‘It looks great to me,’ Darrell told her. He looked sideways at Marcus. ‘I’ve spent months on a battlefield. Marcus has, too. I’ve no need for marble tiles.’
‘Will you go straight home?’ Ruby asked Marcus and Marcus tried to get his addled brain to think. He might as well. This was stupid. What was Peta expecting? That he share her gumboots? He hadn’t worked so hard all his life for this.
‘Yeah,’ he told them. ‘I will.’
‘I haven’t had a holiday for years,’ Ruby told him, still eyeing him with a dubious look that said her mind was running at a tangent. ‘Do you mind if I stay on?’
‘Go for it. Just as long as you like pink.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with pink,’ Peta flashed. ‘If you’re happy you don’t notice.’
‘Of course you notice.’
‘Get a life, Marcus,’ she told him.
‘It’s you who’s refusing-just because you don’t like black marble.’
‘If you think that’s the reason I’m refusing then you have rocks in your head,’ she told him. ‘I’m refusing because you can’t see that it’s not important. That I’ve offered the only thing that’s important and you haven’t a clue how to return it. And I’m not even sure that you want to. Ever.’
He left half an hour after Harry returned from school. He could have left earlier but the thought of leaving before saying goodbye to the kid was almost impossible.
And saying goodbye even then was incredibly hard.
‘I sort of hoped you guys might have made it long term,’ Harry told him, trying not to let his almost-manly chin wobble. ‘I sort of liked cooking. And you helping with projects and stuff.’
‘Your brothers will be home soon.’
‘Yeah, but they don’t stay and they’re not the same. And you made Peta smile…’
‘Only at the start.’
‘Yeah, but you could again if you wanted to,’ Harry said with perspicacity. ‘Couldn’t you?’
There was no answer to that. ‘I have to go.’
‘Did you say goodbye to Peta?’
‘She’s milking.’
‘You’re mean,’ Harry said. His jaw set a little and he moved around Marcus’s car and gave a kick to the tyre. ‘I thought you were a friend.’
‘Harry…’
‘See you.’ He picked up his school bag and sloped off into the house.
Darrell and Ruby were nowhere to be seen. Peta was in the dairy.
There was no one to watch him drive away.
He went.
Peta was putting cups on one of her favourite cows when she heard his engine start. She turned and watched as his lovely little Morgan turned out of the driveway and headed out towards the highway.
Terrific. He was gone.
She put her head on the cow’s warm flank and wept.
‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about?’
It was late that night. Darrell and Harry had both gone to bed, Harry reluctantly but Darrell because his head was still halfway between New York and Australia. Peta and Ruby were left alone. They gravitated towards the veranda and sat, watching the moon out over the ocean.
‘Are you saying he really asked you to stay married to him?’ Ruby demanded and Peta nodded.
‘You heard him. Sort of.’
‘Are you intending to explain?’
‘He didn’t say he loved me. He just said… He figured it could work. He kissed me and he liked it. He enjoyed playing fairy godfather, genie, whatever. He’d give us more. Build this place up to be a mansion and come and visit for a few weeks each year so he could see how benevolent he was. And I could visit him in New York-I think he actually used that word, visit-and stay in his horrible mausoleum of an apartment and be there waiting for him in between corporate necessity.’
‘It…it doesn’t sound like a romantic kind of proposal,’ Ruby said a trifle unsteadily and Peta eyed her with suspicion.
‘Are you laughing at me?’
‘Oh, my dear, I’d never laugh.’ Ruby hesitated and then placed a large hand on Peta’s. ‘You did the right thing. He has to see…’
‘He’ll never see.’
‘Sometimes miracles happen,’ Ruby said gently. There was a moment’s silence and then she continued. ‘For instance, me and Darrell…’
‘Now that’s something I don’t understand.’
‘Darrell needs me,’ she said simply. She closed her eyes. The sound of the sea intensified in the stillness and when Ruby opened her eyes again there was a peace about her that Peta had never seen. ‘Life’s been bleak,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t put my pain behind me. But with you…playing brides, seeing what was happening to Marcus while he thought you needed him… I don’t know. I let my guard down for a moment, I guess. And then Darrell took me home after your wedding and we got to talking. His body… He’s so scarred and he’s closed off as well. We talked and we talked and we’ve been together ever since.’ She smiled, a slow soft smile that contained all the joy in the world. ‘I guess we’ll be together for ever. It’s that simple.’
It’s that simple.
The words wafted around them. There was joy here, but also…
Sadness. Despair.
‘He can’t see it,’ Peta said.
‘You mean… You love him?’
‘Of course I love him.’
‘You told him?’
‘Mmm.’
‘And he ran.’
‘No. He offered me marriage. On terms.’
‘For a billionaire, he really is a dope,’ Ruby told her.
Silence. The silence went on and on. And on.
‘Well,’ Ruby said at last. ‘Well. What we need here, girl, is a plan.’
‘A plan?’
‘It’s what Marcus is principally good at. Corporate plans. Takeovers. Strategies. He’s spent eight years teaching me how to do it. So let’s get to work.’
‘Ruby…’
‘You telling me to butt out, girl?’
‘No,’ Peta told her, half laughing. ‘No. Ruby, I need all the help I can get.’
‘Spoken like a true Benson,’ Ruby told her. ‘We haven’t annulled that marriage yet!’
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘Silence.’
‘Is that all?’
‘He’s had a taste of something he didn’t know existed,’ Ruby told her. ‘Let’s leave him alone to think about it.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
