Page 53 of Where the Heart Is

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked, putting the onus back on him, not sure if she really wanted to know.

After a long pause, he said, ‘I’m thinking how nice this is.’ He shook his head. ‘When I found you on my doorstep a few days ago, I didn’t know what to expect. But this …’ He waved his hand between them. ‘It’s better than I expected.’

‘That’s because you’ve been extremely generous and accepting, rather than angry like I deserve.’

A tiny dent furrowed his brow. ‘I let go of my anger a long time ago. It serves no purpose, other than to give me heartburn.’

Adelaide was so tempted to dig deeper, to ask how he’d coped in those initial months after she fled, but the pub wasn’t the place to have a deep and meaningful conversation, not when they were already drawing curious stares from every patron in the place.

Sensing her discomfiture with being the centre of attention, he leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Let them look. Nothing to see here.’ He raised his glass again. ‘Yet.’

She laughed, unsure what he intended to do to shock the gossips but sorely tempted to find out. ‘What did you have in mind?’

He tossed back the rest of his wine in two gulps before placing the glass on the table and holding his hand out to her. ‘I reckon we give them something to really talk about.’

She eyed his hand warily. Was this some kind of joke? Why would the man whose heart she’d broken want to touch her let alone hold her hand?

But the amusement in his eyes reassured her and, before she could second-guess, she placed her hand in his.

‘I don’t bite,’ he said, with a chuckle. ‘Do you trust me?’

She’d once trusted this man enough to abandon a life of luxury and the only home she’d ever known to move to a lentil farm in the Wimmera and marry him. She’d trusted their love would be enduring and get them through anything. She’d trusted in the life they’d built.

But that’s the thing about blind trust. When the blinkers are ripped off, you realise you believed in a fairytale that could never come true.

Quashing the hurt of the past blossoming in her chest, she forced flippancy. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, Jack Hayes, that glint in your eyes tells me I should be worried.’

‘I’d never do anything to hurt you, Ads,’ he murmured, a moment before he lifted her hand to his mouth and did the most shocking thing of all.

Pressed a kiss to the back of it.

A soft, lingering kiss, his lips warm and firm as they brushed the skin just above her knuckles, setting her pulse racing in a way it hadn’t since … the last time he’d touched her, years ago.

Their gazes locked, and she hoped he couldn’t see how badly she wanted him to do it again. And this time, not stop at kissing her hand.

CHAPTER

32

As the first streaks of dawn stole over the horizon, Mila headed for her favourite thinking place.

The biggest eucalyptus on the farm.

She’d been drawn to this tree alongside the small dam since the first time she visited the farm as a five-year-old. It had been her parents first visit to Hills Homestead since her dad left his family home where he’d grown up and she’d been wide-eyed at the extent of the farm and the paddocks of lentils Gramps had shown her. He’d been the one to introduce her to the dam too, lecturing her about the importance of never coming here alone until she was old enough.

Turned out, that had been eight, when she’d bolted from the homestead in tears and headed for the dam after her parents calmly announced they wouldn’t be staying for Christmas, but she could spend the entire school holidays here. They’d thought it would be a consolation prize and they’d been right, because for those six weeks at Hills Homestead she’d learned the only people she could depend on were her grandparents and Will, and that her parents were the two most selfish people on the planet.

She’d been gutted that her family wouldn’t spend Christmas together for the first time and she’d sought refuge under the eucalyptus at the dam. She loved rubbing the leaves between her fingers and inhaling the pungent fragrance, she loved pressing her cheek to the smoothness of the bark, and she loved the warbling magpies that perched on the branches high overhead.

That day, not even the soothing sounds of the birds could comfort her, and she’d been sobbing her heart out when Sawyer found her. He’d come over to play with Will and seen her tearing from the homestead like she had a demon on her tail, so he’d followed her.

She’d been mortified he caught her crying, but rather than teasing her as expected, Sawyer had sat next to her on the ground and didn’t say a word. He waited until she stopped crying and when she did, he handed her a crumpled tissue from his pocket.

Looking back, that was probably the first time she fell for him a little, and when he’d plucked a gumnut from her hair and presented it to her like a diamond ring, she’d fallen even more.

He didn’t know she kept that gumnut and that she only pretended to hate it when he called her Gumnut from that moment, when in fact she loved having a nickname born from a special moment.

Because that moment beneath the eucalyptus had been special, for no other reason than she realised she could be herself in front of him and he’d be understanding. Will teased her mercilessly at that age, but Sawyer never did, as if sensing she needed people to depend on.

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