‘Sorry, I don’t know where that came from. I didn’t mean to put pressure on you. We did agree to take it easy,’ Jake said.
Emily looked across at him. ‘But?’ There’s clearly a but coming.
‘But I love you, Emily! I’d love nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you, for better or worse.’
Emily wondered if the strange light feeling she was experiencing was the blood literally draining from her face.
He’s not proposing, is he?
So what if he is? she thought, surprising herself with how she actually felt. The blood started to rise again and her face blushed pink. Her heart rate increased.
‘Are you proposing to me, Jake?’ she asked, and held her breath.
Jake hesitated for just a second. ‘I guess I am. I didn’t mean to. I mean, I didn’t mean to do it like this.’ He kept looking between her and the road ahead. ‘But I mean it when I say I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. We can work out all the details later.’
Emily stared across at him. She reckoned he was more flushed than her.
Suddenly the car came to a stop right in the middle of the dirt road. Jake yanked on the handbrake and then turned and looked into her eyes.
‘Hell, Em, marry me!’ he cried.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really! Please, as unromantic as my proposal is.’
Emily looked around, almost laughed. They were on an unsealed road surrounded by cleared farmland – practically nothing. As she tried to commit the scene to memory, she wondered what constituted ‘romantic’, anyway? It was so subjective.
What really mattered was that they got on well, were kind to each other, and agreed on the big, important things. But, most importantly, she couldn’t imagine a life without him in it, couldn’t imagine not having his towel hanging beside hers in the bathroom, his toothbrush snuggled up to hers, her snuggled up next to him. She loved him and he loved her, and of course she’d marry him.
Yes, of course I’ll marry you!
‘Please say yes,’ Jake implored.
Emily nodded and swallowed. He was still waiting for an answer, and now her mouth was too dry.
‘Yes,’ she eventually croaked amidst another nod. ‘Yes, I’ll marry you. Yes, yes, YES!’
Jake undid his seatbelt and reached across, gathering her to him as much as the sides of the bucket seats and her seatbelt would allow.
‘Thank you. We’re going to have a great life together. And I will absolutely make up for this crappy proposal. I promise,’ he muttered into her hair. Emily clung to him, trying to keep the tears at bay. Her heart surged and her soul glowed. It had come out of nowhere like a twister, but in a split-second her life had changed forever. For the better. Wow! What a day! Could she get any luckier?
They were both silent for a few moments. The word ‘wow’ kept repeating itself in Emily’s head. She felt like she was floating.
‘So, I suppose we’d better phone your parents and let them know,’ Jake said thoughtfully.
‘Oh, God,’ Emily said, crashing back down to earth. ‘No, you ring Simone first. I’m not ready to have my mother fluttering around choosing meringue dresses and three-tiered cakes just yet. Once you open that door, there’ll be no closing it,’ she added, rolling her eyes at him and sighing.
‘We could always elope,’ Jake suggested.
‘Like to where?’
‘How about India? We could go and see where your gran’s diamonds came from.’
‘Oh. Well, I suppose we could,’ Emily said doubtfully. Though it would save her having to go through the palaver of another wedding…
But what if they got there and the royal family somehow found out that she had the diamonds? What if the prince had had no right to give them away in the first place? And what if the area was so poor they couldn’t afford to feed or educate their children? She’d feel compelled to help by selling the diamonds and setting up a school, or something, and she really couldn’t bear to part with Gran’s treasure. Anyway, wasn’t India full of open sewers, filthy streets, water you couldn’t bathe in – let alone drink – without getting sick? Now her imagination was running away with her. If only she could just forget the diamonds. There was no way she was going to India.
As exotic as it sounded, Emily wasn’t ready for her first overseas trip to be somewhere quite so… Well, quite so…foreign.
‘I’ve always liked the idea of going to Tasmania,’ she offered.
‘Not very exotic. And India might give you some closure,’ Jake said.
I’ve got all the closure I need, thanks, Emily thought, but stayed silent. Perhaps she was just being a scaredy cat. Perhaps it would be nice to see where Gran might have met the prince. And she would have Jake to look after her.
‘Well, there’s no rush. And there are plenty of wonderful places to go; we’ll find somewhere nice,’ Jake said.
Emily was incredibly relieved and grateful that he had picked up on her reluctance.
‘Actually, what do you say we keep this to ourselves until we get a ring?’ he continued, putting the car back into gear and moving off again.
‘Oh, okay, probably a good idea.’ The fewer difficult conversations with Enid the better.
They turned into the house yard and pulled up beside the gate to unload the car. The matter of their sudden engagement was set aside as they took the day’s purchases in and set them up.
Chapter Nineteen
The following morning they were enjoying a cuddle when they heard the double-honk of a truck air horn.
‘Jesus, he’s early! What time is it?’ Jake said, getting out of bed slowly.
‘Seven-thirty. Who is it?’
‘David’s mate with more stone for us.’
Emily admired his back as he pulled his jeans on. As he fished around for a t-shirt, she got up and started getting dressed.
‘Don’t you rush, but I’d better just go and make sure he doesn’t put it in the wrong spot.’ Jake left the house at a jog.
As she made her way outside a few minutes later, Emily noted how much she missed having Grace trotting along beside her. The little dog was still staying with David and Barbara. She raised her hand in greeting to the truck driver who waved in return as he drove back out of the paddock and onto the road. She hadn’t recognised him. Whoever he is, he was quick. She continued over to where Jake was standing beside a fresh pile of limestone.
‘Looks like a perfect match.’ He held a rock in each hand. ‘See,’ he said, smiling and holding them out for her to examine.
‘I’ll take your word for it. They just look like rocks to me,’ she said with a laugh.
‘Well, they are, but they’re lovely rocks, except for the mortar still on them. But by the looks of what’s already come off, it won’t be too big a job to clean them.’
Emily looked around. She had been looking forward to sitting there knocking off the old concrete and mortar, like Jake had explained the other day. But now with a second pile that looked even bigger than the debris of the original building, the task looked huge.
‘So, where do we start?’ she asked.
‘Well, you’re not starting anything without gloves,’ Jake said, in a kindly tone. ‘Your lovely hands will be torn apart in seconds. We’ll have breakfast, bring the tools over and then I’ll show you what we have to do. And, remember, if you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. It’s hard work, Em,’ he warned.
‘I’m willing to give it a shot,’ she said.
They walked back to the house.
‘Actually, I do need to get a few things from the hardware store,’ Jake remembered. ‘Do you want to come and look at utes, since you have your insurance money in, or stay here?’
‘Oh. Well I was going to wait until the cheque clears.’
‘It can’t hurt to look. With a brand-new one, you might have to wait a while for it to come in.’
‘Hmm, good point. All right then. Let’s go look at utes,’ Emily
said, with all the enthusiasm of someone heading off to visit the dentist.
‘Come on, it’s exciting!’
‘We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.’ She laughed and tucked her arm through his.
*
It all happened in a bit of a blur, but three hours later, Emily was driving her car out of town followed by Jake behind the wheel of a shiny new bright-blue Ford twin cab four-wheel-drive ute.
She’d wanted to wait a few days until her funds cleared, but the dealership’s chief salesman had insisted on doing all the paperwork then and there.
‘I know where you live, remember?’ he said with a wink as he handed her the keys. And it wasn’t like she was leaving the district. If she wanted to purchase anything in town again – like, for instance, food – she’d pay.
Very few people could get away with running up debts around town. Farmers were a little different. They tended to run accounts because of the irregularity of their income. But Emily would die with shame if she couldn’t pay a bill on time.
She’d encouraged Jake to drive the vehicle home, since he was the one who was really excited about it. He’d jumped at the chance. While she was proud of her driving ability and blemish-free record, she hadn’t liked the prospect of taking the narrow driveway out of the showroom in front of the staff and other customers. The ute seemed huge and had a lot less visibility around it than her car. She’d get used to it on her own property away from prying eyes, thank you very much. Jake hadn’t needed much encouragement to do the test drive on her behalf, either.
As she drove the familiar road, she studied the ute in her rear-vision mirror. It was a lovely sky blue. Oh, and it had four cup holders – two in the front and two in the back. She felt good about having the purchase ticked off the to-do list.
It had been a good morning all round. On their way into town they’d found a red parcel-to-collect ticket in the mailbox. At the post office, Bernice handed them a large tube over the counter. The plans! They’d been so excited that they’d foregone their trip to the hardware store in favour of rushing back home to examine them.
If all was well, they’d have to make a trip back in to submit the plans to council. Bit of a waste, but they decided that unrolling the plans in private was preferable to doing it in the pub or in the community library, or somewhere else in the public eye. They needed to look them over carefully, which meant being calm and focussed. Jake had done a great job with the plans for the other house, but errors could always happen.
It’s really happening, Emily thought. Fingers crossed the plans go through council first go.
Surely it was meant to be. If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t have been able to afford it when the budget was done. It was time for her to take a risk. She had plenty of money in the bank. The worst that could happen was that her business didn’t succeed, and in a few years she might have to start looking again for a part-time job.
It will all figure itself out, she told herself firmly. If this isn’t meant to be, it won’t be – and no amount of worrying will change that. It was a mantra she’d made up; she just had to walk the walk.
If she was meant to have a job in town then she would have found one back when she was so desperate, wouldn’t she? Maybe everything was as connected as Barbara kept telling her it was: if John hadn’t shot at Grace she wouldn’t have left him, wouldn’t have met Jake. If John hadn’t died, she wouldn’t have inherited everything, wouldn’t be back in the house. And Jake wouldn’t be back with her.
Sometimes thinking about it all made Emily’s brain ache. It was all terribly confusing. Which, Barbara said, was why she shouldn’t worry, but just accept that there was a whole lot going on out there beyond her control.
Emily really struggled with this concept of going with the flow. But she was trying. It helped having someone as calm and sensible as Jake to lean on.
*
They unrolled the plans and went over them carefully. Then they pored over page after page of fixtures, fittings, materials and hours with totals and subtotals beside them.
As always, when numbers were involved, Emily cursed not inheriting Gran’s mathematical mind. The old lady could do almost any calculation as long as she had a piece of paper and a pen or pencil. Half the time Emily couldn’t even do on a calculator what Gran could do in her head, and she’d tried, many times. Numbers tended to just swim in front of her eyes.
Thankfully the computer program had done all their calculations. Emily stared at the big number at the bottom: the total estimated cost of building and fitting out the cottage, excluding non-fixtures like window coverings and furniture. It seemed a staggering amount of money. But, as Jake reminded her, it wouldn’t all be in one hit. There was a schedule of progress payments, which made it all less daunting, and meant she could put some money away and not have such a ridiculous amount in an access account earning nothing.
‘Now,’ Jake said, ‘I didn’t want to say this until I had checked with Simone – she’s part owner of my business – but we’d like to go you halves. JKL and Associates would like to fund half the build.’
‘That’s far too generous!’ Emily cried.
‘Why not? It’s as much about advertising our business as it is about you starting one, remember?’
Emily was about to say that it was her cottage on her property. But of course it would be their property when they were married. Though, the engagement hadn’t been mentioned again. Perhaps he was having second thoughts… She shook the momentary doubt aside and returned to the conversation at hand.
‘That would be great. But only if you’re sure.’ She knew how lame and ungrateful her response probably sounded, but was unable to do anything about it.
‘Only if you’re sure.’ Jake took her hand. ‘I don’t want to push you into anything you don’t want, Emily. I know I pushed you into the engagement yesterday.’
Right, okay, so we definitely are engaged.
‘I don’t want you thinking it’s some plot to get hold of your land or something,’ he added, sounding flustered.
Emily thought nothing of the sort. Well she hadn’t until now that he mentioned it. It was all happening so fast. Was she ready for this level of commitment?
Of course you are.
‘Thank you, Jake. I really appreciate the offer. It’s very generous of you.’
‘Well, it’s not without its perks for me. So, what do you think?’
‘I think let’s go for it,’ Emily said with a firm nod of her head. She and Jake formally shook on the deal before pulling each other into a tight hug.
Their embrace was becoming more when Jake abruptly pulled himself away. ‘I’d better get these back to town.’
Emily was putting egg sandwiches together for a late lunch when she looked up at hearing the glass door slide open. God, he’s a gorgeous specimen of a man, she thought, watching him saunter in. And he’s my man. Her stomach flip-flopped.
‘All in order at the council?’ she asked.
‘Yep, all good. Fingers crossed we get an answer next week,’ he said, crossing over and sweeping her to him.
‘Yes, fingers crossed.’
‘Oh, and I got you something,’ Jake said, putting a carry bag with hardware-store insignia on it on the end of the table. ‘Doris thought these would be your size.’ He was grinning cheekily as he first brought out a pair of leather rigger’s gloves.
‘Ooh, how romantic,’ she said sardonically.
‘And, wait for it… Your very own mason’s hammer,’ he said, bringing out a hammer with what looked like a chisel on one end.
‘Goody,’ Emily said, clapping her hands with excitement. ‘I can’t wait to get started.’
‘You can’t say I don’t bring you presents,’ Jake said, leaning over to kiss her on the lips.
‘Come on, lunch is ready, let’s eat,’ Emily said.
‘Yes, we’re going to need our stamina.’
They ate while Jake explained, between mouthfuls, his plan for moving forwar
d with the project. Emily listened and nodded her agreement occasionally. This was Jake’s bread and butter; he knew exactly what he was doing, so she was happy to take instructions.
First they would take the front-end loader over and load into it whatever timber could be salvaged. This would be stacked into the newly moved hayshed. Some of the old timber might later make great seating and storage boxes outside in the proposed courtyard. In the meantime, though, it would be tidy and out of the weather.
David was coming to help with the heavy lifting, Jake added just as Emily was wondering if she’d be strong enough to help lift the big roof sections. Apparently he wanted the iron for something or other back at his farm.
‘There’s so much great material to be salvaged,’ he enthused. ‘It’s just a matter of taking the time and making the effort to sort it out. It is the slow way to clear a site, but totally worth doing.’
It would probably be easier to take the iron, still mostly attached to the large timber beams and toss it all into a dump somewhere, but Emily was pleased at the consideration being given to recycling.
An hour later Emily drove the bright shiny ute over to the site. She was surprised to find it not nearly as cumbersome as she’d imagined. It actually had good visibility all the way around – better even than her car. Perhaps it was because she was that bit higher up.
‘You know, I think I quite like you,’ she told the vehicle approvingly. In the tray behind her, a mass of tools rattled about, and the trailer on the back banged loudly as she went over the bumps. Jake followed her in the small tractor with the front-end loader bucket on it.
She stood surveying the huge pile of debris with her hands on her hips. The throaty idle of the tractor ended as the machine was turned off.
‘Right, so where do we start?’ Jake said, appearing beside her. Emily looked up at him.
Meant To Be Page 17
