About the Book
Claire Thorne never expected to be heading home for Christmas in Bindallarah – the small country town she left behind thirteen years ago and spends every day trying to forget. But then again she never expected fate to bring Scotty, her oldest friend and first love back into her life. Or for Scotty to tell her that he’s about to get married – to a girl he barely knows.
With only two weeks til Scotty’s big day on Christmas Eve, Claire’s determined to make up for lost time and help plan his wedding. And while she’s at it, she can make sure he’s not making a life-changing mistake. After all, it’s what any good friend would do.
But is two weeks enough time for Claire to find the answers she needs? And will she be brave enough to question her own heart and the choices she’s made along the way?
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
To the ones we can’t forget
PROLOGUE
On the rare occasions Claire allowed herself a stroll down memory lane, Scotty Shannon was always her destination. She would find him in the recesses of her mind, waiting for her, still wearing the crooked smile that always surprised her because it made his serious face look so different. She would visit with him for a while, deep inside the thoughts she kept hidden away for safekeeping: those brittle moments whose replays she rationed for fear of wearing them out and losing them forever.
Claire always took care to return to one of the happy days. Sometimes it was the first time Scotty told her he loved her, in the grotty kitchen of the dilapidated house he shared with three other veterinary science students. Sometimes it was earlier than that, the night of the beer-soaked O-Week party, the first time she’d seen him in the three years since she’d left Bindallarah. He’d walked into the bar, wearing a Santa hat even though it was almost Easter, and a tiny voice inside her head had exhaled and said, It’s you. At last.
But most often she went back to Bindallarah and back to the start. Back to the Shannon family’s property, Cape Ashe Stud. Back to the stable roof late one Christmas Eve, when she was fifteen and Scotty was sixteen and their futures seemed as infinite and unknowable as the velvet blackness above them.
They often climbed up there after one of the many dinners Claire shared with the Shannons that year, when the atmosphere in her own home grew so thick with tension that choking down a meal was impossible. They would lie on their backs, side by side but not quite touching, and listen to the mares nickering and stomping in their pens below. They’d stay there for hours, talking and laughing and watching the moon trace its languid arc across the sky, drunk on the heavy summer heat and the intoxicating nearness of each other.
And then on Christmas Eve he kissed her. From the corner of her eye, Claire had seen her friend make the decision; watched him resolve that it was now or never. Scotty had a terrible poker face. His thoughts played out in his expression, scudding across his features like summer storm clouds. Then he was resolute and his frown relaxed. He had always been that way: most at ease when he knew his purpose.
The sharp angles that made the other girls at school look past him softened. His hooded moss-green eyes widened. He raised himself up on his right elbow and looked down at her. He saw her. He saw through her protective layer to the very core of her.
He lowered his face to hers and when their lips met she felt known. It wasn’t her first kiss, or his, but it was theirs, and its effect on her body was powerful. All of her senses intensified until she was thrumming with energy – and desire. Suddenly she could hear the waves crashing on Bindallarah Beach, five kilometres away. She could smell the spicy scent of the massive pine tree the Shannons festooned with fairy lights every Christmas. As they relaxed into the kiss, she felt the shape of him, felt herself curve to fit. She kept her eyes open, watched his fingers twist through her tawny curls, and knew with certainty that she would never, ever forget this moment.
Claire rolled the memories of Scotty around in her head like boiled sweets on her tongue. He was a treat, her guilty pleasure. She savoured them, tried to make them last, tried to resist biting and shattering. She strove to be gentle with them, because she hadn’t been gentle with him.
Other memories bubbled to the surface, but she pushed them back down. The look on Scotty’s face when she left Bindallarah for boarding school a month after their kiss. Or the day, five years later, when he offered her everything and she threw it all back at him.
No, when she wanted to remember, Claire cherry-picked the moments that captured the best of Scotty – the best of her. She chose the snapshots that comforted her unquiet soul. It wasn’t that she still loved Scotty – she would hardly know what to say to him if she ever saw him again – but he soothed her somehow. On days like today, when her heart felt heavy, she wrapped the ghost of him around her like a security blanket.
But even the memory of Scotty, even recalling the way every cell once burned for him, wasn’t doing anything for her mood tonight. The two glasses of wine weren’t helping
