honest and reliable. Those were the values he believed in. Those were the things that made him a war hero—it's who he is. He's from a time when you shook on a deal and you honoured it.'

‘Oh, come on, people did have sex back then, you know. There was a war on. You think with all those men in uniform everywhere, women really stayed pure and respectable?'

‘I'm not saying they were saints, but out here, back then, and to some extent now too, all you had was your reputation. Small towns have a habit of becoming judge, jury and executioner to anyone who steps out of line. This isn't the big city—things don't happen at the same pace here. If he's saying he isn't the father, then he knows there was no chance. I believe him.'

‘Even though everything we've worked out so far doesn't support that?'

‘Yep.'

Sarah stared at him before shaking her head wearily. ‘I wish I had your faith in people.'

‘Maybe you need to stop believing the worst of everyone. That'd be a good start.' He glared out at the road ahead, hands tight on the steering wheel, and turned the key in the ignition. This time the silence surrounding them wasn't at all the comfortable kind.

Twenty-Five

As they drove past the homestead at Gwandalan, Sarah frowned. ‘Where are we going?'

‘Have a guess.' His tone was curt but not unkind.

‘You know where the tree is?' she whispered and he gave a slow incline of his head. ‘But how?'

‘Pop told me. Said I should take you out to see it for yourself.'

They followed the same track they'd travelled the first time they'd come searching for the tree. It seemed so long ago . . . so much had happened since. Sarah wasn't the same person as the woman who drove into town a few weeks ago. Everything had changed. The grandmother she'd thought she knew had turned out to be a stranger. She had relatives she'd never even known existed. Everything she'd thought she wanted in life had been turned on its head. And now new emotions, dangerous ones that made her question everything she thought she knew about herself, were plaguing her.

The ute rolled to a stop and Sarah forced a deep breath into her lungs.

‘Ready?'

Was she? This was the end of the road. This was where Gran's story finished. Was she ready to face that when she still had so many unanswered questions?

Together they walked towards the river; she could hear it flowing, and it almost sounded as though it were breathing. As they looked down, Sarah caught her breath.

‘That's it,' she whispered. A large gnarled gum tree was leaning slightly out over the river, exactly like in the drawing. A shiver ran along her spine; this place had once played such a special part in her grandmother's life that she'd wanted to be returned here a lifetime later.

Adam moved forward first, breaking the stillness that had settled over them, and she followed him down the bank to the tree. She placed a hand on the smooth bark, solid and cool beneath her hands, and for an instant she felt as though she were connected to a time long ago. She wished the tree could share with her all the secrets it had witnessed in its time.

Sarah trailed her fingers lightly across the trunk, stopping when she felt the carving under her fingers. She wiped the bark to clear the debris from the letters. Adam came up behind her and read over her shoulder, ‘
RM and WB
.'

This was it. It was real.

Sarah tipped her head back to see to the top of the silvery gum, watching the play of shadows as the leaves moved gently with the breeze.

‘Do you feel like we're intruding?' she asked Adam.

‘I don't think she'd have asked you to do all this if she didn't want you here.'

After a few minutes Adam moved away to give her some time alone. She could feel his presence a short distance away, but it was calming, and she knew he was happy to allow her as much time as she needed.

She closed her eyes and tried to summon up an image of a young Rose and William. It was easy to see how two young people in love would feel invincible in this beautiful place. It was so quiet; there was no sound other than the river and the breeze high above in the treetops to keep them company.

How many hours had they spent here dreaming of a future they were never going to have? Had William met her here that last day to break off their romance? She pictured a heartbroken young Rose, sobbing at the foot of the tree, and quickly opened her eyes. She hoped it hadn't been here; she didn't want this beautiful place to be tainted by a memory like that.

Sarah walked back to where Adam was lying on the ground waiting and sank down on the soft grass beside him. The wind sang a whispering song in the leaves above them and the river flowed tranquilly below. Sarah twirled a blade of grass absently between her fingers. ‘What do you think they used to talk about down here?' she asked.

‘The future,' he told her with a certainty that made her heart catch a little.

‘Do you think he did the right thing by choosing his land over the woman he loved?'

‘I think he did what he thought was the right thing at the time. He believed he'd always have another chance to win her back—later, once he was on his feet.'

‘But he never did,' she added sadly.

‘Nope. That's a pretty important lesson right there, don't you think?'

Sarah couldn't hold his steady gaze. ‘What if everything happened the way it did for a reason? I mean, look how it all turned out. Your pop married your grandmother and they had your dad and, I gather, a happy life. Everything would have turned out differently if Gran had stuck around. You and I would never even have existed.'

‘True. Maybe it all worked out just the way it was supposed to so that we could learn from their mistakes.'

Sarah gave an uncertain smile. ‘That's a pretty crappy way to learn a lesson.'

Adam slowly unfolded his arms from behind his head to prop himself up on his elbows, his long denim-clad legs stretched out before him. ‘No one said life was fair. But I for one don't plan on leaving things to chances that may never come around a second time.'

If Sarah were brave she'd ask him what he meant, and from the look in his eye he wanted her to ask . . . but she wasn't brave. She was a coward. She wouldn't ask him what he meant because she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer. If she heard the answer, then she'd be forced to acknowledge that this thing between them was too important to give up.

‘Maybe they both made a mistake that was just too hard to fix,' said Sarah.

‘You can fix anything if you want to bad enough. So I guess in that regard I'm nothing like William Buchanan,' Adam said firmly.

Sarah stared up at the sky through the mottled branches of the trees that grew in a dense clump along the riverbank. It felt as though she and Adam were cocooned in some safe little pocket away from the rest of the world. She could see how, in this place, you'd be tempted to believe that anything was possible. It felt as though there were no consequences, just the here and now. That was a heady feeling, the ability to ignore everything common sense told you was impossible . . . Sadly, though, in that regard she guessed she was nothing like Rose Morgan either. Sarah was too jaded to believe in wishing trees.

‘Things will settle down again once I've left,' she said softly.

‘That's just the problem, Sarah.' Adam's expression was unreadable. ‘Once you've gone everything will go back to the way it was.'

‘You love your life here.'

‘Yep. I do. But it involves long days of hard work—early mornings and late nights, week in, week out, with nothing much changing. I never really thought about it before, but ever since you barrelled your way into my life nothing's been the same. I kinda like not knowing what dilemma I'm going to find you in the middle of each time I see you.'

She guessed that was a compliment. ‘I don't belong here.

I've made my life elsewhere. There's not exactly a huge demand for an advertising executive out here, is there?' She smiled gently. ‘None of my skills are much good for rural life.'

‘There're other things in life besides advertising.'

‘Would you give up farming to start over in something new?'

He gave a small grunt. ‘It's not about me.'

‘No. It's not,' she said pointedly.

‘You can just dismiss this?'

Sarah shrugged. ‘It's just a . . . physical attraction.'

She saw straightaway that he was reacting to her words as though they were some kind of challenge. He rolled towards her and she knew she should be moving away, resisting him, but he smelled so good and his body pressed against hers ignited that now familiar, insatiable need that wiped the last trace of logical thought from her mind.

Adam looked down into her face and a small smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. ‘You can give me all the reasons on earth you think you can't stay, but I'm not giving up. This matters.'

How could she possibly deny it when she was all but panting in the man's arms? The truth was, she didn't want to answer. For just a tiny moment in her crazy life, she just wanted to forget everything.