Scandalous Secrets. Michelle Douglas

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,’ she said gently.

      She was giving him an out. Her generosity almost took his breath away, and it tore away the last of his reservations.

      She sat beside him, as if she understood he needed time. He couldn’t look at her. For some reason it seemed impossible to say what had to be said when he was watching her.

      But her body was touching his and the warmth of her, her closeness—her trust?—made it imperative to tell her what he’d told nobody. Ever.

      And finally he did.

      ‘Penny, my mother was a serial relationship disaster,’ he said at last. ‘She went from man to man to man. Every time she fell deeply, irrevocably in love, and every single relationship meant our lives were turned upside down. Romance for my mother inevitably ended in chaos and heartbreak. Moving houses, moving schools, debt collectors, sometimes even assault, hospitals, the courts. The best thing Mum ever did for me was run from a calamitous relationship and take the housekeeping job on Sam’s farm. That was my salvation. If she hadn’t done that, heaven knows where I’d have been. Sam’s farm was my first and only taste of stability and I stayed there for ten years. Sam left me the farm and I thought I’d stay there for ever. And then I discovered the bauxite and Darrilyn discovered me.’

      ‘More chaos?’ Penny whispered. She was looking out at the moonlight too, giving him space. Giving him silence to work out what he needed to say.

      ‘More chaos,’ he said grimly. ‘I was naïve, little more than an idiot kid, and I was besotted. I didn’t put the discovery of bauxite and the sudden interest of the neighbouring farmer’s gorgeous daughter together. I married her and when we found out she was pregnant I was over the moon. But marriage and pregnancy had been her only goals. Legally, they gave her the right to the money she wanted. She headed to the US with a guy who knew her worth and was probably in on her plan from the beginning. So that’s it. I see Lily twice a year and it breaks my heart.’

      ‘But now?’ She sounded as if she was walking on eggshells. ‘You said she might be coming home.’

      ‘Home?’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Does she have such a thing? Her mother’s relationships have broken down again and again. Lily’s been given the same raw deal as me, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Her mother’s always refused to let her come to Australia. I leave the farm with the boys twice a year and spend as much time with her as I can, and every time I leave it rips me in two. But even if I moved there Darrilyn wouldn’t give me more access. So that’s it, Penny. That’s where I’ve been with relationships. Burned. I don’t need them.’

      ‘So...’ Penny took a deep breath ‘...Matt, what’s that got to do with me?’

      ‘I don’t know.’ And it was an honest answer. How could he explain what he didn’t understand himself? ‘Penny, how I feel...’

      ‘Must be like I feel,’ she ventured when he couldn’t go on. ‘Like I’ve been an idiot and how can I trust myself to try again? Only your ghosts must be harder on you than mine. My parents have their faults but they’ve given me stability.’ Her gaze raked the moonlit landscape. ‘You know, this is the most settled place I’ve ever been in. I’m imagining how you must have felt as a child when you finally made it to Sam’s farm. And now. Here’s your home and life is good. You wouldn’t want to mess with that for anything.’

      ‘You mean I wouldn’t want to mess with that for you?’

      ‘I’m not putting words into your mouth,’ she said with sudden asperity. She rose, breaking the moment, and a tinge of anger entered her voice. ‘I can’t help you, Matt. I have my own demons to deal with and, believe me, the fact that I’ve been monumentally dumb is a huge thing to accept. I don’t need a relationship either.’ She took a deep breath as if she was having trouble forcing the words out, but finally she managed it.

      ‘But you know what? Regardless of relationships, I’m moving on. Being here has kept my demons at bay, regardless of...of what’s happening between us. And I still have the same problem—media interest in my appalling sister and her equally appalling fiancé. I like working here,’ she confessed. ‘It feels good and I suspect if I made a pile of meals and stocked the freezer, you guys would be grateful.’

      ‘We would.’ He definitely would.

      ‘There you go, then. Maybe that’s my bottom line. There’s cooking to be done and organization in the house. I can put my head down and go for it.’

      ‘I don’t want you to work...’

      ‘I’m staying to work, Matt,’ she said, still with that trace of astringency. ‘Anything else...who knows? As I said, we each have our own demons. But should they affect the next two weeks? Maybe not. So let’s make this an employment contract only. Two more weeks of work—at shearers’ cook rates.’

      ‘Hey! You’re not cooking for a team. Shearers’ cook rates?’ But he felt himself starting to smile.

      She arched her brows and met his gaze head-on. ‘I’m filling the freezer and that’ll be like cooking for a team. Shearers’ cook rates or nothing. That’s my offer, Matt Fraser, and it’s final. So...do you still want me to stay or do you not?’

      She was looking up at him, resolute, courageous, firm.

      When he’d first met her he’d thought she was ditzy. She wasn’t. She had intelligence to spare.

      She was beautiful.

      Suddenly he wondered—was this the courage to try again?

      And then there was no choice. The night righted itself. He rose and took her hands.

      ‘Penny, I want you to stay.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Really.’

      ‘Then I accept. I’m on a great wage. You have big freezers and I like a challenge. What’s not to love?’

      What’s not to love?

      It was all he could do not to kiss her. And then he thought: Why not?

      So he did and, amazingly, wonderfully, she didn’t object. She responded.

      But this wasn’t the kiss of passion they’d shared on the night of the owls. It was tentative—a question—and when they pulled apart the question was still in their eyes.

      ‘You know, when you’re around I have trouble being interested in how empty my freezers are,’ he confessed.

      ‘Well, you should be.’ She was smiling as she stepped back. She seemed suddenly a woman in charge of her world, ready to move on. ‘Because you’re paying me heaps.’ She tugged her hands back and he let her go. ‘For the rest, let’s just see. But for now... Matt, I need to go bake some cookies. Freezers, here I come.’

      * * *

      He headed out to check on the last pens of sheep, the last runs before the end of shearing.

      Penny headed for the kitchen.

      She’d promised the shearing team takeaway choc chip cookies. Right. She could do that.

      Samson snoozed by the fire. The kitchen felt like a refuge.

      She mixed