Outback Sisters (11 page)

Hand in hand, they went out the back door and through a jungle of plants along a cobbled path to a shed far down the end of the property. From the outside it looked like nothing more than a place for storing crap, but inside it was amazing.

‘Wow.' He looked around as Simone tugged on blinds and let the afternoon sunlight spill into her studio. Like the house, there were tables so covered in stuff you couldn't see their surfaces and there were art supplies everywhere. Balls of yarn, scraps of material, buttons and sequins and ribbons. But it was the finished products scattered around the shed—some perched on easels, others like the photos in her hallway, just waiting for someone to do something with them—that left him speechless.

He took a few moments just to admire her obvious talent. There were beautiful sceneries, people's faces, shells, animals, even a row of teapots—all created with textiles. He'd never been a huge lover of art but it was impossible not to be impressed. ‘You sell this stuff?'

‘Yeah, some of it.' She leaned against a work bench and smiled at her surroundings. She looked right at home among the organised chaos. ‘The little craft shop in the main street sells some of my smaller pieces and there's a couple of galleries in Perth that display my work too.'

He continued to admire her work—some pieces complete, others obviously in progress. Nothing he could think to say seemed good enough. ‘You are—these are—I've never quite seen anything so detailed. These are amazing.'

Simone beamed. ‘Thanks. This is my happy place. When the girls are making me want to take up smoking or drinking or tear my hair out, I come here and escape to my art. I'm lucky. I love doing it, and people seem to love looking at it. Come and see what I'm working on now.'

He followed her to her workbench and found it surprisingly uncluttered compared with the tables. On it lay a piece of thick calico with the outline of three butterflies in some kind of black silk.

‘Cute,' he said. ‘My sister loves butterflies.'

‘Who doesn't?' Simone laughed. ‘I'm making this for Adam and Stella for a wedding present. The butterflies represent them and Stella's little girl, Heidi, who helped bring them together. Each one will be unique and reflect their personalities.'

‘She has a daughter?'

‘Yes. Heidi has Down Syndrome and her father didn't want her, so Stella became a single mum very young. It's tough enough being a single mum, but being a single mum of a special needs child … Well, Stella is amazing. And in my opinion, Heidi is something of a miracle worker.'

That piqued Logan's interest. ‘How so?'

‘Long story short, Adam's little sister, my cousin, went missing when she was seven years old and until last year, we didn't know what had happened to her.'

‘Jesus.'

Simone nodded and continued. ‘It devastated our family but it hit Adam's mum, Esther, the hardest, of course. She totally withdrew from society and didn't leave the farm. Ever.'

‘Wow.' And Logan had thought his family had had their fair share of affliction. Stories like this made him remember that no-one was immune from tragedy, but you did have the choice about how you responded to it. This Esther woman reminded him of Angus.

‘I know, right? But because of Heidi, we eventually found out what happened to our cousin.' She paused, took a deep breath and then told him everything. Her story blew his mind.

‘And your aunt?' he asked her when she'd finished. ‘She's better now?'

‘She'll always grieve her lost daughter, but Heidi and Stella have helped fill that gap in her life and given her the courage and will to start living again, so you'll see why I wanted to make them something really special for a wedding present.'

‘I do indeed and I bet they'll love it.' He leaned a little closer to peer down at the gift again. ‘It's so much more meaningful than towels or another set of pots and pans.'

‘Speaking of pots and pans, I should go make that chicken soup.' Simone straightened, already turning to the door. ‘You don't mind do you? It's just that once the girls get home from school, the afternoon usually gets away from me.'

‘Of course not.' He checked the time on his watch. ‘How about I help?'

Simone grinned. ‘I was kinda hoping you would.'

They headed out the studio, back up the path and into the house, where Simone began to hunt through her freezer and fridge for supplies. She conjured up a bag of frozen chicken pieces and held them up to Logan. ‘These will do, right?'

‘Yep.'

‘What veggies do we need?'

He shrugged and pushed up his sleeves, ready to work. ‘Onions, carrots, celery are a good start. Whatever herbs you have growing. But anything will do, really. That's the great thing about soup.'

Simone's head disappeared into the fridge. ‘Luckily Harriet fancies herself as a vegetarian at the moment, so we should have plenty.'

She retrieved some celery, carrot, broccoli and an onion and laid them out on the bench.

‘Have you got any pasta?' Logan asked. ‘It's a good way to make the soup a little more like a chunky meal.'

‘Good idea,' Simone said, diving into the pantry and re-emerging with a packet of macaroni. ‘Will this do?'

‘Perfect.'

The two of them set to work alongside each other on the bench. The last time Logan had cooked with someone, he'd been married and, although it was only five years ago, that suddenly seemed a very long time. It felt good to be doing something so normal with a woman again. They talked and laughed as they worked, conversation only pausing when he went to the bathroom.

‘Mmm,' he said when he returned a few minutes later to find the kitchen filling with the comforting scents of homemade soup. ‘Not bad for someone who claims they can't cook.'

Simone grinned. ‘I had a little help. Now let me get you a drink while it simmers.'

She made them both a cup of tea and they sat at the table. ‘Have you talked any more to Angus about the wind-farming?' she asked.

Logan groaned. He didn't want thoughts of his brother's stubbornness ruining what was proving to be a very pleasant afternoon.

She smiled sympathetically. ‘That bad, hey?'

He nodded. ‘We had words about it again before I went to Broome—he just refuses to see that it could really work for us. Farming is uncertain—we're at the mercy of Mother Nature and she isn't always kind—so why not make things a little more financially secure for ourselves?'

Simone shrugged one shoulder. ‘What does your sister think?'

He was about to say he hadn't brought Olivia into the argument yet, when they both screwed up their noses.

‘Oh no!' Simone leaped to her feet, her chair crashing to the tiles in her haste to get to the stove. ‘Damn. Shit. Bugger it. I've stuffed it.' She switched off the gas and peered dismally into the pot.

Frowning, Logan stood and went to join her. ‘How did that stick so quickly?' Then he saw the empty packet of macaroni beside the stove and his mouth dropped open. A bubble of amusement stirred within him. ‘Did you put
all
that pasta in?'

She nodded sheepishly, her eyes wide and the expression on her face telling him she didn't find this quite as amusing as he did. ‘Wasn't I supposed to?'

He lost the battle with laughter and eventually Simone saw the funny side too.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, giggling. ‘You probably want a girlfriend who knows how to cook.'

He shook his head. ‘Actually, that's not high on my list of priorities. I can cook perfectly well myself, so there are a few other qualities that are a bit more important to me.'

‘What exactly are those qualities?' Simone asked, her tongue darting out to moisten her lower lip.

He opened his mouth to tell her he wanted someone who made him laugh, someone who turned him on and someone he could talk with, but his words were lost in what sounded like a hurricane coming down the hallway. He snapped his head around to see two teenage girls. Although they had blonde hair instead of Simone's rich red, they were both stunning and it was clear they were her daughters.

The older of the two stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh. Shit,' she said, storming over to the window and yanking it open. ‘Have you been cooking again, Mum?'

‘And it's lovely to see you too, Harriet. Did you have a good day at school?' Simone's tone did not match her words.

The girl rolled her eyes and then seemed to register him. ‘Logan!' she exclaimed, her sullen expression lifting as she eyed him as if her were a long lost friend. ‘So good to finally meet you.'

He lifted a hand in a slight wave. ‘Hey. You must be Harriet.'

She nodded. ‘Yes.' Then gestured to the shorter girl. ‘And this shrimp is Grace.'

‘Hello.' Grace briefly met his gaze and offered a little smile before looking back to the floor. She reminded him a bit of Olivia at that age, shy and not quite grown into herself.

‘Hi,' he said, feeling uncharacteristically nervous, as if this were some kind of test. ‘It's good to meet you both too. I've heard a lot about you.'

‘We know.' Harriet smirked as if something hilarious was going on. ‘All good, I bet.'

‘Of course.' Logan nodded uncertainly. Simone had never said a harsh word about her girls during their online exchanges, although in person she'd alluded to the normal teenage dramas. Five seconds in Harriet's company and he reckoned she could have said a whole lot worse. Maybe Angus had a point about dating women with children, but Logan wasn't the type to let a sixteen-year-old scare him off.

‘Are you staying for dinner?' Harriet asked, yanking open the fridge and retrieving a tub of yoghurt. She turned back to him. ‘I promise we won't let Mum poison you.'

He quirked an eyebrow. He wanted to stand up for Simone but it probably wasn't his place to reprimand her daughter. Instead, he shook his head. ‘Thanks for the offer, but I've got to get back to the farm.' He didn't want to risk another night on the side of the road so he needed to head off before dark. ‘Maybe some other time.'

Harriet shrugged. ‘Whatever.' And then tore the foil lid off her yoghurt.

‘Is your farm big?' Grace asked, glancing up at him again.

‘Big enough for me. You interested in farming?'

She shrugged one shoulder. ‘My dad's parents have a farm. I like them well enough.'

Grace sounded as if she didn't want to show too much enthusiasm in front of her big sister. An idea popped into Logan's head. ‘You three should come for a drive on the weekend.' He looked sideways to Simone. ‘What about it? Want to come out for a barbecue lunch on Sunday? I promise not to burn the sausages,' he teased, ‘and you can meet Angus. It'll do him good to have some company.'

Simone raised an eyebrow. ‘I can hardly wait.'

‘Ah … he's not as bad as all that,' Logan said, feeling a little contrite at the way he sometimes painted his brother. ‘What do you say?'

‘Sounds good. Can we bring anything? Like drinks or something I can buy in a packet.'

Logan laughed. ‘Just yourselves.'

Agreeing to finalise the details on the phone, he said goodbye to Harriet and Grace and then followed Simone back down the corridor. They stood on the porch awkwardly for a few long moments. It reminded Logan of his first ever real date, when he'd spent most of the night contemplating whether or not to kiss the girl goodnight. So much so that he'd forgotten to actually talk to her.

He knew he should kiss Simone—how could he not?— but it felt wrong to do so with her daughters just inside, and he'd meant what he'd said about not rushing her into anything.

‘Thanks for a lovely afternoon,' he said eventually, then leaned forward and brushed his lips against her cheek.

That would have to do for now.

‘I thought you liked Logan,' Simone said, her fingers clenched tightly around the steering wheel and her jaw set rigid as she drove towards Mingenew. She was trying not to lose her shit with Harriet—she didn't want them both to be in a mood when they arrived at the farm—but her patience was wearing thin. Simone resisted the urge to tell her daughter to take her feet off the dash. Some wars simply weren't worth fighting and she was already nervous as it was.

‘I do.' Harriet, sitting in the passenger seat, sighed loudly as if her life was over. ‘But that doesn't mean I want to waste a perfectly good Sunday afternoon playing happy families, when I should be supporting my boyfriend at the game.'

‘The game' was the local under-18s footy team—hardly the AFL—but Simone reminded herself that at sixteen, little things mattered a lot.

‘I'm sure Jaxon will tell you all about it later. Please, at least try to have a good time.'

In reply, Harriet gave another dramatic sigh, crossed her arms and turned her whole body so she was looking out the window.

Simone rolled her eyes and kept on driving. It was too late to relent now. Maybe she should have allowed Harriet to stay in town—Frankie was there in case of an emergency—but Logan had invited all of them and she didn't want to offend him. Not all men would go to such efforts to get to know their girlfriend's kids. Besides, it could be Harriet's punishment for setting up this whole online dating thing behind her back. She dared not say this to Harriet or she might to throw it back in her face and decide to tell Logan the truth.

Simone shuddered, uncomfortable with the deception but unsure how to handle it. It had been more than two weeks now, so probably best to just let it go. What would he say if he found out? Would he find it amusing if he discovered he'd been sharing intimacies with her daughters back at the beginning or would it change things between them? He might be embarrassed that they knew so much about him. Maybe she should tell him herself before somebody else did.