So Far Into You (26 page)

‘Yes,' she said. ‘But not so much since the drought. There aren't as many birds around and the trees have had enough blossom.'

‘No nets?'

‘I netted the first two years. Then fruit prices dropped so much it wasn't worth it.'

Unspoken between them was the fact the big wineries such as Lasrey had been first to start cutting the prices they paid.

‘It's business, Rem,' was all Seth said.

‘I know.' She stepped nearer the vines. Turned with a handful of grapes to face him. ‘Doesn't mean it doesn't suck.'

He nodded to concede the point. ‘I'll talk to Rina tomorrow, get her to schedule your place in for the end of the week. I'll pick up the tab for your fruit pick.'

‘You don't have to do that.' She frowned and he hated it, and when the frown turned to suspicion, he hated it more.

‘I know I don't have to do it. I want to,' he said.

‘I bet Montgomery Wines isn't paying picking costs for any other growers.'

‘This is different. It's not Montgomery paying it, it's
me
paying it.'

‘I'm not a charity case, Seth. I never asked anybody for a free ride in my life.'

‘It's not charity. It's no big deal. Don't turn it into one.' He tweaked her ear. ‘Sometimes you're allowed to just say yes, okay?'

He could read it all over her. Indecision. Discomfort. He tweaked her ear a little harder. ‘You want to pay back Ailsa's money, don't you?'

‘You know I do.' She flicked her head and he let go.

‘You need every cent from harvest to do that, Rem. This just takes out a baseline cost for you.'

‘Then it's kind of a matter of which of the Lasrey's I owe, right?'

She was so bloody stubborn. ‘Why is this different to the way you help those old folk by building them vegie gardens on your own time? I can do this for you, Remy, and it's no big deal. It's helping out a friend.'

Her mouth set in a determined line. ‘It's not the same. We're talking thousands of dollars, not a few bales of pea straw and a stack of old newspapers nobody else wants.'

‘You want my mother out of your life, this is the way to do it. If you want to IOU me, that's fine.'

Her shoulders twisted from him. ‘I'm so tired of owing people money.'

He held his hand to her and kept his voice soft. ‘I don't want to argue. I don't want to ruin the weekend. I'm just trying to do the right thing.'

Remy took a step toward him, then another. Beautiful, liquid steps. And her hand felt warm when she put it inside his.

‘I don't want to argue either.' She came close and kissed him, and he forgot about who would pay the grape pickers.

Seth wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and together they walked down the hill.

At the bottom of the valley, Occhy and Breeze chased ducks by the dam. When he glanced at Remy, her gaze was on the dogs and she was smiling at their antics. So natural and gorgeous when she relaxed like that, she stole the breath from him. Made him feel like the luckiest bastard alive.

Gently, he pulled her to him, and leaned to press his lips to her temple. Remy put her hand in the back pocket of his jeans and squeezed.

‘Don't touch what you can't afford,' Seth said.

So she did it again and he chuckled. Then her hand dipped beneath the waistband of his jeans. Found skin. Her silky finger traced the dent at the top of his arse. Did it again, in that spot she'd discovered he liked sometime in the night. His laugh morphed into more of a groan.

‘I wish I could stay here all week with you. I'd teach you not to tease.'

‘What's stopping you? You're the boss, Stud. Play hooky with me.'

For all of five seconds he thought of doing exactly that. Turning off his phone. Leaving his laptop in its case. Shutting out the world. He never
did
get his game of Sixty Seconds.

Tempting.

Then he imagined what Rina would say if he vanished the week before vintage. She'd have a fit. She'd send out a search squad.

‘I wish.' Seth sighed and let reality wash away the thought of his body pinning Remy's to his Margaret River office wall.

‘I have to get back to Margaret River before vintage here cranks up, Rem. I need to sort a few things out at the office and I'll have to spend a day in in the Great Southern. I need to see my mother too. To say I have a few questions for her is putting it mildly.'

Remy's playful smile faded, and it made him feel like he'd switched a light off on the day.

‘It's not for long. I'll be back.'

‘It's okay. You're CEO of a big operation. I get that. I do.'

‘About this payment for the grapes—'

‘You mean the pickers.'

‘I mean the grapes, Rem. Forget the picking. Me meeting your picking cost is nothing.'

‘Only to you,' she grumped. Her fingers stopped stroking and her hand came out from his jeans. ‘So what about the payment?'

‘If I paid you in advance, would you write out the cheque to Ailsa so I can take it back with me?'

‘The grapes aren't even off the vine yet.' She stopped walking.

He stopped too. ‘It's only a week and they will be. They're not going anywhere.'

‘What it if rains? What if there's a tornado?'

‘You're insured, aren't you?'

She was quiet.

He was incredulous. ‘You're not insured?'

Remy swung away from him defiantly. ‘I can't afford insurance. It's like netting against bird damage. You show me the grower who can afford all these other “what if” costs when grape prices are so damn low. Some things have to give. And anyway, forget about insurance, how can you pay me for grapes that aren't picked? That's just stupid.'

How difficult was it to give money to this woman!

‘I have to go see Ailsa this week. I can take the money for you—God knows I have enough questions for her about what she did to you,
and
to me—wouldn't you like to know that I gave her that money face to face? Wouldn't you want to know what she says?'

‘Ye-es,' she said, although not one hundred per cent happily. ‘But you don't even know what the tonnage rate is yet. How will you work out what I'm owed?'

‘What did you tell me you need to pay Ailsa out?'

‘Twenty-two thousand. I've got seventy-eight in the bank.'

‘So if I make a payment for twenty-two, we're good?'

‘What if my fruit isn't worth $22 000?'

Seth heaved an exasperated sigh. ‘If I find I'm short, you agree Occhy can live at your place rent-free till you've paid off your debts.' Then a thought struck him and he winked, ‘or—and I'm an idiot for not thinking of this before—I take it out of your body.'

He thought she'd been about to protest, but his words killed any argument before it could fall from her lips.

Remy cocked her hip, tossed her hair from her face. ‘And what happens if my fruit is worth
more
than $22 000?

‘I'm good for the balance, Rem. Or you could always take it out of
my
body.'

‘With an offer like that, how can a girl refuse?' She laughed, happy again, and the world was a better place. Remy clapped her hands, then rubbed her palms together. ‘Okay, let's do it! It's about time I got that monkey off my back. I've been using Ailsa's money as a fallback long enough. It'll be good to have it gone.'

‘We'll go into your bank tomorrow, get it worked out.'

‘Okay. It's a deal.'

She held it together for all of two seconds. Then she squealed like a happy banshee and ran from him, tearing down the hill. The dogs saw her coming and bolted toward her, jumping all around her, muddy paws going everywhere, like it was the best time in the world.

Watching the three of them, Seth thought the dogs had it right. Being with Remy was the best time in the world.

***

Jennie Grey rang Seth's mobile just before noon and he'd run out of excuses to put her off. As journalists went, Jennie wasn't one of the worst and if he had to put Remy in front of the media an interview with Jennie would be a soft start. So he told Jennie to come around 2.00 pm.

As it turned out, he needn't have worried. Remy and Jennie discovered they had gardening in common, and the reporter had been on the property for all of five minutes before Remy invited her into the back garden to take a look around.

Seth was dispatched to make the two ladies a cup of tea and get a glass of water for the cameraman, Clive.

Relegated to tea lady at the ripe old age of thirty-five.

He watched them from the living rooms windows while the kettle boiled. Remy would point out a plant and Jennie would bury her nose in it, or touch it, or pluck it, or rub it … whatever one did to release the scent.

He wanted to get back out there. Remy was too honest to be left with a journalist for long. Jennie could be getting all sorts of juicy scoops for her story and Remy might not even know what she was giving up.

That thought had barely popped into his head when it stopped him, mid-dunk, with a teabag dangling from his hand.

Remy was too honest.

For five years he'd been thinking of all the reasons why Remy was a liar and a cheat, why she was an actress and a scammer, and suddenly he thought of her as too honest.

He chuckled to himself as he squeezed the teabag and threw it in the compost bucket she kept under the sink. Picking up the cups, he curved his middle fingers around the glass of water, and went outside.

Seth found the two women just in time to hear Jennie say to Remy: ‘I don't know how you picked which brother to date. They're both gorgeous.'

He opened his mouth to stop things before they got way out of hand, but he shut it just as fast, because he had to know Remy's answer.

She laughed. ‘They are both gorgeous. I've seen a photo of their dad when he was young and you can see where the hot genes come from. Blake was only ever a friend. We used to hang out at the beach a bit. There wasn't really ever any choice. It was always Seth for me.'

‘So it was love at first sight?'

Seth held his breath. Remy might have too.

‘I guess so. I can't speak for Seth, but for me no one else ever came close. We've had a lot of bumps on the way, though.'

‘And it never worried you that he was the boss?'

Again, there was that careful consideration as she framed her answer, and then she said: ‘Sometimes, yes. We weren't supposed to establish personal relationships in the workplace at that time—it was considered an OHS risk. Typical me, I had to pick the biggest name in the company to fall for. I knew if a relationship between us caused any trouble, it wouldn't be the CEO who got sacked.'

‘And that's kind of what happened then, isn't it?' Jennie asked, standing up from where she'd picked a sprig of basil or mint or whatever it was from the herb garden, squinting at Remy against the sun.

‘Kind of, yes,' Remy said. ‘But I had a problem in the vineyard when I worked there. I damaged one of the company's premier vineyards because I made a mistake mixing a spray. That's why I lost my job.'

There she goes again, too honest,
Seth thought.

‘There was a bright side with what happened to me, though, Jennie: it taught me a lot about chemical safety in a vineyard. These days I'm as close to organic as I can get. I don't use herbicides or fungicides, I plant the mid-rows here with a native cover crop and I slash it a couple times a year. I make compost tea for the vines. It's healthier for everyone.'

Jennie Grey opened her mouth for another question, but Seth chose that point to interrupt: ‘Tea's ready, ladies.'

***

By the time the news people called it a wrap it was getting late. Seth and Remy were in the patio deckchairs nursing a beer, watching the dogs play.

Seth would catch an afternoon flight out of Adelaide to Perth the next day, and the thought of spending a week apart had both of them subdued.

The dogs kept them entertained, although for reasons all her own, Breeze was snappy at Occhy for the first time since he'd come to stay.

‘Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you and Blake had got together?' Seth said at one stage.

‘No.'

He took a long sip of his beer, drained it. From the deckchair beside him, Remy lifted her legs and crossed them comfortably over his knees and Seth had to adjust his weight on the seat to compensate.

‘At work, we used to say you were the storm cloud and Blake was the sunshine. Blake looked for the best in people all the time; he was so uncomplicated. He was easy to be with,' Remy said.

‘Not like me?'

‘God, not like you. You were so intense. You still are. You had everyone running scared. I couldn't believe it that day when you came out of nowhere and volunteered to plank walk with us. That was the first time I'd seen you laugh. Do you remember that? Blake was shouting at us where to put our feet. Left. Right. Left. And you and I cracked up.'

He chuckled. ‘Yeah.'

‘I'll miss you tomorrow night,' she said. ‘I know you have to go. But I'll miss you.'

‘Me too.' He ran his hand down her thigh, over her knee, up again. ‘Can we talk about what happens when I get back?'

‘What happens when you get back?'

‘I was hoping you might invite me to lodge here, you know—' he lifted her hand and put her fingers to his lips, kissing the tips— ‘me and my dog.'

‘Yeah, sure. I can find a kennel for you. The nights are getting chilly though.'

‘Crazy lady.' He tightened his grip on her hand and eased her off her deckchair into his lap. ‘I want you, Rem. I want to be with you.'

‘Wow.' She ducked her head shyly, all jokes gone from her, and a heartbeat later, she snuck her hand around the back of his head and bent to press her forehead against his. ‘That would be great.'