Mr. Imperfect(19)

"I like to tend it for him," said Bernice May, pulling on a tall paspalum. "Least, I used to before my knees gave out."

Taking the hint, Kezia went to work on the low weeds. "Your son should be doing this," she told the dead woman.

"Except for the funeral I don't believe he's ever visited Deborah."  Bernice May picked paspalum stickies off her dress. "I think he feels  too ashamed."

"That would be a first," Kezia replied tartly. She had no intention of  allowing Christian further into her heart but her hands were gentle in  the earth.

"I saw how he was," said Bernice May, more to herself than Kezia. "Poor  little boy, all torn up and closed in on himself. 'Honey,' I said, 'I  hope you're going to cry for your mother at her funeral and show her how  much you love her.' Really, I wanted him to let it out, it was  unnatural the composure of that child. He just looked at me and said,  'Not in front of my friends.'

"I told him straight-'Honey, if you can't cry in front of your friends,  who can you cry in front of?' But it didn't happen. Even then he had an  aversion to pity and that was before his father started whaling him."  The weeds fell out of Kezia's nerveless fingers and she swiveled around  to stare at Bernice May.

"Course I didn't know that till Don let it slip at Muriel's funeral. I  tried to get more out of him but he closed up like a clam. Don might  tell you more if you ask him."

Uneasy, Kezia answered, "I will."

"It was good to see Christian able to cry for Muriel … ah, you didn't know  that … but then I figure a person can only bottle grief for so long."

"He hates me." Tears brimmed in Kezia's eyes and streamed down her face.  "God help me, I still love him and he hates me. He's forcing me to  accept the hotel for revenge."

"I doubt that, honey."

"I know he's your blue-eyed boy, but it's true."

"Then don't take it," said Bernice May. "Simple as that."

"Simple!" Wearily, Kezia stood. The tears stopped as suddenly as they'd  come. "Do you know how many people depend on the hotel? Forty. I counted  them last night. Forty people who will have to find work in a rural  area already short on jobs." She wiped away the last tears. "Who am I  kidding? If it's a choice between taking the hotel or seeing it closed  down, I'll take it." She sent Bernice May a watery smile. "I'm sorry for  unloading on you, I don't know what came over me."                       
       
           



       

"If all Christian Kelly does is make you realize you have friends to  turn to, Miss Independence, then some good has come out of it," said  Bernice May stoutly, holding out a handkerchief. "You want to go back  and tell him now?"

Kezia blew her nose, gallows humor restoring the last of her composure.  "And spare him another couple of nights in Waterview? I wouldn't dream  of it."

Get rid of him, insisted her brain. Soon, promised her heart.





CHAPTER NINE




THE HOTEL WAS quiet. Eerily quiet. She pushed through the swinging doors  into the bar. Empty and dark, the yeasty smell of beer lingered in the  room.

There should be staff shining glasses and preparing for a busy Friday  night. A couple of farmers sitting over a beer before early evening  milking and a clutch of lady golfers reviewing their performance over a  shandy.

Her apprehension grew as she started up the stairs. The banister wobbled  under her hand, and she saw it was only tacked in place. But a noise  distracted her from closer inspection. Glancing up, she saw Christian  sitting at the top of the stairs tying his running shoes.

"The carpenter was supposed to have this fixed today, it's dangerous." She shook the banister. "And where are the staff?"

"I've closed the place."

Her eyes widened in shock. "You told me I had until tomorrow."

"You do." His voice was reasonable as he laced up the second shoe. "Until then there's no point continuing renovations."

"The bar wasn't under renovation."

"The closure is temporary." Christian looked at her with eyes the guileless blue of heaven. "Or permanent. Entirely up to you."

Kezia reached for the banister again; it offered no support. "I assume you're paying people in the meantime."

"Assume away."

He started jauntily down the stairs and her anxiety increased with every  step he took. Of course he would have paid staff. Wouldn't he?

She put a hand to her forehead and tried to massage some wits into her  tired brain, but after last night she didn't trust herself to make a  dispassionate judgment.

Then it occurred to her it didn't matter. In another twenty-four hours  she would concede defeat and her staff would be back at work.

"Do what you like," she told him with a shrug. "It's your hotel." She  carried on up the stairs without a backward glance. Yes, it was pathetic  to cling to the last vestiges of her pride. Still she couldn't give it  up. Not until she had to.



KEZIA'S UNEXPECTED COMPOSURE frustrated Christian so much he forgot to  pace himself and ended up five kilometers past his usual circuit down  some godforsaken road he'd never been before. Damn it! He stopped, bent  forward from the waist and sucked in great gulps of air. Even his  hangover was making a comeback.

He started to run again, slowly now, ripping off his T-shirt and wiping  away sweat. Heat shimmered off the black tar road, which unfurled like a  strap of sticky liquorice through the golden acres of newly cut hay.

Christian barely noticed, caught up in the darkness of his emotions.  Closing the hotel was supposed to be the masterstroke that panicked  Kezia into an acceptance. Instead her staff were enjoying paid leave  with no benefit to himself whatsoever. It was infuriating!

And disturbing. What if she called his bluff? What did he do then?

"Aaaaaah!" As he raised his fists and yelled his exasperation, and several cows stopped chewing to stare at him.

Grimly, he cut a loop and ran back the way he'd come.

Well, to hell with it. He'd put in a manager and leave Kezia to play the martyr. I did my best, Muriel, I really did.

Ahead to his left, a new Power Wagon jolted down a rutted track and  stopped just before the road, providing a welcome distraction. Then  Christian recognized the driver and groaned. Bob bloody Harvey.

Bob leaned one meaty sunburned forearm out the window and grinned as  Christian jogged toward him. "I got some hay bales need moving if you  want some real exercise."

"Tempting." Christian ran past.

Behind him the vehicle rumbled into gear and Bob drove alongside,  keeping pace. "I've just been driving over my new land and you know  what? I figure I got the best out of that deal." With a hearty laugh,  the farmer jammed his foot down and sped off, leaving a cloud of exhaust  fumes in his wake.

Christian kept jogging until the 4WD was out of sight, then circled  back. He followed the rough track up the hill that was once Kezia's  land.

An anomaly on the plains, the fields hadn't been grazed, and from the  top of the hill Christian watched the warm wind ripple across the gold.  He saw at once where Kezia had intended to put the pond and how the  farmstead she'd described would nestle into the side of the hill.                       
       
           



       

He sat and rested, just looking. The breeze was sweet with grass and  wildflower and ripe summer heat. And he understood the real sacrifice  Kezia had made when she'd sold her land to a man who would probably use  it to grow turnips.

Cursing, he stretched out the tightening muscles in his legs and began  the run back. Bob Harvey was right. He'd bought a piece of paradise for a  song.

To hell with Kezia's principles. One way or another Christian was making  her take the damn hotel even if he had to tell the truth to do it. If  only he could figure out what that was.

In the shimmering distance he saw some sort of small animal on the road, with black face and pointy ears, pale chin. A goat?

As Christian drew closer, a tired John Jason came into focus, padding  wearily down the road toward him, Batman cape trailing in his wake.

He had a backpack on one shoulder and his cheeks were sunburned and  sweaty under the satin hood. A plastic bag of sandwiches hung limply  from his utility belt.

Anxiety quickened Christian's pace. He was at the kid's side in five  strides, untying the knotty bow under his chin and stripping off the  cape.

"Now you'll know who I am," complained John Jason, but his struggle  lacked conviction. Heat radiated from his body, and the baby-blond hair  clung damply to his scalp.

"John Jason, is that you?" Christian feigned surprise and, mollified,  the little boy allowed himself to be led to the shade of an ancient  macrocarpa.