Margaret Way - Six Australian Heroes

‘It’s not that.’

Rhiannon sent him a speaking look that said clearly—it had better not be.

He stood up. ‘Why so secretive, though?’

‘Look, I come and I go. I do my level best to get things running smoothly but I always try to retain a professional … distance, if you like.’

‘All the same, you’re Luke Fairfax’s daughter, aren’t you?’

RHIANNON froze. ‘How did you—?’ She stopped abruptly.

‘How did I know? I didn’t until last night. But something about your name niggled me so I looked it up on the internet. I came up with, amongst others, Luke and Reese Fairfax.’

He paused and shrugged. ‘They were household names until a few years ago. Two musicians who’d gone into the entrepreneurial side of the business. Their open-air country-music and rock concerts were legendary and made them a lot of money. They had one child, a daughter, Rhiannon, who would be twenty-six now.’

He paused and studied her sudden pallor. ‘I’m sorry if this is painful but I believe that your father is still alive, although your mother passed away at the time of the company crash?’

Rhiannon swallowed. ‘Yes, but I don’t see what it has to do with you.’

He eyed her meditatively. ‘I just like to have things right, although—not that it has anything to do with you —Richardson’s, as a creditor, lost a fair amount of money in the collapse of your father’s empire.’

‘Now you’ve really made my day,’ Rhiannon said, standing uncharacteristically still. ‘So you are concerned about my honesty? In which case, I think it’s best if I leave immediately.’

‘Oh, no, you don’t—’

‘You can’t stop me,’ she flashed at him.

‘I could but I won’t,’ he said coolly. ‘Sit down and listen.’

Rhiannon eyed him and couldn’t quite suppress a little shiver. He looked so very much the man who always got his way she’d sensed yesterday at the airport and there was no denying his physical presence was impressive, even dressed in jeans and sporting designer stubble—if anything, that made him more impressive.

She forced herself to say, however, ‘I’ll stand and listen.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not at all concerned about your honesty. It wasn’t your father’s dishonesty that caused the crash. There were a lot of factors involved. There were some bad, rather erratic judgements made but show business is notoriously difficult to predict.’ He sat down again and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Of course, many of the details aren’t known.’ He looked at her interrogatively.

Rhiannon, rather blindly, went to move away but he got up and propelled her back to her chair. When she hesitated then sat down, he poured them both another cup of coffee and sat down himself.

‘I don’t suppose the heiress to what was once quite a nice little fortune expected to find herself doing this,’ he said.

Rhiannon looked around. ‘No, but funnily enough I enjoy it for the most part.’

‘So what really did lead to the demise of the family fortune?’

She fiddled with her teaspoon then shrugged. ‘I suppose, as a creditor, you’re entitled to know.’ She paused and frowned. ‘How did you become a creditor?’

He stirred his coffee. ‘We have a transport division. It started out as a cattle-trucking operation but we expanded into a national express freight carrier. Your father used us to carry all the equipment required for his concerts from venue to venue—sound systems, demountable stages and so on.’

Rhiannon closed her eyes briefly. ‘I see. Well, it all started to go wrong when my mother was diagnosed with an incurable disease. My father was distraught and that’s whenhe seemed to lose his judgement. He backed the wrong bands, ones that didn’t take off, crowds started to fall off, debts mounted, but there was more.’

She stared at her hands. ‘He started to play the stock market to help him recoup things but that went pear-shaped. Then, when my mother died, he became acutely depressed.’

Lee Richardson expressed a long, slow breath. ‘That would probably account for it.’

She glanced at him then veiled her eyes with her lashes. ‘Yes. There was only one course then and that was to go into the hands of the receivers and declare himself bankrupt.’

‘How is he now?’

‘He’s better, he’s a lot better, although sometimes he’s still crushed by it. But at least he’s taken up his music again. He and my aunt, his sister—she’s a widow and she lives with us—are both musicians. He’s a guitarist, she’s a pianist and they coach bands, school bands, music societies and so on. Unfortunately.’ She paused.

‘Go on.’

‘He’s going to need a hip replacement shortly but we don’t have private health cover and there’s a waiting list in the public system. So I’m saving every cent to get it done privately.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lee Richardson said. ‘It must be quite a load to carry.’

Rhiannon’s head drooped briefly then she squared her shoulders and tilted her chin. ‘I’ll cope.’

‘How about financially? Are you the only breadwinner in the family now?’

‘More or less. He gets a pension and Di, my aunt, gives piano lessons but it’s …’ She stopped and started again. ‘Now that I’ve made a go of this business, it’s a lot easier. Funnily enough, that day.’ She stopped.

‘Tell me,’ he invited.

‘That day we shared a taxi was the day I got my first job doing this kind of thing. Oh, on a much smaller scale, but it was a start. And the reason I was in such a rush was to get home, because I’d had to leave my father on his own to go to the interview. Of course, that was four years ago, when I was still really worried about him.’

He studied her averted cheek and the way her fingers were plaited around her coffee-cup, but she moved suddenly then jumped up, saying, ‘All of which reminds me that I came here to do a job so I’d better get on with it.’

She hesitated then turned to look at him. ‘Unless—if you don’t feel you want to employ me because of what happened. I would understand.’

Lee Richardson stretched his long legs out. ‘Do I look like a monster?’

‘No.’ She coloured. ‘But it’s a rather difficult position to be in. I just thought—’

‘Well, don’t,’ he recommended.

‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘Thanks. And now I’d just like to establish a couple of things before I get to work. Where are the nearest shops, how will I get to them, do you have a credit system or do I need cash? Oh, and what about the bar tomorrow night? Do you need me to organise wine, spirits or whatever?’

‘You can leave the bar to me, we’re extensively stocked anyway.’ Lee stood up. ‘But I’ll leave soft drinks to you.’ He pulled a set of car keys from his pocket and handed them to her. ‘You can use the blue Mercedes station wagon in the garage. Mount Tamborine is our nearest village and you can put anything you buy on Southall’s tab. I’ll give you a note of introduction and draw you some directions.’

Half an hour later, Rhiannon parked the wagon and got out to enjoy the sights and sounds of Mount Tamborine.

It was not only a pretty village with lovely trees and gardens, but there were also art galleries, craft shops and interesting-looking restaurants. Several large buses alerted her to the fact that it was on a scenic tourist route and the clear mountain air was lovely.

When she got back to Southall, it was to notice a yellow Lamborghini parked in the driveway.

She raised her eyebrows but thought no more about it because by this time Sharon, the housekeeper, had started work.

Sharon was six feet tall, in her middle thirties and friendly.