Her history with Bindallarah was littered with mistakes. And Vanessa was right: she had only returned now for Scotty’s wedding. But that was only half of the truth. She couldn’t tell her aunt that her plan was to stop the marriage before it started, that she was terrified Scotty was about to plunge headlong into a mistake of his own.
If she was ever going to set things right in Bindallarah, she had to start with him.
Nina Rioli was breathtaking. When Claire opened Vanessa’s front door on the dot of seven p.m. and saw Scotty standing there with a supermodel by his side, she felt herself deflate like a punctured football.
Nina was everything Claire was not: tall, with yoga-sculpted curves, dark eyes and a plump, bow-shaped mouth. Her glossy auburn hair cascaded to her waist in artful beachy waves and her skin was tanned cocoa brown and impossibly dewy. She wore a camisole top with loose linen pants and thongs, but she might as well have been in a couture evening gown. It was as though Nina had stepped straight out of Central Casting’s ‘yoga bunny’ department. She was a knockout.
Claire simply stared at her, unable to speak. In her battered denim miniskirt and faded David Bowie T-shirt, she felt pale, unkempt and graceless in comparison. She had heard people described as ‘stunningly beautiful’, but she couldn’t recall actually being struck dumb by another woman’s appearance before.
‘You must be Claire,’ Nina said eventually, ending the painful silence. Her voice was warm; her American accent carried a hint of a southern drawl. ‘I’m so happy to finally meet you. This one has told me so much about you.’ She playfully swatted Scotty’s chest.
Scotty smiled wanly. ‘This is Nina,’ he said in a small voice. He seemed stiff and formal.
‘Well, I think she knows that, honey,’ Nina said, laughing. ‘Thanks so much for inviting us. Can I do anything to help?’ She stepped into Vanessa’s hallway and handed Claire a chilled bottle of rosé. Claire glanced at Nina’s hand and noticed she wasn’t wearing an engagement ring.
‘Uh, no, just make yourself at home. Vanessa and Gus are out in the garden,’ Claire said when she finally regained the power of speech. ‘Dinner won’t be long. It’s just risotto. Nothing fancy.’
‘Ooh, yum,’ Nina said. She seemed genuinely delighted. ‘My favourite.’
Nina glided down the long central hallway of Vanessa’s cottage, while Claire silently berated herself for choosing to cook her signature Italian dish. With a name like Rioli, and looking like an extra from a pasta-sauce commercial, Nina was probably a gourmet Mediterranean chef.
She turned back to Scotty, still standing on the verandah. ‘Were you planning on coming in?’
He shook his head as if chasing away unpleasant thoughts and stepped inside. ‘Listen, Claire,’ he said, leaning in close, ‘there’s something I need to —’
‘Nina seems lovely,’ she said, cutting him off. Her words were clipped and she was surprised to feel something akin to anger bubbling up within her. It took only a glance at Nina to see why any man would fall for her. Her charms were plentiful. But Scotty wasn’t just any man. He was the best man she knew. Claire had never thought of him as someone easily entranced by physical beauty. It was so prosaic. Of all the crazy reasons to marry in haste, lust had to be the craziest. She had thought he was smarter than that.
‘Yeah, she’s fantastic,’ Scotty said, closing the door behind him. ‘But the thing is —’
‘Has she always been a yoga teacher?’ Claire turned and walked down the hall to the kitchen. Let him try to tell me she’s a part-time nuclear physicist, she thought. She slammed the bottle of wine onto the timber benchtop as she heard Scotty enter the room behind her. Through the open back door, she watched as Nina greeted Vanessa with a familiar peck on the cheek. Claire felt piqued: her aunt hadn’t mentioned she knew Nina so well.
‘Actually, she’s a vet,’ Scotty said.
Claire whirled to face him. ‘What?’ The idea that Nina was Scotty’s professional equal – and Claire’s, too – was as shocking as the news that she was his fiancée.
‘Yeah, in the States she was a specialist ophthalmologist, but the visa she came to Australia on means she can’t register as a vet here,’ he said.
‘But the yoga studio – how is she running a business?’
Scotty looked sheepish. ‘It’s not technically Nina’s business. Alex Jessop owns it. Remember him?’
Claire nodded. ‘Mr Mayor.’
Scotty laughed. ‘Yeah. Nina just works there as a casual teacher and he put her name on the place because, well, I guess he thought she was a good advertisement for doing yoga.’
‘You mean because of her insane bod?’ came a voice from the back door. Claire pivoted to see her cousin, Gus, bound into the kitchen from the garden.
‘Hey, Scotty,’ Gus said, running a hand through her bleached blonde crop. Then, registering Claire’s gobsmacked expression, added blithely, ‘What? Nina is smoking hot. It’s not news.’ She slid open a drawer and retrieved a corkscrew, then grabbed the rosé and darted back outside.
‘Gus has always had a way with words,’ Scotty said, offering an uncertain smile. ‘But, yes, I think Alex thought that having Nina as the spokesperson for his business couldn’t hurt.’
Claire felt like folding in on herself. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. She felt adrift and she didn’t know why.
‘I want you to be happy, Scotty,’ she said for no other reason than because it was the only true thing she knew in that moment.
Scotty flinched, as though her words had hurt. ‘I know,’ he said softly. ‘We will be.’
He held her gaze and Claire felt exposed. Something hung between them, some meaning she couldn’t quite grasp. It felt loaded and dangerous. Claire sensed that she was standing at a precipice. She had to decide whether to commit to her
