Chapter 15
Fifteen
‘Mum, I need to go to the toilet,’ Poppy called from the back seat without lifting her head from her colouring book.
‘Again?’ Ewan asked, sending a quick glance across at Kenzie. ‘We only just stopped.’
‘About three hours ago,’ Kenzie told him. ‘She’s only got a little bladder.’
‘Okay, sorry. I usually drive pretty much straight through.’
‘I did warn you that travelling with a child was going to be slower.’
‘You did. It’s all good,’ he added, glancing in the mirror at the little dark head in the back. It still surprised him each time he saw her. I have a kid. ‘There’s a servo up ahead. We could all do with a leg stretch.’
‘Sorry,’ Kenzie said a few moments later, and he looked across at her warily. ‘I know this is all still a bit of a culture shock to you.’
‘It’s okay. I was the one who suggested it, remember?’
She sent him a small smile, and he found that he liked it. There hadn’t been too many smiles since meeting her again—shock had been the standard expression for them so far. He hoped this trip might help to change that, and give them some kind of basis for a normal co-parenting relationship.
He really wasn’t in a hurry to get home.
His thoughts turned to his father, and the familiar uneasiness churned in the pit of his stomach once more.
There’d been a time when gaining his father’s respect had been all he’d lived for—in school, on the property, in life in general—and yet, for some reason, nothing he did was ever good enough.
Arran had been the eldest son and could do no wrong.
It hadn’t mattered what they did, it was always Arran who got the praise and Ewan who copped the lecture.
His father’s anger was connected to the accident Ewan and Arran had been in, the one that should have killed them both, but that he’d walked away from without a scratch while his brother had ended up needing an emergency splenectomy to remove a ruptured spleen.
Ewan had been driving the side-by-side too fast, being an idiot, which had resulted in them rolling it and his brother getting flown out to hospital.
Arran was always the quieter one, focused and ambitious like their father.
He was the one who had been trained to follow in their father’s footsteps and run the family estate when the time came.
It was tradition, set in stone. The eldest son always inherited the property.
That’s the way it had been in the Campbell family for centuries, back in Scotland.
When Callum’s father had remarried after his wife’s death, then suddenly died only a year later, his widow had done the unthinkable and sold the estate and lands, leaving Callum, the eldest son, with nothing.
So Callum had packed up his family and moved to Australia to start his own dynasty, eventually buying a property in South Australia.
The last time Ewan had been back home, he and his father had ended up in a huge argument.
So, really, he was happy to take their time getting there.
And maybe, just maybe, bringing home Poppy might help mend some of those bridges they’d burned.
Maybe having a distraction—an heir, even, to add to the Campbell bloodline—would give them something to bond over, something to look forward to in the future.
Kenzie stared out the window of the car, watching the scenery pass.
She’d lost count of how many times it had changed—from the lush coastal grazing pastures full of fat, happy-looking dairy cattle to the higher altitude areas with views of voluptuous mountains dwarfing tiny houses that looked down over enormous valleys, then the wide open plains that lost the lushness, replaced by paddocks of yellow and blond-coloured grasses with wild bushland scattered between them.
They’d stopped a number of times for toilet breaks and to break the trip up for an easily bored four-year-old, and Kenzie was impressed by the way Ewan had adapted to the more frequent stops.
She’d worried he’d get annoyed, despite the fact she’d warned him that it would be a slow trip with a small child, but he’d been great, playing I Spy and counting coloured cars like a seasoned parent.
The only downside had been that her phone had been going off.
She could handle the majority of the messages with a quick reply, mainly last-minute changes that she hadn’t covered before leaving in such a hurry.
The messages from Mercedes, however, were more difficult.
She wasn’t overly thrilled with being put through to Tara when she called, but Kenzie had promised Mercedes she’d handle the latest round of changes personally as soon as she had access to her laptop, and that had seemed to pacify the anxious bride-to-be.
Kenzie glanced back and saw Poppy had finally fallen asleep, Mr Percival firmly in the crook of her arm.
‘You mentioned the name of your family’s property yesterday, but I’ve forgotten what it was called, sorry,’ she said to break the sudden quiet.
‘Laire-Mor,’ he said.
‘What does that mean? Is it Scottish?’
‘It was named after my grandmother. Her name was Laire. Mór roughly translates to “big” or “of great size”, which was the land.’
‘That’s kind of cool,’ Kenzie said.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve been wondering, what exactly did you tell your parents about … everything?’ she asked. She hadn’t been comfortable bringing the subject up, but her need to be prepared by the time she met them had overcome her discomfort.
‘I called my mum to tell her that Sasha and I broke up, and told her why.’
Kenzie grimaced a little. She still felt partly responsible for the whole disaster, even if deep down she thought it was probably a dodged bullet for Ewan.
‘And they know I’m coming?’
‘Of course,’ he said lightly.
‘And they’re okay with that?’ she pressed.
‘Yes.’
‘Is it weird that you’re bringing home a stranger that you only really knew the one time? I mean … won’t they think that’s strange?’
‘I don’t think they’ve really given it much thought. They’re too excited about meeting Poppy. But they’ll be okay with it.’
Would they, though? She suspected he wasn’t revealing the entire conversation he’d had with his family about Poppy’s existence.
What she was positive about was that this would be a big shock for anyone, and maybe he was trying to put on a bright face to cover up the fact he’d more than likely floored his family with his bombshell.
Kenzie bit down on the side of her lip. ‘But what exactly did you tell them … about me?’ she persisted.
He sent her a brief sideways glance before returning his gaze back to the road. ‘Oh,’ he said, comprehension finally dawning. ‘They know we had a brief relationship a few years ago and that we’d only accidentally bumped into each other recently.’
Kenzie stared at him. A relationship? ‘We bumped into each other?’ she repeated slowly.
‘What?’ he asked, sending her another look.
‘They’re going to think I purposely hid the pregnancy from you.’
‘No, they won’t. Anyway, who cares? That all in the past. It’s what’s going on now that matters.’
‘Unless they already think I’m some cold-hearted bitch who didn’t tell you that you had a child for more than four years,’ she said dryly.
‘Look, my mum is just ecstatic that she has a granddaughter.’ ‘You could have at least told them the part about us leaving without actually knowing each other’s surnames,’ she muttered.
‘Because telling them we met when we were both drunk and had a one-night stand is somehow better?’
Kenzie shifted in her seat slightly. Fair point.
‘Like I said, how we met and what happened in the past, none of that matters. We’re starting over. We have Poppy.’
When he put it like that, it did sound kind of reasonable. ‘Tell me about your sister. You said before that she lived on the property as well?’
‘Yeah. Floss and her husband, Joe, have two kids, Angus and Cameron. They’re seven and five now, I think.’
‘Floss is an unusual name,’ she commented.
‘Her real name’s Flora. We’ve got pretty traditional names. It’s a lot more common back in Scotland than here, I guess. But we call her Floss.’
‘Is she older or younger?’
‘Older. She’s thirty-four. She used to work in marketing before her and Joe started the vineyard business side of things.’
‘Oh, nice.’
‘Yeah, one thing our family does well is diversify,’ he said with a small grin.
Kenzie wondered what his sister was going to make of the situation.
Would she be more okay with it because she was closer to them in age?
Or would she be judgemental because she had two kids and a husband?
It wasn’t fair to make assumptions before she’d met the woman, but Kenzie was worried—it could go either way.
‘I’m thinking we’ll stop at the next town for the night? We can get something to eat and get a good night’s sleep, then set off again early tomorrow morning?’
‘I think that’s a good idea.’
‘From memory, I think there’s a motel next to a park. I thought maybe Poppy might like that, after being cooped up in a car all day?’
‘She’ll love that.’ Again, he surprised her with his thoughtfulness. She spotted a mileage sign for the next town and bit back a tired sigh. Another sixty-five kilometres. It had been a long drive and, despite the frequent stops, she was ready to get out and stretch her own legs.
After what seemed to take forever, large advertising signs began to appear on the side of the road for the local hotel, a bakery and a real estate agent before they were slowing down as they entered the town limits.
It was only a small town, but as they drove through the main street, Kenzie noticed they had the essentials; an independent grocery store, a chemist, hairdresser, butcher and a school and, as Ewan had promised, a well-maintained park with pretty flowerbeds and lovely green grass, beside an older-looking brick motel.
‘I’ll go and check us in,’ he said, stopping in the motel driveway.
‘Are we here, Mummy?’ Poppy asked, waking up.
‘We’re at the place we’re staying in tonight, but we haven’t got to Ewan’s place yet.’
‘It’s taking forever,’ Poppy said in a long-suffering tone.
‘I know,’ Kenzie said with a sympathetic smile. ‘It’s a very long way away. But we’ll get there tomorrow, and we’ll have lots of fun.’
Ewan came back and climbed into the car, then drove slowly towards a numbered carpark.
‘You guys have room ten and I’ve got twelve, just down there,’ he said pointing to a door at the end of the long building.
He parked in front of their room, and Kenzie opened the back door to get Poppy out while he unloaded their suitcases.
‘There you go,’ he said, placing the suitcases on the end of the double bed. ‘Is this going to be okay?’
She followed his gaze, taking in the slightly dated furniture and bland colour scheme.
There was a single bed alongside the far wall, and a small table near a window that looked out onto a tin fence.
‘It’s clean,’ she said, searching for something positive to say.
‘It’s only one night,’ she added with a smile.
‘There’s only the one motel in town to choose from,’ he said, sounding apologetic.
She imagined that, being the fiancé of Sasha Delsanto, he wasn’t used to budget motel accommodation. ‘It’s fine. Thank you.’
‘Okay. Well, I’ll leave you to settle in. Maybe we can head over to the park in a bit?’
‘Yay!’ Poppy’s eyes brightened at the mention of a park.
Kenzie let out a long sigh after he walked away and lay down on the bed, enjoying the stretch. Poppy climbed up and kneeled beside her, bouncing. ‘It’s like a trampoline, Mummy.’ She giggled at the squeaky noise it made.
It’s just one night.