Page 97 of Secrets in Love
For my own safety, I’d left Evie to pace the halls when she hit stage four, so I couldn’t exactly say what acceptance looked like. But from past experience, it would have been something like, “Well, I guess there’s not much I can do. We just have to wait whatever the hell it is out.”
While that was happening upstairs, I faced an inquisition from Jocelyn, who had swapped her concerns for Finn to doubts over my decision to stay in New York.
“What are you planning to tell your father?”
“Dunno.”
“Your poor mum? Janet’s going to have an absolute cow.”
“Dunno.”
“Well, what are you going to do for a job?”
“Dunno.”
“What are you—”
I braced Jocelyn by the shoulders and dropped my head. “Take the hint, Jocie. I haven’t thought this through.” She rolled her eyes—a family tradition—and muttered something derogatory-sounding about men under her breath. “Give me a break, Jocie. Not everyone is like Finn-I’ve-scheduled-Iris’s-school-lunches-until-2030-Austen. I don’t walk around with a three-year plan in my back pocket.”
“No, just a decade-old handkerchief and a stolen photo of the girl that lived next door.”
I’d never been easily embarrassed. But that got me.
“What? How did—”
“Nothing happens in this house without me knowing about it, Nathaniel—except for whatever is happening with Finn, obviously. Andtrust me,there is no longer a plan in that boy’s pocket. Scarlett’s heated gaze incinerated it the first time she fluttered past him in a little skirt.”
I scanned the room for Evie and leaned across the table. “Look. I may have acted a little impulsively by saying yes straight away. But it was the first time Evie had given me anything, Jocie. I had to take the chance. If I said no, I might have lost her.”
Jocelyn’s bottom lip dropped into the same cute pout her niece often sported as she sighed sympathetically and patted my head like a dog. “Oh, Nathaniel, you sweet, sweet boy. You won’t lose her.”
“You can’t say that for sure, and I’m not willing to risk it. She’s it for me, Jocie—”
“Yes! Yes, she is yours!” Before I could blink, she was pulling me into a fierce hug. I let my body go limp as she squashed my face between her breasts, giving her time to swoon, collect herself, and then release me.
“I tried to call the oldies first thing this morning, but they had just come home from the tennis club social, and Mum was a bit tipsy on Fluffy Ducks. With her dancing around the kitchen in her knickers, I couldn’t tell Dad, so I told him to call me back when they wake up.”
“She still drinks those things. Does she still call them Duffy Flucks after a few?”
“Of course. She’s famous for it.”
The head patting suddenly stopped. Jocelyn ran her hand down to my shoulder and pinched. “Boy, I love you like one of my own. But I tell you this now…you better talk to them and sort this out today. I will not have you dicking around my girl. Capisce?”
Had that dicking-around comment not been made by her aunt, I would have been all over it. But it was, so I shut my mouth. “Don’t make me regret being cool with this, Nathaniel. You should never have agreed to stay before you talked to Barry. Both you and your mum have told me he’s not up to running the farm by himself.”
“He may not be, but he won’t have to. I’m going to hire a manager like you used to.”
“Nate, I ran multimillion dollar market gardens and cattle stations. Not a small-time family sheep, daisy, and macadamia farm.”
“Why does everyone call them daisies? They’re not daisies.”
“Fine, chamomile. Like it makes a difference. You’re dreaming if you think you have enough income to support a manager. And would Barry even allow it? I know he had a stroke, but—”
“Who had a stroke?” Returning with arms full of the wine from the cellar, Evie sexily marched to the table, dropped the bottles, and inspected us with hands on hips. Even with tired and puffy eyes from crying, she looked so hot. “Who had a stroke?” she repeated, her voice laced with suspicion.
Jocelyn leapt to her feet, “Oh! Is that the time? I have to go get things from…places.” Then she pretty much ran from the room.
“My dad,” I mumbled, swallowing my warranted fear, and nonchalantly picking up a bottle of red. “Ooh. This is a good vintage.”
