Sundown Crossing (14 page)

He made his decision. ‘Give her what she says she needs but make it clear that there’ll be no top
ups, no extensions, and watch the repayments like a hawk. If she defaults or is late on one payment, you know what to do.’ He let that sink into the bank manager’s head. ‘Get my drift, Basil?’

Basil’s Adam’s apple wobbled again. ‘Most definitely. Whatever you say, Luke.’

Luke said goodbye and replaced the phone’s receiver. He sat still in his plush, leather executive chair for quite a while, mentally debating how he was going to put a positive spin to the family on what he’d just done to the family.

If Carla had been looking where she was going, instead of staring curiously at Walt Conrad talking to Josh on the other side of the road—the men appeared to be arguing about something—she would not have bumped into Luke Michaels as he came out of a building in Second Street. The load of rolled-up plans she’d been carrying spilled over the footpath.

‘Damn it, why don’t you watch where you’re going?’ Carla said crossly. She knelt to retrieve the plans she’d just picked up from the printer.

‘You were the one not looking where you were going,’ Luke pointed out. He was amused by her irritability until he saw why she had been distracted. He knew that Josh was taking her out. That didn’t sit comfortably with him because he knew what Josh Aldrich was like. Ambitious, sleazy, cunning were descriptions that came to mind easily though he did his job at
Rhein Schloss well enough. In a way, Josh was like his Aunt Lisel—both saw members of their respective opposite sex as fair game with few rules involved in getting what they wanted.

‘Let me help,’ he offered, and bent down to pick up a plan that had rolled into the gutter.

‘I don’t need help from a Stenmark,’ Carla said stubbornly, continuing to gather the plans to her.

‘Perhaps not.’ He looked into her eyes then shot a meaningful glance towards Josh. ‘I guess you’re not used to having gentlemen around you.’ Her cheeks turned pink and he knew she’d understood his barb.

She stared daggers at him but didn’t respond as she tried to move around him.

‘I hear things are going well at Sundown Crossing. That you’ve a good crop in the making,’ he ventured because, for some illogical reason he wanted to prolong their conversation.

‘Do you have spies who report regularly as to the comings and goings at our vineyard?’

He shrugged. ‘Word gets around. There are few secrets in the Valley.’

‘That’s good. I don’t like secrets,’ she threw back at him through tight lips.

‘Let me give you a little free advice, Carla, no strings attached. I hear that you’ve become matey with the Conrads. Just watch them. They’re not the kind of people one could consider as trustworthy.’

‘Funny, they said the same thing about the Stenmark family. That you cheated them out of
their vineyard by claiming they’d taken part of the boundary between their vineyard and one of yours. I’ve asked around. People say that Rhein Schloss bled them dry.’

Luke’s smile was more of a grimace. ‘You should check
all
the facts. We won the court case fairly and the Conrads were ordered to pay costs. That’s where most of their money went, with them trying to wriggle out of the theft of our land on our Black Ridge Estate. They sneakily moved the boundary fence and we lost more than an acre of arable land. Had they agreed at the outset to abide by the surveyor’s plan, instead of being greedy opportunists and wanting to fight us through the courts, they’d still have their vineyard.’

‘You said they took your land. How did you work that out? It’s not always clear where one vineyard’s boundary finishes and another begins.’

He decided to satisfy her curiosity with the truth. ‘Just by chance, really. Someone on the production side noticed that the crop of the Black Ridge Estate had dropped considerably over a period of five years. One can lose a noticeable amount of liquid volume by having one less acre of grapes,’ he informed her. ‘The manager of Black Ridge thought one of the boundary lines was wrong so we had the land re-surveyed where it butted up to the Conrads’s vineyard—and found they’d moved the entire boundary line, planted mature vines so it
wouldn’t be noticeable and were reaping the benefits. They assumed that we were such a big concern we wouldn’t notice.’ His features fell into serious lines. ‘They were wrong.’

‘Walt said it was the other way around, that Rhein Schloss took a percentage of their land.’

‘The surveyor’s report proved otherwise,’ he countered.

She thought about that for a few seconds. ‘Everyone knows that if a wine company has heaps of money they will, most likely, win any court case. Why would Walt bother to lie, what would he have to gain?’ When Luke simply shrugged, she went on, ‘I tend to judge people by their behaviour towards me. Walt and Frances have been very kind to me and my family. I can’t say that for too many others in the Valley, thanks to suggestions from a certain family to make us feel unwelcome.’

He controlled the urge to wince at the sharpness of her words and the truth behind them. ‘Not my doing, personally.’

Carla wasn’t bothering to disguise her annoyance, or the hurt, and in a way Luke couldn’t blame her.
She
hadn’t done anything wrong other than to be the offspring of their grandfather’s prodigal son. In another time, another place, he would have handled things differently but in this situation his hands were tied, by loyalty and need. Lisel had said so one night at dinner after Grandfather had left the table, and it was true. Carla should be regarded
as a threat to his inheritance. So, in spite of any soft feelings he might have towards his cousin, he couldn’t afford to let her get in the way of what was rightfully his—Rhein Schloss.

‘Then we have to agree to disagree. As usual,’ Carla said pertly and before he could reply she turned her back on him and walked away, a thoughtful frown gracing her forehead all the way back to Paul’s office where she deposited the approved plans on his desk.

Luke’s tale of what had happened between the Conrads and Rhein Schloss was different to the Conrads’s story. In Walt and Frances’s mind, the Stenmarks were the bad guys. They claimed that Rhein Schloss had paid a surveying company handsomely by contracting them to re-survey all their vineyards, and to show different boundaries on the deeds to create the dispute that had seen the Conrads lose their winery and most of their funds.

Who should she believe? Walt and Frances’s story was convincing whereas Luke Michaels had shrugged the case off as being unimportant. Perhaps it was, to the Stenmarks, because their wine company was so big. Yet, dislike Luke as she did, and what he stood for—Stenmark power and arrogance—something inside her didn’t want to believe that her grandfather’s company was underhand, or greedy enough to falsify deeds to get what was to them a minutely small parcel of land to add to their holdings. It simply didn’t feel right, but then she asked the
question again, why would the Conrads lie? She sighed and rubbed her temples. It wasn’t her problem and as she enjoyed the Conrads’s company, and Walt was teaching her about the distribution side of winemaking, she saw no need not to remain friends with them.

She sat on her stool, rolled out the building plan she had been working on and, putting thoughts of the Conrads and the Stenmarks and Sundown Crossing to the back of her mind, started to adjust the drawing according to the notes Paul had left on the board. When next she glanced at the wall clock hanging over a row of filing cabinets almost two hours had passed. She straightened her back—her muscles still weren’t used to leaning over at a particular angle for long periods of time.

Another half-hour and she’d be finished in time for Paul, when he came in, to look at and hopefully approve the alterations. This would allow her enough time to go and watch Sam at football practice before he finished. He had just started training after school and was in the local under-sevens’ rugby team. It was a joy to watch his intense expression as he listened to the coach and went through various exercises and ball passing.

The second Friday in March was Sam’s sixth birthday and he woke at 6.30 am to open his presents, which meant everyone else in the cottage was woken up too. The new football boots and jersey were enthused over, as was
Angie’s gift of a set of G.I. Joe action figures. If he was disappointed that he didn’t get the push-bike he’d hoped for, he didn’t show it, and as soon as the hour was decent he rushed off to the Loongs’s caravan to show Su Lee his goodies before they went to school.

‘It’s going to be a long day,’ Carla murmured, stifling a yawn.

‘And a longer night seeing that we’re taking him and the Loongs into town for a birthday dinner. I thought it very grown up of Sam to want dinner instead of a kid’s party,’ Angie said.

‘That’s because he doesn’t know the kids at school that well, and I think he’s overheard us talking about expenses. He knows money’s tight.’ Carla shook her head, her expression mirroring her frustration at not being able to give Sam everything she wanted him to have. ‘One day I’m going to be able to give him what he wants when he wants it.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s character building to wait for what one wants. My parents used to tell me that. Unfortunately, when I was seven and eight, I didn’t quite understand what the phrase “character building” meant.’

Carla chuckled. ‘I know what you mean. There wasn’t much spare cash in our house either, especially after Mum and Dad separated.’ She glanced past Angie to the kitchen window. The sun was bright, the sky cloudless—another hot one on the way. ‘What’s on the agenda today?’

‘Tran and I will be doing random checks on the grapes for sugar content—the Baume test. We keep a close watch on the sugar content using a refractometer, to see if it’s on the rise. That tells us it’s close to harvest time, and we’ll also check the acid levels.’ She then added, ‘We depend on the weather reports too. A severe storm or hail now, or in the next week or so, could be disastrous for the harvest.’

‘I’ve noticed quite a few backpackers coming into town. Word must be out that the Barossa will be harvesting soon.’

Angie nodded. ‘They have an effective verbal grapevine, if you’ll pardon the pun. Soon the place will be lousy with tourists as well as pickers.’

Carla got up, gathered the breakfast plates and cups and washed them. ‘I’m going to jump in the shower before Sam comes back. Tonight, will you bring him and the Loongs into town?’

‘Sure,’ Angie agreed. ‘What time?’

‘Make it 6.45. Paul and I will meet you at the restaurant.’

‘Oh, Paul’s coming.’ Angie wiggled her eyebrows. ‘Not Josh?’

‘I couldn’t not ask Paul, when he’s been so…helpful. Josh has something on tonight,’ Carla said, knowing the excuse sounded lame. She loved Angie but she wished she would stop trying to matchmake. She was perfectly content with her life the way it was and she did not need a man to be…complete.

With Sam’s birthday cake and candles ensconced in the restaurant’s kitchen, Paul and Carla waited for the Loongs, Angie and Sam to arrive. They were sitting in an outdoor section of the large restaurant that had a covered pergola for warm evenings.

Paul ordered a bottle of white wine and, sitting opposite Carla, grinned at her growing nervousness. ‘You’re more excited about Sam’s birthday than he is.’

‘It’s his first birthday without his grandfather. I’m hoping he won’t be upset. He’s a sensitive kid, you know,’ Carla responded. She noted how nice Paul looked in his suit and tie, and that he’d ‘dressed’ because it was a special occasion.

‘Like his mother,’ Paul quipped, watching her rearrange the cutlery on the table.

Retaliating, she poked her tongue out at him, seconds before the drink waiter brought and poured the wine.

Lifting his glass in a formal salute, Paul murmured, ‘To a pleasant evening.’ Then, surprisingly, his features became serious and his tone thoughtful as he remarked, ‘Lisa and I used to come to this restaurant on special occasions, you know.’ Then he corrected himself, shaking his head. ‘No, how could you possibly know that.’

‘Brings back sad memories?’

He breathed in deeply and reflected for a moment or two: ‘Some sad but mostly happy
ones. We had a wonderful relationship. Lisa was a strong-minded woman though,’ his eyebrow lifted meaningfully, ‘like someone else I know. I didn’t want her to go to Botswana for a year but she insisted that she had to, because people needed her. She said she would be fine.’

‘I understand,’ Carla commented and then revealed, ‘I didn’t always like Derek going to sea but he loved what he did and he told me that accidents at sea rarely happened.’ She looked away and said, ‘He was wrong.’

Paul nodded understandingly. ‘After Lisa left, I got stuck into building the house. I intended it to be finished by the time she came back.’ His tone quietened, almost as if he were thinking out loud. ‘And, well, after…you know, it gave me something to concentrate on.’

Carla gave him a gentle smile. It was rare for Paul to talk about those who’d played an important part in his life. Not that he was a secretive person, she believed it was because he didn’t think people would be interested. Angie was the one who had the knack of being able to get him talking about himself. They knew what had brought him to the Barossa: his uncle’s illness; that his parents had died when he was a young man; that he had a sister living with her husband in Denmark; and that once he had nurtured the dream of becoming a professional basketball player, until a not totally successful knee operation had put him permanently out of the game.

He could still be emotionally involved with his dead fiancée, Carla realised, all of a sudden. Oh, yes! Love, she knew, wasn’t something one could turn on and off like a tap. But then she had no more time for mentally ruminating about Paul’s past because the Loongs, Sam and Angie arrived and the following minutes were busy with getting them settled, ordering drinks and surveying menus.

Sam looked grown-up in his long trousers, white shirt and striped tie with his hair combed and neat. Carla’s throat tightened as she looked at him. He was growing up so fast, too fast! His baby days were way behind him and he really was the little man now. Her father would be as proud of him as she was, she thought, as Derek would be.