Jamie had said it wasn’t going to be anything fancy, but it still felt wrong to turn up empty-handed. It was time to get out of her trackies and into something halfway decent and venture into town.
Life in Tuendoc wasn’t exactly hectic. Small groups of people stood on the footpath in front of shops in the main street catching up on news. Young mothers pushed prams and called to toddlers who ran ahead. Farmers drove through town, some with produce stacked high in their old utes, others with utes filled with supplies from the local store. People waved and smiled, and strangers nodded as they walked by. Erin had to admit it was nice.
She’d always liked this little town. It had the essentials: supermarket, butcher, baker, takeaway shop, cafes, two pubs, a chemist and doctor’s surgery, as well as an assortment of little shops that sold second-hand bric-a-brac and one or two places that stocked clothing. She made a mental note that she needed to come into town more often and take a look around.
Erin parked the car, dropping the keys into her bag, and headed towards the grocery store. As she approached the doorway, she narrowly avoided a head-on collision.
‘Whoa. Hey, are you okay?’ Jamie asked, stepping back quickly, his fingers looped through a multitude of white shopping bags.
‘Sorry, I didn’t see you,’ Erin said automatically, seconds before her surprised mind registered who it was she’d collided with.
‘Careful, babe. Don’t break the pastry cases,’ a voice instructed. A woman stepped out from behind Jamie and reached for one of the bags he carried. Erin’s memory flashed back to a riot of wild red hair caught in the beam of headlights.
‘Vanessa, you remember Erin,’ Jamie said.
The woman looked across, eyeing Erin up and down briefly. ‘Vaguely. How are you?’
Erin opened her mouth to answer, but Vanessa had already turned back to Jamie. ‘I’ve got an hour before everyone turns up for the barbecue. Help me get these into the car, will you.’
Behind his sunglasses, Erin couldn’t read Jamie’s expression, but the straight line of his mouth told her she hadn’t imagined the other woman’s cold shoulder.
‘I’ll see you tonight,’ Jamie said, turning away before Erin had the chance to reply. She watched until they disappeared around the corner.
Jamie and Vanessa were still an item? She frowned at that. He’d never mentioned he was seeing anyone, and certainly not Vanessa. Had she been imagining the chemistry between herself and Jamie? ‘Oh, my God,’ she groaned, closing her eyes briefly. She felt like a complete idiot. He was involved with someone. And not just any someone, the very someone from her past who had broken them up in the first place.
Parking her car in the driveway, Erin counted another five cars already there. The entire trip home from the store and the drive here she’d been trying to talk herself out of coming. This was stupid. There was absolutely no reason she should care who Jamie was seeing. They were just old friends. Anything that may have mistakenly felt like something else was clearly just a case of her jumbled emotions from everything she’d been dealing with.
She pushed her car door open with new resolve. She’d been looking forward to getting out of the house and she didn’t see why Jamie and Vanessa should ruin that for her. Now she was here, though, she was feeling more than a little nervous.
Almost as though he had been waiting for her, Jamie appeared around the corner of the house.
‘You came.’
‘I said I would.’
‘Yeah, but I kinda thought after this afternoon you might have changed your mind.’
‘Why?’ She was just going to play dumb and hope to bluff her way out of it, she decided.
‘Vanessa,’ he said.
‘It’s none of my business who you’re with,’ she said, moving past him.
‘There you are!’ Pat called out, thankfully stalling any further awkward conversation. ‘I’m so glad you came. Come on in and we’ll get you a drink. Jamie, hurry up, we need that ice.’
Erin saw him roll his eyes at his mother, but he turned and did as he was told without comment.
As they rounded the corner of the house into the backyard, Erin saw fold-out chairs had been set up and two tables laden with food had guests hovering around them, picking at nibblies.
‘Jamie said it was just a barbecue and a few beers,’ Erin protested when she saw the amount of food laid out. She was glad she’d stopped into town and picked up the chips and a dessert.
‘What, this?’ Pat exclaimed. ‘It’s nothing much. You didn’t have to bring anything, you know. We have more than enough food. Go find yourself a seat. Jamie will get you a drink in a sec.’
A small group of women sat in a semicircle, most with children on their laps and chatting with a casual air of familiarity that suggested they’d all known each other a long time. Further over, near the large brick barbecue, were most of the men, beers in hand and all keeping a watchful eye on the hotplate. She waved at Jamie’s dad who, as host, had the honour of holding the tongs, and nodded at Mick, from down the road, when he toasted her with his beer can.
Erin took a seat next to the Chapmans, an elderly couple who had often visited her gran. They were the only people she really knew, other than the McBrides.
‘What can I get you to drink?’ Jamie asked a few moments later, coming over to perform host duties.
‘Wine would be great.’
He came back a few moments later with a glass, handing it to her and surprising her by taking a seat beside her. Jamie and Mr Chapman talked about cattle and feed and a whole heap of other topics somehow relating to cows that she had no idea about, while Erin did her best to strike up conversation with a rather deaf Mrs Chapman, eventually giving up and listening in on the men’s conversation.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed how close Jamie’s chair was to her own. His arms, bare tonight in a T-shirt, were braced along the tops of his jean-clad thighs as he leaned forward, nodding occasionally at the older man as he spoke. Her gaze fell on his thick wrists lightly covered in hair and the wide links of the watch that wrapped around it. She’d never thought of a man’s wrist as particularly interesting before, but for some reason tonight she found it more than a little distracting.
She shifted a little in her seat, stopping when he looked over at her. Erin quickly averted her eyes, and cursed silently as she felt a blush creeping up her throat. The last thing she wanted was for Jamie to think she was checking him out. Thank God he can’t read minds, she thought gratefully.
‘What do you think?’
‘What?’ Erin gave a start, almost spilling her drink in the process.
Jamie looked at her oddly. ‘Ted wanted to know if he could drop around some orchids for the funeral.’
‘Your grandmother loved my orchids,’ Mr Chapman said sadly. ‘I thought she might like a bouquet to put on the coffin, in the church.’
‘Oh. Sorry, I was miles away,’ she apologised. ‘That would be lovely, Mr Chapman. Thank you,’ she said, touched by the gesture.
‘Food’s ready,’ Mr McBride yelled across the yard, and people began to move towards the tables to grab plates and salads.
‘Come on, better get in there before it’s all gone.’
Erin followed Jamie and took the paper plate he offered her, smiling as he introduced her to a few people nearby as they made their way along the table, adding food to their plates.
When she turned away to head back to her chair, she saw Jamie was right behind her. ‘You don’t have to babysit me, you know. I’m sure you’d much rather be mingling with other people.’
‘Nope. I’m happy here.’
‘What about Vanessa?’ she asked, taking extra time to organise her plate on her lap.
‘What about Vanessa?’ he asked, sticking a forkful of steak in his mouth and watching her closely.
‘Won’t she be wondering where you are?’
‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘She’s busy hosting a barbecue of her own.’
‘I thought she was talking about this barbecue.’
‘Well, you thought wrong. About a lot of things,’ he added.
Erin eyed him as she chewed her own mouthful of tender meat. She may have been wrong about the barbecue, but she hadn’t been wrong about the woman’s attitude earlier. There was definitely something between those two.
‘So how come you’ve never gotten married?’ Erin asked, cocking her head slightly to look at him.
If her question surprised him he didn’t show it; he did, however, take a moment to answer, as though considering his words. ‘Maybe I’m too fussy.’
Erin frowned at that. It could be that she was oversensitive when it came to the whole ‘perfectly packaged’ woman when she’d experienced being dumped for not measuring up, but the thought that even Jamie could be that shallow irked her. ‘So you’re holding out for some Barbie-waisted model or something?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘You’re telling me that no woman out here measures up to your high expectations?’
‘Something like that,’ he said, his gaze roaming the yard.
‘Not even Vanessa?’ She knew she was sounding more like a pouty teenager than a mature woman, but she couldn’t help it. There was no way Jamie would be living like a monk, and she’d always wondered why he’d never ended up with Vanessa. During their brief relationship as teenagers, she had made her dislike of Erin painfully clear at every opportunity. She knew that before she’d come along Vanessa and Jamie had been an item, although Jamie had reassured her it had never been serious between them.
Jamie raised an eyebrow pointedly and a ghost of smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. ‘You two really hate each other.’
‘I don’t hate her,’ Erin frowned. ‘She was just never particularly nice to me on the few occasions we met. So how come you two never ended up together?’ If she’d hoped to sound blasé she’d failed miserably, given the smirk Jamie sent her.
‘I don’t know. I think for a while there she thought it was going to happen, but she gave up in the end and married Muzza, a guy I used to play footy with.’
She was married. The amount of relief which followed Jamie’s statement was truly ridiculous, but it soon dissipated with his next words.
‘She moved back to town a year or so ago with three kids after her husband died.’
‘Oh.’
‘We hang out sometimes,’ he said. ‘It’s still not serious. Ness and I aren’t compatible as a couple.’
Something about her expression must have alerted him to her disapproval.
‘You think that’s wrong?’
‘That you don’t consider her serious but you still “hang out”?’ she asked. She may not have particularly liked Vanessa, but she had to admit she felt a little insulted on her behalf. ‘I’m sure she loves the lack of commitment.’
‘She knows the way it is. What would be the point in being with someone if it wasn’t perfect?’
‘Perfect?’
‘Okay, maybe perfect was the wrong word,’ he said. ‘But when you know what makes you happy and you can’t have it, there’s no point settling, is there?’
‘I’m sure she’s completely fine with knowing she’s just keeping you amused.’
‘Bit judgemental, aren’t we?’
He was right, who was she to judge? Her sure thing had turned around and impregnated his child-bride assistant.
‘You’re right. It’s none of my business.’
She saw the tight smile pass across his lips as he gave a small shake of his head. ‘Then again, maybe you’re right. Maybe I just don’t do commitment.’
Yep, there are still sparks there, she thought wearily. Those sparks could either ignite a flame of passion or create instant confrontation. There seemed to never be any middle ground with them.