lush and green and the early signs of fruit could be seen hanging on the vines. Considering it was only late November, Tamsyn’s experienced eye could see that this vineyard was in for a bumper crop.
She continued along the long driveway. It snaked up a steep incline until finally, after a particularly tight hairpin turn, she saw the house ahead of her. The sprawling two-story building, crafted in stone and cedar, dominated the crest of the hill. Her lips set in a firm line of disapproval. So it clearly hadn’t been a lack of money that had kept her mother from staying in touch, she thought cynically. Was this how Ellen Masters had used the money her husband had sent her for the past twenty-odd years?
Tamsyn used that cynicism to propel her out of her car and toward the front door. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the iron door knocker and lifted it, only to let it drop with a solid clang. A short time later she heard footsteps echo from inside. Her stomach tied in knots as every last ounce of her resolve suddenly fled.
What the hell was she doing here?
* * *
Finn Gallagher opened his front door and had to force himself not to take a step back. He recognized the woman standing in front of him with a surety that went soul deep. Ellen’s daughter.
So the little princess from Australia had finally decided to visit. Too little, too late, as far as he was concerned. Far too late.
The pictures he’d seen of her over the years, hadn’t done her justice, though he had the sense he wasn’t seeing her at her best. His sweeping gaze took in the mussed long dark brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders and the dark bruises of tiredness that stained porcelain skin under wide-spaced brown eyes. Eyes that reminded him so much of her mother. The woman who, together with her partner, Lorenzo, had mothered him when his own family had disintegrated.
Her clothes were creased but still stylish, and clung to her curves in a way that drew his eye to the opening of her blouse and especially to the tempting swell of creamy skin exposed there. Her skirt skimmed her hips and down her slender thighs to end just above the knee. Not long enough to be dowdy and not so short as to be inappropriate, but somehow still enticing.
It all spoke to the privileged upbringing she’d enjoyed. He found it difficult not to feel bitter when he knew how hard her mother had scraped and worked for a decent life. Clearly the Masters family had looked after their own—they just didn’t look after those who walked away from them. Those who didn’t conform.
His gaze drifted back to her face where he noticed her full lips tremble slightly before pulling into a nervous smile.
“H-hello, I was wondering if Ellen Masters lives here?” she said.
Her voice was tight, as if her throat was constricted and in the late-afternoon sun that slanted across her face he could see telltale signs of tear tracks. Natural curiosity rose from inside him but he quelled it with his usual determination.
“And you are...?” he asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She held out a delicate hand. “I’m Tamsyn Masters. I’m looking for my mother, Ellen.”
He took her hand in his, noting instantly the coolness of her touch, the fragility in the bones of her fingers as his larger, stronger ones closed around hers. He struggled against the instinct to go into protection mode. There was something very not right in Tamsyn Masters’s world right now, but, he reminded himself, that wasn’t his problem.
Keeping her away from Ellen was.
Two
“There’s no Ellen Masters here,” he replied, letting go of her hand. “Was your mother expecting you?”
She had the grace to look shamefaced. “No, I kind of hoped to surprise her.”
Surprise her? Yeah, he just bet she did. Without sparing a thought to whether or not her mother would, or could, see her. How typical of her type, he thought angrily. Pampered, spoiled and thinking the world spun for her delectation. He knew the type well—unfortunately. Too well. They were the kind who’d always expect more, no matter how much you gave. People like Briana, his ex. Beautiful, seemingly compassionate, born into a life of opportunity—but in the cold light of day as grasping and as single-minded as Fagin in Oliver Twist.
“Are you sure you have the right address?” he asked, tamping his fury down.
“Well...I thought...” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper and read off the address. “That’s right, isn’t it? I’m at the right place.”
“That is my address, but there’s no Ellen Masters here. I’m sorry. It looks like you’ve had a wasted trip.”
Before his eyes, every particle in her body slumped. Her eyes suddenly brimmed with unshed tears and a stricken look froze her delicate features into a mask of sadness. Again that urge to protect her welled within him—along with the compulsion to tell her of the well-concealed and unsealed driveway she’d have passed on the road here. The one that led to the cottage where Ellen and Lorenzo had lived for the past twenty-five years or so—but he just as determinedly pushed the impulse back.
He knew for a fact Tamsyn Masters had legally been an adult for ten years. What whim had finally driven her to seek out Ellen now? And, more important, why hadn’t she reached out to her mother sooner, when it could possibly still have made a difference to the other woman’s happiness?
“I—oh, well, I’m sorry to have bothered you. My information can’t have been correct.”
She reached into her handbag for an oversize pair of sunglasses and shoved them none too elegantly onto her face, hiding her tortured gaze from view. As she did so, he caught sight of the white band of skin on the ring finger of her left hand. Had the engagement he’d read of over a year ago come to an end? Had that been the catalyst to send her searching for her mother?
Whatever it was, it was none of his business.
“No problem,” he answered and watched as she walked back to her car and turned it around to drive back down the driveway.
Finn didn’t waste another second before reaching for his cell phone and punching in a number. It went straight to voice mail and he uttered a short sharp epithet in frustration while listening to the disembodied voice asking him to leave a message.
“Lorenzo, call me. There’s been a complication here at home.”
He slid his phone back in his pocket and closed the front door of his house. Somehow, though, he had the feeling he hadn’t completely closed the door on Tamsyn Masters.
* * *
As Tamsyn steered down the driveway, disappointment crashed through her with the force of a wrecking ball. The tears she’d battled to hold back while talking to the stranger now fell rapidly down her cheeks. She sniffed unevenly, trying to hold in the emotion that had been bubbling so close to the surface ever since she’d left Adelaide last night.
Why on earth had she thought it would be simple? She should have known better. Should have listened to Ethan, even, and tackled this another time—another day when she was in a stronger frame of mind. Well, she’d done it now, she’d gone to the address her late father’s solicitor had used to send her mother
