“No doubt Bette will be booking in to have her hair done at your salon, Elsa,” Serenity added. “I don’t reckon babies are in their future, do you?” she laughed.
Elsa joined in. “Which is why I’m so glad you’re back in town, Maggie.” The two women clinked their glasses together. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, right?”
Isabella reached for an olive from the delectable array of dips, cheeses and crackers on the coffee table and popped a locally grown olive in her mouth. “It’s such a romantic story,” she began. “Both of them have been on their own for more than ten years. Carl told me the story about his wife, Veronica, who worked at the butcher shop here in Wirralong. Does anyone remember her?”
“Of course,” Serenity said. “Mrs Thompson was a hoot. So kind. She made sure every child left that butcher shop with a little treat in their hand. A bit of sliced ham or sausage.”
“Carl explained how he met Bette. I swear his eyes were twinkling as he told me the story. Apparently, she’d just moved up here from Bendigo to be closer to her daughter and son-in-law and their four kids, and she decided on a whim to join the local bowls club. She’d never bowled in her whole life and who turns up to give her lessons? Carl, of course. And that was it. Voilà. Their eyes met across the bowling green and it was love.”
Maggie sighed and splayed a hand to her chest. “How’s that for romantic, huh?”
Isabella stared into her bubbles. She would never have believed that it could happen that fast—she’d thought stories like that were right out of books or movies—but the cold hard proof of it had been lodged in her chest for almost twelve months.
“I love a love story,” Maggie smiled.
Serenity laughed. “Of course you do. You’re in the wedding business. And you’re living that story with that gorgeous hunk of a husband, Max, right?”
Maggie threw herself back on the sofa and sighed. “Yeah, I am.” She raised her glass. “Is he the luckiest man in the world or what?”
“Indeed he is,” Elsa announced.
“So what about you three? What are we going to do about you all and love, huh?” She threw a pointed look at Isabella, who widened her eyes in return, a silent threat that if Maggie spilled her secret, her oldest friend would never forgive her.
“Too busy doing manicures and bikini waxes,” Serenity threw in confidently.
“Too busy becoming Wirralong’s premiere hair destination,” Elsa added.
Isabella was silent. Her three friends turned to her, waited.
“Anything you want to tell us, Iz?” Elsa asked, lifting her eyebrows so high they looked as if Serenity had gone crazy with the wax and yanked them right off her face.
“I’ve been waiting for the right man to walk back into my life.” Shit shit shit. “I mean, to walk into it.”
Maggie sensed her panic and rescued her. “I sent one of our American wedding guests off to Matthews Wines, Elsa. He mentioned that he’d heard about it all the way over in Napa Valley, and wanted to check out their organic range.”
“I hope my cousin Toby was accommodating.” Elsa glanced at Isabella. “Which American are you talking about?”
“The friend of the groom,” Maggie said. “Harry.”
“Harry’s quite a dish,” Serenity winked.
Isabella stilled.
Elsa almost choked on her bubbles. “Is that the one you were—”
“More dip anyone?” Maggie interrupted.
Isabella felt her cheeks blush and her throat almost closed.
Elsa leaned in. “What was he like?”
“Nice enough.” Isabella shrugged her shoulders. “You know, for an American.”
And then Maggie proved why she was Isabella’s best friend. She skillfully diverted the conversation to all things wedding organisation related and in only a few minutes she had Elsa and Serenity roaring with laughter at her behind-the-scenes wedding tales.
Isabella’s eyes focused off in the middle distance, somewhere between Maggie’s kitchen and the framed photograph of the Woolshed on her living room wall. While her friends chatted, Isabella’s mind whirred like the blades of a country windmill on a blustery day. She had successfully compartmentalised her life in the past and she had to do it again. She was highly skilled at putting emotions in boxes and tying them up with great big pretty ribbons and keeping them wrapped up forever.
Her chaotic childhood? Left behind and sealed off when she left home at nineteen.
Her mother? Put in a box somewhere she pulled out at Christmas every year when she wrote a card and sent a gift.
Her life before becoming a marriage celebrant? Over. Her days of juggling shifts and rent and gropey bosses in cafes and restaurants were almost wiped from her memory. Her future was here, at Wirra Station, with Maggie and her friends.
She braced herself with a gulp of her champagne before she let her mind go to her biggest slip. That stupid, stupid mistake she’d made in Vegas? She’d turned tail and ran from it, thanks to a huge plane with a red kangaroo on it.
But the past forty-eight hours had taught her that sometimes your mistakes catch up with you. Sometimes the mess you’ve made comes back to haunt you, to make you feel utterly, hopelessly terrible about what you’d done. Each time she’d seen Harry during the past couple of days, when she’d danced with him, when he’d turned up at Wedding Belles, she’d felt another crack in the protective shell she’d walled herself behind.
Every time she’d seen him her feelings of regret, of longing, of an impossible need for his touch, had grown.
And she couldn’t let them. She couldn’t long for something she could now never have. There was no point wishing she hadn’t broken her own heart when she’d left him.
Because she had.
And the sooner he left town, the sooner she could wrap up her marriage and shove it to the back of the wardrobe, like an unwanted wedding gift, marked “Never to be opened.”
Chapter Ten
The next morning—Tuesday—Isabella sent Harry a text message. After a sleepless night going over all her options about what to do, she’d come up with just the right one over her first coffee of the morning.
She picked up her phone and swiftly moved her thumbs over the keyboard.
Can we meet?
It sounded like a proposition. She deleted it and tried again.
We need to talk.
Damn. That sounded like she was about to break up with him. Been there, done that. She pondered, ruminating until she found just the right words. Then:
I’m wondering if you’re free to talk. Isabella.
Not too formal, but not too casual. Business-like, perhaps. Isabella put the phone down on her kitchen table and grabbed her coffee with both hands, bringing it to her lips. She looked across her small living area, through the windows and out to the garden. A gum tree’s droopy branches, leaves shimmering silvery grey, swayed in the slight breeze. The forecast had been for another hot day, which wasn’t unusual for an Australian summer in northern Victoria. She had planned another day in her office, the high ceilings giving her a cool space to work, and had already set out her outfit for the day. A plain navy, knee length skirt with a floral, sleeveless top. She liked a pop of colour when she wasn’t conducting ceremonies, knowing that when she was officiating she would stick to her sensible suits, her hair pulled back in a ponytail or a bun if it was really hot. A wedding was the bride’s day to shine and the more a part of the scenery Isabella became, the happier the bride and her mother.
Her phone vibrated. She read the message.
I am. Over dinner tonight. Janu’s. 8 pm. Harry
Isabella felt the flush rise up her cheeks and she blew out a hot breath. Janu’s was the best restaurant in Wirralong. Scratch that, not just the best restaurant in Wirralong but among the best in Australia. It had already won a few Australian Chef Hats awards for being an outstanding restaurant, and foodies and winemakers from all over Australia waited months to get a booking there. It was so
good she’d never been able to afford to dine at one of its white linen table-clothed tables.
Oh God. She must have drunk too much damn coffee. That’s why she was suddenly feeling so hot. Was he seriously asking her out to dinner? And how on earth had he managed to get a booking there when he’d been in the country for about two minutes?
She couldn’t say yes to dinner. She wanted to talk to him, not chitchat over one of the best degustation menus the country had to offer.
Sorry. I’m unavailable tonight. Perhaps coffee this afternoon? Isabella
Thirty seconds later.
No can do. H
Lunch?
Nope.
Damn him. He’d waved a pretty impressive lure in front of her. He was playing dirty, which, in the circumstances, she probably deserved. Oh, she would take the bait. After all, she had a lot to make up for. And if having the chat meant having said chat over dinner, while looking at him across the table of fine linen and sparking crystal wineglasses, she could do that. She typed a return message.
Okay. Dinner at 8.
Great.
How did u wangle reservation?
I’ll tell you at dinner.
When Isabella stopped staring at her screen, her coffee was cold.
*
Maggie arrived, breathless, at Isabella’s front door. “Knock knock,” she called as she walked through the living room.
“I’m in the bedroom,” Isabella called out.
Maggie popped her head around the corner and waved her phone in the air. “I got your text. Something about an emergency?”
Isabella held up two hangers, each with a different dress on it. “I have no freaking clue what to wear. This little black dress or this little black dress?”
“Wait up. You have an occasion that calls for a little black dress?”
Isabella bit her bottom lip. “Yes. In,” she checked her watch. “… ninety minutes.”
“Well,” Maggie said, her eyebrows darting up. “That definitely calls for a little black dress. Who with?”
Isabella waited, bit down on the words. “Harry.”
Maggie propped her fists on her hips. “First things first. Max!” She turned her head and a moment later Max appeared in the doorway, his huge shoulders filling up the space. He wrapped his muscular arms around Maggie’s waist and pulled her in close. She leaned back into him. They looked like happiness. And that simultaneously warmed—and hurt—Isabella’s heart.
“Stand down, Max,” Maggie said as she nuzzled back into his embrace. “I brought reinforcements with me. I thought your emergency might necessitate the skills of someone manly, with tools, or someone who thinks nothing of killing a spider or trapping a blue-tongue lizard. But I’m guessing it’s not that kind of an emergency.”
“No. And I can kill my own spiders, thanks very much,” Isabella said with an eye roll. “Hey, Max.”
“Hey, Iz.” Max grinned. “Hot date?”
“Yeah, kind of. Well, a date at least.” Don’t think about it being hot, whatever you do. She knew the kind of heat Harry could bring and she didn’t know if she’d survive that kind of scorching a second time.
Max nodded his head in the direction of the dress in her right hand.
“That one.” Then he raised a wicked eyebrow in Isabella’s direction. “You’ll look extremely fuckable.”
Maggie burst into warm laughter.
“I’m going for the exact opposite look, but thanks anyway.”
She hooked the hanger over her bedroom door.
“Wait a minute.” Max considered the other dress. “Sorry, Iz. You’ll look extremely fuckable in that one, too.” He planted a loud smooch on Maggie’s cheek and disappeared down the hallway, calling back to his wife, “See you at home.”
Maggie covered her mouth with a hand to hide her laughter.
“Stop it. It’s not funny,” Isabella implored.
Maggie draped herself on the bed. “He’s right. It’s stunning. It will skim down perfectly over your curves and that low neckline? It gives a hint of what’s underneath but it doesn’t put everything on full display, because I know you’re not that kind of woman.”
Isabella sat on the bed next to Maggie, feeling defeated. She could barely hold her shoulders straight. “That’s the trouble. Harry being here has made me think about what kind of woman I really am. I’m not sure anymore.”
Maggie took her friend’s hand and gave it a loving squeeze. “Oh, Iz.”
“I need to talk to him tonight, to finally put this whole mess behind me. I’ve done a lot of thinking and I’m sure this is the right thing to do. I need to apologise, again, and then say goodbye. Then he’ll be free to go off and marry that Tess woman. He deserves that, after my disappearing act. So why am I panicking about what to wear? You know me. I never need help with this stuff. I plan my outfits the night before. Hang everything out so it coordinates, including my shoes and jewellery.”
“I know, and I hate how organised you are.”
“But now, I feel …” How to explain to her best friend that she had the sneaking suspicion Harry just might be the best thing that had ever happened to her and she’d screwed it up?
Maggie took a stab at interpreting. “Might you be just a little confused?”
Isabella nodded.
“Out of your comfort zone?”
Isabella exhaled. “Way out. Like beyond the farthest star out.”
“What about … regretful?”
“Maybe.” Isabella’s voice was a whisper now. She looked at her entwined fingers. “About what I did. To him and to myself. About all the mess we have to go through now to get the damn divorce. Knowing that whenever—if ever—I meet someone else I’ll have to explain this whole stupid mess. I’ll regret this for the rest of my life.” She sighed deep. “This dinner tonight. It’s not supposed to be a date. I suggested we get together to talk, to finally put some closure on everything, and he picked dinner. He’s the one who booked Janu’s.”
Maggie startled. “He got a table at Janu’s?”
Isabella nodded.
“At short notice?”
“Yeah.”
“He must have connections.”
“He is in the wine business.”
“Yeah, of course.” Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “So let me get this straight. He’s pulled some strings to snag a table at Janu’s and you’re dithering over which little black dress to wear. Sounds pretty much like a date to me.”
“I don’t date, remember?”
“Well, not in the past year at least, since, you know, you’re married and everything.” Maggie shook her head. “I think it’s perfectly okay to go on a date with your husband. I still can’t say that out loud and not think it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Isabella sighed. “My problem is … maybe I want tonight to be a date after all.”
Maggie reached for Isabella’s hand. “Then enjoy it. Wear the great dress. Put on some heels and those fancy diamond earrings you own but never wear. Let your hair loose. It’s dinner at Janu’s, for God’s sake.”
Isabella stared at the dresses hanging limply from their hangers.
“With your husband.” Maggie laughed. “Yeah, still feels weird. Here’s the thing. Don’t think of this as dinner with your husband. Think of it as dinner with a really hot American guy.”
Isabella turned to look at Maggie and burst into laughter.
“And wear the first dress.”
*
Harry arrived at Janu’s early for a drink with Toby, the chief winemaker from Matthews Wines. It was Toby who’d managed to snag him a table and the least Harry could do was buy him a drink for it. It seemed the chef was a great buddy of Toby’s and was more than happy to squeeze in two more settings when he heard Harry was in town.
The restaurant was high class. The floorboards were polished to a colour like the stickiest dessert wine. The walls were exposed brick. There was a stainless-steel bar with low hanging lights over it and a
wine list to die for, including a selection of California reds. He was prouder than he would ever let on when he discovered Janu’s included one of Harrison’s Wines’s finest: a 1979 merlot. He had an inkling Toby had mentioned that to the chef, which had helped swing the reservation. He couldn’t be more thankful for that set of circumstances coming into play in the way they had.
Toby had left half an hour before and, after a meet and greet with the chef, Harry had pulled up a chair and sat alone at the table. Waiting. He’d had a glass of Matthews shiraz already. Not that he needed anything to steady his nerves. Nope. It was research, pure and simple. And it was pretty damn good.
His phone sat on the table next to the crystal water glass and the rock salt in its own carved wooden bowl. He checked the time. Seven fifty-nine. At the exact moment it ticked over to eight o’clock he heard the sound of heels clicking on the wooden floorboards.
He looked up and the weirdest flash of deja vu hit him, so strong he could almost hear the sound of slot machines.
Belle. His Belle. His wife.
She sauntered across the room, taking a moment to tuck her flowing loose curls behind one ear. If someone had been measuring his blood alcohol level that exact moment he would have bounced from barely registering to point-one-nine in a hot second. When he moved to stand, he realised his legs were jelly. He stood anyway.
“Belle,” he said before remembering she wasn’t Belle here in Australia, not to anyone else. “Isabella.”
“Harry.” Her dress, simple and black, clung to every curve. It hit her legs just at the knee and dipped low in front and he looked. Fuck, how he looked. A fine gold necklace hung right there in the space where the swell of her breasts began and he looked at it. Looked back up to her face. If she’d worn it to drive him crazy, she’d succeeded.
“Please. Have a seat,” he managed to say as he rounded the table in a step and pulled the chair out for her. He waited until she sat down and then joined her.
Belle cleared her throat and put a black velvet purse on the table next to her water glass, before quickly reaching for her drink. She emptied it slowly as her eyes darted around the room.
“Nice place, huh?”
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