The Farmer’s Wife. Rachael Treasure

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СКАЧАТЬ of Charlie said, ‘You wanna play tennis? Do you? Huh?’ Then there were some scuffling sounds and a woman began to moan, ‘Oh yes. Oh, Charlie!’

      ‘Yuck! Turn it off!’ Yazzie said, grappling for the phone. They sat staring at it once more until she eventually spoke again. ‘Maybe he was just tossing off. You know, blokes do. They are, after all, most of them, just apes. Wankers, quite literally.’

      ‘Yuck. No. You heard. There was a woman there.’

      ‘Maybe they were actually playing tennis and it was a really hard game?’

      Bec shot Yazzie a look.

      ‘Sorry.’ She passed Bec another tissue. ‘Did you see on the video call what she looked like?’

      Bec shrugged and wiped her nose. ‘I don’t know. Does it matter who?’

      ‘What are you going to do?’

      She hunched her shoulders up and down, then hung her head and devastation swamped her. Life as she knew it had just ended forever. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

      Outside Sol Stanton pulled into the garage and collected a giant box of groceries from the back of his Kluger. He whistled to let the dogs know he was home, but already he could hear them barking from the other side of the house. There was a strange vehicle in the drive, and he wondered which local had dropped in with some trivial excuse for a sticky beak. Yazzie had often complained in her emails of the fine balance between building their dream and not offending ‘the natives’.

      As he went to the back door, Sol almost dropped the box; he swore in Spanish, as was his habit. He was having trouble adjusting to the time zones. He’d woken far too early, his body clock still geared to the Northern Hemisphere, and now the day was dragging. He still had the seminar evening to get through tonight and badly needed a coffee.

      He thought briefly of the trouble he’d left behind in Paris. The delicate lead violinist with her shocking English but sexy accent screaming at him and hurling a bunch of flowers. Her extreme Italian behaviour was a parody of itself and even though at the time Sol was laughing on the inside at the clichéd Mediterranean tantrum, he also could feel her pain. Not so much the pain of his leaving, and his going home to Australia, but the pain caused by his indifference to her.

      He had bedded so many women like her. Ones he could be indifferent to. Ones who left his heart still closed off and hard like a stone. The European orchestra scene was far too abundant with women who were both beautiful and volatile. Maybe it was time to settle down? He decided there and then, as he leaned the box against the door and grappled for the doorknob, that he ought to go on the fidelity wagon for a time.

      Settle back into a domestic existence. Just him and Yazzie. He was looking forward to at least six months in Australia if his workload would allow, mostly based at Bendoorin, working to get the racing stables up and running. It was just the thing he needed.

      No more women, he vowed.

      Sol at last swung the kitchen door open and walked in juggling the giant box of groceries. He stopped momentarily when he saw a pretty and curvaceous blonde woman at the table. He couldn’t stop his eyes running over her tight jeans and the slightly torn, checked blue cowgirl shirt that hugged her curves. Pearl press-stud buttons nearly popped at her breast line and her décolletage was tanned deeply. So different from the thin pale Italian girl he had recently bedded. There was something about her … Then he realised with a start that it was the same woman he’d met the night before.

      In the light of the kitchen, even with Yazzie’s terrible spray tan blotching the woman’s skin and no makeup, she looked prettier than he’d remembered. One of those natural earthy types, he concluded. And such blue eyes! Eyes that had been crying. There was no vanity in her as she stared back at him. A contrast to his Parisian orchestra women, all dolled up, looking stunning, but with ice-cold agendas inside them. Ones who still tried to look attractive even when they cried. He knew the women played him for his wealth and connections ahead of his Spanish-born soul.

      Sol realised as he looked at … Rebecca, that was her name … that she still held the same aura of sadness and uncertainty she’d carried with her the night before, only today the sadness seemed deeper. Maybe some teasing to cheer her? Sol thought.

      ‘I see you’re a little more clothed than last time I saw you,’ he said as he set the box down on the kitchen bench. ‘Get any business last night? How’s the hangover? As bad as the tan?’

      ‘Leave her alone, Sol,’ barked Yazzie.

      He shrugged and began unpacking all the contents of the box onto the island bench.

      ‘What are you doing?’ Yazzie said, irritated. ‘Do you have to do that now, Sol, honey? We’re having a very important girls’ chat.’

      He cast her a dark look with his intense brown eyes. ‘I’m sure it’s infinitely important. Earth shattering in fact.’ Sol steadily laid out flour, eggs, vanilla essence and an array of cookbooks.

      ‘Sol,’ Yazzie growled.

      ‘Shush!’ he said loudly so that Rebecca started, her nerves frayed. ‘I’m on a mission to make a “Man Cake” for the Home Industries section at the Bendoorin Show. I saw a poster at the store.’

      ‘You have got to be kidding,’ Yazzie said. ‘Spare me.’ She put her head in her hands.

      ‘The theme of the show is Prime Lamb, so my plan is to work in and around that theme,’ Sol said. ‘There is a comedian who promotes Aussie meat who will be judge of the cake competition. It’s the first of its kind.’ He waved his arms around as if conducting an orchestra.

      Bec frowned, momentarily distracted from her plight with Charlie and slightly annoyed by the arrogant man who had burst into the room. No matter how good-looking he was or how endearing his Spanish accent, he still spoke to his wife far too haughtily — and was he serious about the cake cooking? How insensitive and rude! Couldn’t he see that she was distressed? Could he do nothing but think of himself and bang on about baking cakes? She concluded Yazzie was married to an arsehole, and all men — no matter what nationality — could be selfish and thick at the worst possible times.

      ‘You do know the show isn’t until October,’ Bec said coldly.

      ‘Yes, of course I know, but I want to perfect it now,’ he said with a theatrical sweep of his hand.

      Yazzie let out a frustrated scream while Bec thought, what a pansy! A piccolo-playing pansy!

      ‘He’s always like this, Rebecca! Mr Pedantic Pants!’ Yazzie turned to him. ‘Just because you didn’t get your orchestra gig doesn’t mean you can slip back into being Mr Slack-arse-I-do-bugger-all around here other than bake cakes for shows. That’s bent! You’re bent! There’s a tonne of work to be done out there. Dad would be livid. Get out of my kitchen.’

      ‘Your kitchen? Shut up, Ms Vocal Velocity. I briefed the staff this morning before I left for town. You seem to forget I’m the one with the jetlag. You are the one with the hangover.’ He cast another dark gaze at her and Yazzie poked her tongue out at him like a child.

      Rebecca shut her eyes, not wanting to witness the strain in other people’s relationships. Yazzie picked up on Bec’s discomfort and dropped her tone to one of gentleness. ‘Please be nice, Sol. Rebecca’s not had a good day.’

      ‘You СКАЧАТЬ