Blackpeak Station Read Free Page A

the week, leaned against Nick, sobbing quietly. Nick was concentrating onher, but his own eyes were red, too. Charlotte squared her shoulders and set her jaw. Her father hated a fuss. And she was sick of crying.
    Rain’ll do the property good, she thought. A week or two of it now would set them up nicely for summer.
    The wet mourners gathered back at the hotel for the after-match function, where a brisk demand for whisky soon cleaned out the open bar.
    ‘How’s your mum doing?’ asked the local GP, finding Charlotte alone in an empty space while Andrea chatted to the McKnights from Poverty Hills and Nick queued for the bar.
    Charlotte watched her mother, now making a round of the room, a plate of club sandwiches in her hand and just the right amount of bravely handled grief mixed in with the smile on her face.
    ‘She’s getting better,’ she replied. She scanned the room, hoping for a glimpse of Nick or Rex. ‘Um, I should probably just go and check if she needs a hand.’
    She sidled off and, spotting Rex’s rugby club jumper through a gap in the crowd, made a bee-line for it. Nick interrupted her progress halfway.
    ‘Hey, you’re not going to believe who Mum’s talking to,’ he said, thrusting a glass of wine into her hand.
    Charlotte craned her neck. ‘Who?’ And then she saw him. Or rather, it. The elegant back of a dark Armani suit draped between her and her mother.
    ‘No way!’
    ‘Way,’ corrected Nick. ‘It’s him. I checked. Minus the blonde, unfortunately.’
    Andrea waved at them over Armani-guy’s shoulder. Charlotte took half a step back, but Nick blocked her retreat and put his arm round her waist, sweeping her across the bar.
    ‘Charlotte!’ her mother said, with a commendable attemptat brightness. ‘This is Luke Halliday from Cooper Liddell Sachs. Luke, this is my daughter, Charlotte.’
    ‘And your son, Nick,’ added Nick, with a smile.
    ‘Hi.’ Up close, Armani-guy had thick black lashes around green eyes and a face that was only saved from prettiness by a square, stubble-shadowed jaw and the severity of an almost military haircut. ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ he said — a low, expensive, boarding-school purr. He studied Charlotte, his eyes flitting down, very briefly, to her legs. ‘You know, I feel like I know you from somewhere. Before the church, I mean.’
    ‘The car park,’ said Nick. Charlotte trod on his foot.
    ‘Oh yes.’ One side of Luke’s mouth, Charlotte noticed, curled down when he smiled. A small muscle twitched there. ‘I remember now.’
    ‘Is your friend here?’ she asked.
    ‘No, she’s gone up to the room. I just came in to pay the firm’s respects — Suzy didn’t want to impose.’
    ‘Luke’s come all the way down from Christchurch,’ Andrea explained. ‘Just for today.’
    ‘It’s the least we could do.’ Luke laid his hand on Andrea’s arm. ‘John was a special client. If there’s anything the firm can do — anything at all — you just let us know, okay?’
    ‘Wasn’t it nice of them to send someone?’ said Andrea, when Luke moved away.
    ‘Yeah, right.’ Nick sniffed. ‘I guess at least they waited till Dad was under the ground before touting for business.’
    Andrea glared at him, but Phyllis McKnight swooped in and stole her away before she could reply.
    ‘How do you mean?’ Charlotte asked him. ‘What kind of business?’
    ‘They think we might sell up. They want to help us invest the profits.’
    ‘Would there be that much?’
    Nick shrugged. ‘Six million, seven maybe, with a decent wind behind us.’
    ‘Jeez.’ Charlotte blew out her cheeks. She’d never thought of her family as rich — at least, not compared to a lot of the girls she’d gone to school with. Sure, she had a credit card and a Ballantynes account, but the Blacks drove a Toyota, not a Porsche Cayenne, and they never took family holidays anywhere, never mind spent their winters in France. The Excel spreadsheets she helped her father create