Chapter 9 #2
Mila and Dobby were making it work. And if he went into business with Dobby, it might be a different story.
Which reminded him he wanted to ask Chelsea about the land, especially the farmland behind the garden. If Dobby bought Lilydale, he’d take care of it.
He shouldn’t get ahead of himself. Today he’d talk to Chelsea about her plans. He dressed for another day of gardening and ate breakfast, debating whether he should go down the road and buy himself a proper coffee. Perhaps Chelsea would be nice enough to make him one.
Ethan wandered outside, glancing towards the house. The blinds were up in Chelsea’s bedroom, which meant she was awake. The blinds up had become their sign he could climb the tree outside her window and sneak into her bedroom to steal a few more hours together when they were younger.
Such good memories.
Often they would lie side-by-side on her single bed and talk about their pasts and what they wanted for the future.
She was the only one he’d ever told about his different foster families and his mother.
Like her, his father had never been part of his life.
His mother had succumbed to drugs and had mental illness as a result.
She’d been in no state to take care of him, even if she’d wanted to. Which she hadn’t.
All that was in the past. It was far more important to focus on the present and the future.
As he moved towards the house, a black Porsche pulled into the driveway. Johann was back. It was still pretty early for a visit. Ethan hesitated. Maybe he should wait until the property developer left before he went over.
Johann’s face was red, his fury clear in his scowl and clenched fists as he stormed up the steps and pounded on the front door.
Ethan tensed and strode closer in case Chelsea needed his help.
By the time he arrived, she’d already opened the door and Ethan stopped out of sight at the corner of the house to listen to the conversation.
He clenched his hands to push down the urge to play saviour.
It wasn’t his place to butt in, but it was a struggle not to rush to Chelsea’s side and take over, show Johann she wasn’t alone.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Johann growled.
Ethan shifted back to look through the living room window to the front door. Chelsea stood with one hand on the door handle. Her reply was calm. “I could ask you the same question.”
“Do you know what you’ve done?” Johann yelled, his voice shaking with rage. “You’ve cost me millions.”
Chelsea smiled. “I can’t see how, Mr Mueller. I haven’t had any business with you.”
“Your mother refused my proposal.”
“Did she tell you why?”
Ethan didn’t like her sweet tone. It would inflame Johann’s anger. Every instinct in his body screamed for him to protect her, but it wasn’t his place yet. They were merely talking.
“She said she wouldn’t deal with a man like me. I can only imagine you gave her an unfavourable impression of me.”
“I did,” she agreed. “Would you like to know why?”
“Because you got precious about me being in your garden.”
“That didn’t endear you to me,” she agreed, “but that’s not the reason.” She paused, and Ethan had to give her credit. The way she made Johann work for the information was perfect.
“What was?” Johann asked between gritted teeth.
“I spoke to Darren yesterday.”
A slight widening of his eyes. Yeah, he was guilty.
Chelsea continued, “Do you want to know what he said?”
Johann took a step back. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Liar.” The word shot out like a bullet, the calm replaced with anger as she pointed her finger at Johann. “You paid Darren fifty thousand dollars almost a year ago to let the garden die. Your greed destroyed my aunt’s life’s work.”
The pain in her voice made Ethan ache to hold her, to take away any hurt.
“Don’t be foolish. No one is going to want this place now.”
“I want this place,” Chelsea replied. “My mother and I have agreed we will never sell to you, or any company you’re affiliated with.”
Johann stepped forward, and Ethan tensed. Johann’s next words enhanced the threat of his body. “You don’t know who you’re playing with.”
Chelsea’s hand tightened around the door handle and Ethan moved to the corner of the house, ready to spring into action. “I can assure you, this is no game, Mr Mueller.”
“You have to sell Lilydale to me,” Johann said, a little desperation in his tone.
“I don’t,” Chelsea replied. “You can’t make me.”
“You obviously don’t know who I work for.” Desperation morphed into fear.
Definitely trouble. Ethan had heard enough. He stepped onto the porch and strode forward. “Morning, Chelsea.”
Johann glared at him but stepped backwards.
“Ethan.” Her face was a little pale, as if shaken by the encounter.
He moved so he stood between Chelsea and Johann and smiled at the man. “Sorry, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ethan.” He held out a hand.
Johann glanced at it, before shaking. “Johann Mueller.”
“He was just leaving,” Chelsea said.
“Right. Nice meeting you.” Ethan stared at the man, then flicked his eyes to the black car and back to Johann.
Johann scowled. “I’ll be in touch, Miss McGinnis.”
“Don’t bother. I have nothing to say to you.”
Johann growled as he stalked down the steps to his car. Ethan waited until he drove away before he turned to Chelsea. “The man is dangerous.”
Chelsea frowned. “He’s a businessman. He can’t force Mum to sign over the property.” She stepped back to let him into the house, her hand trembling.
“There are many ways he can force her.” His voice was grim and Chelsea looked at him with her eyebrows raised in question.
“You’ve cost him a lot. He’s not taking that kindly, particularly if his bosses aren’t happy.
” Ethan would find out who they were, because there had been real fear in Johann’s voice.
Annoyance flashed in her eyes and then she pressed her lips together. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She said nothing else as she entered the kitchen. “I was making coffee. Do you want one?”
Ethan smiled, hoping to lessen the tension. “Yes, please. I was hoping you’d offer.”
That earned him a quick smile, but it was enough to make him feel warm inside. He blinked. That wasn’t the goal here. Sure, he wanted to be friendly, but the increase in his heartbeat wasn’t required. He couldn’t afford to feel things for her again.
His eyes dipped to her left hand, which was bare. No rings.
He shouldn’t be happy about that.
Her laptop was on the kitchen table, as was a tablet and her phone. “Have you been working?”
She hesitated and then nodded.
It shouldn’t hurt that she didn’t want to share with him. “What do you do?”
“I’m in marketing.” She waved her hand. “Though at my last job I was a jack of all trades, creating campaigns, managing people, doing publicity as required.”
She had always put a positive spin on everything. “I bet you’re good at it.”
Chelsea frowned as she frothed his milk. “Apparently not good enough.” She poured his coffee, and they sat at the kitchen table.
“What do you mean?”
“I was fired from my last job because I couldn’t control what an asset said on social media.” Perhaps his confusion showed because she said, “Did you see the recent controversy about what Aria Simpson said on social media?”
“Who?”
Her laughter rang through the kitchen and curled around his heart. “Thank you. It’s good to remember not everyone is obsessed with who is hot right now.”
He shrugged, not at all self-conscious. “I don’t have any social media accounts.”
Her eyes widened. “That explains why I never found you.”
“You looked for me?” The little hitch in his heart needed to stop.
She nodded, her cheeks turning red. “After I finished university. I wanted to see how you were doing, but I couldn’t find anything.”
He had no words. She’d looked him up even after he’d hurt her. “Where are you working now?”
“I’m between jobs. The controversy with Aria Simpson happened last week.”
She’d come to Lilydale to escape. It would have made seeing the garden even more traumatic. “I’m sorry.”
Chelsea pursed her lips. “I’m not. Not anymore.” She sipped her coffee, a slight furrow on her forehead telling him she was debating whether she should confide in him.
“Why?” he prodded.
“Because it brought me home.”
He waited, knowing she had more to say. She opened her mouth and then took a sip of her coffee rather than speaking.
It hurt more than he wanted to admit, but she’d always been slow to trust others with her feelings. He needed to let her work up to it. “How was your dinner with Lauren?”
A smile. “Great. It was so much fun catching up with her.” She glanced at her laptop. “I’m helping her promote the Honeybrook Fair. You’ll have noticed how many shops are closed in town.”
He nodded.
“Lauren said the town is dying. They need to bring people back. Lilydale used to attract many people.” A smile tugged on her lips.
All at once he knew. “You’re going to restore Lilydale.”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded. “I went through Aunt Maggie’s accounts last night. She made a decent income from the property. If I can restore the gardens, refresh the cabins, and spend time on advertising, I should be able to attract people to town.”
“Will you be staying to run the place?” Something akin to hope blossomed in his chest.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she admitted. “I still need to call Mum and run it past her. She’ll need to agree to it, as it’s her property.”
That reminded him of his call with Dobby. “Is there still the acreage at the back?”
“What acreage?”
“Aunt Maggie once mentioned she had farmland adjoining the property. Her fiancé was a farmer, and he was going to manage the farm while she did the garden.”
“I never knew.” Chelsea pulled out her phone. “Let me call Mum now. The kids will be at school.”
“Kids?” Whose kids?
“My half-brother and sister.”
Relief filled him. Not Chelsea’s. “How old are they?”
“Ten and eight.” She held up a hand to stop him from talking and said, “Hey, Mum.”
Ethan shifted back in his seat as she spoke to her mother and glanced around the kitchen.
Nothing had changed in here. Perhaps Maggie hadn’t been inclined to modernise, or maybe she hadn’t had the money.
Though from what he knew about her, he suspected the real reason was because this was what she’d chosen with her fiancé and she hadn’t wanted to change a thing.
He listened as Chelsea explained her plan to her mother and then asked about the extra land. Her mouth dropped open. “How much?” She nodded. “I had no idea.” A pause. “Oh, I can’t ask you to do that.” Her expression crumpled and tears pricked in her eyes.
Ethan clenched his hands. What had Sabine said to upset Chelsea? He waited, and she sniffed and said, “Thank you, Mum. It means the world to me.”
His fists relaxed. They were happy tears, not sad tears. Still, he impatiently waited until she hung up and took a couple of breaths to calm herself. He raised his eyebrows in question.
“She’s going to transfer the property into my name.” Chelsea swallowed. “She’s giving me Lilydale.”
He reached out and squeezed her hand, knowing what it meant to her. “That’s great.”
“She wants me to have the security she never had.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe it. “The property has to be worth a lot. There are sixty-five hectares of land behind Lilydale’s gardens.”
A decent size. “I have a friend who’s considering getting out of the army,” Ethan said. “If you think of selling some of the land, he might be interested.”
“Does he want to become a farmer?”
Ethan chuckled at the thought of Dobby as a farmer. “No. He wants to go into security and needs land to set up a training ground.”
“For security?”
“Hostage extraction, bodyguard work and the like.”
She pursed her lips. “I haven’t thought that far ahead, but he could call me and we can discuss.”
He liked that she wasn’t dismissing the possibility out of hand. “What’s your action plan?”
She hesitated. “Are you really interested?”
“I’ve got a month of leave to fill. I want to know what work I’ll be doing.”
Chelsea stared at him. “Why do you want to spend your free time helping me?”
It was a good question and one he didn’t want to investigate in any detail, but he wasn’t ready to leave Chelsea or Lilydale. “Aunt Maggie was one of the few people who showed me any kindness when I was a kid. I’d like to repay her.”
“She wouldn’t expect any repayment.”
“I know.” He shrugged. “Seeing the mess the garden is in after all the hours I worked on it… I can’t leave it like this.”