His lips thinned. ‘What family?’
That was right; he had as little as she did now that his father was gone. ‘Your future family. Someone should look after it. Until you need it.’
‘Angling for a new job, Kate?’
She didn’t laugh. ‘No. But I would give anything for a chance to come back to country living, to have something to call my own: land. A future. A home. I can’t understand how selling it is better than keeping it. Even if you kept it empty.’
‘An empty farm is soulless, Kate. I’d rather see a stranger take it and make it great than let it run fallow.’
Her heart softened. She considered not voicing her thoughts. ‘Every now and again I look at your face and I see Leo staring back at me.’
He stiffened.
‘I meant that as a compliment, Grant. He was a complicated but dedicated man. And he was determined to strengthen Tulloquay, to keep it relevant.’
‘Then he should have left it to someone else.’
‘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,