by Stella Quinn
‘Former client.’
She grinned. ‘Yeah, Poppy mentioned everyone left the room in a hurry when you went … what was her word? … apeshit.’
Josh chuckled. ‘Yeah. There’s a bill that’ll never get paid.’
The light over the doorway of the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic shone a golden circle over the quiet street corner.
‘Come in,’ said Josh. ‘You can fill me in on Poppy’s job, and I can thank you for keeping her safe for me. I should probably also mention she doesn’t actually live here in Hanrahan full time. I’m not quite sure how a job is going to work.’
She shook her head. ‘She told me. School holidays only. About coming inside … I don’t know, it is kind of late.’
The vet shrugged. ‘I’ve got wine, frozen pizza, peanut butter and half a loaf of maybe stale bread?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Wow. That’s a dizzying list of food enticements.’
‘Please, Vera,’ said Poppy, who had bounded up to them after finishing her call. ‘If you come in, Dad won’t tell me off for running away this afternoon.’
Oh, what the hell. It wasn’t as though this was a date. She was just reassuring a worried father that she was going to be a nice employer for his daughter on the odd occasions she was in town.
She nodded. ‘You Codys have a unique way of persuasion. But just for a bit. I really do have to be up at dawn.’
‘Great.’ Josh shoved a key into the heavy wooden door, and let her and Poppy precede him into the foyer. ‘Popstar, can you take Jane Doe back to her pups? Make sure she has some water.’
‘Okay.’
The dim foyer was quiet after Poppy led the dog away, the clicking of claws on the tiled entry fading as they disappeared somewhere in the house. Quiet and oddly charged, like static had built up in the space between her and the man who stood watching her.
‘So,’ she said, clearing her throat. Ridiculous to feel this nervous, he was just a guy. Just a concerned father, with a whole life she knew nothing about. Hell, he could be gay, celibate, completely uninterested.
He moved a step closer.
Oh boy. The static charge jumped up by about a thousand volts. Her clothes prickled, her hair felt heavy, her breath juddered in her chest.
‘So,’ he said, the low echo of her word rumbling in the space between them. He leaned a shoulder up on the wall in a gesture that would have seemed casual if it hadn’t, for some crazy reason, also sent her heart rate into a spin. ‘This is a little unexpected.’
She pretended to have no clue what he was talking about. ‘Not at all. Graeme and I were just talking the other day about having some casual workers on our books. Hiring Poppy for a few hours this week will help us work out when we need staff the most.’
She wondered if she sounded as dizzy as she felt. Hot vet alert. Graeme’s words rang in her head; her feckless hormones had been on high alert ever since she’d felt the blaze of Josh Cody’s eyes on her.
‘You want to take off that jacket? It’s plenty warm upstairs.’
How had he managed to make an innocuous sentence sound like an indecent proposal? Not gay, then. Or celibate. Or uninterested, if the look in his eyes was anything to go by.
‘Ah …’ she said. ‘Um …’
‘You know, I was wondering if I should get to know you a little better.’
She swallowed. ‘You were?’
‘Yeah. But, you know, I’ve got a vet practice to build up, a daughter to wrangle, a derelict apartment to renovate in an historically sensitive way. I’d take some persuasion.’ His teeth gleamed in the shadowed light. Oh yeah, this guy had charm all right. And it was damn near irresistible. She hugged her jacket about her; perhaps the padded fleece of her old winter coat could deflect some of it.
‘Uh-huh,’ she said, putting some steel in her voice so it wouldn’t sound like she was flirting. ‘Well, that’s just as well. I’ve got a café business to build. My aunt to care for. Some, er … stuff left over in the city that can’t be ignored. I most definitely could not be persuaded.’
His voice was lower still. ‘And yet, I’ve got this big hungry urge to try.’
Oh, she was in trouble. Sexually charged banter was not the road to a calm and peaceful life alone in Hanrahan while she pulled herself together. Sexually charged banter was the road to ruin.
Josh was—crap—was he leaning towards her? Was he going to kiss her? She had about sixty thoughts all at once, none of them connected, none of them making any sense. A few were along the lines of this is sudden, and woah there, Vera, you hate guys right now, but the big clamouring all-caps one was saying DO IT, DO IT, DO IT!
At the last second, common sense prevailed. At least, that’s what she told herself as she turned her head to the side and his hot, stubble-rough mouth pressed a kiss into her cheek. Chickened out was what she’d really done.
She dragged in a long breath. ‘About that wine,’ she said, ‘not a good idea.’
He held his hands in the air then gestured towards the old-fashioned timber staircase to the next floor. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I thought … well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. What matters is that we’re being neighbourly, and to be honest when I said wine, I may have been exaggerating. There’s beer, that I can promise. And I wasn’t joking about the stale loaf of bread.’
Poppy’s footsteps clattered up the corridor behind them. ‘Relax, Vera. I can make us a green tea. It’ll be like a practice run for when I start making tea for customers.’
The girl looked so pleased, she didn’t have the heart to turn her down.
‘Sure. Just a quick one, though, I have work tomorrow.’
‘Cool! Me too? I mean, you do want me to start tomorrow, right? I’ve only got a few days, I need to learn everything.’
Vera smiled. Crazily enough, this almost felt like fun. ‘Sure, tomorrow sounds fine. Six am.’
‘Six am?’ The girl’s shriek nearly splintered her eardrums.
She heard Josh give a snicker of laughter beside her. ‘Oh, I am so persuaded, Vera De Rossi.’
CHAPTER
11
He wasn’t sure what madness had led him to try and plant his lips on Vera’s. He could kid himself and blame it on the euphoria of having Poppy safe under the Cody roof, but that hadn’t been the reason.
Vera was the reason.
There was a stillness to her that had drawn him in from the moment he’d laid eyes on her standing stiff and uncomfortable behind her cake cabinet; and there she’d been, in his shadowed hallway, light from the dusty bulb turning her auburn hair into flame, and those watchful eyes of hers doing something to his willpower that was, frankly, baffling.
He’d been leaning forward to check if she tasted as good as she looked before he’d had time to consider what the hell he was doing.
Kissing women he barely knew was not part of his homecoming plan.
Family was. Heritage was. Which was why he was at the locked door of the old cottage on the foreshore waiting for Marigold and Kev to get the heck here already.
He looked at his watch. He had a cranky pig with mastitis who was due for another shot of antibiotics before lunch, and an even crankier sister who had filled his afternoon list with more appointments than he could count.
Still. Taking a moment by the lake on a spring morning, with a wide stone step to sit on and a sun-warmed timber door at his back … he smiled. He’d had worse mornings.
His mind drifted back to the kiss he’d nearly bestowed on Vera, and how she’d tilted her head, turning the moment from sweet to awkward in a heartbeat. So, kissing him wasn’t part of her life plan, either, but for a second there? When her eyes were on his and her lips were so close?
He rubbed his hand over his face. Oh yes. For a second there his blood had roared in his ears and his lungs had seized and the look in Vera’s eyes had switched from watchful to startled to something way, way sweeter.
She was a puzzle.
If he was a prudent guy, he�
�d accept the rebuff, sling his stethoscope round his neck and get on with the things he ought to be thinking about … like his vet practice. Like building himself a life in Hanrahan that Poppy could feel proud to be a part of.
But prudence didn’t warm a guy’s heart, not like the new café owner seemed to. Besides … there was no rush to decide, was there? He was in Hanrahan, she was in Hanrahan, and neither of them were going anywhere.
‘Somebody’s looking pleased with themselves this morning.’
He squinted into the sun, and there was Marigold, standing over him in a floaty whatsit that made her look like a giant cuttlefish. ‘Hi, Marigold. Thanks for meeting me.’
‘Don’t thank me yet, my love.’
Ominous words from anyone … but particularly ominous when they came from the town’s busiest woman. He was here to access the historical society’s archives, currently tucked up in storage boxes in the community hall while the electrics were replaced, for old photos of the Cody building. If Marigold thought he’d be slipping into some lycra and joining her yoga class as thanks, she was mistaken.
‘You bring your hard hat?’
‘Excuse me?’
Marigold bustled past him up the stairs and pulled a massive bunch of keys from within the folds of fabric floating by her sides. She jiggled a stout, three-inch-long iron key into the rusty lock, gave the door a heave with her shoulder, and braced herself across the doorway.
‘This is a construction zone, Josh. No-one’s allowed inside without permission from the project manager—that’s me—and appropriate safety gear.’
‘I just want to look in the historical archives, Marigold. You asked me to meet you here.’
She gave his cheek a pat. ‘Safety first,’ she said, in a pious tone which was at odds with the wink she dropped him. ‘Luckily, I have spares. Here you go.’
She reached in the door, handed him a hard hat, then spent a minute cramming another down over her beehive of strenuously lacquered hair.
‘Why do I get the feeling you’re conning me?’ he said.
She led him inside. ‘Because you’re not stupid. Of course I’m conning you. Kev and I have been wondering how we were going to get this ceiling replaced after the electrician’s done with his rewiring, and then you called.’
‘Bloody hell.’
She grinned. ‘Bloody serendipity, more like. Come on, at least have a look and give me some advice. It’s not every day a brawny young man with carpentry skills asks to be allowed into the community hall’s inner sanctum. Most of our regulars are on the shady side of sixty and I could hardly send them up a ladder with sheets of gyprock, could I now?’
‘You know there’s a mother pig with a ferocious infection waiting for me, Marigold. I may be brawny, but I’m also busy.’
‘That’s what makes you perfect, my love; busy people get things done. Now, what do you think?’
‘Let’s see the archives first. If we’re striking a deal here, at least let me see what I’m getting out of it.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘A man who likes to negotiate. Excellent. Well then, let’s see. What are you looking for, exactly?’
‘Photographs or mentions of the buildings on the Dandaloo Street side of the square. The front of our building was remodelled in the seventies as a storefront and I’m looking to restore it to its original condition. I’m also interested in any content about the old quarry.’
‘Up at Stony Creek?’
‘Yes. I imagine local stone was used, and I’d like to know for sure where it came from.’
‘This is excellent, Josh. We’ve a stack of photographs, and old diaries with sketches, land title records, details of the routes used by horse-and-cart traders before the roads went in. Mind you, we have a lot of information so narrowing it down to the bits you need might take a little digging.’
Yikes. ‘Digging through paperwork, that sounds like fun.’
‘Let’s add that into our deal.’
It was his turn to narrow his eyes at her. ‘Are you offering?’
‘You repair these patches in the ceiling so we can get the community hall opened up again for the good people of Hanrahan—well, and the bad people too, as we are open to all—and I’ll get Kev to go through these old boxes and pull out anything he thinks you might need to see.’
He frowned at her. ‘It’s a deal. On one condition.’
‘Coffee deliveries? You need an assistant? No deadline?’
He considered. ‘All of the above would be welcome, but no. I’m looking at your ceiling. That plasterboard is a bodgy add-on. What say we rip it out and see what condition the original ceiling timbers are in? There may even be pressed metal up there. This cottage is Hanrahan’s history … why don’t we restore it the right way rather than take the cheaper option?’
‘Joshua Cody, present me with your cheek. You, my love, are getting a kiss.’
‘It’s not necessa—’
Too late. Marigold was bestowing him with a kiss and a hug and he spent a moment clawing his way out of the acres of chiffon billowing around him.
‘I’ll have to do the work at nights and weekends,’ he said.
‘I know, that’s fine.’
‘And Poppy’s here at the moment, so I’ll make a few plans and such, but I won’t start the work properly until she’s headed back to school.’
‘Understood.’
‘What’s our budget? You want me to rustle up an estimate of costs before I rip anything out?’
‘If you would, my lamb. I know I like to swan about as though I make every decision, but the committee approves expenditure.’
He eyed her a moment. ‘You’re being awfully agreeable in this negotiation, Marigold Jones. Am I missing something? Have you another dastardly plan up your sleeve?’
She chuckled. ‘You know me so well, Josh. But in this case, no, I’m not about to spring another surprise in your direction. I’m just so happy we’re both getting what we want. Isn’t that a great feeling?’
He took a breath. ‘When I’ve got all I want, I’ll let you know.’
CHAPTER
12
‘Ms De Rossi, can I have a word?’
Vera dropped her eyes to the woman’s name tag. ‘Nurse Boas, of course.’
‘Call me Wendy. We haven’t met yet; I see from your aunt’s file you often pop in to Connolly House during the afternoon shift after I’ve left.’
‘I run a café in Hanrahan. Mornings can be a little busy.’
‘So I hear! My daughter keeps telling me how lovely The Billy Button is. I’m looking forward to visiting.’
‘That’s very kind of her so say so. Is everything all right?’
‘Yes … and no.’
Alarm rendered her vocal cords useless for a moment. ‘Please, tell me what’s wrong.’
‘Your aunt has been a little out of sorts during the night.’
‘Unwell?’
The nurse grimaced. ‘Cranky would be a better word.’
‘Jill? She’s never cranky.’
‘It’s certainly the first time we’ve noticed it. It is not unusual for dementia patients to become agitated, so perhaps we’re just seeing some progression. When you’re with your aunt, you may notice something we haven’t that might be causing her distress. A sore tooth, a cramping toe, her hair parted on the wrong side … perhaps we’ve missed something.’
‘That’s … very thoughtful, Wendy. Thank you for letting me know.’
‘Any time.’ The nurse gestured to the waxed box Vera held in her hands. ‘Is that something from the café you’ve brought with you?’
‘Date scones. I use a lot of Jill’s recipes, and this is one of hers.’
‘Now who’s been thoughtful? You enjoy your visit,’ said the nurse.
Her aunt’s voice, when she greeted her, was stronger than she’d heard it in weeks.
‘Barb? Is that you? You’re terribly late and I’ve been cross with you for hours.’
Strong, but s
till confused. ‘No, my love, it’s Vera,’ she said, resting her hand on paper-thin skin. ‘I’ve brought you a scone for morning tea—the one with dates. Your favourite.’
‘Oh. Vera. You must be a nurse. How clever of you to know what I like. I suppose it’s written in my file.’
Vera smiled, despite the tug of pain she couldn’t help but feel. To be confused with her long-dead mother was bittersweet. To be confused with the nursing staff? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful world, though, where residents of aged care facilities had their likes and dislikes documented in their files? Jill De Rossi, vascular dementia and cardiomyopathy, aged 63, prefers date scones over plain ones, won’t eat tuna sandwiches prepared with mayonnaise, enjoys classical music for an hour before dinner in the company of her favourite and only niece, Vera De Rossi.
‘Shall we go into the garden? You can hold onto my arm if you need to.’
‘I am quite all right to walk,’ said her aunt, ‘if only this carpet would stop making me dizzy.’
The carpet was grey and nondescript. Vera ran her eyes over Jill’s room but noticed nothing out of the ordinary that might have thrown her aunt out of sorts. ‘Give me your arm,’ she said, leading the way into the corridor. ‘The sun is shining and the sky is so blue today, Aunt Jill. I think you’ll love it outside.’
‘If you say so, dear.’
She settled her aunt into a wicker chair and plumped up the cushion behind her thin frame. ‘Comfortable?’
Her aunt’s chattiness had waned, so Vera decided to dive straight into the thoughts that had been troubling her for the drive down to Cooma. ‘Aunt Jill … I’ve been wanting to ask your advice about something.’ Lots of somethings, really, and who else did she have to ask for advice?
She’d moved here to the foothills of the Snowy Mountains to simplify her life: cook, save money, lick her wounds and hunker down while the tatters of her self-respect re-knit themselves into a shape she recognised.
It had been naive to think her troubles would let her go so easily. The court case, of course. That was the trouble with a capital T that hung like a spectre over every minute of every day.
