Free When Harriet Came Home by Coleen Kwan Page A

let the rapacious banks dictate terms. If Harriet hadn’t taken those pictures, maybe his father might have come to his senses and made amends. Maybe his father might have survived the crisis. He’d be poor today, but at least he’d still be alive.
    “What happened to you after you lost Blackstone Hall?” she asked, her voice husky. “Where did you go?”
    Her eyes glinted with moisture. Oh crap. Was she going to cry? He hoped not. He could see she was genuinely upset, and the remaining anger in him faltered.
    “I wanted to go somewhere far away. I went to Tasmania.”
    She blinked, nodded and hugged herself as though she were cold. “Is that where you became a builder?”
    “Eventually.” Before becoming a fully licensed builder, he’d first trained as a carpenter, employed on restoration projects of Tasmania’s numerous colonial buildings. There was something about working with wood—its scent, history and organic texture—which he found deeply satisfying.
    “And now you’re back here in Wilmot.” She looked up at the lofty ceiling. “And you’ve reclaimed your family home.”
    He glanced up too and caught sight of the large damp stain marring the plaster mouldings.
    “Not quite. The bank holds the title deeds to this house. I just have a hefty mortgage to pay off over the next twenty years and a place that’s falling about my ears.”
    “Oh.” His sardonic tone brought a look of uncertainty to her face. “Has the house been empty all these years then?”
    “Yes. The bank tried to sell it several times, but somehow never succeeded. This house is heritage listed, so that puts off the buyers out for a quick buck. And the more it rotted away, the harder it was to sell. I got it at a bargain price, but I’m still just buying a money-pit.”
    He’d sunk all his savings into buying Blackstone Hall, and he spent all his spare time working on it. The decision to buy his old family home had been a completely irrational one in terms of economic sense, but he hadn’t hesitated to sign the papers. This house was part of his history, part of who he was, and coming back here had restored something in him he’d thought he’d lost. It sounded flaky, but Harriet was nodding, as though she understood.
    “At any rate it’s a very beautiful money-pit.” She moved over to the French doors. Her shoulders stiffened. “Are you expecting company?”
     
    Harriet’s heart sank when she spotted the silver BMW convertible gliding up the gravel driveway with the top down. The woman behind the wheel was instantly recognisable.
    “My cousins,” Adam said from another set of French doors. “I wasn’t expecting them, no.”
    She couldn’t tell whether he was pleased or not. The two people in the BMW spotted him and waved. Portia brought the sleek car to a halt just inches from the front veranda. The man who slung himself out of the car was tall and fair just like Portia.
    “You remember Tristan, Portia’s brother?” said Adam as they walked back through the hallway and out the front door. “He was in my year at school.”
    Tristan had been popular at school, but not as popular as the edgier Adam. Tristan had always seemed easygoing, and he didn’t appear to have changed much as he leaped up on the veranda and strode toward Adam with a big grin on his face. His blond, sun-streaked hair flopped across his forehead, and he was dressed straight out of the country-casual pages of a Ralph Lauren catalogue. Harriet hung back as the two cousins greeted each other.
    “Just here for the weekend, so I dragged Portia along with me to say hello.” Tristan clapped his cousin on the back. Next to Adam’s work-hardened physique Tristan seemed rather soft and pampered. His eyes slid toward Harriet and lit up with interest. “Hel-lo?” He wiggled his eyebrows in ridiculous exaggeration. “Hope we’re not disturbing anything!”
    The innuendo in his voice made Harriet’s toes curl.
    “It’s Harriet Brown. You remember. A