Scotty was standing at the reception desk finalising a patient’s discharge paperwork when his fiancée and his ex-girlfriend strolled past the clinic window, talking animatedly. Nina peered inside and waved when she saw him. Claire didn’t even glance in his direction.
He felt sick. His guts churned with the bilious ferocity of a post-rugby grand final hangover.
‘You all right, doc?’ said his client Toby Watts. He clutched the leash of a glum golden retriever sporting a comically large Elizabethan collar. ‘You look a bit rough.’
‘Thanks, mate. You’re too kind,’ Scotty deadpanned. He knew he looked awful. He’d hardly slept a wink after dinner at Vanessa Thorne’s place last night. The second his head hit the pillow his mind was racing, filled with thoughts of Claire.
Not Nina. Not his fiancée. Claire. His ex, the first woman he’d wanted to marry. Who was now taking the woman he was marrying to shop for a wedding dress.
How messed up was that?
‘Sorry, buddy,’ Toby chuckled. ‘Listen, while I’m here, let’s talk about food for the wedding. If you want a whole pig I’ll have to order it right away . . .’
Scotty nodded and pretended to listen while Bindallarah’s award-winning butcher droned on about suckling pigs and lambs and charcoal-spit rental. He knew he should be paying attention – people were pulling out all the stops to help Scotty arrange an eleventh-hour wedding at the least convenient time of year – but he wasn’t.
He was still thinking about her.
He kept replaying the moment Claire had opened Vanessa’s front door last night. The way her curls hung loose around her shoulders. The way she smiled when she saw him. Her short skirt and her long legs. That David Bowie T-shirt. His David Bowie T-shirt.
He wondered if she remembered that he’d given it to her. She’d swiped it from him that first week at university, when they’d fallen back into each other’s lives and just as quickly into bed. After three years without her, three years of waiting to get over her and never quite succeeding, Scotty would have given her anything if it meant she’d stay.
But she didn’t stay. Two years later she left him, shattered his heart almost beyond repair. Then she left the country. If he’d had any lingering hope of a future with her, Claire moving to America had been pretty unequivocal.
And now he was with Nina. Gorgeous, intelligent, charming Nina, who was as focused and decisive as Claire was scattered and hesitant. Kind, patient Nina, who came into his life just as he’d convinced himself he’d be alone forever. Nina, who had agreed to marry him, even though it was fast and probably crazy. Nina, who saw what a good team they made. Scotty was the envy of every straight man in town and he knew it.
But he had Claire, too, he reminded himself. She’d come back, in a way. They were friends and Claire seemed determined to be Nina’s friend as well. He’d seen the brief flash of dismay that had hijacked Claire’s face the moment she’d seen Nina. Women often looked at his fiancée that way. He knew he should feel grateful that he was going to be able to have both Nina and Claire in his life. He could have his cake and eat it. The woman he’d always wanted and the life he’d always planned. Just not the way he’d imagined either scenario.
Scotty realised Toby had stopped talking and was staring quizzically at him. He stared blankly back.
‘So, what do you reckon?’ Toby said.
‘Sorry, mate, I missed that. Don’t think I’ve quite woken up yet,’ Scotty said with a forced laugh, shaking his head to try to shift the brain fog. ‘What were you saying?’
‘Do you want to come in tomorrow morning and place the order?’
‘Um . . .’ His mind drifted to Claire once again, taking Nina shopping for a wedding dress, offering to help him with the wedding preparations. He should just talk to her, explain the whole thing. She would understand. Hopefully. ‘I will come in. Yes. And I’ll bring Claire Thorne with me.’
Toby’s mouth hung open. ‘Claire Thorne?’
‘She’s back in town for the wedding. Helping me and Nina out with some of the arrangements.’
‘You don’t say.’ Toby’s tone was loaded. Scotty smiled and handed Toby the receipt for his dog’s treatment. Half of Bindallarah would find a reason to be in the butcher’s shop the next day, he’d wager.
Scotty called for his next patient and resolved to put Claire out of his mind until he saw her in the morning. He was on a path he hadn’t planned to travel, and it was entirely of his own making. He’d dug himself into a deep, deep hole and he had to try to haul himself out of it before it was too late.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Satin + Heels was their last hope. Claire and Nina had been to every boutique in Alison Bay. Claire had watched patiently as Nina had tried on any dress that looked even the slightest bit bridal. As Claire had predicted, she looked jaw-droppingly beautiful in every single one. She might have felt resentful if she hadn’t found herself genuinely enjoying Nina’s company.
Claire didn’t have many girlfriends in Sydney – Jackie was as close to a BFF as it got. She’d lost touch with her Bindallarah schoolfriends when she went to boarding school, and the less said about the girls actually at boarding school the better. At university she and Scotty had been so wrapped up in each other that no one else really got a look in. She’d lived in an all-female dorm at college in America, and there were always plenty of girls to hang out with, but none of those friendships stuck once she moved back to Australia. It felt strangely exciting to be getting along so well with Nina – and just plain strange that she was Scotty’s fiancée.
Maybe that was why she had vetoed every dress Nina
