She pulled the key from the ignition, climbed out of the car and locked it. Then she wrapped the key in a sheet of Bindallarah Veterinary Hospital letterhead she’d found in the glove box and slid it under the clinic’s back door, watching it skid across the shiny linoleum floor.
Claire pulled her phone from her bag and began composing a text message.
Your car is parked at work. Posted the key thru the clinic door. Please tell Chris I’ll come up this afternoon to check on Autumn.
Her thumb hovered over the ‘send’ button, but she hesitated. She couldn’t just leave it at that. Scotty thought Claire had lied to him. He thought she’d only been pretending to be his friend all this time – that she really wanted him to call off the wedding because she was jealous. And that made her feel sick.
I’m sorry about last night. I wish I hadn’t said anything. I don’t want anything more from you than what you can give, I promise xx
She sent the message. Her heart leapt when three undulating dots appeared inside a bubble on the screen, indicating Scotty was typing. It felt like years passed before he replied.
Thx. Will tell Chris. Autumn doing well.
Claire stared hopelessly at the screen for another minute, waiting for a second message. There had to be more. But the dots disappeared. Scotty had said all he was going to say.
She felt the first fat drops of rain as she walked down a short side road from the clinic’s back entrance to Bindy’s main street. Or were they tears? It hardly made a difference either way. Claire couldn’t remember ever feeling so bleak.
The main street was thronged with people. Though some would work right up until the next Friday, many had finished for the year the day before and had travelled from all over the district to shop for Christmas gifts and entertaining supplies. But the main reason most people had converged on Bindallarah today was to meet friends and gossip.
Claire had forgotten what a big social occasion the weekend before Christmas was in the community. Twenty-first-century Bindy felt less remote than it ever had, but for the older farming families, who lived on outlying properties and rarely visited town for anything more interesting than stock feed or tractor parts, the annual Christmas catch-up was an event. Cars drove by with tinsel wound around their radio antennae and joke reindeer antlers attached to the windows. She watched families promenade up and down the esplanade – the men and boys in freshly laundered shirts and jeans with sharp creases ironed in, the women and girls in pretty summer dresses – and felt warm inside. She wished she’d made more effort with her own attire that morning. She knew she looked glum and washed-out in her floor-sweeping black maxi dress. She had dressed to match her mood, and it was far from merry.
It meant something, this festive ritual. Bindallarah meant something to all these people. For perhaps the first time since she’d arrived a week ago, Claire felt truly glad to be home.
She had to move on. All these people were living their lives, going about their business in a town that was unrecognisable from the one she’d left as a scared fifteen-year-old. They may have stayed in Bindallarah, but they’d grown in a way Claire hadn’t. They’d had families, joined sports teams, bought houses, started businesses, formed book clubs, and forged deep, lasting friendships.
They had built lives, and what had she done? Gone to America, qualified as a horse specialist, returned to Sydney and started working. It looked impressive on paper – she’d built a career she loved and was good at. But she’d forgotten to build a life she loved, because she couldn’t let go of the one that had been snatched away from her.
Scotty had – he’d let go of Claire and embraced Nina, invested his whole heart and soul in their future with the sort of carefree courage Claire envied. Maybe it was time she threw a little caution to the wind, too. She owed it to herself.
‘Who are you spying on?’ came a voice from behind.
Claire let out a startled squeak and jumped what felt like a metre in the air. She whirled around to see Alex Jessop, holding up his hands in a gesture of apology.
‘Whoa! Sorry, Claire. I didn’t mean to scare you,’ he said, looking sheepish.
‘Alex,’ she said breathlessly, clutching at her chest as if it would calm her racing heart. She wondered if a swift kick to his shin would make her feel better. ‘Don’t sneak up on people like that.’
‘You looked like you were pretty deep in thought there. Something on your mind?’
She opened her mouth to tell him to mind his own business, but was stunned instead to hear herself say, ‘I was just thinking about how lovely Bindy is. I’ve spent the past thirteen years telling myself this town is a backwater, but it’s not. At all. I think it was just easier to believe that than to think about how much I missed the place.’
Alex’s face lit up. The wide smile suited him, made his hazel eyes twinkle. ‘Well, as the mayor, I’m very happy to hear you say that,’ he said. He looked different today in board shorts and a T-shirt instead of his smart business attire – he was friendlier somehow, less intimidating. ‘And as not-the-mayor I’m pretty stoked too.’
‘You are?’
‘Definitely. I’m glad I bumped into you, actually. I was starting to worry you weren’t going to call me.’ When Claire stared blankly at him he added, ‘Dinner, remember?’
Dinner? She did remember – she remembered bumping into Alex in Alison Bay on Wednesday, when she’d been wedding-dress shopping with Nina and he’d been wearing a sharp suit and a leer. He had given her his business card and asked her to call him. It hadn’t occurred to her that he was serious.
‘Wow,’ Claire said. ‘Alex, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you meant it.’
Now Alex looked bewildered. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I haven’t seen you since my father’s funeral eight years ago, and before that I hadn’t seen you since high school when, let’s face it, you weren’t exactly my biggest fan. You weren’t particularly welcoming the other day either.’
‘Oh man,’ Alex groaned. He rubbed his fingers along his stubbled jawline. ‘I’m an idiot. I was trying to be the cool guy the other day. I’d heard you were back in town, but seeing you there with Nina was so unexpected, I think I freaked out a bit.’
Claire frowned. None of this made sense. Was Alex Jessop really telling her she made him nervous?
‘I was a jerk to you at school, Claire,’ he went on. ‘I know that. At the risk of sounding like a sexist moron, it was because I liked you. I didn’t know how to talk to girls. I had no social skills. All I knew back then was footy and partying.’
A sudden gust of wind buffeted her and Claire felt like it might actually knock her off her feet. What Alex was saying to her was as astonishing as if she’d just discovered that the sand on Bindy Beach was really sugar. And it was sexist – ‘boys only tease girls they like’ was basically page one of the Sexism Handbook – but it was also an attitude typical of most of the fifteen-year-old country boys Claire had grown up with. Typical of most of their fathers, too, she suspected.
But just like the town he now presided over as mayor, Alex seemed to have moved with the times. Although it seemed he could still use some help on the talking-to-girls front.
‘Are you telling me you had a crush on me, Alex?’ she said. She couldn’t conceal her amazement.
He shrugged in a way Claire found oddly endearing. ‘Big time. But you were Scotty’s girl. Everybody knew that,’ he said.
Claire flinched. Scotty’s girl. Back then, knowing people thought of her as someone’s possession would have made Claire furious. She would have seen it as an affront to her burgeoning teenage autonomy. Now it just made her sad. Nearly fifteen years later, she wasn’t sure she was even Scotty’s friend.
I have to move on.
It was her only option. The past was of no use to her. She had to decide how she was going to go forward.
‘What are you doing right now?’ she asked.
Alex’s eyebrows shot
up so quickly Claire thought they might disappear right off his face. ‘I was going to grab a coffee and do some Christmas shopping,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Same here. It’s not dinner, but would you like to spend the morning together, Alex?’
It was the first time in her life Claire had asked a man on a date. It was terrifying.
‘Yes, Claire,’ Alex replied, flashing a relieved smile. ‘I would like that very much. Where to?’
‘Bindy Brew?’ She knew it would be packed with locals, but for once that thought didn’t scare her. Since her talk with Gus, Claire no longer expected harsh words from everyone she encountered. In time, perhaps she would truly believe she wasn’t to blame for what her father did – and in the meantime she felt less inclined to bow and scrape to anyone in town who still thought she should. Her father had tried to take his guilt to his grave. Maybe Claire’s final gift to him would be to let him.
And, besides, being seen with Alex would help to hose down those persistent rumours about why ‘Scotty’s girl’ had finally come home.
Alex nodded and they walked side by side in the direction of the café.
‘Look, can I tell you something?’ he asked, not looking at her. ‘I just want to be honest so there’re no misunderstandings.’
Claire felt a surge of anxiety. ‘Okay,’ she said slowly.
‘My parents lost money in your dad’s acai berries scheme. Not a lot, and they got it all back when the farm was sold. There are no hard feelings at all, not from anyone in my family. We all know you had nothing to do with it.’
She let out the breath she didn’t realise she was holding. ‘Thanks. I appreciate that.’ She appreciated Alex being upfront with her even more. She was so tired of second-guessing what everyone thought of her. Trying to figure out people’s motives and agendas was exhausting.
‘In a way, I have Big Jim to thank for helping me become mayor,’ Alex continued.
That stopped Claire in her tracks. ‘That seems unlikely,’ she said dubiously.
They arrived at Bindy Brew. Though the queue at the takeaway window was predictably long, there were plenty of free tables inside. Claire led the way to a table for two by the window.
‘I’m serious. I really love this town,’ Alex said. ‘When I saw what your dad had done to try to save his farm, it really got to me. Nobody should have to feel that deception is the only way to keep a roof over their head. I knew that Bindy needed to change. The local economy had shrunk almost to the point it didn’t exist. The town was dying and taking the whole district with it. And then . . .’
He faltered and looked down at the table, pretending to study the menu.
‘And then what?’ Claire prompted.
Alex looked at her for a moment and she could see he was trying to figure out how to frame what he wanted to say.
‘I’ve got a picture of you in my head at Jim’s funeral. I’d never in my life seen a human being look as broken as you did that day, Claire,’ he said softly. ‘I made a promise to myself right there that I’d do whatever I could to bring this town back to life. To make sure other families would survive.’
Claire felt her throat tighten. Damn it. She wasn’t going to cry in front of Alex Jessop, especially now that she was on a date with him. But his kindness and concern touched her deeply.
She was grateful when the waiter appeared at their table to take their order. Claire suddenly realised she was famished. She’d left Vanessa’s house without eating breakfast and she’d missed dinner the night before when she left the pub to treat Autumn. She ordered poached eggs on toast with a side of bacon, a hash brown and an extra-strong coffee. Alex was impressed and said so.
‘So, you went to New York?’ she said when the waiter had left, determined to shift the focus of the conversation away from her and her splintered family.
‘Yeah. I did a bunch of business and economics courses over there, and did a masters in Australian local government management online while I was at it.’
‘We must have been in America at the same time,’ Claire said.
‘We were. I always kind of hoped we’d bump into each other,’ Alex said, chuckling. ‘Hey, in a country of three hundred million people, it didn’t seem entirely impossible.’
‘Amazing,’ Claire said, shaking her head.
‘What is?’
‘Just that there was somebody thinking about me all that time and I never had any idea.’ She’d been too busy thinking about Scotty all those years, but Alex was interesting, urbane and charming. Who knew how different things might have been if she had known he was interested? Maybe there was something to Gus’s residential propinquity theory. Claire had just been too blinkered to realise there were other romantic possibilities in Bindallarah.
Alex ducked his head, but not before Claire saw his cheeks flush a telltale pink. ‘What can I say? You made an impression on me, Thorne.’
Her coffee arrived, along with Alex’s green juice, and she gazed out of the wide window as she sipped it, contentedly listening to him talk about his adventures in the Big Apple. The wind had picked up and the rain was coming down steadily now, but it only seemed to make the people outside more jubilant. Little kids jumped in puddles as their parents attempted to shield them with umbrellas. The sound of laughter and happy chatter mercifully drowned out the competing Christmas carols emanating from every storefront on the street.
Claire felt . . . if not quite happy, then something close to it. The events of last night lingered in the back of her mind. She was still confused, still bereft at the thought of not having Scotty in her life. She remained convinced that his marrying Nina was completely crazy.
But she felt hopeful. That was it. It took her so long to identify the feeling because it was so unfamiliar to her. Hope. How about that, Claire thought.
And then she saw them. Scotty and Nina.
Nina charged along the street, threading her way between shoppers, while Scotty hurried after her. He caught up with his fiancée right in front of Bindy Brew. Just a few inches of glass separated them from where Claire sat eating breakfast with Alex. He didn’t appear to notice them and neither Scotty nor Nina cast a glance inside the café.
Nina was upset. Scotty looked as exhausted as Claire felt. He grabbed Nina’s elbow and she spun to face him, her rain-soaked hair swinging out behind her. Anger flashing in her pretty eyes as she spoke to him, stabbing her index finger into his chest. Passers-by cast surreptitious glances in the couple’s direction; clearly their spat was attracting attention. Claire was no lip-reader – she couldn’t make out what Nina was saying – but she didn’t need to be to see that she was giving Scotty a no-holds-barred serve. His response was more subdued. He seemed to be trying to placate her, holding out his hands in front of him as if to say, ‘I surrender.’
Claire froze. He must have told her about the kiss. What else would drive chic, collected Nina into a public argument with her fiancé a week before their wedding? Why else would Scotty be pursuing her through the streets, all but prostrating himself at her feet? Nina must know.
As Claire watched, Nina wrenched her arm from Scotty’s grip. She dropped her arms to her sides and stared at the footpath. Her anguish was clear. Scotty ceased his appeals and just stared helplessly at her. At last, she looked up at him. She said two words and this time they were as clear to Claire as if Nina had shouted them into her ear.
Tell Claire.
When she turned again and walked away, Scotty didn’t move to follow. He stood rooted to the spot and raked his fingers through his hair. Then he looked absently through the window of Bindy Brew.
Their eyes met. A faint smile played across Scotty’s lips as he recognised her. His gaze shifted to the next chair at Claire’s table. The smile vanished.
Scotty looked from Alex to Claire and back again. He clenched his jaw and shook his head.
‘Scotty,’ Claire said, startling Alex. He followed her gaze to the window, but Scotty wasn’t there.
He’d al
ready disappeared into the rain.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The more Claire thought about it, the more indignant she felt.
Scotty had looked angry when he saw her sitting with Alex. He had shaken his head like a disapproving schoolteacher. What right did he have? Not twelve hours before, Scotty had kissed her despite being engaged to someone else – a fact it seemed Nina was painfully aware of. Then he had uninvited her to the wedding that he had practically begged her to attend only the week before. And now he was going to get his stethoscope in a twist because Claire dared to have breakfast with an old friend?
The nerve of the guy. Who did Scotty Shannon think he was?
Alex had known immediately that something was up.
‘Are you okay, Claire?’ he’d asked after she’d blurted Scotty’s name for no apparent reason. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
She had responded with a bitter laugh. Wasn’t that the truth? Scotty was like the ghost of Christmas past: he just kept turning up to remind her of everything she’d done wrong in her life.
Alex, on the other hand, was all about the future. His family could have been ruined by what Big Jim had done, but Alex had chosen instead to see it as a blessing in disguise. He had used it to make life better not just for himself, but for the whole town. Claire had to admit that was kind of a turn-on.
‘I’m fine, Alex,’ she’d told him. ‘I’m going to be fine. Hey, you’re going to Scotty and Nina’s wedding, right?’
‘I sure am.’
‘Would you like to go with me? Like, as my date?’ Claire didn’t know if people took dates to weddings. At this point, she didn’t much care. She was going to Scotty’s wedding whether he liked it or not and she’d be damned if she was going to turn up alone.
‘Um, yeah,’ Alex had said, grinning. ‘That’d be great. Definitely.’
They’d finished their breakfast and spent some time pottering in the shops. Claire bought a beautiful hand-painted silk scarf as a Christmas gift for Vanessa and a wedding planner notebook as a tongue-in-cheek present for Gus – it would go nicely with the subscription to Cosmo Bride she planned to buy for her online. She didn’t necessarily understand her young cousin’s wedding fixation, but she had a new-found respect for people who knew what they wanted from life and pursued it with gusto.
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