Love or Money (3 page)

Checking the mostly bare cupboards, Erin pulled out her notebook and made a shopping list. Thinking about food made her hungry. Her stomach rumbled. Tonight she'd be eating Chinese or nothing — the Golden Dragon was Luna Bay's one and only restaurant. As she thought about the place, the memory of its tangy Asian spice aromas wafted past her nose. Not only that. It was Friday night. Maybe a busy lawyer might stop off at the Golden Dragon for dinner? She deleted the thought fast. The man had as good as said he hated her for planning to sell Lovers' Lookout.

If you sell the place, we probably won't meet again
.

Hamish Bourke locked his office door and drove home as the sun slipped behind the ranges. After a grinding week at the office he looked forward to his weekend access with Dwayne, starting with a happy roll-around on the carpet with his toddler son. Lately, Honey Biggs, Dwayne's mother, hadn't always stuck to the arrangements for Dwayne's handover to his father. The always-fragile relationship between Hamish and Honey had gone belly-up a year ago. He moved out of the home he'd bought for the three of them, then rented a cottage across the street to make it easier to co-parent the son he loved.

Honey's car was gone from her carport. Most likely she'd taken Dwayne to her parents, and gone out on the town. It was Friday night after all — the night it all happened at the local pub. Hamish walked up to the front door of the house, clinging to hope. The little boy would be waiting to see his father. He knocked, rang the doorbell. The house stood silent. Hamish sighed and walked back to his car. Over the past year, Honey had gone from bad to worse. Lately, she'd taken to locking Dwayne in the house during his afternoon sleep and heading for the pub. ‘Just for a coffee, darl, maybe a quick little drink. I'm always back before he wakes.' Hamish knew, the neighbours knew, that often she'd come home late, and drunk. Sometimes, the neighbours told him, Dwayne would be awake and crying. How would the traumatised little boy react to a mother who acted ‘strangely' when, eventually, she came home?

Hamish decided to grab a quick shower, and dash to the Golden Dragon. Starvation made any other option impossible. As he towelled himself dry, he recalled again the woman client who'd turned his last hour upside down. He pictured the face, mouthed the name: Erin Spenser. Any guy would call her beautiful. The first sight of that slender, shapely body would fire a bomb into a man's hormone bank — and lead to the too-obvious physical response he'd felt as she walked in and looked up into his face. For those electrifying first moments, she'd reduced him to mumbling monosyllables as she took the chair opposite, powder-blue eyes probing his. She had some of her grandmother's features: those wide-set eyes, the cute upturned nose. But her youthful beauty was all her own; the sweep of golden hair washing over her shoulders, and those lips — small, bow-shaped, seductive. Any straight man under ninety would want to kiss them the second he got the opportunity.

But the woman's plastic, citified values had surfaced. She'd as good as said she'd sell Edna Spenser's beautiful property the minute she could. What was it about city people? They put money above everything — healthy living, taking care of the planet, honouring an old woman's dream to restore her property to its original pristine loveliness. Forget Erin Spenser, he ordered himself. You have a partner and a son. He brushed his towel over his face one last time, flicked it so that it cracked like a horsewhip, and hung it on the rail. He'd best get on down to the Golden Dragon. Hunger made a man aggressive.

Erin allowed herself the luxury of a slow dawdle from the cottage to the Golden Dragon. It would be good to stroll past the old shops, the heritage town hall with its lichened classic sandstone portal, the war memorial with the names of dead Luna Bay soldiers. She needed a distraction from the pain of the inevitable. She must sell the cottage, and soon. Her mother's cardiologist had hinted that given his patient's worsening health, she might have only months to live unless she had expensive major surgery.

All through Erin's childhood, Helen Spenser had struggled with mortgage payments, keeping a roof over their heads, never quite letting go of the hope that one day her straying husband might return. On the last lap of her exhausting marathon, Helen had won the financial tussle to enrol her daughter in a prestigious art school. Not that the school hadn't been a good investment. Erin had shown talent way back in kindergarten. Now she made an acceptable living doing what she loved — writing and drawing for Possum Publishing.

Erin arrived at the restaurant, stared up at the doorway draped with the familiar gold-painted carving of a scary dragon. She stepped inside. The Golden Dragon was empty except for proprietor Andy Chan. Erin and Andy had known each other since childhood, back when she spent the summers with her grandmother. The two children had come to know each other through Grandma Spenser's shameless addiction to Chinese cuisine. The spicy perfume dragged Erin back to those days as she walked in.

‘Hi Erin.' Andy looked up from his laptop on the counter. ‘Good to see you again. Sorry to hear about your grandmother. Lovely lady. Will we be seeing a bit more of you? Now you've inherited Lovers' Lookout?'

‘Thanks, Andy.' Erin flinched inside. So the Luna Bay grapevine was still working. ‘That's a big question,' she smiled. ‘Too big for right now.' She cast an eye over the spread of empty tables right down to the big tank of goldfish near the kitchen doorway. As a child, she'd spent hours spellbound by those goldfish during dinners with Grandma Spenser. ‘It's quiet tonight,' she said, nudging away from the touchy subject of her plans for the property.

‘Yeah. That's busy downtown Luna Bay,' Andy smiled. ‘You'd see more action in a cemetery at midnight. Thought I'd grab some time to get the accounts sorted.' He closed his laptop. ‘Like to order, Erin? Or do you need to go and say hi to your fish?'

‘Order first, fish later. I'll have the usual, thanks Andy.'

‘Short soup, plus pork noodles in hoi sin sauce, sprinkled with chopped raisins.' Andy scribbled on his pad. ‘I can hear my Hong Kong grandmother turning in her grave.' He slipped out to the kitchen run by his mother, Rosie.

Her meal arrived. Guiltily, she picked at it with her chopsticks. Grandma Spenser's ghost sat opposite, quiet, reproachful. How could Erin enjoy her dinner while that gloomy presence watched her?

Hamish Bourke checked his watch as he stepped into the Golden Dragon. He'd eat quickly and get back to the office. The application for the Department of Environment funding for the wetlands restoration project was due on Monday. Lately, he spent more time on voluntary Landcare matters than on working for a fee — not good for his fledgling practice. But the funding application was important. Extremely important. The orange-bellied tree frog whose habitat was under threat might exit Planet Earth if the wetlands project didn't happen. He stared into the restaurant's gloom. It was empty but for a woman, blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. She sat with her back to him at the corner table near the fish tank. Chopsticks in hand, she turned as he walked in. He stared, then recognised Erin Spenser.

‘Hi,' she called when she saw him looking hard in her direction.

‘Er, hi,' he answered. Those lips, that cute pointy nose, the smile, set his heart racing again. He'd come to the restaurant for a quick meal. Now he'd have to be polite, waste time. A couple of hours before, as Erin stood to leave his office, he'd given himself an order. Keep your distance from that woman and don't get ideas.

‘Staying for dinner?' Her smile invited him.

‘Well…I…' Hamish found himself stuck for words again. The scene was set for a replay of the afternoon at the office. He stepped towards her table.

Andy walked in from the kitchen carrying a folder of loose papers. ‘You two know each other?'

‘We do.' Erin grinned at Andy. ‘Luna Bay's a pretty small town. Mr Bourke and I met this afternoon.' Andy walked back to the counter and his laptop.

‘Is it okay to call you Hamish?' she said, looking up at him as he stood beside her. ‘You said you were Hamish to your friends. I don't want to presume —'

‘Oh, of course.' He cleared his throat. ‘Hamish. Please.'

‘The usual for you too, Hamish?' Andy called from the counter.

‘Yes, thanks Andy.'

‘Singapore noodles,' Andy confirmed. ‘Vegetarian?'

‘Of course.'

‘So, we're not going to be adventurous tonight then?' Andy said as he headed for the kitchen.

‘Would you like to join me?' Erin eyed the chair opposite.

‘Well, thanks.' He eased out the chair and sat. She used the moment to take in his shoulders again. She'd try to help him relax. His X-ray stare was getting to be rather too much.

‘Pardon my mentioning this — it's a bit forward,' he said, still awkward. She half-smiled, curious. ‘What is it about you, Erin? Your face? Whenever I look at you up close, something goes click.' He paused, smiled across at her. ‘Have we met before?'

‘Since you ask, yes,' she said. He stared at her again. ‘Roll your mind back to a certain summer afternoon at Luna Bay,' she said. ‘Twelve years ago. A lifeguard sits on a lookout tower, keeping an eye on the beach.'

‘I used to do lifeguard duty at Luna Bay,' he said. ‘When I came home for university vacations.' He pointed. ‘Were you—'

‘I swam there. I spent pretty much every summer holiday at Lovers' Lookout with my Grandma.'

‘So you told me.'

‘And one day, when I was surfing, a rip dragged me way out past the breakers. It scared me — really scared me.'

‘A lot of inexperienced surfers get caught in that rip. It comes in strong around half-tide, usually. We always fish them out, give them the lecture, and send them on their way.'

‘You didn't give
me
the lecture.'

‘I rescued
you
?'

‘Yes.'

He stared into her face again. ‘It's coming back. The little red bikini, the long blonde hair. The big scared eyes. You couldn't have been more than—'

‘Sixteen.'

‘So that's it.' He beamed. ‘Ever since you showed up this afternoon, I've had this…feeling.'

Erin began to feel something too. Something that came from thinking about a certain lifesaver's taut, tanned body. Lying over her own near-nakedness as he paddled her back to the beach. She must click back to the Golden Dragon, the here-and-now.

‘I had the feeling too,' she admitted. ‘Right from when you talked to me in the parking lot.'

‘But you figured it out faster than I did.' His smile told her he was relaxing at last. ‘Women,' he grinned. ‘Like all the books say, they're quicker on the uptake than guys.'

‘Well then.' She'd take the opportunity that had come on a plate, so to speak. ‘Now we've put that to bed, can we talk a bit more about my property?' she said. ‘I'd like your ideas, please. About what I should do with it until it's ready to sell.'

‘I already told you. You have a very valuable piece of real estate, and…' He looked away.

‘Yes, but I sensed that you were holding back. Making sure you didn't say anything out of place. Being all — professional.' She smiled, giving him some space. He smiled back, still silent. ‘Can I have some more of your
unprofessional
advice? Not the five-second grab this time. We have all night.'

‘My advice will be…biased.'

‘Do go on,' she said.

‘Okay. But first, a legal disclaimer.' He actually grinned. ‘You should know I'm a member of Luna Bay Landcare. The secretary, actually.' His grin widened. ‘Sorry, I don't have a tidy hairdo and nice nails.' He flexed his hands and she looked at them. They were man's hands — big, work-toughened. Not like you'd expect a lawyer's hands to look. She recalled again those hands hauling her out of the rip onto his surfboard. Then she pictured Todd's merchant banker hands — pale, fingers tending towards chubby, nails perfectly manicured.

‘Luna Bay Landcare? What exactly is that?'

‘Hmm. City types. They couldn't be expected to know.' He drew breath. ‘All over the country, locals get together to care for their land. Replace wicked invasive foreign plants with local good guys — get the ecology back into shape. Australia's had some serious ecological disasters — rabbits, cactus, cane toads. And more around the corner if we don't fight them. The government puts literally billions into Landcare to pay for plants, tools, professional managers.'

‘No kidding?'

‘Yep. And often, we Landcare people have a fight on our hands,' Hamish continued, turning his own hands palms upward. ‘At the moment, it's a special bit of remnant wetland. An endangered tree frog species. And a bulldozer-happy developer.

‘Tell me more,' she said. He'd changed. His eyes glowed. He flexed his hands again, drawing her eyes to them.

‘Well —'

‘Go on. I'm all ears.'

‘Actually, that battle's pretty much won.' He eased back in his chair. ‘I warn you. If I get started on Landcare, we'll be here all night.'

‘We have all night,' she reminded him. ‘I need to know local stuff. Local heroes.'

‘So you've decided to move in?'

‘Well, no. I just got to own a bit of real estate for a moment in time. That hardly qualifies me as a local.'

‘Such a pity you're not moving in. I simply can't understand it.' She sneaked a look at his face. Anger glowed beneath the forced fake smile.

‘Well, I have a job in the city, friends, my own little pad. And I told you about my sick mother.'

‘If you have the tiniest smidgeon of your grandmother's genes,' Hamish said, ‘you'll find you can't bring yourself to sell it.'