A Kiss to Seal the Deal / The Army Ranger's Return: A Kiss to Seal the Deal / The Army Ranger's Return

‘I can see that.’ His eyes drifted lazily over her paint-spattered blouse. ‘Sorry about your suit.’

Kate shrugged. ‘I don’t like it anyway.’

‘Then why wear it?’

‘Societal expectation.’

He stared at her, assessing. ‘What would you prefer to wear?’

‘A wetsuit.’

‘Ah, that’s right. Your seals.’

Kate quietly congratulated herself for getting things neatly back on topic. She had a lot to lose if this meeting didn’t go well—more than just her project. ‘I need to continue my research, Mr McMurtrie.’

‘Then you’ll need to find another beach, Miss Dickson.’

‘All the early research was done here, I can’t simply change locations. Neither can the colony I’m studying. They’ve been returning to that little cove for years.’

‘I know. I grew up here.’

Oh, that’s right. A spark of excitement flared through her. ‘Do you remember the colony when you were a boy?’

His lids dropped. ‘I should. I spent part of every day with them.’

Kate froze. ‘No. Did you?’

He stared at her overly long. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, Miss Dickson. It doesn’t mean I have any information for you and it doesn’t mean I’m going to say yes. My answer is still no.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t need a reason. It’s the beauty of Australia’s freehold system—my land, my rules.’

Kate brought out her big gun. Her only gun. ‘Actually, it’s not.’ His face grew thunderous but she pushed on. ‘Technically speaking, it’s not your land. Not yet.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that a fact?’

‘I’ve been told it will take six to eight weeks for probate and to settle the estate according to the terms of Leo’s will. Until then, this farm still belongs to your father. And the contract stands.’

God, she hoped so. She’d had to have dinner with a loathsome octopus in order to get some certainty on that. His price for helping her.

The fury on Grant McMurtrie’s face had her crossing her arms across her chest, just in case he reached right through her ribcage and snatched at her heart with that big fist. He glared at her and it fluttered even faster.

‘You doubt I have enough connections to get it pushed through? I’m a lawyer, Miss Dickson.’

‘Ms!’ she hissed.

‘Actually, I imagine it’s Dr Dickson, if we’re being formal. Why not use that?’

‘Because Dr Dickson was my father. And because I prefer Ms. If you can’t manage that, then just call me Kate.’ She took a breath. ‘But that’s besides the point. I’ve been told that even with fiddling probate won’t take less than six weeks.’

The hostility switched to offence. ‘I do not fiddle, Miss Dickson. I merely apply the law.’

Uh-huh. The octopus had been a lawyer, too.

His expression changed. ‘What do you imagine will change in six weeks?’

‘Maybe nothing. But maybe you’ll come to see that the work we are doing is important.’

‘To whom?’

‘To science. To understanding the role of predators on fish stocks. To the future ecology of the oceans.’

‘To you.’

Her chest rose and fell twice. ‘Yes, to me. This is my life’s work.’

And all she had.

His half-smile, half-snort managed to be engaging and offensive at the same time. ‘Play that tune in a few years when life’s work means something more than five or six years.’

‘You’re not exactly Methusela. What are you … forty?’ She knew he wasn’t.

His nostrils flared. ‘Thirty-five.’

Young, to be the success the internet hinted he was. He must have been very driven. She appealed to that part of him. ‘When you were younger, didn’t you care about something enough to give up everything for it?’

Grant glared and buried his paint-encrusted hands in his pockets. When he’d been young all he could think about was getting away from this farm and the certain future that had felt like a death sentence. Finding his own path. It had taken him the first ten years to realise he hadn’t found it. And the next nine waiting for some kind of sign as to which way to go next.

That sign had come in the form of a concerned, late-night call from Castleridge’s mayor that his father had missed the town’s civic meeting and wasn’t answering his phone or his door. He’d driven a three-hour drive in two and they’d broken his father’s door down together.

Grant stopped short of the door in question—newly replaced, newly painted—and let Ms Kate Dickson walk ahead. Without her destroyed jacket, her opaque crème blouse hid little as the Western Australian light blazed in the doorway. Her little power-suit had given him a clue to the fit, lean body beneath. Now here was exhibit A in all its silhouetted glory.

His gut tightened.

Not that she’d played it that way. Her attire was entirely appropriate for a business discussion. Professional. His shirt had revealed more than hers, even though she had cleavage most women in her position would have been flashing for leverage. It had felt positively gratuitous as her eyes had fallen on his exposed chest. He certainly wasn’t dressed for company.

Then again, she wasn’t invited, so she’d have to take what she got. ‘Don’t ask me to empathise with you, Miss Dickson.’

‘Ms!’

‘Your life’s work destroyed my father.’

The sun was too low behind her for him to see whether she lost colour at that, but her body stiffened up like the old eucalypts in the dry paddock. She took an age to answer, low and tight. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

She seemed genuinely thrown for a moment. Her blouse rose and fell dramatically and his conscience bit that he’d struck that low a blow. He’d only just stopped short of saying ‘took my father’s life’.