Scotty smiled as he emerged from Autumn’s stall and came to stand next to her. ‘Do you hear yourself, Claire?’
She blinked, confused. Had she said something wrong? ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You say you’re not decisive, that you don’t know what you want, but listen to yourself. And look at what you’ve just done,’ he said. ‘From the moment I asked for your help tonight, you just took charge. You knew exactly what to do and you did it. You saved Autumn’s life. Even though I ruined your date.’
She looked away. Down the driveway, inside the main house, Claire could see Chris pacing agitatedly in the kitchen, his phone pressed to his ear. She needed to tell him the procedure had been a success. And she would, just as soon as she mustered the energy.
‘It’s not the same thing,’ she said at length.
‘It’s not?’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’s different at work. I have fewer options to choose from and in most cases I can predict the outcome of whatever decision I make. I can trust myself more. And other people trust me to make the right call.’
Scotty frowned. ‘And it’s not like that in life? You don’t think people trust you?’
‘Nobody ever has,’ she said, and she heard the bitterness in her voice. ‘My whole life, people have made my decisions for me. Mum and Dad decided I’d never amount to anything in Bindallarah, so they sent me away. Dad decided I couldn’t come back to help him on the farm after they split up, then he decided I couldn’t handle his problems, so he lied to me instead. Vanessa decided I couldn’t manage his estate after he died and just made all the decisions about the farm herself.’
As the words passed her lips, Claire realised for the first time that they were true. She hadn’t capriciously left her father’s estate for Vanessa to unravel. She hadn’t thrown his problems at her aunt’s feet and skipped off to the United States without a backward glance. Vanessa had simply taken it upon herself to do those things. She had never asked Claire what she wanted. Not once.
She felt her stomach starting to churn with anger. What she’d said to Scotty was the absolute truth. Nobody had trusted her to play any part in the decisions that affected her. And she had grown so used to it, become so accustomed to having decisions made for her, that she had lost the ability to do it for herself.
‘And you,’ Claire said, her voice barely audible. ‘You did it too.’ She looked up at Scotty. His green eyes reflected the pain in hers.
She expected him to protest, to tell her she was crazy. Instead, he held her gaze and said, ‘I know. I’m sorry.’
His words knocked her for six. ‘You know?’
He nodded sadly. ‘When I asked you to marry me it was because I’d decided it was the most sensible thing. If we were married we could run Thorne Hill together, make it work somehow, even though we were both so young.’ He wearily ran a hand over his face and through his hair. ‘I didn’t ask you what you thought, if you actually wanted to keep the farm. I never even asked you.’
The look of self-focused disgust on his face wounded her. Claire attempted a smile. ‘And here I thought you proposed to me because you loved me and you wanted to be my husband.’ It was a lame attempt at a joke, but she had to do something to try to assuage the ache in her chest.
The disgusted expression gave way to horror. ‘I did! I always – I wanted . . .’ Scotty sighed, his frustration obvious. He was silent for what felt like hours. When at last he spoke again, his voice was gruff. ‘I loved you more than anything, Claire. When you left and went to America, it ripped my heart out. But I know now why you had to do it. You had to take control of your life. And . . . and I deserved it. I deserved to lose you.’
She wanted to shake him, to wrap her arms around him and tell him he was wrong. He didn’t deserve what she had done to him. Scotty had made mistakes, missteps driven by the hubris and unfettered optimism of youth, but the truth was that she was unworthy of him – both the idealistic boy he had been then and the thoughtful man he had become. She had always known it and she had spent eight years wishing she could undo it, wishing she could travel back in time, say yes to his proposal and then do whatever it took to become a better version of herself.
But she couldn’t go back. She could only go forward. Scotty was moving on – with Nina. Whatever her misgivings about his coming marriage, Claire knew she had to free Scotty from this guilt he carried. They couldn’t both spend their lives wallowing in the miseries of their shared past.
‘You didn’t lose me, Scotty. You escaped me,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have made you happy in the long run.’
‘I disagree,’ he replied.
And then he was in front of her, his hands on her waist, pulling her to him. She knew what was coming next; she saw him make the decision. His frown relaxed as his lips claimed hers.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Claire had kissed Scotty thousands of times. She had covered his body in kisses from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, and he hers. They had lost entire evenings kissing in movie theatres and dimly lit bars. But this kiss was different.
This time felt like the first time.
Scotty was
