Page 12 of The Orchard at Rosevale
‘Where’s Elora?’
‘I took her for a quick tour of the farm, now she’s unpacking.’ He frowned. ‘Thanks for foisting her on me, by the way. Entertaining a stranger is just what I need in my first week here, when I’m going to be bitter and twisted.’
It never failed to surprise Ferne that her introverted son worked in an industry where people surrounded him every day. Then again, barking orders at subordinates in a kitchen didn’t need finesse or people skills.
‘By the way you reacted earlier, I’d say you’re not strangers.’
To her surprise, a faint blush stained Cruz’s cheeks. ‘She came into the restaurant once, that’s it.’
‘If you say so.’
Ferne sat on a chair next to him, wishing she could deliver words of wisdom or encouragement for what he faced over the coming year. But nothing she could say would erase the acrimony towards his father, so all she could do was support him as best she could.
‘Why did Dad do it? Make that crazy stipulation in his will?’
She wanted to say the truth—because he was a miserable bastard and a control freak—but she settled for, ‘You know what he was like. I guess he wanted to make us feel like we earned this place.’
‘We already did. I worked my arse off for those two years after school finished and he never appreciated a single day of work I did. As for you …’ He trailed off, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know how you stuck it out here, Mum. I really don’t.’
I did it for you. Though that wasn’t the only reason. For the last ten years, she’d stayed out of misplaced guilt for that weekend a decade ago, a weekend of warmth and forbidden desire that had sustained her every day since.
Ironic, that Mac had indulged in far more than an illicit weekend and had been doing so for their entire marriage.
‘Would you believe me if I said the next twelve months will fly by?’ She stood and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
‘No.’ Cruz stood too and enveloped her in his arms. ‘I love you, Mum. Thanks for sticking around all this time. I know you did it for me.’
Tears stung Ferne’s eyes and emotion clogged her throat as she buried her face against her son’s chest, grateful beyond belief that one good thing had resulted from her crappy marriage.
As she clung to Cruz, reluctant to let him go, she knew one thing.
She would never, ever, give up her freedom for a man ever again.
CHAPTER
7
For as long as he could remember, cooking had soothed Cruz. As a kid, he’d loved standing alongside his mother in the kitchen, surrounded by warmth from the old Aga as he helped her toss flour into the giant ceramic mixing bowl with piglets on it, clumsily cracked eggs, licked the tip of his finger and dipped it into sugar, and tested how many chocolate chips he could sneak into his mouth before she told him off. Brownies had been their thing and he still couldn’t smell chocolate without thinking of Ferne and those times in the kitchen at Rosevale Grove.
As he grew older, he took over cooking duties some nights. Roast chook and lasagne had been his go-to family meals, along with burritos and vegetarian stir fry. At first, he’d cooked those dinners to help his mum, who’d looked too exhausted after running the farm to then stand for an extra hour to prep dinner. But surprisingly, the repetitiveness of chopping and mincing and dicing calmed him, after he’d trudged into the homestead at the end of a school day like he’d entered a prison.
That’s what his home had felt like most days, a jail he couldn’t wait to escape, his father the malevolent prison warden. The way Mac had looked at him sometimes … like Cruz had been a mistake he wished he could erase.
For some reason, Cruz picked up on people’s feelings, absorbing them like a sponge, so he felt every ounce of his father’s enmity, anger and discontent. It had made him retreat into himself to the point that he lost himself in online gaming and music, turning it up loud to drown out his thoughts. He didn’t have close friends at school because he wasn’t an academic to fit in with the brainiacs and couldn’t kick a football, so the sporty kids ostracised him too, but in the end, he didn’t care. He’d had grand plans to leave Rosevale Grove the moment he finished school, but that hadn’t happened, thanks to dear old dad.
His father had made it clear what he thought of Cruz’s love for cooking: ‘Wimpy. Waste of time. Women’s work.’ His father had been a moody, misogynistic prick, and Cruz had hated him.
To this day, he had no idea what had prompted Mac to allow him the freedom to pursue his cooking dream, but he knew, deep down, his mum must’ve had something to do with it. Whatever she had on Mac to blackmail him with must’ve been a doozy. Cruz’s only regret in leaving Rosevale Grove behind had been abandoning her. When he’d farewelled her a little while ago, it struck him how much of her life she’d given up for him, and he hoped she enjoyed her new taste of freedom.
Elora had requested his signature lamb shanks, but he preferred braising them in the slow-cooker over eight hours, so for a quicker dinner he’d settled on a one-pot chicken and asparagus stew that featured loads of garlic and lemon. He’d assembled the ingredients on the benchtop when a knock sounded at the back door. Great, just what he needed; Elora, with her sunny smile and quick quips, watching him cook.
However, when he opened the door, Kyle, the farm manager, tipped his hat.
‘Good to see you back, Cruz.’ Kyle stuck out his hand. ‘Been too long.’
‘Yeah.’ Cruz gripped Kyle’s hand. ‘How are things?’
‘The farm’s doing okay.’
