Никки Логан – A Kiss to Seal the Deal / The Army Ranger's Return: A Kiss to Seal the Deal / The Army Ranger's Return (страница 14)

‘Because you’re not interested?’

‘Because I’m not a farmer.’

‘That’s not the first time you’ve said that. Do you think farmers are born knowing what to do?’

‘They’re raised. Trained.’

She frowned at him. ‘Leo didn’t teach you?’

He thought about that long and hard, staring into his beer. Eventually he lifted his head. ‘I didn’t want to learn.’

The dark shadows in his eyes called out to her. ‘You didn’t want the farm—even then?’

‘I didn’t want my future mapped out for me. If he’d said he wanted me to go into the army, I probably would have wanted to be a farmer. He pushed too hard.’

The two lines that creased his forehead told her he’d said more than he meant to. She nodded. ‘I can see that. He had a very forceful way about him. Particularly after he … Well, at the end there. When he thought he was out of time.’

Grant’s forehead creased further. ‘What do you mean?’

Kate rushed in to fix her insensitive gaffe. ‘I’m sorry. I just meant that he must have felt the pressure following his diagnosis. The urgency to get things in order.’

Grant’s face bleached in a heartbeat. His body froze.

Kate’s stomach squeezed into a tiny fist. Oh please, Leo … Please have told your son …

His already deep voice was pure gravel. ‘What diagnosis?’

Kate’s eyes fell shut. ‘Grant, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you—’

‘Kate!’ The bark drew stares from the other diners. ‘What diagnosis?’

Empathy bubbled up urgently. Memories of that awful discussion in her principal’s office bled through her. Memories of Mrs Martin’s pale face. Her shaking fingers, having to break a child’s heart with unspeakable news.

She groaned. ‘Grant …’

‘Tell me, Kate.’

‘Lung cancer.’ The words rushed out of her. ‘Terminal.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You didn’t know?’

Grant’s chest rose and fell roughly and his gaze dropped to the table.

Damn you, Leo … To tell a stranger and not his son …

She reached across the table and slid her fingers around Grant’s icy ones. His Adam’s apple worked furiously up and down as he struggled to compose himself. Her focus flicked nervously around the dining room and caught the cheerful waitress as she smiled her way towards them with two steaming meals balanced carefully on her forearm. Kate’s eyes flew wide and she shook her head subtly.

Effortlessly, the waitress spotted it, interpreted the tension at the table, turned on the balls of her feet and whipped the meals back into the kitchen. Kate had a horrible feeling they wouldn’t be eaten tonight—at least, not by them. She slid Grant’s untouched beer towards him. Then she just waited, her fingers still wrapped tightly around his. He clutched them back, holding on tight.

Holding himself together.

‘Are you ok, Grant?’

When he finally lifted his shaking head, his colour was back but his eyes had faded. ‘I didn’t know, Kate. I’m sorry that you had to …’ His words ran out.

Tears prickled embarrassingly behind her eyes. She shook her head, unable to speak.

He seemed to realise where his fingers were and he gently extracted them, sliding them into his lap, dragging the napkin with them to disguise their trembling. Distancing himself.

Kate cleared her throat. ‘He told me last August—in case anything happened to him. Because I was on the farm so often.’ It sounded exactly as lame as it was.

He told me. But not you.

‘Something did happen to him. But you weren’t there.’

Kate’s eyes dropped, her guilt surging back. ‘No. I was on a conference. It was terrible timing.’

His frown was tortured and angry at the same time. ‘You weren’t his nurse. He wasn’t your responsibility.’

‘He was my friend.’ Grant’s loud snort drew more eyes. ‘You doubt me, but you weren’t there.’

His eyes blazed. ‘I had a life to lead.’

She gentled her tone and didn’t bite. The man was suffering enough right now. ‘I meant you weren’t there to judge the friendship. But clearly you two weren’t—’ she changed direction at the last second ‘—in touch, so he told … a friend. I imagine Mayor Sefton knows, too.’

Grant’s nostrils flared wildly and his eyes darkened. ‘If he does, he’ll have some explaining to do.’

Kate frowned. This was more than just a horrible surprise. Grant was really struggling. What did he think his father had died of? ‘Let me take you home, Grant.’

His distracted eyes scanned the dining room. ‘Our meals …’

‘I’ll make you something at home.’

She stood and held out a hand to him; it hovered, ignored, in space and Kate fought the flush that rose as she let her fingers drop back to her side. The gesture had been automatic, but now, more than ever, was the last time a man like Grant McMurtrie would accept a gesture like that from her. Yet his world had just imploded so very publically and he was desperately trying to pull himself together.

She softened her voice. ‘Come on.’

He stood unsteadily on his feet and dropped a handful of notes—way too much for what they’d ordered—on the table. Kate smiled an apology to the waitress through the servery window and led Grant out into the cool night.

At the car she stopped him. ‘Keys.’

‘I’ll drive.’

‘You’ll drive us into a ditch. I have a research study to finish and I imagine you have—’ she suddenly faltered ‘—someone to get safely home to when this is all over.’

He tossed her his keys with an accuracy that suggested he was quickly recovering his wits. ‘No someone. No family. Not now.’

Lord, did she sound that morose when speaking of her long-dead family?

‘Well, aren’t we just a pair of poster children for “misery loves company”?’ she offered lightly. It seemed to work; his face defrosted a hint more. She pulled open her door. ‘In the car, McMurtrie.’

Grant desperately needed a few minutes in the darkness to gather his composure. He slid into his passenger seat and sank into the familiar, comfortable leather, breathing deeply.

Cancer. Lung cancer.

A whole bunch of things flashed through his mind and suddenly made sense: Alan’s awkwardness when Grant had mentioned the stink of tobacco in his father’s house. The freaky, hippy health-concoction in his beer fridge. The fact he’d more or less got his affairs in order before …

Grant took a deep breath.

He’d even waited until Kate was away before taking his life. He glanced at the face, so serious with concentration, watching the road ahead. Had Leo not wanted such a gentle woman to find him? To discover the horror? He was willing to bet big bucks that his father wouldn’t have expected his only son to find him, either, in a million years. Grant had a sinking suspicion he’d been counting on his old mate Alan Sefton to do the honours.

Cancer.

It had had nothing to do with Kate’s project or the land grab. Something very close to relief rushed through him, stumbling and falling over the latent grief still clogging his arteries. He should have been here. He should have made more than one call a year. He should never have let so many years go by. And neither should his father.

I see Leo staring back at me. Were they truly that similar? Would he end up grumpy and alone and sick enough to end it all? There wasn’t much else stopping him, just his work. Just the same rigid discipline about his job that his father had had. That Kate had.

He cleared his throat and turned to the woman whose hands gripped the steering wheel brutally. She knew, first hand, how he was feeling yet she hadn’t taken advantage of his weakness. She’d just been there for him. Is that the kind of quality his father had seen in his young friend’s character?

He cleared his throat. ‘Kate, thank you.’

Her eyes flicked to his, wide and anxious. ‘How are you?’

He nodded slowly. ‘I’ll survive.’ She wanted to ask something. He could see it in the way her teeth worried her lips. ‘Go ahead, Kate. Ask.’

The words practically exploded from her. ‘Did it not say on the certificate—the cause of death? Or did you not see it?’

His chest tightened up. Could he tell her? She and Leo had been friends. ‘I saw it,’ he answered carefully.

‘Yet tonight was still a surprise?’