Christmas at Waratah Bay (18 page)

“I want that, too.” She took a deep breath. “But there’s something . . . I can’t explain . . . For you to buy me out . . . Max, please, can you try and understand? Yeah, I’ve fallen head over heels in love with you, but this contract gives me my first shot at independence ever. I gave up nursing, which I love. I gave up my privacy. I gave it up so I could be done with money calling the shots.”

“But money’s still calling the shots.”

“In two years it won’t be. If you could wait . . . ”

“I want to share Gerome’s puppyhood.”

She choked on something that was halfway between a sob and a laugh and she buried her face on his chest. “Max . . . ”

“I do understand.” There was a long silence, and then he drew her back and tilted her chin. He looked down at her for a long time, then kissed her gently on the lips.

Then put her at arm’s length again.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Option two. We need to be together.”

“You’d hate New York.”

“And I’m thinking Gerome would hate New York, too,” he agreed. “So listen.”

“I’m listening.” But she said it without much hope.

“Did you know Harold’s left you his farm in his will?”

There was more silence then. She hadn’t expected this. He watched the color bleach from her face. He felt her sag a little.

“He can’t have . . . Lorissa . . . The girls . . . ”

“Yeah, Lorissa insisted he formally adopt her daughters, so that makes it possible they might challenge,” he said. “But I’m here to tell you they can’t. The reason I know about the will is that Harold gave me a copy when he made it. He wanted me to keep it safe. I wasn’t sure why, but now I understand. I went and looked at it now, and read it for the first time. You know what it says?”

“I . . . ”

“Listen.” And he said it, as he remembered reading it half an hour ago:

“
For Sarah, who’s been the closest thing to a daughter for me, I bequeath my farm and all remaining worldly goods. I’ve given my step daughters more than their share in extra payments over the years. They’ve taken their mother’s new life and name. They haven’t been near me or made any attempt to contact me since their mother left, apart to request more money, so I feel free to dispose of what remains as I wish.
”

“That’s more or less what it says, Sarah. I’ve seen the figures. I’ve seen what he’s given them. Any court in the land will uphold that will. Harold’s farm is yours.”

“But . . . ” She could scarcely take it in. “Did you . . . is that why . . . ”

“I’ve never read it,” he repeated. “Until now. He had it drawn up by the local lawyer and gave me a sealed copy. Maybe if I had, I’d have understood instead of spending a whole two hours hating you.”

“Two hours . . . ”

“I reckon that’s how long it took to fall out of hate and into love.”

“Max . . . ”

“So if you wanted,” he said, inexorably, but with all the love in the world beneath his words, “You could sell Harold’s remaining land and house. You could use your money to pay out your contract. You could do whatever you want.”

“But it’s part of this farm. It’s meant to be together.”

“And there’s another thought.” There was no disguising the uncertainty in his voice now. “You could sell the farm to me.”

“You’d want . . . you’d want to buy it?”

“It’s been a long night,” he told her. “You spent a lot of time in that kitchen.”

“I needed to scrub,” she told him. “It was either scrub or come out here and use up more of your handkerchiefs.”

“They’re Harold’s handkerchiefs,” he told her, and he couldn’t disguise the raw ache of loss in his voice. “He had a pile two feet high when he left here, and he bequeathed half to me. ‘A true gentleman,’ he told me, ‘always carries handkerchiefs, but he never expects his lady to iron them.’ Full of wise advice, is… was… Harold. I can’t understand why Lorissa didn’t love him to bits. But now…” His voice gentled. ‘Speaking of loving, he’s bequeathed you all his worldly good. Half those handkerchiefs are yours. You could have come out here and shared.”

“I’m not used to . . . ”

“Sharing? See, there’s the difference,” he told her. “Attitude. You’ve been alone for so long and you’ve hated it. I’ve been with people for so long and I’ve felt pretty unhappy about that, too. So maybe we can compromise. We could get you out of New York, away from lots of people, to here, to me, to not so many people, but to those who love you. And me . . . I could expand my horizons a little. I could accept that loving and all the dramas that go with it might just be okay. It might even be fun. It might even be wonderful.”

“I wouldn’t . . . I’d hope I wouldn’t bring so many dramas . . . ”

“No, but here’s the thing,” he told her. “My brain’s been in overdrive. For the last couple of hours, I’ve been sick with grief, and all I could think of was Harold and how much he loved this Christmas and what he said . . . Family . . . And I thought of how much Doug and Katie love farming and how miserable they are in town, and even if you don’t sell me your farm, I can make this happen. I can set them up here. With your farm, it’ll be easier. We could renovate Harold’s little house to make it a family home for them. There’s enough land and more to expand the herd to support two families. Doug dreams of breeding carthorses. He can do a bit of building on the side, if he wants. He can help me dig Gloria out of bogs.”

“Gloria?”

“Don’t ask. She’s part of my family you’ve yet to meet. But Sarah, there’d be two families on the place. There’d be kids and dogs everywhere, it’s be, it’d be . . . ”

“Home?” she finished for him. Her eyes were shining, glistening with tears. “You’d open your heart that much?”

“Probably a bit more,” he said ruefully. “Once Katie and Doug are here, the rest of my siblings will treat this place as their own personal drop-in center. They’ve learned to respect my privacy, but maybe they respect it a bit too much. Maybe I need to let that go.”

“You’ve thought of all this since Harold died.” She sounded awed.

“I’ve thought of all of this since I met you,” he told her. “Since I saw you with a chainsaw. Since I watched you turkey dunking. Since I saw you learning to float and not squealing at tiger snakes. Since I fell in love.” And he looked down again at the small, plastic dog tag in his hand. “Sarah, this isn’t much,” he told her. “But it’s all I have right now and it represents so much. Sarah, will you wear my ring?”

“Will I wear Paddy’s dog tag?”

“And maybe that’s appropriate, too,” he said, drawing her into him once again. “Because it won’t be just me. It’ll be this farm, this whole menagerie, this whole thing called life that’s suddenly hauling me out of isolation. Sarah Carlton, will you marry me? Will you love me forever and forever? Will you say yes, while Harold’s ghost is still here to bless us and keep us safe and say what we’re doing is right for each other, right for everyone, just . . . perfect.”

“Max . . . ”

“And it’s still Christmas,” he said, urgently now, pulling back to glance at his watch. “Five minutes to go. I was planning on giving you a belated gift of your very own chainsaw, but instead, can I give you a dog tag?”

“My very own chainsaw!”

“As well as,” he said hastily, seeing his mistake. “We’ll make it a package deal. A wedding vow and a chainsaw for Christmas. How about it, love? Will you say yes?”

And what was a girl to say to that? A wedding ring and a chainsaw . . . She looked down at the little plastic tag he was offering. She looked up and in his face, she saw what came with that tag.

It wasn’t a package deal with a chainsaw, she thought mistily. It was a package deal with all the love in his heart.

He loved her. He
loved
her.

Life couldn’t be this good, she thought. This must be a mistake.

But just in case it was, she said yes, and she said it very fast indeed.

And then, she couldn’t say another word for a very long time.

The End

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Christmas at Waratah Bay
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Marion Lennox
was a country kid, a tomboy and a maths nerd, but whenever she went missing her family knew she’d be up a gum tree reading romance novels. Climbing trees and dreaming of romance – what’s not to love? – but it wasn’t until she was on maternity leave from her ‘sensible’ career, teaching statistics to undergraduates, that she finally tried to write one.

Marion’s now a multi-award winning author of over had a hundred romance novels. She’s given up climbing trees. (They seem to have grown higher since she was a child!) She now dreams her stories while she walks her dog or paddles her kayak or pokes around rock pools at low tide. It’s a tough life but she’s more than ready for the challenge.

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