‘Wow, Claire,’ Gus said. ‘That’s some heavy stuff you’ve been dealing with. I totally get why you haven’t been back to Bindy for so long.’ She paused, then added, ‘You must really love Scotty Shannon.’
Claire let out a strangled sound that was a cross between a laugh and a choke. ‘That’s what you got from all this?’
‘Well, you’ve been so afraid of what the community thinks of you for so long, and the only person here – apart from me and Mum – who’s always supported you is Scotty,’ Gus said, ignoring Claire’s umbrage. ‘It makes sense that you’d put your fears aside to come back for him.’
‘I do not love Scotty Shannon. He’s my friend,’ Claire protested. ‘Why is that so difficult for everyone to understand?’
But Gus had touched on yet another truth that Claire didn’t have the courage to admit. Her fears about being loathed by the people of Bindallarah weren’t only about what her dad had done. They were also about what she had done to Scotty.
Gus was right: Scotty was the only person outside of her family who was always on her side. Everyone in Bindallarah loved Scotty Shannon. And now it turned out they all knew he’d proposed marriage after Jim’s death – and that she’d shot him down in flames. Claire worried that people saw her not just as the selfish daughter of a con artist, but also as the callous wench who’d broken the heart of Bindy’s golden boy.
‘But you did come back for him,’ Gus persisted.
‘For his wedding. To a woman who is not me. Would I do that if I was in love with him?’ No, but you’d do it to try to fool people into believing you’re a good person.
‘Well . . . yeah,’ her cousin replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She looked at Claire like she thought she was crazy. Or deluded. Or both.
‘Well, I’m not,’ she huffed. She crossed her arms and sank back into the sofa.
Gus wasn’t deterred. ‘You know, it would have made total sense if you and Scotty had ended up together. People are most likely to marry someone who lives nearby. It’s called the residential propinquity effect.’
‘Where on earth did you hear that?’ said Vanessa.
‘Cosmo.’
‘In that case, it’s clearly an incontrovertible fact,’ her aunt replied dryly.
‘It is! Look it up!’
‘Even if it is a real thing,’ Claire interrupted, ‘Scotty lives here and I live in Sydney. We’re not exactly next-door neighbours.’
‘Not now, no. But you grew up in each other’s pockets,’ Vanessa said, looking thoughtfully at her. ‘And you were a couple at university.’
‘Don’t encourage her, Aunty Vee. It’s nonsense. Scotty is marrying Nina and I am not in love with him. End of story. Who wants a glass of wine?’
Claire stomped into the kitchen and opened the fridge. What did she have to do to convince people that her feelings for Scotty were purely platonic? And why was it so important to her?
Claire took out a bottle of chardonnay and extracted three clean wineglasses from the dishwasher. As she poured the wine, her phone buzzed in her back pocket.
She peered at the screen in disbelief. It was a text from Jared Miller.
Hey, Claire, great to see you today. Not strictly wedding business but . . . fancy meeting me for a drink tomorrow night? Jared.
Claire’s finger hovered over the trash-can icon, but she hesitated. Gus’s Cosmo pseudo-science had rattled her. Maybe there was something to it. She had to admit that most of the girls she’d grown up with had indeed married or were in long-term relationships with local lads. She probably would have too. She had to admit she hadn’t had any great ambitions beyond Bindallarah before her parents sent her to boarding school and her world opened up. Maybe she was fooling herself. It wasn’t like she was dazzled by the dating prospects in Sydney. Perhaps she’d always been destined to end up with a Bindy boy.
But that boy wasn’t Scotty. She didn’t want it to be Scotty, despite what her family seemed to think. He was off limits anyway.
Jared was nice enough. They’d got on well in high school and she’d enjoyed his company this morning. What could be the harm in meeting him for a casual drink? And if she were seen in public in the company of a man who wasn’t Scotty Shannon, perhaps it would quieten those irritating whispers.
Claire hit ‘reply’.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Walking into the Bindallarah Hotel felt strangely illicit. The last time she’d set foot inside the Art Deco pub on the esplanade, Claire had been a child in the company of her parents. Counter meals at ‘the Bindy’ were a rare treat – as close to fine dining as it got back then. That cafés and restaurants – well, one restaurant – would one day fill the main street had seemed as unlikely to a young Claire as flying cars or holographic telephones.
But there was no question that Bindallarah had moved with the times – and so had the pub. Patrons entering the dingy front bar had once been greeted by sticky carpet and the inveterate tang of old beer. Now Claire entered a spacious and light-filled room decked out with Hamptons-style decor. To her left was a small stage with guitars and a drum kit set up, awaiting musicians. A blackboard on the wall displayed the Friday- and Saturday-night live-music schedule. To her right, a long bar made of white wood was lined with beer taps bearing the logos of local craft breweries she’d never heard of. The rear section of the bar was a dining
