She found herself straightening her shoulders a little under his scrutiny, feeling a tad defensive at his blunt curiosity. ‘He didn’t turn out to be who I thought he was.’
‘That’s a shame,’ he said, moving to the next post.
‘Doesn’t matter. I don’t regret it. If it hadn’t happened, none of what I have now would have eventuated.’
‘It might have,’ he said, grunting with effort as he lifted and dropped the post into its hole.
‘I doubt it. I think I had to be out of my comfort zone and forced to find a solution to my predicament, or it wouldn’t have happened. I was too comfortable here.’
‘Are you going to move back into your gran’s place?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure. I don’t particularly want to tell Bert he has to find somewhere else.’
‘It’s your place. You can do whatever you want.’
‘I feel bad. Emma told me when he moved in that Bob Baxter had kicked him out of his rental to sell it and Bert had nowhere else to live.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be a businesswoman?’
‘Businesswomen can have compassion and ethics, you know,’ she countered.
‘Good to hear,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t solve your problem. If you stay, you’ll want your house back.’
‘I haven’t made up my mind yet. It’s not a pressing issue.’
‘Craig’s recovery is going to take a long time. Emma’s probably going to need someone around to help out with the kids for a while.’
‘I’ll stay here as long as she needs me,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m in no hurry to leave. I can work from anywhere.’ She grasped the post and watched as Dean applied himself to driving it deeper and backfilling soil around the base.
‘You know, since you’ve been back, I haven’t seen you reading. You used to always have your nose stuck in a book.’ His observation surprised her. No one in town except Emma and Bel’s grandparents had ever commented about her reading before. She thought no one had ever really noticed. She’d always felt like she was rather unmemorable … and yet, clearly, he’dseenher.
‘I don’t have time to read anymore,’ she said. Ithadbeen a long time since she’d read anything. Since her business had taken off, she’d been too busy to do much of anything else. She had tried to pick up one of her Jax Lexington books, but they’d lost their magic somehow and she’d felt too sad to try again. Jax was forever going to be linked to Tate. That may have been the saddest part of the whole relationship, the fact that it had crushed something that had once been such an important part of her world.
‘That’s a shame. You should make time for the things you like doing.’
Dean’s words caught her off guard. When was the last time someone had encouraged her to have interests? Tate certainlyhadn’t—unless they were alsohisinterests. ‘Says the man who seems to be working around the clock.’
‘It’s harvest time, that doesn’t count,’ he said, lifting his eyes from the post and sending her a small off-centre grin that provoked a warm sensation in the pit of her stomach.
Bel cleared her throat quickly. ‘So, whatdoyou like doing? What’s your thing?’
Dean moved to the next hole and lifted another post from the grass, taking his time to answer. ‘It’s been a while, but I like fishing. Dad had an old fishing boat we used to take out to the dam once in a while. I’ve been meaning to do it ever since I came back, but I haven’t found the time. He let the place go over the last few years, so it’s taken a lot to get it back up and running.’
Bel grabbed the timber and held it steady in the centre of the hole. ‘You must be making progress if you’ve got something to harvest. So that’s good,’ she remarked.
‘Yeah, it’s getting there. But what I hope to do is head down the regen path.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Regenerative farming. It’s been around for a while, but for a long time it was viewed as something the greenie, hobby-farmer types did. But it’s backed up with a fair bit of scientific evidence that’s making a lot of farmers, particularly the big corporate holdings, take note.’
‘What is it, though?’
‘It’s all about soil health. Giving paddocks a rest by planting them with things that can grow and decay back into the ground and add in important nutrients between crops. They’re called ‘cover crops’ and they also help retain water in the topsoil and make it more resistant to run-off and erosion. Basically, you end up with more fertile land that’s a lot more drought- and flood-tolerant.’
‘Sounds promising.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s a long-term thing, something that takes time to implement. But I’m keen to give it a go.’
