“Are you expecting trouble?”
“Always,” Heath said.“It’s when you don’t expect it you get caught out.”
That made an odd kind of sense.
Dobby gulped down his food and got up.“I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Make sure you get some actual sleep,” Rhys said with a wink.
Chelsea smiled as Dobby headed upstairs to where Mila was still sleeping.
After breakfast Heath shooed her out of the kitchen promising to clean up.Feeling more alert, she said, “I’m going to check the barn.”
Ethan stood.“I’ll join you.”
Chelsea waited until they were outside before she asked, “Are you coming with me because you believe there’s still danger?”
“My main reason is to spend time with you alone,” Ethan said.“And to apologise again for lying to you.”He held her hand as they walked.“And because I won’t feel comfortable about having you out of my sight until Johann is caught.”
“Do you think he’ll escalate?”
“If he’s desperate enough.We have Leyton on record accusing him of manslaughter.”
Which was enough to make anyone desperate.“Did you have any other problems last night?”
“Other than insects crawling all over me and a possum peeing nearby, no.”
Chelsea laughed, warmth filling her.Ethan and his friends had gone to so much trouble for her.“What about the others?”
“It was quiet.”
The strong stench of petrol wafted from the barn doors and she screwed up her nose, thankful they had locked the door.If Leyton had got inside, it might have been a different story.
“Do you know what neutralises the petrol?”
“Baking soda or lemon juice might help according to the internet.”Ethan grinned at her.“I searched this morning.”
Already a step ahead.She continued over to the cottages.She would make sure everyone had linen, but she also wanted to estimate how many plants she needed to buy for the nearby garden beds.“I need to test the sprinklers in this area before I head out.”No point planting things if they wouldn’t get watered.And if she needed reticulation supplies, she could buy them at the same time.
“Already done,” Ethan said.“I fixed everything with supplies Aunt Maggie had.”He checked the time.“Josh should call us soon.We can confirm we can clean up and then turn the sprinklers on.”
Chelsea turned in a circle, taking in all the work still to be done.“Am I crazy?”
“No more than the average person.”He smiled.“You mean about the garden?”
She nodded.“Aunt Maggie struggled to keep up with it when it was in good condition.It’s going to take months of work to get it back to any semblance of what it was.”Was she truly up for the challenge?
“If it’s what you truly want to do, you’ll make it work, Chels.I guess you need to ask yourself, do you want to commit the time to it?Do you want to stay?”
The intensity in his gaze made her look away.Those were the questions she had to answer, but there were some variables that needed to become static before she did.And one of those was whether she and Ethan had a future together.Honeybrook was too far from Perth to ask him to commute daily.But did she want to go back to living in a city?
“In an ideal world, what do you want your future to be?”Ethan asked quietly.
She closed her eyes.Her fantasies had always revolved around Lilydale.Bringing her children here to visit Aunt Maggie and play in the gardens.Having a husband who adored her.Living nearby so she could help Aunt Maggie as she got older.
Those fantasies had been obliterated after Ethan had broken up with her and been replaced with having a job which earned enough so she never had to rely on any man.
Now she wasn’t ready to let those fantasies back in.“I don’t know.”
