He faltered and looked down at the table, pretending to study the menu.
‘And then what?’ Claire prompted.
Alex looked at her for a moment and she could see he was trying to figure out how to frame what he wanted to say.
‘I’ve got a picture of you in my head at Jim’s funeral. I’d never in my life seen a human being look as broken as you did that day, Claire,’ he said softly. ‘I made a promise to myself right there that I’d do whatever I could to bring this town back to life. To make sure other families would survive.’
Claire felt her throat tighten. Damn it. She wasn’t going to cry in front of Alex Jessop, especially now that she was on a date with him. But his kindness and concern touched her deeply.
She was grateful when the waiter appeared at their table to take their order. Claire suddenly realised she was famished. She’d left Vanessa’s house without eating breakfast and she’d missed dinner the night before when she left the pub to treat Autumn. She ordered poached eggs on toast with a side of bacon, a hash brown and an extra-strong coffee. Alex was impressed and said so.
‘So, you went to New York?’ she said when the waiter had left, determined to shift the focus of the conversation away from her and her splintered family.
‘Yeah. I did a bunch of business and economics courses over there, and did a masters in Australian local government management online while I was at it.’
‘We must have been in America at the same time,’ Claire said.
‘We were. I always kind of hoped we’d bump into each other,’ Alex said, chuckling. ‘Hey, in a country of three hundred million people, it didn’t seem entirely impossible.’
‘Amazing,’ Claire said, shaking her head.
‘What is?’
‘Just that there was somebody thinking about me all that time and I never had any idea.’ She’d been too busy thinking about Scotty all those years, but Alex was interesting, urbane and charming. Who knew how different things might have been if she had known he was interested? Maybe there was something to Gus’s residential propinquity theory. Claire had just been too blinkered to realise there were other romantic possibilities in Bindallarah.
Alex ducked his head, but not before Claire saw his cheeks flush a telltale pink. ‘What can I say? You made an impression on me, Thorne.’
Her coffee arrived, along with Alex’s green juice, and she gazed out of the wide window as she sipped it, contentedly listening to him talk about his adventures in the Big Apple. The wind had picked up and the rain was coming down steadily now, but it only seemed to make the people outside more jubilant. Little kids jumped in puddles as their parents attempted to shield them with umbrellas. The sound of laughter and happy chatter mercifully drowned out the competing Christmas carols emanating from every storefront on the street.
Claire felt . . . if not quite happy, then something close to it. The events of last night lingered in the back of her mind. She was still confused, still bereft at the thought of not having Scotty in her life. She remained convinced that his marrying Nina was completely crazy.
But she felt hopeful. That was it. It took her so long to identify the feeling because it was so unfamiliar to her. Hope. How about that, Claire thought.
And then she saw them. Scotty and Nina.
Nina charged along the street, threading her way between shoppers, while Scotty hurried after her. He caught up with his fiancée right in front of Bindy Brew. Just a few inches of glass separated them from where Claire sat eating breakfast with Alex. He didn’t appear to notice them and neither Scotty nor Nina cast a glance inside the café.
Nina was upset. Scotty looked as exhausted as Claire felt. He grabbed Nina’s elbow and she spun to face him, her rain-soaked hair swinging out behind her. Anger flashing in her pretty eyes as she spoke to him, stabbing her index finger into his chest. Passers-by cast surreptitious glances in the couple’s direction; clearly their spat was attracting attention. Claire was no lip-reader – she couldn’t make out what Nina was saying – but she didn’t need to be to see that she was giving Scotty a no-holds-barred serve. His response was more subdued. He seemed to be trying to placate her, holding out his hands in front of him as if to say, ‘I surrender.’
Claire froze. He must have told her about the kiss. What else would drive chic, collected Nina into a public argument with her fiancé a week before their wedding? Why else would Scotty be pursuing her through the streets, all but prostrating himself at her feet? Nina must know.
As Claire watched, Nina wrenched her arm from Scotty’s grip. She dropped her arms to her sides and stared at the footpath. Her anguish was clear. Scotty ceased his appeals and just stared helplessly at her. At last, she looked up at him. She said two words and this time they were as clear to Claire as if Nina had shouted them into her ear.
Tell Claire.
When she turned again and walked away, Scotty didn’t move to follow. He stood rooted to the spot and raked his fingers through his hair. Then he looked absently through the window of Bindy Brew.
Their eyes met. A faint smile played across Scotty’s lips as he recognised her. His gaze shifted to the next chair at Claire’s table. The smile vanished.
Scotty looked from Alex to Claire and back again. He clenched
