was silent at that, and he thought she’d probe. He didn’t want her to but he’d asked for it. But when she spoke again she’d moved on. Maybe she’d sensed his need for barriers. ‘Good for your mum,’ she told him. ‘But so far inland... You were twelve? How did you go to school?’
‘School of the Air.’ He shrugged and smiled at the memory of his not very scholastic self. ‘Not that I studied much. I took one look at the farm and loved it. And Sam...’ He hesitated. ‘Well, Sam was a mate. He could see how hungry I was to learn and he taught me.’
‘But—’ she frowned, obviously trying to figure the whole story ‘—this isn’t his farm?’
‘It’s not,’ he told her. ‘Cutting a long story short, when I was fifteen Mum fell for a biker who got lost and asked for a bed. She followed him to the city but Sam offered to let me stay. So I did. I kept up with School of the Air until I was seventeen but by then I was helping him with everything. And I loved it. I loved him. He died when I was twenty-two and he left me everything.’ He shrugged. ‘An inheritance seems great until you realize what comes with it. The death of someone you love.’
‘I’m sorry...’
‘It’s a while back now and it was his time,’ he said, but he paused, allowing a moment for the memories of the old man he’d loved. Allowing himself to remember again the pain that happened when he’d been needed so much, and suddenly there was no one.
‘So the farm was mine,’ he managed, shaking off memories of that time of grief. It was rough country, a farm you had to sweat to make a living from, but it did have one thing going for it that I hadn’t realized. It was sitting on a whole lot of bauxite. That’s the stuff used to make aluminium. Apparently geologists had approached Sam over the years but he’d always seen them off. After he died one of them got in touch with me. We tested and the rest is history.’
‘You own a bauxite mine?’ she said incredulously and he laughed.
‘I own a great sheep property. This one. I own a couple more properties down river—economies of scale make it worthwhile—but this place is my love. I also own a decent share of a bauxite mine. That was what got me into trouble, though. It’s why Darrilyn married me, though I was too dumb to see it. But I’m well over it. My current plan is to make this the best sheep station in the state, if not the country, and the fact that I seem to have hauled the best shearers’ cook I can imagine out of the creek is a bonus.’
He smiled and rose, shaking off the ghosts that seemed to have descended. ‘Enough. If I don’t go to bed now I’ll fall asleep on top of a pile of fleece tomorrow. Goodnight, Penny.’
She stood up too, but she was still frowning. ‘The mine,’ she said. ‘Bauxite... Sam Harriday... It’s not Harriday Holdings?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Oh, my,’ she gasped. ‘Matt, my father tried to invest in that mine. He couldn’t afford to.’
‘The shares are tightly held.’
‘By you?’
‘Mostly.’
She stood back from him and she was suddenly glaring. ‘That must make you a squillionaire.’
‘I told you I’d pay you. Now you know I can afford to. And I doubt I’m a squillionaire.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t even know what one is. And, by the way, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t broadcast it. The locals don’t know and I have no idea why I told you.’
‘Because it’s our night for secrets?’ She hesitated and then reached out to touch his hand. ‘Matt?’
He looked down at her hand on his. It looked wrong, he thought. This was a gesture of comfort and he didn’t need comfort. Or maybe she intended to ask a question that needed it.
‘Yes?’ That was brusque. He tried again and got it better. ‘Yes?’
‘Where’s your mother now?’
How had she guessed? he thought incredulously. How had she seen straight through his story to the one thing that hurt the most?
‘Dead.’
‘I’m sorry. But something tells me...’
‘Don’t!’
She hesitated and then her hand came up and touched his cheek, a feather-touch, a fleeting gesture of warmth.
‘I won’t ask but I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘And I’m even more sorry because...you might be a squillionaire, but something tells me that all the whinging I’ve just done doesn’t come close to the pain you’re hiding. Thank you for rescuing me yesterday, Matt Fraser. I just wish I could rescue you right back.’
IF EVER THERE was a cure for humiliation piled on humiliation, it was ten days of cooking for shearers. Ten days of pure hard work.
‘We’ve only two more mobs left,’ Matt told her with satisfaction. ‘That’s four days shearing and we’re done. We’ve had the best weather. The best food. The best shear I’ve ever organised. You’re our good luck charm, Penny Hindmarsh-Firth. I’ve a good mind to keep you.’
Matt hadn’t stopped for ten days, Penny thought. He’d worked until after midnight almost every night. He said he went to bed but she saw his light at the far end of the veranda.
She had his situation pretty much summed up by now. Five sheep properties. A bauxite mine worth heaven only knew how much. Responsibilities everywhere.
The drapes in his bedroom were often pulled back. She could see his shadow against the light, sitting at his desk, working into the night.
He had a massive desk in his study. He wasn’t using that.
Because she was here? She knew it was, but he wasn’t avoiding her.
They’d fallen into a routine. Matt left the house before dawn, she saw him only briefly at meals but at dusk she sat on the veranda and talked to the dogs and he’d finally fetch his plate of leftovers from the warming drawer and come out to join her.
He was always dead tired. She could hear it in his voice, in the slump of his shoulders. Sometimes he seemed almost too tired to talk and she respected that, but still he seemed to soak up her company. And for herself? She liked him being here too, and she didn’t need to talk. She was content to sit and watch the moon rise over the horizon, to breathe in the night air and let go of her fast-paced day.
And it was fast-paced. She’d set herself a personal challenge. Each day’s cooking had to be at least as good as the days’ before. It was worth it. ‘Great tucker,’ a shearer growled as he headed back to work. Or, ‘Strewth, Pen, that sponge’s almost as good as my gran used to make.’
And Matt had nothing but praise. ‘I’d have pulled a rhinoceros out of the creek to get cooking like this,’ he’d told her after the first couple of days and she had no idea why that throwaway line had the capacity to make her feel as if her insides were glowing.
The
