The High Price of Secrets Read online

  “I see,” she said before taking a sip of her coffee. “And your honor doesn’t extend to telling me anything that he doesn’t want me to know—which means anything about him or my mother, is that right?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s it? You really expect me to accept that as an apology?”

  Finn sighed. “No, I don’t. But I can’t give you what you want so, it will have to do.” He stood up and started walking to the door, hesitating in the entrance a moment. “You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need to. I’ll try again with Lorenzo. He’s pretty angry right now.”

  “Well, that makes two of us.”

  “You’ll stay?”

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

  He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I’ll be in my office. If you need me, go downstairs, to the end of the gallery then turn right.”

  He was gone before she could think of an appropriate rejoinder.

  After she’d finished eating, Tamsyn got up and showered and dressed—grudgingly grateful that Finn had removed her suitcase from her car and brought it with them when they’d returned to his home. She needed armor, and that meant feeling good in what she was wearing, so she chose the gypsy skirt and blue tank top again. Before slipping on the skirt, she studied the label. Alexis Fabrini was embroidered in silver cursive script on a dark purple satin background.

  She thumbed the silky material. Her sister—her half sister to be more precise. Was it strange that her sister’s talent had appealed to her so much or was it simply a connection they’d shared without knowing? Either way, it was strange to discover that out there, somewhere, was another sibling. Another connection, forged in blood. Another secret exposed. She’d have to tell Ethan, eventually, but right now that was low on her priorities.

  How many more secrets would she have to uncover before she could find her mother? She had absolutely no idea and the prospect was more daunting than it had seemed a few weeks ago.

  She’d always lived her life with purpose, careful and measured. Each step meticulously planned, each outcome virtually assured. Until she’d tried to surprise Trent, until she’d decided to find her mother and turned her back on every security she’d ever known and trusted. And look where those decisions had led her. Straight down the barrel of heartbreak and disappointment. One thing she knew for sure—unexpected and spontaneous decisions weren’t for her. Not anymore. Not ever again.

  From now on, she vowed, she’d go back to her old ways. To being careful, considered and safe. She should have taken Ethan up on his suggestion to use an investigator to do the hard work first instead of racing off with no obvious plan other than to just show up. She hadn’t been thinking clearly, not since she’d been told that her mother still lived. But now everything was crystal clear. Her mother didn’t want to see her. And Tamsyn wasn’t going to go back to Australia until she did. Once she’d cleared away all the lies, all the secrets, all the evasions…then and only then would she go home.

  She finished dressing, collected the tray from the bed and took it through to the kitchen. Still slightly hungry, she grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and went to find Finn. She wanted her car and she needed him to help her go and pick it up. She hoped the café was open on a Sunday because she’d be annoyed if she had to wait, at Finn’s and the café owner’s convenience, a day more than necessary for her link to independence.

  The interior gallery shared a stone wall with a courtyard outside. Even so, long windows shed ample light to showcase the works Finn had spread along the wall. Local scenes mostly, by the look of them, although one in particular made her breath catch in her throat. Painted from the bottom of a valley, with its outlook stretching up a hill, it featured a looming ruin—a dark brooding stain on a clear blue sky. She knew that ruin, had viewed it virtually every single day in living memory.

  Masters Rise, the original home of her family, destroyed by bushfires. Too expensive to rebuild and refurbish, the ruin remained on the ridge of the hills overlooking The Masters, her family’s vineyard estate and business, a constant reminder of how far they’d fallen and how far they’d come to fight back to where the family flourished today.

  But what was the painting doing here? She peered at the artist’s signature, surprised to see the letters E and F intertwined in the corner. Ellen…Fabrini? No wonder she hadn’t been able to find her if she’d changed her name.

  This was her mother’s work? Tamsyn studied the picture again, in particular how her mother had captured the old ruin. It looked menacing, forbidding even. Was that how it had felt to Ellen living there at the base of the hill? As if she was being watched and perhaps found wanting?

  Tamsyn could only speculate. Without access to her mother, she certainly wasn’t going to hear it from Ellen’s point of view, was she? Maybe she was imbuing too much into Ellen’s interpretation of her home, there on the wall. Yet she couldn’t keep from feeling that the painting was helping her understand a little better why her mother had chosen to leave. Tamsyn had known from an early age that the presence of the ruins was what motivated her father every day. He’d told her that it reminded him that he wouldn’t be beaten by the elements, that he would prevail and ensure his family prevailed along with him.

  Everything he’d done, every decision he’d made, had all been with the one purpose of ensuring the Masters family remained great. Granted, it had meant he was entirely driven, focused more on his work and its output than on his growing children. Had Ellen struggled with that? Was that why she’d sought a lover? Left her home, her family, her children?

  Tamsyn groaned in frustration. The questions were simple, the answers probably equally so. But when would she have the chance to hear them, to judge for herself or, alternatively, to heal and forgive her mother for what had happened?

  She turned away from the work on the wall, determined not to let it mess with her head a second longer.

  Directly ahead of her was a door, and she opened it without thinking, surprised to find a very-well-set-up home gym inside. So, that explained Finn’s impressive physique. A lick of heat started, but she quelled the sensation before it could take hold. He might be physical perfection, he might be the best lover she’d ever enjoyed sex with, but he was just another liar, she resolutely warned herself.

  She left the room, closing the door behind her with a snap and turned down the hallway toward what she hoped was Finn’s office. A door was open just ahead of her and she could hear Finn’s voice. Her steps slowed as she made out what he was saying. She paused where she was, unashamedly eavesdropping and thankful that the soft soles of her ballet flats hadn’t announced her coming. He sounded very worked up. Was he…could he be talking to her mother?

  Eighteen

  “Yes, of course she’s staying with me. I couldn’t very well let her sleep in a roadside layby, now, could I?”

  He sounded frustrated. Tamsyn wished she could hear the words on the other end of the line.

  “What were you thinking kicking her out of the cottage like that?” Another pause. “Yes, yes, I know she went into the room, but she was merely checking the damage, not outright snooping. Look, I really think you should talk to her yourself.”

  Tamsyn’s stomach coiled into a knot and the bite of apple she’d taken as she walked down the hall stuck in her throat.

  “Lorenzo, calm down. I know how you feel about the whole Masters family, but Tamsyn was just a little girl when it happened. She and her brother were told Ellen was dead. She only found out the truth this year, after her father died.”

  Her whole body tensed, poised for what she hoped would come next. Clearly, Lorenzo Fabrini was her mother’s gatekeeper. If she could only get past him.

  Finn’s sigh echoed down the hall.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. You only want what’s best for Ellen, and I agree it could be
upsetting for her to see Tamsyn.” Tamsyn’s stomach sank. She should have expected it…but it still hurt to hear that no one, not even the man who’d been her lover just a few nights ago, was willing to put her feelings first.

  “While you think about it,” Finn continued, “hopefully Tamsyn will stay here. I’ve left it open to her to stay as long as she needs, but she’s not my prisoner. It would have been easier for her to remain at the cottage and keep herself busy there… Okay, okay, enough already. Call me tonight.”

  A sharp expletive rent the air as Finn ended the call. Tamsyn rocked back on her heels and thought about what she’d just heard. She still didn’t understand why everyone seemed to think it would be bad for her mother to see her. And she certainly didn’t understand why it had been necessary to lie to her all along. But she had to admit, Finn had seemed truly interested in helping her, as much as Lorenzo would let him. She wasn’t ready to trust him or even forgive him yet, but it did take the edge off her anger.

  She waited a minute before continuing the short distance to his office. He wheeled around to face her as she gently knocked on the door and entered the room.

  “Hi,” she said awkwardly. “Any chance we can pick up my car this morning?”

  “After lunchtime will be best, the café will be busy with a crowd after the morning church services in town.”

  She nodded, accepting that she could do nothing without his assistance. She ached to ask him about the phone call, but that would mean admitting she’d overheard part of his side of the conversation. Tamsyn very much doubted he’d be happy about that. She finished her apple, tossed the core into a small trash bin and then wandered over to the window. In front of it was a large table with a three-dimensional plan of a set of buildings next to a painted lake.

  “You’re into development?” she asked, studying the layout of the buildings carefully. They looked similar in design to Finn’s house, making the most of the natural contours and features of the molded land.

  “For this, yes.”

  He came and stood beside her. Even though he was a good few inches away, she was acutely aware of the heat of his body, of the answering heat of her own. On the pretext of examining the board from a different angle, she moved away.

  “What will it be?”

  “Well, if I ever get decent road access to the property, it will be a respite center for families with a loved one suffering from mental illness.”

  “Why a respite center?”

  “Personal reasons.” He swung away from the model and went back to his desk.

  “More secrets or is this actually something you can tell me?” Tamsyn pressed. They had time to kill before going to collect her car—he may as well fill it for her since he’d put her in this position.

  “I’ve seen from personal experience, the strain it puts on a family to care for another family member undergoing mental health treatment—it’s especially tough on kids. I think it’s important for them to have a safe place to go, to chill out, where the people around them really do understand what it’s like. I’m hoping to build family chalets, as you can see. Each one would be private from the others but still near enough for a sense of community for people. Also, I’d like to see children’s camps run there too—in those buildings on the other side of the complex. Have camp counselors, trained in dealing with the issues that arise for kids with parents or siblings under care, that sort of thing.”

  Tamsyn came and sat down opposite Finn’s desk. “It’s an ambitious project. What was that you said about needing road access?”

  He pointed to a gray ribbon of road that came down from the hill. “I can create it by rebuilding my driveway as a two-lane road and then going down here from the top of the hill, where the house is. As you can see, to make a decent and safe road, it would have to cut into the contour of the land considerably and would have quite a few twists and turns to it. If I can get access here—” he gestured to a level tract of land that butted up to the lake and then stretched back to the main road “—I can put in a straighter road that will make it easier for everyone—suppliers, contractors, visitors and staff.”

  “So what’s holding you back?”

  “This piece of land is owned by a trust and, while I’ve tracked the trustee company to a firm of lawyers in Auckland, I haven’t been able to get a response out of them with respect to a partial sale of the land. It would just be an easement, right on the boundary of our two pieces of land and I’m prepared to build the road so they’d have access from every point along here if they so desired. But so far, I’ve heard nothing.”

  “Frustrating,” Tamsyn commented. “What will you do if you don’t get the easement?”

  “I’ll still go ahead, but it will mean a bigger investment into the road construction and less into the complex itself. We’d have to do the complex in stages. Perhaps start with the children’s camp and move on in a few years to building the chalets, or vice versa. I’m still hoping we won’t have to make that decision.”

  “You mentioned personal experience…your family?” she probed carefully.

  “My mother. She was—” He broke off and his lips firmed into a straight line, his eyes becoming unfocused for a moment. “Fragile, I guess you could say. She probably should never have been a farmer’s wife, but she loved my father with a passion that knew no bounds. She lived for the very moment when he’d walk through the door each evening and she died a little every time he went back out again in the morning. Dad was shifting stock one day, his last herd. It wasn’t long after he and Lorenzo had formed a partnership, converting part of Dad’s farmland into a vineyard and amalgamating it with the Fabrini land where Lorenzo had already begun growing. Dad’s quad bike rolled, and he was crushed beneath it. Lorenzo and I found him late that night, guided by one of his farm dogs barking. The dog had stayed with him the whole time. But by the time we found him, there was nothing anyone could do.”

  His succinct telling of the story didn’t diminish the flash of pain in his eyes. A rush of sympathy filled her. Hard enough to lose a parent, but to be one of the people who discovered him? Grim didn’t even begin to describe it.

  “Finn, I’m sorry. That must have been awful. How old were you?”

  “Twelve. Mum was devastated. At first she coped, barely, but I ended up having to take on more and more of the duties around the house—on top of school, on top of doing Dad’s chores around the farm. Eventually it got to be too much and it showed. I got into some trouble at school when some kids started teasing me about falling asleep in class. My teacher came over to talk to Mum one day—they’d known each other when they were younger. When she saw how bad the situation had gotten, she called the authorities.”

  Finn rubbed his eyes and got up from his chair. He opened a nearby cupboard, which turned out to be an integrated bar-fridge door. “You want water or a can of soda?”

  “Water, thanks.” Tamsyn accepted the bottle he passed her and screwed off the cap. “What happened then? Did you get help around the farm?”

  He ripped the tab off the soda he’d pulled from the fridge and took a long swallow before answering. “We were both put into care. Me into a foster home in town, Mum into a secure facility outside of Christchurch. I didn’t know it then but she’d begun self-harming. I couldn’t see her for a long time. Lorenzo and Ellen approached social services about providing a permanent home for me and eventually I moved in with them. With Lorenzo’s help, the farm was slowly converted to what you see today—one of the most prolific and high-yield vineyards in the district. While we’ve never produced our own wines, we get a certain satisfaction when the wineries we supply produce another gold medal winner.”

  She could see now why the bond between Lorenzo Fabrini and Finn was so strong. The older man had been a father figure to him, a mentor, a savior. But it still didn’t explain his not telling her where Ellen was. If Ellen di
dn’t want to see her, why not simply tell her that and spare her the wild-goose chase? And for that matter, were they being honest with Ellen either? Did she even know that Tamsyn was looking for her, or had her menfolk simply circled the wagons and kept her in a state of oblivion? She couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  “So, you want to establish the respite center in your mother’s memory?”

  “She’s part of the reason,” he agreed. “The other part is I have a whole lot of money sitting around doing nothing and I feel the region has a need that I can fulfill. I want to give back. If it’s successful, I’d like to develop centers all around the country.”

  Tamsyn sat back in her chair and deliberately took another sip of her water. She had no words to say. Finn’s philanthropic nature appeared in total contrast to the way he’d treated her. Which man was the real Finn Gallagher? She was inclined to believe that it was Finn the philanthropist. The one the entire township knew and obviously had a very high regard for. The one who’d been helpful and solicitous even while hiding her mother’s whereabouts from her at the same time. So why had he done it? What secret was he still holding back that would explain the rest of the puzzle?

  “After we’ve collected your car, would you be interested in visiting the site?” Finn surprised her out of her reverie.

  “Visiting the site? You have access now?”

  “It’s a rough track, still, but we can do it on the quad bike.” At her look of concern he hastened to add. “I’ll take it easy. We’ll be quite safe.”

  She took only a moment to make up her mind. “Okay, that sounds like a great idea. I’d like to see it. I guess jeans and runners would be more in order than this,” she said, gesturing to her skirt.

  “Definitely.” He flicked a glance at his watch. “How about you get changed now, and we can head into town and get your car. On the way back I’ll check on Lucy and the chickens and then meet you back here.”

  A twist of anger flared in her chest as he mentioned Lucy and the chickens. If Lorenzo wasn’t being so unreasonable she’d be there now, tending to her responsibilities. She nodded to Finn in answer and rose from her seat.