LITMIR.BIZ

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and now I know why. I knew her mother. She worked at Wilson Wines. She was just an office dolly back then—flirted outrageously with the traveling reps. She left when she married one of them, pregnant of course, but I always suspected your father had his eye on her. About three years after we got here I heard that when her husband died, Charles employed her as his housekeeper—like anyone expected that was the truth.”

      Judd tensed. Every time Cynthia mentioned Charles Wilson there was a tone to her voice that set his teeth on edge.

      “Did you hear me, Judd?”

      “Yes, I heard you. What do you expect me to do about it?”

      “Well, confront her, obviously. Her mother was living with Charles, ergo, so was Anna. Find out what she’s doing here, because I’d wager she isn’t here on holiday. It has to be something to do with your father.”

      He hated to admit it, but his mother could be right. Ever since they’d met, he’d suspected that Anna was hiding something. And the way she’d looked at him right at their first meeting was as if she was searching his face for a resemblance to someone. Had she been comparing him to his father? He stilled the curl of anger at that thought and at the possibility that his family might be being used by Charles Wilson again. Instead, he channeled his heated emotions into a tool to hone his thinking.

      “I’ll deal with it. Don’t worry.”

      “I knew she was trouble the second I laid eyes on her,” his mother continued. “She’s probably working for him, you know. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised, if she’s anything like her mother, if she is warming his bed. He always did prefer younger women.”

      His mother’s words were acid in his ears. Cynthia had never let go of the bitterness she felt toward the man she’d left behind in New Zealand. He could still remember the first day he and Cynthia had arrived at The Masters’ and she’d pointed to the shell of the mansion up on the hill.

      Their house in New Zealand had been an identical replica of the original Masters home—a wedding present built under Charles’s orders for his beautiful bride. Seeing a wrecked, charred ruin of a house that looked so very much like the one he’d always known had been a deeply unsettling experience for Judd, especially when Cynthia told him that the ruin would be a constant reminder of what they’d all lost when his father had rejected them both and banished them back to Australia. And it was to be a constant target for all that he should strive to regain.

      His six-year-old mind had been unable to fully understand what she was saying, hadn’t grasped the depth of her obsession with the home she’d lost not once, but twice, and every day at The Masters’ he’d learned what it meant to be rejected by the man who’d fathered him. Whether it was the pitying gaze of his uncles and their sometimes overzealous attempts to be a father figure in his life, or the overheard remarks made by the staff from time to time when they didn’t know he was listening, he knew exactly what it felt like to be a cast-off. He snapped his mind back to the present.

      “I said I’ll deal with it, Mother. By the end of today we’ll know exactly what she’s up to.”

      “Good. I know I can rely on you, Judd. Be careful, my darling.”

      Careful? Oh, he’d be more than careful. He disconnected the call and guided his car once more toward Anna’s cottage. He’d be so careful that Anna Garrick would hardly know what had hit her.

      Anna stood waiting for him on the patio of the cottage. She looked deceptively fresh and innocent, dressed in layers of light clothing. He knew she was anything but innocent, especially if her response to him last night had been anything to go by. He hoped she was up to a little heat, because today promised to be warm in more ways than one.

      She walked toward his car as he got out and opened the passenger door for her.

      “Nice wheels,” she commented.

      “I was always a James Bond fanatic as a kid.” He smiled. “Some things never get old.”

      She laughed and settled in the red leather bucket seat, its color a perfect foil for her chestnut-brown hair, he thought as he swung her door closed. As he got back behind the wheel she rummaged in her handbag, pulling out a long bamboo hairpin before twisting her long hair into a knot and securing it at the back of her head.

      “I can put the top up if you’d rather,” he said, his eyes caught on the elegant line of her neck, the perfection of her jaw.

      “No, it’s a beautiful day. Let’s make the most of it,” she answered with a smile that hit him fair and square in the gut and reminded him of just how uncomfortable it had been to walk back to the main house last night.

      “Good idea,” he agreed and maneuvered the highperformance sports car onto the driveway that led off the property. “You mentioned yesterday that it’s your first time in Adelaide,” he probed. “What made you decide to come here for a break?”

      She remained silent for a moment. From the corner of his eye he could see her press her lips together, as if she was holding back her instinctive answer and taking the time to formulate another.

      “It was suggested to me,” she said, averting her gaze out the side window.

      Oh, he’d put money on the fact it was suggested to her, and by whom. Even without the insight his mother had offered, it was Anna’s evasiveness that gave her away. He’d known that she had something to hide, and now that he suspected it involved his father, he was absolutely determined to find out what it was before the day was out. In the meantime, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, stopping him from having a good time along the way.

      As they turned out the driveway that led from the vineyard and out onto the main road heading toward the hills, he saw her gaze pulled up onto the ridge and to the silhouette of the devastated building that stood there. He waited for her to say something, to ask about what had happened. Everyone did, eventually. But she remained silent. The expression on her face was pensive. Some devil of mischief prompted him to comment.

      “It was magnificent in its day, you know.”

      “I beg your pardon?” She turned to face him.

      “Masters’ Rise, the house up there.” He let go of the steering wheel with one hand and gestured up toward the hills.

      “It was your family home?”

      Did she really not realize, or was she just bluffing? “Not that one, although I lived briefly in a replica of it back in New Zealand when I was young.” When she didn’t comment on that, he pointed back up the hill. “Masters’ Rise was destroyed before my time. My mother and uncles lived there as youngsters, though. I don’t think the family pride ever quite recovered from its loss. I know for a fact that my mother’s didn’t. And it wasn’t just losing the house—a good bit of the vineyard was destroyed, as well.”

      “It wasn’t as if they could have done anything to stop it, though, was there?”

      “Done anything?”

      “Well, it was a bushfire, wasn’t it?”

      He shot her a piercing glance.

      “At least that’s what I think I read somewhere,” she added hastily.

      Oh, good cover, he thought before slowly nodding.

      “They were lucky to escape with their lives,” he said. “Unfortunately, they didn’t have much else—well, not much else but the Masters’ tenacity. Rebuilding the house wasn’t an option—not when they had to recreate their entire livelihood, as well. It would have taken everything they had left and they were forced to choose between rebuilding their home or reestablishing the vineyards and winery.”

      “Tough choices. It’s a shame they couldn’t do both.”

      “Yeah.”

      Judd lapsed into silence. Wondering, not for the first time, how different life might have been if the Masters family hadn’t been forced into

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