Chapter 28
Cassidy
I woke before dawn, which wasn't unusual. What was unusual was not wanting to get up.
Xavier was still asleep, one arm thrown over his eyes, chest rising and falling in the slow rhythm of someone who'd finally let go.
He looked peaceful, less guarded. I lay there longer than I should have, watching the pale light creep under the curtains and listening to the station wake up around us—the cows mooing in the paddock, the kookaburras losing their minds in the gum trees, and Pluto barking at something that probably wasn't worth barking at.
Home sounds—the best sounds in the world.
Eventually, I eased out of bed, careful not to wake him, and tugged on jeans and a flannel shirt. I padded out to the kitchen to put the kettle on, my body still humming with lovely memories of last night.
My entire body glowed. I felt light and happy, as if I could skip across the red dirt and sing to the cows. I'd never felt like this before, and I wanted to wake up like this every day.
Then reality elbowed its way in, the way it always does at five in the morning.
We'd been back at the homestead for three days, and we'd heard nothing from Bob. No squad car tearing up the driveway to arrest me. Not even a phone call from him. Nothing from the Hendersons either. I'd half expected them to be sitting at the front gate with a shotgun across the dash.
But we'd had nothing but silence, and that was almost worse than if they'd come hammering on the door.
Bob hadn't come back looking for Frank, which meant Bob was working it from another angle. He hadn't come back for the money in the walls either. But he would. Mitch was right about that. The only question was how long he'd give us before he stopped pretending he didn't know what we'd found.
After Bruce Henderson had filed that bullshit report about the stolen ute and the burned paddock, there'd been no follow-up on that either. That was the loudest silence of all.
Bruce Henderson didn't go quiet. He'd been wanting an excuse to come at me for years, and now he had three. Vehicle damage claims were the least of it, but he couldn't take that one to court without explaining the bullet holes.
Whatever the Hendersons were planning, it wouldn't be sorted with a court case.
And hovering like a damn storm cloud was the fact that Frank was still out there somewhere.
My brothers and I agreed that it had to have been Frank who’d hidden the millions of dollars in the walls of his own outstation. However, we couldn't figure out how Bob knew about it, where the money had come from, why they'd hidden it in the first place, or why Frank had vanished.
So many bloody questions, and not a single answer among us.
Wherever Frank was, he wasn't gone for good. If he wasn’t dead—and that looked more unlikely by the day—he'd gone underground, and when he resurfaced, things were going to get really ugly.
I shoved the gloomy thoughts away. Whatever was coming, it was coming. Worrying about it on the verandah at sunrise wasn't going to change a damn thing.
I carried two mugs of steaming coffee out to the verandah and had only just sat down when the screen door to my bedroom creaked open. Xavier appeared, barefoot, wearing Mitch’s clothes that he’d worn yesterday, slacks and an unbuttoned shirt hanging loose, his hair doing something spectacular.
I looked him up and down, fighting a smile. "You look shattered."
"Good morning to you, too." He crossed the verandah, leaned down, and kissed me. Soft and slow. When he pulled back, a lazy smile played at his lips. "You, on the other hand, look like trouble."
"Trouble?"
"The best kind." He dropped into the chair beside me. "Oh, look, there are cows."
I laughed. "Of course. Koolaroo is a cattle station."
"Well, I've been here for a few days, and I've seen more kangaroos and mice than cows."
I nodded. "Fair point." I nodded at the herd beyond the fence. "There are about five hundred head of prime Brahman cattle in that paddock."
He reached for the mug. "They're enormous."
"They're not fully grown yet."
"And you round up these cows? On your horse?"
I frowned. "What? You think because I'm a woman, I can't?—"
"Shhh." He pressed his finger to my lips. "I asked because I can't wait for you to teach me."
I burst out laughing. "You want me to teach you how to ride?"
He cocked his head at me, going all serious. "Yes. I told you, I want to learn everything. When can we start?"
I cocked an eyebrow. "You want to learn everything?"
"Everything," he said, gesturing toward the cattle, the paddocks, and the endless red earth stretching to the horizon. “Especially horse riding. It looks like fun.”
I snorted.
You're fun.
I sipped my coffee. "You realize you've only been here three days, right?"
"I'm aware."
"But what about your ..." I waved a hand vaguely toward the horizon, in what I hoped was the general direction of Manhattan. "You know … empire."
"Hawthorne Global isn't mine, Cass. It's Dominic's. It always was Dominic's. It's the board's now, technically, and they've been running it day-to-day for years. I was a figurehead more than anything else."
"A figurehead with a corner office, I bet."
"Yes. A figurehead with a corner office," he agreed. "I called my COO yesterday morning while you were out checking the troughs. I told her I was taking indefinite leave, and she should run things until further notice. She didn't sound surprised."
"Indefinite," I repeated.
"Indefinite."
"And what about the money side? Your bank, your ..." I trailed off, because I genuinely didn't know what a man like Xavier had to keep track of. "Whatever it is rich blokes have."
He huffed a soft laugh. "Funds are being moved into accounts I can access from here. Accountants are sorting the rest. I've got people for that."
"Of course, you have people."
"I gave my friend the keys to my apartment before I came here. He can stay for as long as he likes."
"Wow, I want friends like you."
"You have better."
"Oh yeah, what's that?"
"Me."
I chuckled. "What about a car? Did you have one over there? I bet it was a Rolls-Royce or something?"
He scrunched his nose, and if I hadn't been so damn curious about his answer, I'd have cupped his cheeks and kissed him. "Am I right?"
"No. Not a Rolls. I have a chauffeur who drives the company town car."
"Oh, of course, you have a chauffeur, pardon me."
"Oh, that reminds me. I need to get that rental car from the Rusty Swagman and return it to Brisbane."
"Ahh, you mean what's left of it, right?"
His jaw dropped, and he blinked at me.
"The Henderson brothers probably gave it a new paint job."
"Shit. Well, lucky I took out full insurance when I rented it." He smiled, but I caught something thoughtful in it. "But I do need to grab my suitcase in the back. I have some very expensive moisturizer."
I snorted. "Moisturizer? That's what you're worried about?"
His eyes crinkled at the corners, indicating he was having fun with me. "Hell, yes. The Outback is brutal on my skin."
I burst out laughing. I'd never met anyone who made me laugh so much, especially a man.
“And I can’t keep wearing Mitch’s clothes,” he said.
“Mitch doesn’t mind.”
“I know, but still.”
I wrapped my hand over the back of his arm. "We'll grab the car when we go into Winton for supplies. Maybe on Friday."
"Okay. Hopefully, the car can still be driven. I'll get the rental company to collect it themselves. Last thing I want to do is drive to Brisbane."
I shook my head. "You've got all the answers."
"No, I don't. Go on, hit me with another question."
I tipped my head back, thinking. There was so much I still didn't know about this man. "Okay. What about that solar power thingy you do?"
"Oh, you remember that. You mean GridSnap."
"Yeah. I assume that company doesn't run itself."
"Actually, it just about does. I licensed the patents to a few key partners, who handle manufacturing and rollouts. I get a slice of every unit that ships. I don't have to be in an office for any of it."
"So you're telling me you've built two empires, and neither of them actually needs you?"
He frowned. "When you put it like that, it sounds tragic."
"It's bloody convenient, is what it sounds like." I shook my head. "What about your volunteer work? In those African villages?"
"I can still go when a build calls for it. A few weeks at a time, here and there. But Cass," he set his mug down, "I want this to be my home. Here. With you."
My heart bloomed, pounding so loudly in my chest that I heard it in my ears.
He let me have the moment, but then he released a big sigh. "There's something else, Cass."
I glanced at him. "What?"
"I'm going to do a DNA test."
I frowned. "But we already know we're not sister and brother."
"I know, but I came halfway around the world to find out who my father is. I need to know for sure."
I nodded. "Okay, but you might not like the result."
"If I'm not Frank's son, you mean?"
"No. If you are."
He huffed a short laugh. "I want to know who my father is. I just hope my mother wasn't lying about that, too."
I reached over and curled my hand around his. "Whoever your father turns out to be, it doesn't change who you are."
He looked at me like I'd just said something miraculous.
"What?" I asked.
"Nobody's ever said that to me before."
Something twisted in my chest. Of course, nobody had. He'd grown up being told exactly who he was supposed to be by people who’d had every reason to lie about it.
"Well," I said, and squeezed his hand. "I'm saying it now. Do you need to go somewhere to do a DNA test?"
"No. I can get a kit posted out, then all I need is hair from Frank's hairbrush. Results will take a couple of weeks."
He threaded our fingers together, and as we sipped our coffee, sunlight gradually turned the red earth to copper and gold, and the endless sky bled from deep purple to pink, and then to that impossible blue.
"Is this what you wake up to every day?" he breathed.