Love or Money Read online

  Love or Money

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Love or Money

  Peter McAra

  A sweet story about sustainability, surfing, and searching for what really matters…

  When Erin Spenser inherits her grandmother’s beautiful cliff-top property in rural Luna Bay, she knows she has to sell it immediately to fund her ailing mother’s heart transplant. When she briefs her grandmother’s lawyer, Hamish Bourke, the passionate LandCare volunteer explodes: her grandmother, a dedicated fellow volunteer, would turn in her grave.

  But Erin has responsibilities that can’t be denied — even by an angry, obstructive, strangely attractive lawyer determined to stand in her way. Her grandmother’s property is a goldmine for holiday developers and her mother’s illness is only getting worse. How can she make Hamish understand that the only way to fix her mother’s heart is to break her own?

  About the Author

  Born a miner’s son in Western Australia, Peter learned about love and life in a string of rural towns across Australia and New Zealand, where he grew up with his mum, dad and three sisters. Over the years, his day jobs ranged from miner and truck-driver to academic positions in Australian and US universities. Along the way, he wrote several academic textbooks.

  Why the switch to writing romance? The moment eight-year-old Peter read Anne of Green Gables, he was hooked. (He’s still in love with Anne, actually, but his understanding wife, a relationship psychologist, handles any conflicts professionally). Now, after a tree-change to green acres in coastal NSW, he farms by day and writes by night — the best time for romance.

  Acknowledgements

  Straight-from-the-heart thanks to my long-time writing buddies — Chrissie Paice, Catherine Evans, Malvina Yock, and the friends at my warm and cosy writers’ club, Breathless in the Bush. You’ve all helped, motivated, and guided me over the years — my patient, long-suffering, never-complaining laboratory guinea pigs.

  To my loving partner Wendy — the other half of the magical Peter-Pan and Wendy team

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Chapter 1

  ‘Thanks, Ma’am. I really needed that parking space. A minor emergency.’

  Erin Spenser turned to see a thirtyish man — tall, tanned — smiling down at her through her half-open car window. A puff of wind ruffled the swathe of light brown hair hanging across his forehead. A minute earlier, Erin had aimed her car at the only vacant spot in the little town’s parking lot. A man driving a small battered truck had seen the space too and headed for it. Catching the anxious look on his face, Erin reversed away and waved him in.

  ‘Much appreciated,’ the man said. ‘Letting me take your parking spot.’ He smiled. Twin dimples popped up either side of his lips.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Erin smiled back. She’d just finished a three hour drive from Sydney to the folksy hamlet of Luna Bay, and had made it with five minutes to spare for her four o’clock meeting. That meeting — with her late grandmother’s lawyer — could change her life.

  ‘Gotta run,’ the man said. ‘But thanks again.’ She caught the glint of fathomless blue eyes as he turned away. He dropped a friendly goodbye slap onto her car’s roof, then loped back to his truck. She noticed again that he was tall — very tall. As a writer and illustrator of children’s books, she’d slipped into the habit of giving people cute descriptive names. Okay…Daddy Longlegs for the lean, long-limbed guy now hurrying across the parking lot.

  She watched as he grabbed a chainsaw from his truck’s tray and threw it into the cab. He scooped a briefcase from the seat, locked the door and dashed across the road. An electric ripple fired in her brain — haunting, romantic. Okay, sexy. Had she met the man before, long ago? Where? What had triggered that too-brief, teasing twinge deep inside her? She watched him as he disappeared. He wore an open-necked blue shirt, trousers that were much too pressed and clean for a blokey outdoor guy. And shiny business shoes. His top half shouted farmer, his bottom half, business-type. Strange.

  A car backed out and left. Erin grabbed the spot. She checked her face in the car’s mirror, tucked away a few escaping strands of her shoulder-length blonde hair. Those dark rings under her eyes were the price she’d paid for broken sleep, an early start, and a long drive. She looked and felt more like forty-eight than her actual age of twenty-eight. Her brain began churning through its memory bank, again. Who was this guy? Why had her wicked body zipped into tingling reaction the second she looked into his face? Later, later, she ordered her wayward brain. In mere minutes you have a very special appointment. Concentrate!

  She slid out of her car, locked it, drew a long breath. As she walked across the parking lot, she let herself enjoy the tang of the sea now wafting over her. The afternoon sunshine was warm on her skin and she felt as if the little town had held out its arms to welcome her. Ever since her first Luna Bay holiday at Grandma Spenser’s cottage, way back in her kindergarten days, she’d loved the old house and learned to call it by the name her grandmother had taught her — Lovers’ Lookout. Through all the long summers she’d spent with the old woman, right to the end of her high school years, Erin had felt herself enfolded in Lovers’ Lookout’s arms each time she visited. It was like coming home to an old friend she’d missed for too long.

  The lawyer’s office happened to be only a few steps from the parking lot. Hiding a smile at its down-at-heel look, Erin pushed the creaking door open. The sixtyish receptionist clicked down the phone and peered over her glasses. Grey wisps hung from the bun of hair balanced on top of her head.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she smiled.

  ‘I’m Erin Spenser.’ Erin tried to paste on a relaxed look, but failed. ‘Here for my four o’clock meeting.’

  ‘Oh, good. Nice to meet you, Erin.’ The receptionist’s smile was pure country. ‘Just take a seat. Hamish shouldn’t be too long. Good drive down from Sydney?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Erin would have killed for a coffee, but she knew better than to say so. It would be country instant — drowned in milk, lukewarm. She flopped onto the sagging leather sofa, ignoring the pile of dog-eared home-and-garden magazines on the nearby coffee table, and tried to relax. Half an hour passed. The phone on the reception desk buzzed. The receptionist caught Erin’s eye.

  ‘Thanks for waiting, Erin. Just go on in.’ She waved a cheery hand towards the door to her right. Erin stood, glad to flex legs still stiff from the long drive. She clutched her handbag, walked to the door and opened it. The man who stood to greet her was — Daddy Longlegs.

  With some effort, she applied a businesslike smile as he stared at her across his desk. On cue, the tingling sensation she couldn’t place fizzed into life again. Where, when, had she met this man? Why did his face trigger feelings of…well, naughty excitement?

  Focus. You’ve driven hard for three hours to meet this man. You’re here for a business meeting.

  She would explore that delicious niggling memory as soon as she left the meeting. Back in control, she looked up at the man, waiting for him to offer her a chair, shake hands, do something. A jacket and tie hung on an antique coat stand in a corner. Maybe it had been hot in the stuffy room. A lawyer who greeted a new client in rolled up shirt sleeves was a novelty to city-raised Erin. For a long time he st
ood like a statue, still smiling, still looking into her face with those blue eyes glinting under craggy eyebrows.

  ‘Ms Spenser.’ Slowly, his smile broadened. The twin dimples winked at her. At last, he’d reacted. ‘Sorry about your wait — an urgent phone call with a client — he’s due in court soon. On a cattle duffing charge, would you believe?’ He waved towards a chair. ‘But do sit down.’ He hadn’t held out his hand, hadn’t welcomed her with the usual slick greeting she’d expect of a lawyer — a man who made his living from glib words. But that voice — it sounded deep, musical, and…familiar. Bet he was a big singer at local parties; country and western for sure. Erin’s goosebumps returned. Her last contact with this man had to do with something heart-stopping, exciting. But what?

  As Erin took her seat, he settled into his chair. Let’s get this over with, his body language whispered. I want to get back to my tractor. As she watched him, she struggled again to link the strands that had connected her to Daddy Longlegs. Then it clicked. During her innocent adolescence, in one of those golden summers at Luna Bay, the man across the desk had saved her life. As duty lifesaver at the local beach, he’d rescued her from a treacherous offshore rip in the surf. She’d revisit that scary rite-of-passage experience later. Meanwhile, the man sat, smiling but not speaking.

  ‘I’ve come about my grandmother’s will.’ Erin spoke evenly, back in control. She had to say something, or the two of them might have sat forever while he beamed his I’m-real-pleased-to-see-ya country smile.

  ‘Ah, yes. Miss Spenser. Of course. I can’t help but notice…you have Edna Spenser’s nose. I could spot it a mile away. But you’ll have some ID?’ While Erin fished through her bag, he bent as he talked, one hand reaching down as he groped in a low desk drawer. ‘You’ll know she left you her Luna Bay property? Lovers’ Lookout?’

  ‘I didn’t, not officially. But she…sort of promised me,’ Erin volunteered. ‘I spent summer holidays with Grandma for years. All through my childhood.’ After Erin’s father left, her mother sent her on yearly visits to her paternal grandmother. Erin had always known that Grandma Spenser loved her, and worked at healing her hurt over the loss of the father she loved.

  ‘One day, dearie, when I die, I want you to own Lovers’ Lookout — the cottage, the garden, the fifty acres of land,’ she’d first said back when Erin was twelve. ‘It’s the least I can do now your Dad’s gone away.’ By then, the family had come to accept that Bill Spenser would never come back to his wife and daughter. Rumour hinted he’d gone to make a new life in the States with his American girlfriend. Erin had thanked her grandmother politely, wondering what on earth she might do with the rambling property if ever she owned it.

  ‘I have the will here,’ the lawyer said, forgetting his professionalism as he scratched round his messy desk. ‘Somewhere. Excuse me.’ He scrabbled in a drawer. ‘Sorry. It must be…’ He strode to a filing cabinet, unlocked it, pulled out the top drawer, fingered the row of tabs. ‘Nope. Nope. Nope. Ah — Bingo! The title deeds to the property are here too.’ He pulled out the file, extracted a bundle tied with pink tape, and dropped it onto the desk. Sliding her driver’s licence towards him, Erin picked up the bundle, uncertain what to do with it.

  ‘Lovely lady, Edna.’ The man’s smile took on a nostalgic twist. ‘We all missed her after she died. A real treasure.’

  ‘Yes. She was that sort of person,’ Erin answered, pleased that at last the country boy who still smiled across the desk could actually make conversation.

  ‘Everywhere she took me,’ Erin reminisced, ‘the shops, the beach, the market days — people stopped her in the street. She knew everybody’s business, and everybody knew hers.’ Those early visits, flavoured with the love only a grandparent can give, had smoothed sweet balm over the sad eight-year-old after her father’s departure.

  ‘And Landcare. Edna was passionate about Landcare,’ the lawyer continued. Erin watched his face relax. It seemed he had more enthusiasm for Landcare, whatever that was, than bundles of papers tucked away in filing cabinets.

  ‘Edna owned that beautiful strip of bush along the headland, running down towards the bay. She called it Lovers’ Lookout,’ he said, waving towards the window. ‘But of course you know all that. She spent a fair bit of her life working on it. Over the years, she regenerated the whole area. For far too many years, we worked there often — the local volunteer Landcarers, that is.’ He looked towards the window with its glimpse of the ocean. ‘When we gathered on her veranda after our toil, Edna would serve those incredible lunches. Soups, quiches, salads, barbecues. Fresh-baked sponges slathered with cream. Cupcakes with fresh blueberries stuck to the icing, peanut brownies, shortbread…’ He paused.

  ‘And now that land belongs to me,’ Erin breathed, half to herself. At last, she could believe her grandmother’s long-ago promise. She had an urge to drive out to the elderly cottage, stand on the veranda, lean into the waves of childhood memories, let them flood over her.

  ‘Yes.’ The man became a lawyer again.

  ‘I’m…a bit confused about what to do next,’ Erin said.

  ‘You’d better go and take a look at the property,’ he said. ‘A fresh look. Now you’re the owner.’ He smiled, then looked away.

  Erin had heard the expression ‘pregnant silence’ and it suited the moment well. What was he holding back? Was he sharing the memory that had given her goosebumps the moment their eyes met?

  ‘Well then,’ she said, simply to break the silence. ‘What should I do with this?’ She waved the wad of papers.

  ‘Store it somewhere safe. As soon as possible.’

  ‘I should tell you now,’ Erin switched back to business mode, ‘I’ll have to sell the place. Very soon.’

  She watched the man’s face twitch, his smile dissolve. The sun had suddenly slid under a grey cloud, making the space around them cold, unfriendly. ‘Sooner rather than later, that is.’ She might as well tell all. ‘My mother…she’s…not well. Lives alone. She had to scratch and scrape to make ends meet ever since my father left, twenty-odd years ago. It’s undermined her health. She really needs my help. Financial help, that is.’ She paused, aware her words had thrown a bucket of cold water over the man. ‘What should I do with the place until I put it up for sale?’

  ‘You mustn’t — you can’t — sell Lovers’ Lookout.’ The man’s eyes flamed. ‘An absolute travesty of your grandmother’s wishes. Her dreams for you. For the property.’

  ‘But I told you — my mother’s health, her life, even. I have no choice.’

  ‘I…my professional advice is that you have a very valuable asset.’ His face darkened. ‘It could be extremely unwise — the height of stupidity — to sell it.’ He slid into another of his forever pauses, his piercing blue eyes still staring into hers. ‘I strongly suggest—’ He choked back his next words.

  ‘Suggest what?’ she asked. ‘What other advice? Not professional advice?’

  ‘Go and look at the old place.’ He drew a long breath. ‘In the next hour or so, before dark. Walk along the cliff-top. Look down at the waves. Connect with the space — with your grandmother’s ghost.’ He looked away. ‘Edna would turn in her grave if she heard what you just said.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Erin said. ‘But I don’t really have a choice.’

  ‘You asked me for my non-professional advice. That’s it.’ His frown deepened. ‘The five second grab, anyway.’ Erin saw that as well as a body, the guy had a soul. For a lawyer, that was unusual. ‘Well, Ms Spenser. I mustn’t keep you.’ He stood, tanned hands splayed onto the desk, face businesslike. His smile had disappeared. The storm cloud which had settled over the meeting now looked positively threatening.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, giving in to the obvious. ‘I’d better be going then.’ She collected her handbag from beside her chair and stood.

  ‘The name’s Bourke,’ he said. ‘Hamish to my friends.’ His deep blue eyes drilled into hers again as she turned to leave. ‘But if you sell the place, w
e probably won’t meet again.’ She took his outstretched hand. The feel of his fingers flicked her mind back to the last time they’d touched her body.

  As Erin walked back to her car, she let herself recall that tumultuous day at the beach. Was it the year she turned sixteen? Yes — the summer she’d discovered body-surfing, grown a passion for it. It had been a hot day. Pushing aside her fear of the big swell, she’d swum out beyond the breakers. With no warning, a tidal rip dragged her away from the red and yellow flags that marked the patrolled part of the beach. The safe swimming area was guarded by a young volunteer lifesaver, sitting tall and tanned on his observation tower, red and yellow cap tied under his chin.

  Like a huge python, the rip tightened its grip on Erin’s body, dragging her further out to sea. Enveloped by a surge of panic, she waved to the lifesaver, desperate. He spotted her, grabbed the surfboard propped against the tower, sprinted into the water, slid onto the board, and paddled out towards her.

  Minutes later, he smiled down at her as she grabbed the board. She knew she was safe. Daddy Longlegs’ smile had brought it all back…the way he caught her arms, hauled her onto the board, lay over her body as he ferried them back to shore, his hands powering the laden board through the waves.

  As she walked, she relived the flood of relief at her rescue, and something else — the lifesaver’s muscular body, lying on top of her, skin to skin, flexing against her body with every stroke of his arms. Soon, too soon, in the calm inshore water, the man slid off his board, asked her if she was okay, smiled again. She pictured the lean body, the wide shoulders, the muscles that gleamed like burnished bronze. Then his goodbye wave, her mumbled thanks. She remembered the weird, excited, unsettled feeling that swept over her as she walked back to collect her things. She’d followed him along the beach at a distance as he headed back to his lookout tower, feeling more besotted with each step.