The High Price of Secrets

Her life had become so superficial, she realized as she said her goodbyes to Gladys. She’d lost touch with the simpler things, the ones that made her feel valuable and valued. At The Masters, her work had become a daily treadmill of boosting sales for their luxury accommodations and winning business for functions and weddings, together with all the various, and sometimes outrageous, requests those events demanded. Even events that should have been meaningful lost their warmth and humanity when they became that grand and elaborate. Her work had stopped being personally satisfying a long time ago.

Today had been a much-needed shot in the arm. A reminder that a little effort, a little care, went a long way. Tomorrow she would go into Blenheim again and find those blasted electoral rolls and, if she had no luck there she’d also go to Nelson.

Gladys was on the phone and just waved at Tamsyn to put the box with the takings on her desk. Tamsyn did so and then walked to her car. She wound the windows down to let out the accumulated heat and checked her phone. In her email, she saw a forwarded mail from their father’s lawyer confirming the address she’d been given was the correct one.

She struck her steering wheel in frustration. It was like being caught in a continual loop, each time ending with Finn Gallagher. Surely if he knew anything about her mother at all, he would have said something by now? It just didn’t make any sense. Still puzzling over the situation, she started her car and headed back to the cottage.

Tamsyn kept the car windows down on her drive, hoping the breeze whipping through would help clear her mind. As she turned up the driveway, she heard the roar of a mower. It grew louder the closer she got to the house. Her eyes widened in appreciation as she espied the source of the noise.

Dressed in jeans and rubber boots and with a pair of earmuffs bracketing his head, Finn Gallagher rode a mower across the tangled lawn, making short work of the piles of weeds she’d left the other day as well as the overlong grass. The sweet scent of freshly cut grass hung in the heated air, but it was nowhere near as sweet as the view of raw male that presented itself to her.

Sweat gleamed across the tanned surface of his back and she watched the muscles at his shoulders bunch and shift as he turned the wheel. A deep throb built inside her body, sending heat and moisture of a different kind to pool at the juncture of her thighs. Finn executed a neat three-point-turn and began to drive the mower toward her, his hand lifting in acknowledgment as he saw her standing there.

She was grateful she didn’t need to speak because right now, with him driving toward her, shirtless, she doubted she’d be able to form a single comprehensible word. Lines of sweat gathered in the ridges of Finn’s taut abdomen. It seemed the more moisture collected on his body, the dryer her mouth became.

He cut the engine on the mower and braked to a stop in front of her.

“H-hello,” she said hesitantly.

“Hello yourself.”

The effect of his smile curled all the way to her toes.

“I finished my work early this morning and came down to return your salad bowl. I’ve left it at the front door,” he said and gestured to the veranda. “Since I was at a loose end, I thought I’d surprise you with the lawns.”

Oh, he’d surprised her, all right.

“You look…hot,” she said, feeling a fair amount of that heat radiating all over her body.

“I wouldn’t mind a drink of water.”

“I’ll get you some.”

She shot away, more as a measure of self-preservation than anything else. In the kitchen she sloshed cold tap water into a jug, sliced a lemon and threw the pieces into the water together with some ice from the freezer and a sprig of mint from the plant at the back door, then put the jug and two glasses on a tray. Several deep steadying breaths later, she carried the tray out onto the veranda.

“Here,” she said, pouring a glass of water for Finn and handing it to him.

“Thanks.”

He took the glass and downed it in a couple of long easy swallows. Tamsyn was mesmerized by the muscles working in his throat and forced herself to look away.

“Another?” God, was that her voice? That weird strangled sound?

“You read my mind,” Finn answered, handing her his glass.

Thank goodness he wasn’t reading hers, she thought quietly. She swiftly poured him another glass of water and handed it to him, this time determined not to watch as he drank it. But where did that leave her to look? At the breadth of his bare shoulders? The small dark brown nipples that lay flat on his chest? Or maybe she should watch the trail of a bead of sweat as it trickled over those too-perfect abs and down past the waistband of his jeans.