Six Ways to Sunday Page 5

  ‘I’ll be going to the service in the morning if you’d like to come along, Rilee,’ Mrs Kincaid said as the meal came to an end and Rilee and Dan prepared to leave the table.

  ‘Service?’

  ‘Church service, dear.’ Ellen looked at her as though she were a slow child.

  ‘Oh. No. I mean, I…I’ve never been to a church service before.’

  Her mother-in-law lifted one perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘You’ve never been to church? Ever?’

  ‘My parents aren’t very…churchy,’ she explained, lifting her hands helplessly.

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  That oh held a wealth of disapproval and Rilee bit her lip anxiously. ‘But thank you anyway…for the invitation,’ she added awkwardly before Dan stepped up and took her hand, saying goodnight to his parents, before leading her out of the dining room and up to their bedroom.

  ‘I should have just said I’d go,’ Rilee said with a groan as she kicked off her shoes.

  ‘Stop stressing. You don’t have to go to church.’

  ‘You did see your mother’s face, didn’t you?’

  ‘She’s used to living with a bunch of heathens,’ he told her with a grin. ‘She’s never been able to get Dad to go to church, and she gave up on me after I reached high school.’

  ‘You used to go to church?’

  ‘Yeah, Mum took all of us kids to church on Sundays.’

  ‘Ha,’ Rilee said surprised, looking at her husband curiously.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Doesn’t it bother you that we’re still finding out all this stuff about each other and yet we’re married and supposed to already know this?’

  ‘Where’s the fun in taking years to get to know every last detail about a person and then getting married?’ he asked, pulling her up against him. ‘It’d be boring.’

  Dan braced his hands on the frame of the open car door, snapping her from her thoughts and back into the present.

  ‘All right, that should do it,’ he said, then hesitated briefly. ‘Sorry if I was a bit short earlier. I know it’s been hard for you, Ri. It’s just really hectic right now.’

  It wasn’t as though he hadn’t warned her. The reason they’d had to squeeze in such a short getaway for a honeymoon had been because he needed to get back for seeding and there wouldn’t be another break for months after that. ‘I know,’ Rilee sighed. ‘I just wish I could be more of a help and less of a problem.’

  ‘You are a help,’ he said, tugging her gently from the car as he linked his arms loosely around her hips and looked down at her.

  She sent him a dry glance that told him just how much she didn’t believe that and heard him chuckle.

  ‘I love you, Ri,’ he said, quietly. ‘Things will get better. I promise.’

  Rilee smiled gently back at the man before her. ‘I love you too.’ She truly did. In a few short months, this man had become as essential to her as breathing.

  As she followed him home, Rilee spent the drive thinking positive thoughts and giving motivational pep talks to herself. By the time they arrived back at the house, she’d almost convinced herself she could face anything.

  Then she remembered she still had to get through dinner with his parents.

  Five

  Dinner was an even more strained affair than usual that evening.

  This had been by far the hardest thing to get used to since moving here. She’d known that they’d be staying in his parents’ house until the renovations were finished on their own cottage, but she hadn’t counted on spending quite this much time with them. She and Dan seemed to have hardly any space to themselves. She understood that working in a family business meant there was always something to discuss, but considering Dan went to work so early, by the time his parents finished with him of an evening, there was no time left to unwind together before bed. He was usually exhausted and asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Tonight at dinner Dan was especially tired, and he said little. His father had been reeling off a list of jobs that hadn’t been done, thanks to the delay earlier today, waiting on getting the tractor fixed, and Rilee could see the tension in Dan increase as the meal dragged on.

  Jacob Kincaid was from a long line of cattlemen. He was a tough man, a hard worker, and even though he enjoyed the finer things in life, he had always been happiest outdoors working the same land his forefathers had farmed. Dan shared a great deal of his father’s physique: the broad shoulders and height as well as the same facial features, but Jacob had become cold and remote over the years, making him a hard taskmaster.

  ‘I’ll be happy when Mark gets back,’ Dan sighed.

  ‘Who was the fool that said he could have three weeks off in the middle of planting season?’ Jacob growled.

  ‘He had an emergency he needed to deal with. It was hardly his fault about the timing.’

  ‘Seems to me he’s always having an emergency. How many days has he had off in the last year?’

  ‘He’s a good worker and I can trust him. He’s put in the effort over the last few years for us—we owe him a bit of leeway.’

  ‘He works for us, we pay him. That’s all we owe him. Don’t you go getting all soft on me, son.’ Jacob snapped, sending Rilee a sideways glare as though it were her influence corrupting his son.

  Rilee concentrated on moving the food around on her plate miserably. She’d lost her appetite, enduring the meal out of good manners and moral support for her husband.

  ‘I thought we might have a party to introduce Rilee to our friends,’ Ellen announced, changing the topic hastily. ‘I spoke to the girls today and they’re both eager to come home and meet their new sister-in-law,’ she added, delicately buttering a dinner roll.

  ‘It’s not exactly a good time, Mum. We’ve got the sales coming up. Maybe we can do it down the track.’

  Ellen placed her knife on the side plate and sent a sharp look at her son. ‘Isn’t it enough you’ve made us a laughing stock by eloping? We didn’t have a wedding to invite all our friends to, so if you think you’re going to deny us a reception you are sorely mistaken.’

  ‘There’s really no need, Mum,’ Dan protested wearily. Clearly he knew he was fighting a losing battle. One look at his mother’s set features was enough to warn Rilee to keep her head down and mouth shut.

  ‘Do you have any idea how many phone calls I’ve fended off about your little surprise? People are laughing at us, Dan! Tell him, Jacob.’

  Jacob Kincaid continued eating his meal, merely giving the grunt that was expected of him.

  ‘I think with cattle prices the way they are at the moment, Mum, there isn’t much laughing going on around the district. I’m sure something else will come along to get the tongues wagging in town soon enough.’

  ‘We’re having a party, Dan, and you will enjoy it.’

  Rilee hid a smile at her big tough husband being told what to do by his mother like a little boy.

  She’d never daydreamed about her wedding as a little girl. All she dreamed about was running away to the real world and doing what normal people did, so a traditional wedding was not something she cared about. They’d wanted something simple and no fuss, and although she had felt bad that they hadn’t included family, now she understood why Dan didn’t want to involve his parents in their wedding plans. They wouldn’t have stood for a quickie wedding at a celebrant’s house. Her parents wouldn’t have cared either way, but they were both away on a retreat, and if they didn’t take the date they’d booked with the celebrant, they were looking at a wait of months. The distance and commute had been killing both of them.

  A small part of her worried about the speed at which it had all happened, but another part, the part that knew how in love she was with this man, overrode those niggling thoughts. She’d never felt this way about another person—never missed someone so much when he wasn’t there. Maybe it was crazy, but it was also just…right.

  ‘I’m sure Rilee would like a chance to meet our friends,’ Ellen s
aid, sliding her gaze across to her and smiling serenely.

  ‘I don’t mind, Dan. A party might be nice.’ Rilee just wanted to escape the table and this discussion. ‘And I’m really looking forward to meeting Megan and Natalie,’ she added. The truth was she was terrified of meeting Dan’s older sisters. From the little she’d heard about them, they were no less intimidating then his parents. Megan was thirteen years older than Dan and a lawyer with a large mining company based in Perth. From the photos scattered throughout the big, old house, Meg seemed to have inherited her mother’s confidence. There were no carefree happy snaps of her, most were formal portraits. She had long, dark hair and favoured her mother in looks. Natalie was eleven years older than Dan and seemed to have more of the Kincaid genes, and although there were a lot more photos of her caught in natural poses, she was no less daunting with degrees in finance and a high-paying job in Melbourne. Would they like her? Dan assured her they would, but she was still nervous about meeting them.

  ‘Whatever you like, Mum, but don’t go overboard. We don’t want it turning into a circus.’

  ‘Really, Daniel, do give me a little more credit than that,’ she sniffed. ‘Besides, it will give Rilee and me a chance to work together. There seems very little I’m allowed to help with in the renovations.’

  Rilee immediately put down her fork. ‘I didn’t mean to make you to feel that way, Ellen.’

  ‘Mum, don’t start. Rilee, it’s all right,’ Dan smoothed. ‘All we’ve done is pick a new kitchen and bathroom and throw on a coat of paint. There was nothing for you to help with, Mum, it’s our house. You know you would have gone overboard and had the entire place gutted and redesigned if we let you loose in there.’

  ‘It needs it. I just don’t understand why you’d only do half a job,’ she clucked with disapproval.

  It wasn’t exactly half a job, Rilee thought. They’d been knee-deep in renovations for weeks now. The little cottage wasn’t sprawling, but it had character. It had been used as an overseer’s cottage originally and was more than a hundred years old. Through the years it had been extended here and there, but the original architecture still remained and Rilee loved the rustic look of the place. There was a narrow verandah on the front of the house, with a bullnosed awning and old-fashioned leadlight windows and doors. The bathroom and kitchen had been in dire need of attention and while they’d had to do a lot of demolition due to years of water damage and rot, she’d tried to keep a rustic, country feel to the new design and was happy with the developing result…She just wished it was moving a little faster.

  ‘Because we want to move into our own place. You remember what it was like to be newlyweds, don’t you, Mum?’ Dan asked cheekily as he spread butter on his bread roll and grinned over at his parents.

  ‘Really, Daniel,’ his mother chastised. ‘Besides, Rilee needs to start meeting people. How is she going to get involved in the community if nobody knows her?’

  ‘It’s probably a good idea. I can talk to a few people about starting my business, get the word out early,’ Rilee mused.

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that—I’m not sure I want my guests pressured into trying alternative medicines.’

  Rilee bit her tongue against the automatic defence of her profession. Before meeting the Kincaids she hadn’t come up against quite so much antagonism towards natural medicine. It was accepted by most people nowadays so she was surprised when Dan’s parents stared at her like she’d grown a second head when she’d told them what she did for a living.

  ‘I wouldn’t be pressuring anyone into anything, but as you said, it would be a good way of introducing myself.’

  ‘Maybe Daniel has a point, it is a busy time of the year. Perhaps it can wait a few weeks.’

  Dan sent her a wink across the table, obviously thinking she’d been trying a little reverse psychology on his mother and was happy that it’d worked. Unfortunately, she’d been completely serious.

  ‘So how do you intend to start this business?’ Jacob asked and Rilee’s hopes lifted a little at this unexpected interest, before they took a nosedive once again as he continued. ‘Where’s the money coming from?’

  ‘I have my own investments,’ Rilee said calmly, trying not to bristle at his narrowed gaze. ‘I’ve been planning this for quite some time.’ Admittedly when she’d been busy planning she’d imagined opening her practice in the city, but that was before Dan had barged into her life. She’d had to readjust her plans a little, but there was no reason her dream couldn’t work out here. She wanted to help people, and people here were entitled to just as much care as people in the city.

  Jacob gave a short grunt but didn’t seem entirely convinced he wasn’t about to be asked for some kind of contribution to her start-up costs.

  ‘How on earth did you manage to have investments being a student and working in a bar?’ Ellen asked as she daintily sliced through her meat.

  There was no disguising the mild distaste in her mother-in-law’s tone at the mention of her previous employment, and Rilee felt the familiar insecurity creeping back in. Despite graduating and having a degree to her name, despite working her butt off for four long years to become a naturopath, studying chemistry, human and plant biology, nutrition and much more; despite all that, as well as working part-time so she didn’t have to touch her savings, Rilee would always be the barmaid Ellen’s son went and married.

  ‘Well, it’s amazing what you can achieve if you want something badly enough.’

  Ellen’s sharp gaze pinned Rilee across the table, and she could almost read what the woman was thinking: once Rilee had set eyes on her son, she’d done whatever it took to make sure she got him. The reality couldn’t have been further from the truth, but she suspected no amount of denying could convince Ellen that Rilee hadn’t latched on to Dan because he was worth a small fortune.

  It was almost funny really. The Kincaids might be well off out here, but Rilee knew from first-hand experience that there were people with fortunes so huge, the Kincaids’ was a pittance in comparison. But as far as this family were concerned, Thumb Creek was the only world that mattered, and out here they were King and Queen pin.

  ‘Tomorrow I’ll take you out with me and we can go over a few more areas so you get familiar with the place, okay?’ Dan said encouragingly.

  ‘Sure.’ Whatever. She was more than a little over the whole ordeal tonight.

  ‘I still don’t understand how you could have gotten lost,’ Ellen murmured.

  ‘Put me in the middle of the city and I can get anywhere, but it’s a little difficult out here where nothing’s signposted,’ Rilee told them quietly. ‘Maybe I could use a GPS?’

  ‘No point. Half the time you can’t get a signal and then you’re no better off because you’ve trusted a piece of Jap-made technology instead of using common sense,’ Jacob announced dismissively from the head of the table.

  ‘I told you how to get there: you were supposed to go to the old water tank paddock and then through the gate and along the base of the ridge to the pump paddock and then through the fire break corridor and into the good pasture where he was seeding.’ Ellen Kincaid seemed bamboozled as to how anyone could have gotten lost from such clear directions.

  Rilee was so tired of having her stupidity constantly pointed out. ‘I looked for the old water tank but I couldn’t find it.’

  ‘Well, that’s because it fell down and rusted away years ago, dear,’ Ellen explained as though to a simpleton.

  ‘Of course, that should have been completely obvious!’ Rilee threw a furious glare across the table at her husband and saw him hide a grin. Setting aside her cutlery, she stood from her seat and excused herself, too angry to continue eating and tired of being treated like an idiot.

  The evening sun had all but set as Rilee hoisted herself onto the top rail of the stockyards a little way down the gravel driveway. It was so beautiful out here. The silence was not that silent really, with the low bellows of cattle as they checked on their calves
, and the squawk and noisy chatter of birds as they settled in for the evening in the trees; but it was a very different noise to what she was used to. No sirens, no car horns, no trains or buses or people chatting on their mobiles. A sadness filled the hollow pit in her stomach as she realised how desperately she wanted to belong out here and how miserably inadequate she really was.

  There was a crunch of heavy boots on the gravel behind her and she glanced over her shoulder to find Dan heading towards her slowly. Turning away from him, she let her gaze rest once more on the rusty red haze that flooded the landscape as the sun sank below the horizon. Breathtakingly beautiful, and yet leaving everything in a dark silhouette that held a definite threat of danger if you were out there lost.

  ‘It’s no big deal, Ri.’

  ‘It is. Your parents think I’m an idiot.’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ he lied, and when she turned her gaze on him sceptically, he grinned to soften the untruth a little. ‘They don’t mean anything by it, they just aren’t used to anyone who hasn’t been on a property before…It’s not like they get a lot of strangers out here.’

  ‘And that’s all they’ll ever see me as, isn’t it, Dan? A stranger.’

  ‘You’re my wife, Rilee,’ he said forcefully, then softened his voice. ‘They’ll get over it, just give it time. ‘Come on, it’s going to be okay, I promise.’ He hoisted himself up and over the fence she was perched on and stood before her.

  Rilee let her eyes drop to Dan’s as he slid his arms around her waist and moved in between her thighs. His gaze, so steady and reliable, held hers, and despite her sadness, she couldn’t stop the flood of warmth and love that filled her.

  It happened every time: just when she began to question how crazy this whole marriage was, even when she was at her lowest point, as soon as Dan was nearby, everything made perfect sense. ‘You must have been out of your mind wanting to marry me,’ she whispered, tipping his wide-brimmed hat back a little on his head.