Claire took another deep gulp of her shiraz as she toggled irritably between social media sites on her tablet. It was all babies, birthdays and bleating about the state of the world by people who were doing absolutely nothing to try to change it. Minutiae. None of it was important, not really. It was hardly life and death. None of her virtual friends or acquaintances was making hard decisions, taking big risks. Not one of them knew what it was like to bet it all – and lose.
Claire sighed and scrolled through the recent posts in one of the equine vets groups she was a member of. She toyed with the idea of making a post herself. Maybe one of her esteemed colleagues could explain to her how she’d managed to lose a champion three-year-old thoroughbred to supporting limb laminitis when her surgical repair of his initial fracture just a week ago had been flawless and his recovery seemed to be textbook perfect. She sure as hell didn’t have any idea, and the not knowing was eating her up.
She clicked on the search field and typed ‘laminitis’. A list of previous posts on the topic unfurled on her screen. Quickly, Claire scanned them, her blue eyes flicking over the names of the posters – mostly colleagues she knew well and some she didn’t know at all.
And then a name she’d said more often than she’d uttered her own appeared.
Claire froze. It couldn’t be him. She had searched for him before – more than once – but aside from a couple of years-old mentions in the university alumni magazine, Scotty didn’t seem to have any kind of online footprint.
But how many Australian equine vets called Scotty Shannon could there possibly be? Perhaps she could imagine there were two Scott Shannons in their field. But Scotty? It had to be him. Her Scotty.
She clicked on the name and the mystery doctor’s profile filled the screen. The profile picture was a stallion in full flight – handsome, but of no use to her whatsoever. There were no other photographs. She clicked on the ‘About’ tab.
Hometown: Bindallarah, New South Wales.
Claire’s mouth went dry.
It was Scotty. Right here, right in front of her. Eight years since they’d had any contact and he was in her living room, uninvited and undoing her the way he always had.
Her stomach twisted uncomfortably. How long had he been using the site? Had he looked for her? Seen her profile?
Her index finger hovered over the ‘Add friend’ icon.
Why hasn’t he reached out?
Claire swallowed another mouthful of wine. She knew why. She had asked him to stay away. Told him she couldn’t be in his life any more.
She had begged him to forget about her and Scotty had obliged.
But everything had been different then. They were so young. She was only twenty; Scotty was twenty-one. They hadn’t even finished university. Her life, as ever, was in chaos, while he was diligently carving out the path he had long intended to tread. He had been devastated when she turned their world on its head. But they had grown up since then. Maybe now he would understand. Maybe he would even be happy to hear from her after all this time.
Claire’s index finger trembled. She tipped her wineglass to her lips once more. If Scotty was still angry with her, she thought she could bear it; she deserved it. But if he really had forgotten her? She couldn’t decide which was worse.
She took a deep breath and tapped the button.
CHAPTER ONE
‘Seriously, Claire, just pick one. While we’re young?’
Jackie tapped her foot on the café’s worn linoleum floor. Actually, tapping was putting it mildly. In the clunky black lace-ups she insisted on wearing with her scrubs, Jackie’s impatient pat-pat-pat thudded like a kick drum.
‘Give a girl a minute, will you?’ Claire tossed a mock-peeved glare over her shoulder. ‘It’s a hard decision.’
Under her breath Jackie muttered, ‘It really isn’t.’
Claire pretended she hadn’t heard. Jackie had only joined her for the trip to the café to escape the astringent clinic smell for a few minutes. She brought the exact same lunch from home every single day: a tiny tin of tuna, six green olives, two Ryvitas with hummus and a single Babybel cheese. It was really no wonder Jackie always seemed so brusque and irritable – she must have been starving.
Claire returned her full attention to the chiller cabinet in front of her and weighed up her options. An unusually busy day meant she hadn’t had a moment to eat; now it was nearly four o’clock and she was ravenous. Was she in a chicken-and-avocado-on-wholemeal mood? Perhaps a panini with salami and chargrilled vegetables would hit the spot. Or was it an old-school ham-and-salad-roll kind of day?
‘You might have been absent when they covered this at uni, but the ability to make quick decisions is generally something most people expect of an emergency veterinarian,’ Jackie said as her staccato on the lino approached machine-gunfire proportions.
‘But that’s just medicine, Jac. This is way more important. This is sandwiches.’
‘Ugh!’ Jackie threw her hands in the air. ‘I’ll be out the front. Try not to let me grow old and die there.’ She marched outside.
Claire plucked the panini from the shelf and took it to the counter, placing a bottle of apple juice beside it. She’d known it was what she wanted the moment she’d laid eyes on it, but she wasn’t about to let Jackie Ryman force her decisions. Beneath her snippy exterior, Jackie was friendly and fun, but she could be demanding – it was part of what made her such a brilliant vet – and Claire didn’t do demanding.
She paid for her lunch and pushed through the plastic strips that hung in the café doorway into the sultry December heat. It was like stepping into a furnace. The oppressively hot and humid Sydney summer was already in full swing and there were still two weeks until
