“Do me a favor, find a motel or somewhere and sleep on it before you do anything you might regret. We can talk in the morning.”
“I’ll let you know how it goes,” Tamsyn replied, ignoring her brother’s plea. “I’ll call you in a few days.”
She disconnected the phone before Ethan could say another word and listened carefully as the disembodied voice on the GPS carefully enunciated that her turn was coming up in five hundred meters. Tamsyn’s gut clenched tight. She had to do this. As irrational and out of character as it was for her, the woman who usually planned everything out to the finest degree, she needed to do this.
Carefully, Tamsyn turned in at the imposing stone-wall-lined entrance to a long driveway. She drew the car to a halt and closed her eyes for a moment. This was it—soon she could be face-to-face with her mother for the first time since she was three years old. A shudder passed through her body as her adrenaline levels kicked up a notch.
The past twenty-four hours had been a roller-coaster ride. One that had alternately left her giddy with anticipation or sick to her stomach. Tamsyn opened her eyes and took her foot off the brake. The car began inching forward, rumbling loudly over the cattle guard beneath the tires and along the long straight stretch of driveway that gently inclined up the hill.
To the left and the right of her, regimented lines of grapevines grew, their foliage lush and green and the early signs of fruit could be seen hanging on the vines. Considering it was only late November, Tamsyn’s experienced eye could see that this vineyard was in for a bumper crop.
She continued along the long driveway. It snaked up a steep incline until finally, after a particularly tight hairpin turn, she saw the house ahead of her. The sprawling two-story building, crafted in stone and cedar, dominated the crest of the hill. Her lips set in a firm line of disapproval. So it clearly hadn’t been a lack of money that had kept her mother from staying in touch, she thought cynically. Was this how Ellen Masters had used the money her husband had sent her for the past twenty-odd years?
Tamsyn used that cynicism to propel her out of her car and toward the front door. It was now or never. Taking a deep breath, she reached for the iron door knocker and lifted it, only to let it drop with a solid clang. A short time later she heard footsteps echo from inside. Her stomach tied in knots as every last ounce of her resolve suddenly fled.
What the hell was she doing here?
* * *
Finn Gallagher opened his front door and had to force himself not to take a step back. He recognized the woman standing in front of him with a surety that went soul deep. Ellen’s daughter.
So the little princess from Australia had finally decided to visit. Too little, too late, as far as he was concerned. Far too late.
The pictures he’d seen of her over the years, hadn’t done her justice, though he had the sense he wasn’t seeing her at her best. His sweeping gaze took in the mussed long dark brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders and the dark bruises of tiredness that stained porcelain skin under wide-spaced brown eyes. Eyes that reminded him so much of her mother. The woman who, together with her partner, Lorenzo, had mothered him when his own family had disintegrated.
Her clothes were creased but still stylish, and clung to her curves in a way that drew his eye to the opening of her blouse and especially to the tempting swell of creamy skin exposed there. Her skirt skimmed her hips and down her slender thighs to end just above the knee. Not long enough to be dowdy and not so short as to be inappropriate, but somehow still enticing.
It all spoke to the privileged upbringing she’d enjoyed. He found it difficult not to feel bitter when he knew how hard her mother had scraped and worked for a decent life. Clearly the Masters family had looked after their own—they just didn’t look after those who walked away from them. Those who didn’t conform.