‘Is that why you married Erik? Because your parents told you to?’
‘My parents hated Erik.’
‘Because he told you to, then?’
‘He didn’t tell me to. He asked me.’
‘You were pregnant with his child. It was the right thing to do.’ It was what he would have done if Cassidy had given him any kind of chance.
Ella sighed deep enough to puff her hair from her face. ‘I can’t talk about Erik and me. Not yet.’
Not yet, but someday.
‘Okay.’ He squeezed her palm. ‘So who told you to move to Chalk Hill?’
Her eyes cut sharply to him. ‘No one told me.’
‘You said people always told you what to do.’
‘I meant before, Jake.’ She waved her hand at him. ‘I’m twenty-nine now.’
‘So why did you make the decision to come to Chalk Hill?’
She hesitated, and he thought she wasn’t going to answer. Maybe it was all tied up in the Erik subject she’d just closed.
‘Rio,’ she muttered. ‘And real estate, I guess, but Rio was the biggest reason.’
‘I don’t get it?’
‘The Rio Olympics … they made me realise how long ago my swimming career was, and I’ve been doing nothing with my life since. I had all these dreams, and I haven’t achieved a thing.’
‘You had a marriage. Sponsorships. An elite swimming centre—’
She shook her head. ‘That was Erik’s.’
‘You had Sam together. He’s something good.’
Immediately she bristled. ‘He tries to do skids on the local bowling green and throws rocks apparently,’ her eyes flashed to his, ‘and you never did tell me about that. I’m not doing particularly brilliantly on the mother front either. And now I’m not very successfully trying to sell your nanna’s house, which happens to be my only listing. The truth is I haven’t had any real clue about what I’m doing since the day I climbed out of a swimming pool for the last time and I feel like a fraud almost every day that goes by. I’m a mother trying to do the best she can and I’m never sure it’s good enough. There. Are you happy now?’
Jake would have liked another beer so he could take a long sip and look like he was thinking deep and meaningful thoughts … instead of how great it would be to take all that frustration, all that passion, and unravel Ella in his arms. Make her shout out his name as she came undone. That’s what she needed. To let herself go.
Maybe he should start with a kiss?
‘And anyway, if we’re on the bloody subject about what makes who tick, what about you then, Mr Simple? What’s a guy like you doing on his own all this time? Are you afraid of commitment? Do you fart in the bath? Snore like a train? What’s wrong with you that there’s no wife waiting at home with the two point five kids?’
That’s what sucked about being politically correct. Someone else filled the gap while you were thinking about what to say or whether it was too soon to say it, and you missed the moment.
Just kiss the girl already, Jake.
He sighed. ‘Mr Simple needs another beer.’
‘No way. No bloody way.’ Ella banged his poor beaten-up knuckles on the table. ‘You don’t get to do that. It’s not a one-way spill session.’
‘Okay, okay.’ He pried his hand from hers and shook his fingers, making a show of it, eventually finding himself rewarded when she smiled.
‘Sorry if I broke your hand.’
‘I’ll survive. I think. Is that how Erik lost his arm?’
‘Jake!’ She punched his shoulder, but she knew he was joking. The punch wasn’t hard and the laughing helped.
‘Okay, so, Ella … I am not anywhere near as complicated as you. I grew up on the farm, went to school here. I studied business agriculture at university in Perth, and I studied farming at the school of my dad’s farm. I travelled for a year in my early twenties, went to Nepal, Europe, and when I came back I started work at the hardware store, and when Dad retired, I took over the shop and the farm. Very happy family. Three brothers. Now Mum and Dad are off doing the grey nomad thing, and they’ve left me in charge.’
‘Okay, Mr Simple … what about the lack of wife and kids? I’ve seen you with Sam and you’re amazing with him for someone who doesn’t have kids of his own. Don’t you want kids?’
That was harder. The question was a kick in the guts. ‘I want kids. Course I do.’
‘Oh, I get it. You just haven’t found the right woman yet?’
‘No.’ He’d never told anyone about Cassidy.
‘So what’s the hold-up? I can’t imagine you’d lack willing partners, and you’re very upfront. Nothing shy and retiring about you.’
‘This is Chalk Hill. It’s not like there are women behind every tree.’
‘True. But anything goes these days. What do they call it? Swipe right?’
Swipe right? ‘What?’
She blushed. ‘Online dating.’
‘What does swipe right mean?’
‘Never mind. What I mean is, if you really wanted to meet someone, I think you’d put yourself out there. So why haven’t you? Put yourself out there?’
‘I guess a person doesn’t get to Olympic level swimming without being persistent, does she,’ he said.
‘I didn’t make the Olympics,’ Ella stated softly.
They sat for a while, listening to cicadas and the approaching night, and Jake knew it was time to talk if he wanted to take things further with Ella, which he did.
‘I met a girl the year I travelled. I met her in Nepal, she was with another girl in a mixed group of about six, and I was on my own and we hooked up and hiked together, and we got together. It didn’t take long, we were young, on holiday, climbing up on the roof of the world. I asked her to marry me after we hiked up to the top of Mount Snowdon in Wales about four months later. I thought she was the one.’
‘The one?’
He nodded.
‘What happened?’
‘She laughed at me
