It was up to him. And somehow he made the call. Somehow the ghosts prevailed.
‘I need to be up before dawn,’ he told her.
There was a long silence. Then, ‘Of course you do.’ There was still a tremble in her voice but she was fighting to get it under control.
Somehow he stayed silent. Somehow he managed not to gather her into his arms and take this to its inevitable conclusion.
It almost killed him.
But she had herself under control now. He could see her gathering herself together. This was a woman used to being rebuffed, he thought, and somehow that made it worse. But the ghosts were all around him, echoes of lessons long learned.
He didn’t move.
‘Then goodnight, Matt,’ she whispered at last, and she reached out and touched his face in the most fleeting of farewell caresses. ‘Sleep well. Sleep happy and sensible.’
And she turned and, without a torch, not even noticing the rough ground, she practically ran back to the relative sanctuary of the house.
It was done.
Sense had prevailed.
THEY WORKED SOLIDLY for the next four days. The timetable remained the same. They hardly saw each other during the day but at night Matt continued bringing his meal out to the veranda. Penny was always there, watching the moonlight, soaking up the stillness. Nothing had changed.
Except everything had.
There was a stillness between them. It was a kind of tension except it wasn’t a tension. There was something happening that Matt couldn’t figure.
He’d hurt her. He knew he had, he thought, as he sat on the veranda four nights later. He’d seen her face as he’d pulled away that night. She’d practically thrown herself at him. Now she was humiliated and he didn’t know what to do about it.
Saying sorry wasn’t going to cut it. Saying sorry would simply be saying she’d offered herself to him and he’d refused, but that wasn’t how it had been. The tug between them was mutual.
But he’d had no choice. Penny had been honest enough to accept their desire was mutual, but the barriers he’d put up over the years had held. He wasn’t going down that path again.
But what path? The path of grief he’d felt when his mother had left? When the old man who’d befriended him had died?
Or the path of betrayal both his mother and his wife had shown him?
He’d put Penny in the same bracket and she knew it. He’d humiliated her. He’d hurt her. He knew it but he didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
And maybe Penny was used to such humiliation because she simply got on with it. She smiled at him, she used the same casual banter, she sat on the veranda now and shared the silence and it was as if nothing had happened.
Except the hurt was still there. How did he know? The sparkle of fun behind her eyes had changed, just a little. She was good at hiding hurt, he thought. If he didn’t know her so well...
How did he know her so well? He didn’t have a clue. He only knew that he did and he also knew that it had him retreating.
If he went one step further...
He couldn’t. The next step would be a crashing down of those boundaries. A shattering of armour.
After all those years, how could he do that?
Penny rose. They’d been sitting on the veranda for only twenty minutes or so and they usually stayed an hour, but tomorrow was the last day of the shear. He had things to do and maybe she did too.
Or maybe this thing between them was too much.
‘I’m making bulk choc chip cookies before I go to bed,’ she told him. ‘The team’s heading on to McLarens’ tomorrow and they’re already whinging about the cooking they’ll get there. I thought I’d send them with a goodbye kit.’
‘They’ll expect you back next year,’ Matt told her and she paused and looked down at him in the dim light.
‘I’ll be well into organizing my catering company by then,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But if you pay me enough I’ll come.’
‘Is that what you plan to do? Set up a catering company?’
‘Yes,’ she said, almost as if she was speaking to herself. ‘I’ll make it a success. I know it. Maybe I can find enough competent staff interested in outback experiences to let me offer catering for shearing.’
And he had to ask. ‘So will you come, or will it be your competent staff?’
‘Who knows?’ She said it lightly but he still heard the pain.
‘Penny?’
‘Mmm?’ She leaned down to lift his empty plate from the bench beside him but he reached out and took her wrist before she could lift it.
‘Are you staying for the next two weeks?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t said.’
She stilled. She looked down at her wrist.
He released it. No pressure.
What was he thinking, no pressure? There was pressure everywhere.
‘Do you still want me to?’
And of course he should say no. He should say the thought had been a dumb one when he’d made the offer. His barricades needed reinforcing.
He’d hurt her and he had no intention of hurting her again. He needed to back off and let her go.
But the night was still and Penny didn’t move. His grip on her wrist was light. She could pull away if she wanted.
She didn’t.
And all at once he thought: To hell with barricades. Let’s just...see.
‘This thing between us...’ he managed and she stayed silent. What happened next was obviously down to him. As it should be.
‘Penny, the way I feel...it’s been so long. And, to be honest...’ He shook his head and finally released her wrist. ‘Penny, you’ve been hurt. You know how it feels. But me?’
And then he stopped. How could he explain? How could he tell anyone the hurt of those long years?
But then he thought this was Penny and he’d hurt her. He couldn’t let it stay like this. He needed to let down the barricades a little.
He needed to talk.
‘If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t need to,’
