Читать книгу: «Her Happy-Ever-After Family», страница 2
‘Are you interested in farming? In keeping cattle or horses or growing a crop?’
The abrupt change of topic took her off guard. ‘God, no!’ She hoped he didn’t take her horror personally, but she didn’t know the first thing about farming. She didn’t know much about vegetable gardens or keeping chickens either, she supposed, but she could learn. ‘Why?’
‘Because there’s been a bit of a mix-up with the tenancy agreement.’
Her blood chilled. Just like that. In an instant. Her toes and fingers froze rigid. He couldn’t kick them out! He’d given them the key.
The children loved this place. She’d made sure they’d fallen in love with it—had used her enthusiasm and assumed confidence to give it all a magical promise. Ty and Krissie weren’t resilient enough to deal with another disappointment.
And they didn’t deserve to.
‘I mean, yes,’ she snapped out as quickly as she could. ‘Farming is exactly the reason we’re out here.’
He frowned. In fact, it might be described as a scowl. But then he glanced at the kids and it became just a frown again. ‘I beg your pardon?’
She didn’t like the barely leashed control stretching through his voice, but he was not kicking them out. ‘What I’m trying to say is that I’m fully prepared to learn farming if that’s part of my contract.’
She’d gone over the contract with a fine-tooth comb. She’d consulted a solicitor. Her chin lifted. She’d signed a legally binding contract. She had understood it. The solicitor had ensured that. She wasn’t in the wrong here. A fine trembling started up in her legs, but she stood her ground. ‘I’m not going to let you kick us out.’ She even managed to keep her voice perfectly pleasant. ‘Just so you know.’
‘I don’t want to kick you out.’
That was when she knew he was lying. Even though he’d been kind to the children. Even though he’d handed over the key. This man would love it if they left.
Didn’t he want to save his town?
By this stage they’d reached the back fence. She set her mug on a fencepost, and then leant against it and folded her arms. ‘It’s been a long day, Mr Manning, so I’m going to speak plainly.’
He blinked at the formality of her Mr Manning. And she saw he understood the sudden distance she’d created between them.
‘I signed a contract and I understand my rights. If there’s been a mix-up then it hasn’t been of my making.’ She folded her arms tighter. ‘Whatever this mix-up may be, the children and I are not leaving this house. We’re living here for the next three years and we’re going to carve out a new life for ourselves and we are going to make that work. This is now our home and we’re going to make it a good home. Furthermore, you are not going to say anything in front of the children that might upset or alarm them—you hear me?’
His mouth opened and closed. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’
He leaned towards her and he smelled like fresh-cut grass, and it smelled so fresh and young that she wanted to bury her face against his neck and just breathe it in. She shook herself. It’d been a long trip. Very long. ‘Then smile!’ she snapped.
To her utter astonishment, he laughed, and the grim lines that hooded his eyes and weighed down the corners of his mouth all lightened, and his eyes sparkled, the same deep green as clover.
Her breath caught. The man wasn’t just big and broad and a great help to his mum—he was beautiful!
The blood started to thump in a painful pulse about her body. Four months ago she’d have flirted with Cam in an attempt to lighten him up. Three months ago she’d have barely noticed him. It was amazing the changes a single month could bring. One day. In fact, lives could change in a single moment.
And they did.
And they had.
She swallowed. The particular moment that had turned her life on its head might not have been her fault, but if she’d been paying attention she might’ve been able to avert it. That knowledge would plague her to her grave.
And men, beautiful and otherwise, were completely off the agenda.
She snapped away from him. He frowned. ‘Tess, I’m not going to ask you to leave. I swear. This house is all yours for the next three years, and beyond if you want it.’
She bit her lip, glanced back at him. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Still—’ she stuck out a hip ‘—you’re less than enthused about it.’
He hesitated and then shrugged. ‘My mother has, in effect, foisted you lot on to me.’
She glanced at the house and then back at him. ‘Isn’t the house hers?’
‘Not precisely.’ He exhaled loudly. ‘My father made certain provisions for my mother in his will. She has the use of this house along with an attached parcel of land for as long as she lives. When she passes the rights all revert back to the owner of Kurrajong Station.’
‘You?’
‘Me.’
She pursed her lips. He met her gaze steadily. She wanted to get a handle on this enigmatic neighbour of hers. Was he friend or foe? ‘Don’t you want to help save Bellaroo Creek?’
‘Sure I do.’
‘As long as you’re not asked to sacrifice too much in the effort, right?’
‘As long as I’m not asked to give up a significant portion of my potential income in the process,’ he countered.
‘How will our being here impact negatively on your income?’ Her understanding was that the Save-Our-Town scheme only offered unused farmhouses in exchange for ludicrously cheap rents. If their farmhouse was unused he couldn’t possibly be losing money. In fact, he’d be fifty-two dollars a year richer.
Her lips suddenly twitched. Cameron Manning didn’t strike her as the kind of man who’d stress too much over fifty-two dollars. Not that she needed to stress over money either. It hadn’t been the cheap rent but the promise of a fresh start that had lured her out here.
He drew in a breath and then pointed behind her. She turned. ‘Forty hectares,’ he said. ‘Forty hectares I had plans for. Forty hectares my mother had promised to lease to me.’
She slapped a hand to her forehead. ‘They were allotted to me in my tenancy agreement? That’s the mix-up you’re talking about.’
‘Yep.’
‘And you want them back?’
‘Bingo.’
She laughed in her sudden rush of relief. ‘Oh, honey, they’re all yours.’ What on earth did she want with forty hectares of wide, open space? She had a house and a backyard and a whole ocean of possibilities enough to satisfy her.
She clapped her hands. ‘Hey, troops, who’s for sultana cake?’
CHAPTER TWO
IT TOOK TESS until her second bite of sultana cake to realise she hadn’t allayed her sexy neighbour’s concerns.
She stiffened. Umm…not sexy. Taciturn and selfcontained, perhaps, and, um…She dragged her gaze from shoulders so broad they made her think of Greek gods and swimsuits and the Mediterranean.
Sleep, rest, peace, that was what she needed. The last month had been a crazy whirlwind and she quite literally hadn’t stopped. The two months prior had been a blur of pain and grief.
She flinched at the memory and brushed a hand across her eyes. Bellaroo Creek would bring her the rest and the sleep she craved, but peace? She wasn’t sure anything on earth could bring her that.
And she wasn’t sure she deserved it.
Cameron hitched an eyebrow. ‘A penny for them.’
She stiffened again. Nu-huh. But the exhaustion made her silly—an after-effect of the nonsense she’d used all day to keep the children entertained and in good spirits. ‘Are you sure you can afford a penny when I’m only paying you a dollar a week in rent?’
His green eyes gleamed for a tantalizing moment. It made him look younger. She dragged her gaze away and rose. ‘I’ll just check on the kids. The promise of cake should’ve had them sprinting inside.’
On cue, the pair came racing through the front door. ‘We found a lizard,’ Ty announced, breathless with excitement.
‘Will it bite us?’ Krissie asked, wide-eyed.
She directed the question at Cam. He’d obviously become the source of trusted information. Tess’s chest cramped as she stared at them—took in their simple wonder.
‘That’ll be Old Nelson, the blue-tongue,’ Cam said, leaning back in his chair, one long, lean leg stretched out in front of him.
Krissie’s eyes widened even further. ‘He has a name?’
‘Wow, awesome!’ Ty breathed. ‘Will he bite?’
‘Only if you poke him or try to pick him up.’
‘Can we take our cake outside, Auntie Tess?’
With a laugh, Tess assented. She watched as they left the room and her chest burned. If only Sarah could see them now. If only—
‘You okay?’
She jumped, swung back patting her chest. ‘Tired,’ she said. She sat and forced a smile. She’d become good at that over the last couple of months—smiling when she didn’t feel like it—but she could see it didn’t fool Cam. She shrugged. ‘They’ve been through so much, but for this moment they’re happy and…and that’s no small thing.’
He stared towards the front of the house and then glanced back at her. ‘They’re great kids, Tess.’
She nodded. ‘They really are.’ And they deserved so much more than life had dished out to them. Focusing on the negatives wouldn’t help anyone, though—least of all Ty and Krissie. She sipped tea. Cam had made a pot while she’d sliced the cake. It was the best tea she’d ever tasted.
She lifted her cup. ‘This is seriously good.’
‘My mother was the president of the Country Women’s Association for a hundred years. Believe me, she made sure her sons knew how to brew a proper pot of tea.’
She made a mental note to join the CWA. But for the moment…‘You want to tell me why you’re still so worried about your forty hectares?’
His eyes widened a fraction, but he held her gaze with a steadiness she found disconcerting. ‘I had a contract drawn up. I need you to sign it before I can start planting.’
He whipped out a sheaf of papers, literally from thin air as far as her tired brain could tell. He flicked through to the final page and pointed. ‘I need your signature here.’ He handed her a pen.
She lowered her cup back to its saucer and dropped her hands to her lap. ‘I’m not signing anything I haven’t read.’
‘Fair enough.’ He placed the contract in front of her and leaned back.
‘And I’m not reading it now when I’m so tired.’
He frowned.
‘And if there’s something I don’t understand, I’ll be consulting my solicitor for clarification.’
He was silent for a long moment and the silence should’ve sawn on her nerves, but it didn’t. After a day of chatter and noise in the confines of the car, the silence was heaven.
‘You don’t trust me,’ he finally said, nodding as if that made perfect sense.
‘I don’t know you. Once upon a time I’d have been prepared to take spur-of-the-moment risks and trust my gut instincts, but I won’t now Tyler and Krissie are in my care.’ She leant towards him. ‘Are you saying you trust me?’ She waved a hand in the direction of the back door and his precious forty hectares. ‘By all means start planting tomorrow. I’ll keep my word. I’ll get the contract back to you by the middle of next week.’
His lips twisted but his eyes danced. ‘Nope, don’t trust you as far as I could throw you.’
Given his size and the breadth of his shoulders, she had a feeling he could throw her a long way if he so chose.
This time it was he who leaned in towards her, and that fresh-cut-grass scent danced around her and it was almost as relaxing as silence. ‘But I do need to get started on the planting soon if I’m to meet my obligations.’
‘I promise not to drag my feet.’ She wanted to be on good terms with her neighbours and the townsfolk of Bellaroo Creek. She just had to make sure she didn’t risk the children’s futures in her eagerness to fit in.
Without thinking, she reached out and touched his hand. He immediately stiffened and she snatched her hand back, her heart suddenly thundering in her ears. ‘I, uh…You said you’d bring your dog around to meet the children. Why don’t you aim to do that tomorrow morning some time—say, ten o’clock? I’ll try and have your contract read by then.’
‘If you need more time…’
Her pulse rate refused to slow. ‘No, no, it’s obvious that time is of the essence. Besides, the kids will no doubt be up early and we have a midday meet-and-greet luncheon at the community hall, so I should have plenty of time in the morning to go over this contract of yours.’
He rose in one swift motion. ‘I’ll see you at ten.’ And then he was gone.
She heard him say goodbye to the children. She supposed she should’ve followed him to the door to wave him off, but the strength had leached from her legs and she found herself momentarily incapable of even rising from her chair. She’d spent nearly ten hours in the car today. She was dog-tired. She’d just turned her entire life on its head—hers and the children’s. And if this move didn’t work out…
She shook that thought off. This move had to work out. In the meantime, she refused to allow her sexy neighbour to unsettle her.
She frowned. He wasn’t sexy.
She glanced at her empty plate, and then at Cam’s and realised he hadn’t touched his cake—he hadn’t even broken off the tiniest corner. She hadn’t been hungry for the last three months—ever since she’d received the phone call informing her of Sarah’s car accident. But now…
She stared at the cake. She pulled the plate towards her and then poured another cup of tea. She devoured both, slowly, relishing every single delicious mouthful.
The children made instant friends with Boomer, Cam’s border collie.
‘Will he fetch a ball?’ Ty asked, pulling a tennis ball from his pocket.
Cam’s mouth angled up in a lopsided smile as he surveyed Ty and Krissie and their barely concealed eagerness. ‘Believe me, he’ll fetch for longer than you’ll be prepared to throw.’ With whoops of delight, the children raced around the backyard with Boomer at their heels.
He had a way of smiling at her kids—and, yes, somewhere in the last month she’d started thinking of them as hers—that could melt a woman where she stood. ‘Morning,’ he finally said, the green of his eyes strangely undiluted in the mid-morning sun.
‘It will be,’ she countered, ‘if you’ll teach me the trick to making a perfect pot of tea.’
He laughed and it was only then she saw that while his eyes might be the purest of greens, shadows lurked in their depths. Shadows momentarily dispelled when he laughed.
He followed her into the kitchen. ‘One demonstration coming up.’
He should laugh more often. ‘Jug’s just boiled,’ she said, shaking the odd thought aside. Cam might well laugh a hundred times every single day for all she knew.
‘Did you fill the jug using hot or cold water?’
‘Hot. It makes it come to the boil faster.’
‘There’s your first mistake.’ He poured the contents of the jug down the sink and refilled it from the cold tap. ‘Cold water has more oxygen than hot. That’s key for the perfect cuppa.’
She sat and stared. ‘Well, who’d have known that?’ Other than a chemistry professor. And a president of the CWA… and her sons.
He sat too, his eyes twinkling for the briefest of moments. ‘It’s important to be properly trained in country ways.’
‘I never doubted it for a moment.’ She leapt up to glance out of the kitchen window to make sure the children were okay. When she swung back she could’ve sworn he’d been checking out her backside.
His gaze slid away. Her heart thumped. She’d imagined it. She must’ve imagined it. She frowned, scratched a hand through her hair and tried to think of something to say.
‘Did you get a chance to read the contract?’
Of course she’d imagined it, but the shadows were back in his eyes with a vengeance and it left a bitter taste in her mouth, though for the life of her she couldn’t explain why. ‘Yes.’ She took her seat again.
‘And?’
The contract had been remarkably straightforward. It hadn’t asked her to give up her firstborn or sign her rights away to the house and the acre block it stood on. It simply requested she sign over the attached forty hectares of land and to waive her rights to any profits he accrued from the use of the land. Except…
On the table, one of his hands tightened. ‘You have a problem?’
She hauled in a breath and nodded. ‘I do.’
‘You want more money for the lease?’
She hated the derisive light that entered his eyes. She pushed the contract towards him. ‘I made my amendment in black ink. That’s what I’m prepared to sign.’
Blowing out a breath, he pulled the contract towards him and flipped through the pages to the end. And then he stilled and rubbed his forehead. ‘You don’t want any payment at all?’
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. What kind of people was he used to dealing with? ‘Of course I don’t want any payment! I’m not entitled to any payment. Rightfully the land is yours. If you want to pay anyone a fee for leasing the land, then pay your mother.’
He sat back. ‘I’ve offended you.’
Why did the wonder in his voice suddenly make her want to cry? Since Sarah’s death, the silliest, most unexpected things could make her cry. ‘You will if you keep going on in that vein.’
Her voice came out husky and choked. His gaze lowered to her mouth and it gave her a moment to study him. He had a strong jaw and lean lips and she couldn’t tear her eyes away. She could keep telling herself that he wasn’t sexy, but he was. His eyes darkened. A pulse throbbed in her bottom lip, swelling it and making it ache. The heat in the air between them sizzled with such unmistakable intensity it made her head whirl. With an oath, Cam pushed away from the table. He seized the teapot and started making tea. She closed her eyes. She’d been surrounded by death, preoccupied with it. Life wanted to reassert itself. This—her body’s rebellion at her common-sense strictures—was normal.
The explanation didn’t make the pounding in her blood lessen any, but it did start to clear the fog encasing her brain.
She jumped when Cam set a mug of tea in front of her, his face a mask. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I’m just used to paying my own way.’
She wasn’t. Not really. Her cold realisation dissipated the last of the heat. She’d always relied on staff or assistants to take care of her day-to-day needs. But she could learn. She was learning.
He hooked out his chair again and sat. ‘A free ride feels wrong.’
‘It’s not a free ride. A free ride is if I also did the planting for you. You’d discussed that land with your mother. You had her permission to use it. Like you said, the fact it ended up on my lease agreement was simply an error or an oversight. Cameron, I have no plans for that land. I’m not losing out on anything.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘Besides, don’t knock a free ride. I’m getting one—a dollar a week rent! Who’d have thought that was possible?’
His lips turned upwards, but it wasn’t really a smile. ‘You’ve brought two school-age children into the area. You’re boosting the school’s numbers and increasing its chances of remaining open. The town will think it a very good swap.’
Speaking of children…She rose and went to the window again to check on them. She laughed at what she saw. ‘Are you sure they won’t wear Boomer out?’
‘I’m positive.’ He eyed her as she took her seat again. ‘They are safe with him. I promise.’
‘Oh! Of course they are. I didn’t mean…’ She could feel herself starting to colour under his stare. The thing was, most days she felt as if she didn’t know a darn thing about parenting at all. Maybe she did fuss a little too much, worry too much, but surely that was better than not fussing enough.
That was when the idea hit her.
He leant towards her, his eyes wary. ‘What?’
She surveyed him over the rim of her mug. ‘You’re obviously not very comfortable with me just handing the land back to you.’
‘You could make a tidy profit from the lease.’
‘Believe me, the one thing I don’t need to worry about is money.’ Sarah had seen to that. ‘But maybe,’ she started slowly, allowing the idea to develop more fully in her mind, ‘we could do a kind of swap. I’ll give you the land…’
‘In exchange for what?’
She rose and went to the window again. She loved those kids. Just how fiercely amazed her. She’d do anything for them. Anything. And what she needed to do most was provide them with a positive start here in Bellaroo Creek.
Cam stared at Tess as she peered out of the kitchen window again. She had a stillness and a straightness, even when agitated, that he found intriguing.
And she had the cutest little butt he’d ever seen. There’d probably been a hint of its perfect roundness in her tartan skirt yesterday if he’d been looking, but there was no hiding it in a pair of fitted jeans that hugged every curve with enviable snugness.
And today he was definitely looking!
For heaven’s sake, he was male. Men looked at—and appreciated—the female form. It was how they were wired. It didn’t mean anything.
But he hadn’t looked at a woman in that way since Fiona, and—
With a scowl, he dragged his gaze away. He needed to keep on task. Tess was proposing a deal of sorts. He glanced up to find her watching him, her brow furrowed as if she couldn’t figure him out. Not that he blamed her.
‘You can take the contract and run,’ she said. She walked back to the table, seized the contract, signed and dated it and then handed it back to him. ‘Nothing more needs to be said. I don’t believe you’re beholden to me, not one jot.’
Honour kept him in his seat. Tess hadn’t taken advantage of the situation as she could’ve done. As Lance and Fiona would’ve done. He did his best to clear the scowl from his face. She’d been reasonable and…generous. ‘What kind of bargain were you going to propose, Tess?’
‘I want to make moving to Bellaroo Creek a really positive experience for Ty and Krissie.’
She hadn’t needed to say that out loud. He could see how much it meant to her. He wanted to tell her how much he admired her for it, but he didn’t. He didn’t want her to think he’d mean anything more by it than simple admiration. Because he wouldn’t.
‘But frankly I’m clueless.’
That snapped him back. ‘About?’
She lifted her arms and let them drop. ‘Everything! I didn’t even know that was a lemon tree and yet you heard all our plans for it.’
Something inside him unhitched.
‘I don’t know the first thing about keeping chickens, but Krissie has her heart set on it. I expect I need a…a hutch or something.’
‘Henhouse.’
‘See? I don’t even have the right vocabulary. And what about a vegetable garden? Other than supposing there’s a lot of digging involved, I haven’t the foggiest idea where to start.’ She frowned. ‘I expect I’ll need compost.’
And, suddenly, Cam found himself laughing. ‘Believe me, Tess, the one thing we aren’t short of in Bellaroo Creek is compost.’
She gripped her hands on the table in front of her and leant towards him. ‘Plus I need to get Ty a puppy, but is a puppy and chickens a seriously bad combination?’
‘They don’t have to be.’ He leaned across and covered both of her hands with one of his own. She stiffened and he remembered the way he’d stiffened at her touch yesterday and was about to remove his hand when she relaxed. Her hands felt small and cold and instead of retreating he found his hand urging warmth into hers instead.
‘So you want help building a henhouse and a veggie patch, and in selecting a dog?’
‘It has to be a puppy. Apparently that’s very important.’
Cam understood that. He nodded.
‘And maybe some help choosing chickens?’
She winced as if she were asking too much, but it was all a piece of cake as far as he was concerned. ‘Tess, helping you with that stuff is nothing more than being neighbourly.’
The townsfolk of Bellaroo Creek would have his hide if he didn’t offer her that kind of support. Though—his lips twisted—he expected there’d be quite a few single farmers in the area who wouldn’t mind offering her any kind of help whatsoever.
‘Then…maybe we can agree to being good neighbours. That’s something else I can learn to do.’
He frowned, but before he could say anything she leapt up to glance out of the window again. ‘And until I manage to get one of my own, may I borrow your lawnmower?’
‘Done.’
She swung around and beamed at him. ‘Thank you. Now watch me as I make a fresh pot of tea to make sure I’m doing it right.’
She had the kind of smile—when she really smiled—that could blow a man clean out of his boots. Mentally, he pulled his boots up harder and tighter.
‘Why can’t Cam come to our party?’
Excellent question. Tess glanced briefly in the rear-view mirror to give Krissie an encouraging smile. ‘He said he had lots of work to do.’
‘I bet he had to take time off work to bring Boomer around to play,’ Ty said from the seat beside her. It was his turn in the front. ‘His farm is really big, isn’t it?’
‘Six thousand hectares is what he said.’ And Cameron didn’t strike her as the bragging type. He was definitely the state-plain-facts type. ‘Which I think is really, really big.’
‘So he probably has loads and loads of work to do.’
Was that admiration or wistfulness in Ty’s voice? She couldn’t tell.
A mother would know.
She gulped. ‘Good thinking, Ty, I expect you’re right.’
His chest puffed out at her simple praise. Blinking hard, she concentrated on the road in front of her.
It only took three minutes to drive from their front door to the community hall in Bellaroo Creek’s tiny main street. Across from the hall stood a row of late-Victorian townhouses—tall, straight, eye-catching, but with all their windows boarded up. Whatever businesses had operated from them were long gone. Once upon a time the town had been prosperous. Tess crossed her fingers. Hopefully they could help make the town prosperous again.
Unhooking her seat belt, she turned to the children. ‘Ready?’ They watched her so carefully. She knew they’d take their every cue from her. The realisation made her swallow. She had to get this just right.
Krissie leaned forward. ‘Is this party really just for us?’
‘It sure is, chickadee. Everyone is dying to meet us. They’re so excited we’ve come to live in Bellaroo Creek.’
‘What if they don’t like us?’ she whispered.
Tess feigned shock. ‘Do you really think they won’t like me?’
Krissie giggled. ‘Not you, silly.’
‘They’ll love you,’ Ty announced.
She knew what he was really saying was that he loved her and it made her heart swell and her eyes sting. ‘And I absolutely promise that they’ll love the two of you too.’
They stared at her with their identical brown eyes—eyes the same as Sarah’s. They trusted her so much! She racked her brain to think of a way to make this easier for them.
‘You know,’ she started, ‘it can be a bit awkward making new friends at first, and I bet they’re just as worried that we should like them too.’ She could see that thought hadn’t occurred to either child. ‘Sometimes it helps to have something ready to talk about. So…when you’re talking to someone today you might like to ask them what their favourite thing about living in Bellaroo Creek is, or if they have a dog, or if they keep chickens.’
Both children’s faces cleared immediately.
‘Ooh!’ She clapped her hands. ‘I could send you both on a quest to find out what everyone thinks would be the best vegetables to grow in our backyard.’
Ty squinted up at her. ‘Because that’s important, right?’
‘Vital,’ she assured him.
He grinned. ‘And you could find out how to make Cam’s mum’s cake.’
She pointed a finger at him. ‘Excellent idea!’ She straightened her shirt. ‘And I’m going to remember to smile nicely at everyone and remember to say please and thank you in all the right places. Ready?’
The children nodded. They tumbled out of the car and, holding tight to each other’s hands, they entered the hall together.
Tess blinked. There had to be at least thirty people in here! As well as one seriously long trestle table covered with more sandwiches, pies, quiches, cakes, slices and biscuits than Tess had seen altogether in one place. The sight of all that food, and all those faces, made her head spin. A hush fell over the crowd.
Thirty people, and yet for one craven moment she’d have given anything to swap ten of them for the familiar reassuring bulk of Cameron Manning. Which was crazy because she didn’t know Cameron well enough for him to be either familiar or reassuring. But so far Bellaroo Creek consisted of their farmhouse, their lemon tree and Cameron.
All these people will become your community, your friends, too.
First-day nerves, that was all that this was. Taking a deep breath, Tess beamed about the room. ‘Hi, I’m Tess, and this here is Ty and Krissie. We can’t tell you how happy we are to be in Bellaroo Creek and how much we’re looking forward to meeting everyone.’
A tall, straight woman detached herself from the crowd. ‘I’m Lorraine Pritchard, and we’re all absolutely delighted that you’ve joined our little community.’
And just like that the silence was replaced with a hubbub of voices, and the three of them were swept into the heart of the crowd. An older woman—Stacy Bennet, the schoolteacher—whisked Ty and Krissie off to join a small band of children, stopping by the refreshment table to make sure they armed themselves with a fairy cake each first, and thereby winning herself two friends for life.
‘The children will be fine with Stacy,’ Lorraine told her kindly.
Of course they would. The same way they’d been fine with Boomer this morning. It was just…she hated losing sight of them, even for a moment. Telling herself to stop being so silly, she turned back to Lorraine. The older woman took her arm. ‘Come and meet everyone.’
It’d take her longer than a single afternoon to get everyone’s names straight in her mind, but they were all so friendly and kind with their welcomes and their offers of assistance to help her settle in that in under ten minutes Tess felt wrapped in warmth. The glimmer of light that had taken up residence in her heart the moment her application had been accepted now became a fully floodlit arena.
