His original plan had been to bypass Sydney altogether. He’d been aiming to spend the night at Tuncurry on the Mid-North Coast. Four and a half hours was about the longest he felt comfortable having the mare confined to the float, and, besides, horses were allowed on Nine Mile Beach. He wouldn’t ride Autumn this late in her pregnancy, but he knew she’d love a walk in the surf before they made the final push to Bindallarah the next morning.
He had thought about Claire constantly on the drive north from Wollongong, wondered if he should call and tell her he was in the neighbourhood, suggest they get together for a beer. But he didn’t know if she wanted that. In the six months since she’d reached out to him online, Claire hadn’t given so much as a whisper of an indication that she had any interest in seeing him. He was keen to catch up with her, but he didn’t want to push it. Claire was like the horses she worked with: she spooked easily. Always had.
And then, like magic, there she was in front of him in blue hospital scrubs that matched her ultramarine eyes, her dark curls piled on top of her head in a haphazard bun. Scotty watched her work on Autumn as if in a daze. The heat haze shimmered above the concrete floor of the yard, giving the whole scene an ethereal quality. To have her suddenly materialise like that, like an apparition, shook him.
Asking her to meet him for a drink hadn’t been the plan, but Scotty Shannon wasn’t one to squander an opportunity. It had taken her eight years to come back to him and another six months to shore up their renewed bond so that it felt like it might stick.
He wanted Claire to stay in his life this time. And that meant she needed to know.
He had to tell her about Nina.
Claire made sure she was late. She hated being the first to arrive at a pub, having to walk in alone, decide where to sit, check her phone every few minutes for the usual excuses from last-minute pikers. And she could never decide whether she should order a drink or wait for everyone else to arrive. It was a social minefield. Better to be slightly tardy and glide in after the groundwork was already done.
Besides, getting to the Hero of Waterloo a few minutes after seven o’clock meant the historic pub in The Rocks was packed with the after-work-drinks crowd; the atmosphere was extra rambunctious on such a hot night so close to Christmas and Claire was able to slip in unnoticed and take a moment just to watch. She wanted to refresh the picture of Scotty that she’d carried in her mind’s eye for eight years without the shock and irritation that had coloured their earlier meeting.
She spotted Scotty at the far end of the bar, perched on a stool and sipping a pint of beer. He was chatting to a lithe blonde woman standing next to him. She was stunning and she leaned in close to him, the fingers of her left hand resting lightly on his shoulder as she listened intently to whatever it was he was saying. Claire’s suspicion that Scotty’s days of being overlooked by gorgeous women were long gone was confirmed: the blonde might as well have been wearing a flashing neon sign that said I-N-T-E-R-E-S-T-E-D.
Suddenly, Scotty threw back his head, laughing, and gifted his companion with the same wonky smile that had floored Claire just a few hours ago. Her stomach responded with a small lurch. Stupid, she thought. She could tell with one glance that the woman was nothing more than a way to help Scotty pass the time, but the fleeting jolt of envy made her uncomfortable. It wasn’t her business who her friend chose to speak to.
Claire made her way through the dense crowd and tapped Scotty on the shoulder that wasn’t occupied by the blonde’s scarlet talons. When he turned and saw her, a broad grin lit his face.
‘You made it!’ he said, a note of surprise in his voice.
‘Of course,’ Claire replied, confused. ‘Didn’t you think I would?’
‘Well, it’s just, you know . . . we kind of got off on the wrong foot earlier.’ He offered a slightly sheepish smile.
A giggle bubbled up inside her. ‘Scotty, please. After everything we’ve been through together in the last – what – thirteen years? There’s no such thing as the wrong foot with us.’ We’ve already hurt, frustrated and ruined each other as much as we possibly can, she silently added.
Sensing she’d been relegated to ‘third wheel’ position, Scotty’s new acquaintance pouted a little and said, ‘You two obviously have a lot to catch up on, so I’ll leave you to it. It was nice meeting you, Scotty.’
His gaze didn’t shift from Claire as he said, ‘Nice meeting you too, Helen.’
‘It’s Hannah,’ the woman muttered as the crowd swallowed her.
And then it was just the two of them. An island of shared history in a sea of what Claire hoped was water under the bridge. She suddenly realised how important it was that this wasn’t their last meeting. She had met up with old friends before – long-lost boarding school girlfriends who’d found her via social media; the college alumni she never heard from until they planned to visit from America and needed a place to stay; even the occasional Bindallarah throwback – but she had never kidded herself that those coffee catch-ups or awkward weekends of grudging hospitality would lead to renewed friendships.
But with Scotty she did want that. Looking at him now, she wasn’t quite sure how she’d managed without him for the past eight years. There had been a Scotty-shaped hole in her life and somehow she hadn’t seen it; she’d convinced herself she hadn’t felt his absence. Their relationship was different now,
