‘I CANNOT get this hat to work!’ Tarsha said viciously, blinking back tears.
‘So try a different one,’ Laird suggested in a soothing voice.
Wrong answer.
So far today, Tarsha didn’t seem too impressed at how he was performing in his role of suave professional handbag. He couldn’t blame her. His heart wasn’t in it. His heart was with a copper-haired, sumptuous-bodied nurse who made his whole soul burn with questions that he couldn’t yet answer and didn’t know how he ever would.
‘Do you honestly think I have another hat just lying around that will match this outfit?’ Tarsha gestured at her slip of a dress in beige silk and lace, her tiny jacket and her barely there spike-heeled shoes. ‘And if you suggest trying a different outfit…!’
‘I think the hat looks great.’ His thoughts were miles away.
‘You’re not taking this seriously.’
Making the effort to focus, Laird told her, ‘Well, I did think the Melbourne Cup was more about horses than clothes.’
He almost had the impression that Tarsha wasn’t taking it seriously either, despite her anger. It seemed as if she was using the hat and his own thick-headedness about fashion as a way to vent other sources of stress. If that was the case, he knew better than to ask for a direct explanation. She’d get to the point if and when she was ready.
‘Are you kidding?’ she exclaimed. ‘I was so lucky to get the invites from L’Occidentale.’ Her whole demeanour suddenly changed. She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. One beautifully manicured hand rested for a moment above her left breast. ‘But you’re right. It’s not important, is it? Not in the scheme of things. I don’t know what I’m doing today…’ She cast him a narrow, sideways glance and opened her mouth as if to speak again, then shook her head and sighed. ‘Let’s just go to the races,’ she muttered.
‘Take your time, Tarsha,’ he soothed her again, at a loss to know what he was dealing with here. ‘Check your make-up. I’ll wait.’ She seemed as highly strung as one of the thoroughbreds they were going to watch.
‘No. You’re right. I’ll leave the hat. It truly is not important,’ she said again, as if she really meant it.
As far as Tammy was concerned, there was absolutely no point in taking the Melbourne Cup fashion thing seriously.
She wouldn’t have gone to the event at all, under normal circumstances, but several friends had followed through on the threat they’d made this time last year, after she’d organised a Mini Melbourne Cup Party in the back garden for her own children and eight of their little mates, complete with hobby-horse races and dress-ups and colourful food. In Victoria, the Tuesday of ‘The Race That Stops A Nation’ was a public holiday, and there was no school.
‘Next year, Tammy, two of us are babysitting, and the other two are taking you to the races,’ Liz had said after the kids’ Cup party.
‘Which two of you are doing which?’
‘Whoever wins first and second in our Cup sweep today gets to stay home with the kids,’ Kelly declared.
So at nine-thirty in the morning a year later—i.e. today—Mel had swooped in and carried all five kids off to her place, where Bron was already setting up some games, and Kelly and Liz had marched Tammy into her bedroom to help her with her wardrobe.
‘I already have the hat,’ she told them helpfully, then watched them shriek in delight—or was it horror?—at the large, floppy-brimmed wheel of cream straw festooned with green organza ribbon, fake leaves and a ring of bright red plastic chillies. She and Sarah had had a lot of fun and hilarity putting it together on Sunday afternoon. For almost a whole half an hour, her heart hadn’t ached about Laird.
This morning, she was determined not to let her friends know how churned up she was feeling. They didn’t yet know that Laird existed, and she didn’t intend to tell them. Sarah might let something slip, she realised. Hopefully Mel and Bron would keep the kids too busy for an eight-year-old to think about it.
‘All right,’ Liz said calmly. ‘You really aren’t taking the fashion thing seriously. Now, what can we put with it?’
‘Well, my wardrobe is simply crammed with designer outfits, as you can imagine.’ Tammy laughed. ‘Take a look.’
Liz ended up driving back to her place to bring an armload of possibilities, and they settled on an elegantly floaty panelled skirt and a shoulder-baring silk camisole, neither of which was the same colour green as any of the three different greens on the hat, but, as Kelly said, it didn’t matter.
‘It’s more a symphony of greens,’ she decreed. ‘It works. Really shows off your figure.’
‘You mean it makes me look fat?’
‘Womanly, Tammy. The word is womanly.’
She decreed that the spare plastic chillies pinned artistically around the slightly-lower-than-Tammy-was-happy-with neckline of the camisole worked, too.
‘And the sash,’ Liz insisted. ‘The red silk sash.’ She tied it in place, puffing out the loop of the bow.
Tammy groaned. ‘Oh, I’m going to be so loud!’
‘Much more interesting than our drippy pastels.’
‘No, you both look lovely.’
‘So do you.’
‘In a loud kind of way. Like a big red apple hanging on a tree.’
And yet she felt like dressing loud today.
When in doubt, shout.
Or something.
Through the sheer audacity of wearing to the Melbourne Cup a whole orchestral, apple-hued arrangement of red and green with her copper-and-carrots hair and finishing the outfit off with scarlet shoes, Tammy could shut out the sound of that nagging, aching, vulnerable little voice inside her every time she thought about Laird, about trusting him—whether she dared to, whether there was any chance he’d come up with an answer to their future that wouldn’t hurt.
The outfit almost worked, too, until an hour after arriving, when, temporarily parted from her two friends, she saw Laird himself and the whole day suddenly changed, like a fierce storm sweeping in to cut down baking summer heat.
He stood just beyond the mounting yard, inspecting the horses before the fourth race. He was wearing a suit, so well cut it could have been Armani, with a flower in his lapel, and there was a gorgeously clad, elegantly thin, model-beautiful woman in a vintage couture dress and six-inch heels leaning intimately on his arm and smiling.
And Tammy felt ill.
Physically ill. Sick to her stomach, head dizzy and pounding, skin breaking out in a cold sweat, limbs gone weak. Oh, she remembered this! It was exactly the way she’d felt the day she’d come home to find Tom packing his things in their bedroom, when he hadn’t even told her yet that he planned to leave.
She stood there and watched Laird, appalled by the power and suddenness of her reaction. She couldn’t move. Her throat was choked. It felt like solid ground collapsing without warning beneath her feet, and it was horrible. Familiar and horrible. She couldn’t have spoken a word, even if Kelly and Liz had been standing right beside her, demanding to know what was wrong. The sounds of the crowd faded, and for a moment Tammy was afraid she might actually faint.
The woman smiled again. Laird nodded. The woman nudged his shoulder and pointed at something. They were together. That was all Tammy knew. Here she was in the flesh, the mythical woman Tammy had talked about to Laird when they’d argued over him sending cleaners in after the kids had been sick.
Thin, single and gorgeous.
She wasn’t an abstract possibility—the woman he should be going out with, the theoretical opposite to Tammy herself, the woman he would go out with one day, when Tammy herself was long forgotten—she was already real.
There was no room for anything inside her but the sheer, physical hurt of it. Betrayal like a knife thrust. Disbelief like an onslaught of white noise. Shock thundering through her bloodstream like the hooves on the track.
What a fool I am…
Trust? Where did trust fit in now?
She honestly hadn’t considered that she might have a rival so soon or, worse, that she might have had one all along. How long had these two known each other? For a while, judging by the way they were talking. There was something so casual and familiar about the woman’s hold on Laird’s arm, about the way he nodded at something she said without turning to look at her.
Tammy thought she had fully considered the harsh reality that Laird didn’t belong in her life. She’d told herself more than once that he should be going out with that gorgeous, thin, designer-dressed model she’d conjured up for him.
But, oh, she hadn’t really meant it!
And he is going out with her, said the evidence of her eyes, until her vision was blinded by tears, at which point all she could do was to stand there, blinking, waiting for her heart to recover the correct beat.
‘You’ll have to hurry if you’re going to put on a bet, Laird,’ Tarsha pointed out.
‘I won’t put one on this race,’ Laird said. ‘No clue about any of these horses.’
They all looked magnificent. Their rich chestnut and chocolate coats gleamed in the sun, their bodies moved with incomparable power and grace and you could see how highly strung they were, positively eager to prove their worth at top speed.
But how did you tell about their heart and soul? It was the question that consumed him. Whether you were considering horses or your own heart, how did you tell what mattered, what ran bone deep, what was lasting and important and real?
‘Most other people don’t have a clue about the horses today, and it’s not stopping them,’ Tarsha said with a smile.
‘True.’ Laird was briefly distracted by the flare of her sharp humour, which hadn’t been much in evidence so far today. He flicked his gaze briefly in her direction and grinned at her. She was a good person, a far cry from the stereotype of the bitchy model.
He wasn’t by any means a gambler, but it was a national tradition to put money on horses on Cup Day, as Tarsha had implied, and almost an act of treason not to. The whole of Flemington Racecourse was crowded with once-a-year punters.
‘So can we put on a bet and then go back to the marquee?’ she asked, cajoling him.
‘It’s your feet in those shoes,’ he guessed. ‘You want to sit down. My arm’s not doing enough, even though you’re practically dragging it from its socket.’
‘And I’ll attempt to schmooze some more and have another great big glass of champagne…’
She’d already had one, although it wasn’t yet much past noon. Laird was a little surprised. Tarsha drank roughly the same amount as he gambled—in other words, not much. She seemed to be putting on a performance today. Her smiles didn’t reach her eyes, beneath that shadowy confection of a hat, and a distant look appeared on her face whenever she wasn’t talking. What was going on? Whatever it was, he shouldn’t ignore what she wanted.
‘All right, we’ll go back,’ he said, turning with Tarsha’s arm still linked through his.
And that was when he saw Tammy.
Like an apparition manifesting in a magical way from a slightly obsessive corner of his thoughts, she was suddenly there, right in front of him, standing on the worn-out grass as if she’d forgotten how to move. She looked terrific, in a very Tammy way. Bright and fun and lavishly shaped, and not in any danger of taking herself too seriously. Not with those chillies on her hat.
She’d clearly seen him several minutes earlier but had been pretending very hard that she hadn’t. More chillies garlanded the ruffled neckline of her silk top, and he had to fight not to give a lingering, appreciative look down at her fabulous sumptuous figure, all curvy and generous and fine-skinned and a little more on show than usual.
And he was so instinctively, unthinkingly happy to see her—the sun seemed brighter, the race day atmosphere instantly more interesting and meaningful—that he didn’t understand what her problem was until it was far too late.
‘You’re here, too,’ he began. Not the most perceptive remark of his life, while his heart just kept on lifting like a hot-air balloon.
Tammy, Tammy, Tammy.
The tip of a chilli nudged the creamy slope of one breast the way his tongue had nudged the same spot the other night. His breath caught for a moment in his chest when he thought about it, but then he saw that she hadn’t smiled at him, still hadn’t moved, and her face and lips were white.
And then she spoke.
‘I—I—I can’t do this,’ she gasped. ‘I can’t bear it. I should have known.’
She fled before he could answer, turning and pushing through the crowd to disappear within seconds, while his thought processes moved like snails. She thought— Tarsha was standing there, dressed to the nines and dragging on his arm, and Tammy thought—
‘That’s her, isn’t it?’ Tarsha said quietly beside him, after the blood beating in his ears had begun to subside and understanding had dawned.
‘Yes, and she thinks—’
‘I could see what she thinks. What a royal mess we’re all in today!’
‘Oh, hell! Hell! She talked to me about it. The kind of woman I should be going out with. She thinks—’
‘Aren’t you going to go after her and set her straight? You look like death warmed up.’
He turned a stricken, unseeing look in Tarsha’s direction. ‘Would she believe me?’
Tarsha gave a tiny shrug, her mouth turned down, then said, ‘If it’s any consolation, I believe you. I never thought I’d see such a look on your face, Laird. Forget all the advice I gave you before about getting off lightly. You crazy man, I think you’re really in love with her.’
‘I know I am,’ he said bleakly. ‘I couldn’t possibly feel like this if I wasn’t. Lord, there’s no more doubt, no thinking it through, I just am. I love her. Oh, hell. I love her.’ He wanted to keep saying it, but he wasn’t saying it to the right woman. ‘Help me find her, Tarsh, so I can tell her and get this right for once.’
She touched his arm, way more in control than he was. ‘We’ll separate, and meet back at the marquee every half-hour.’
‘Every half-hour?’ He didn’t want to have to wait five minutes to get that stricken, wounded look off Tammy’s face, let alone half an hour or more.
‘Laird, there’s a huge crush of people here, and she’s hurting so much. She doesn’t want to be found. She has several minutes’ head start on us already. I admit she stands out in a crowd, but how easy do you think this is going to be?’
Kelly and Liz would be worried.
It wasn’t too hard to hide at the Melbourne Cup. There were so many people here. Tammy could easily have spent the whole day at Flemington Racecourse and never chanced to cross paths once with Laird and the gorgeous woman on his arm. She could have gone for weeks without knowing the truth, thinking there was still a chance, kidding herself that Laird staying away from her would make him realise how much he wanted to be with her. Permanently.
Fate had decreed otherwise.
‘It’s good that I saw them,’ she mouthed to herself. ‘It’s good. It’s for the best. It’s over with, now. Short and sweet.’
But, oh, she didn’t want to see them again!
She wanted to hide from Laird and his model, from Kelly and Liz, from the whole world and her own Lairdless future, and just lick her aching wounds. She found the quietest corner of the parade ring and stood there, watching the strappers walking their horses around before each race. She lined up at a drink kiosk for some iced water to cool her dry mouth. She hid out in front of the mirrors in several different ladies’ rooms, soaking her handkerchief under the tap in order to press it to her tear-swollen eyes.
Which was where Laird’s thin, gorgeous friend eventually found her and tried to tell her that she had it all wrong.
‘Tammy, he and I are not involved. I promise. You must believe it. I’ve never seen him so distressed. You’re the woman he wants. He’s here with me today because I asked him to come with me as a favour, that’s all.’
She explained about their past involvement, and the fact that she needed a man on her arm at important functions. She seemed genuine and sympathetic and urgent about all of it.
‘I believe you,’ Tammy said eventually. The strength had returned to her legs. Her chest no longer ached like a knife wound every time she breathed. Life could go on. ‘But it doesn’t make any real difference.’ Because she knew it didn’t.
‘How can it not make a difference?’ Laird’s friend had begun to sound a little impatient by this point.
Her name was Tarsha. She seemed extremely nice, but she had the brittle, fast-paced confidence of a successful and sophisticated woman who didn’t have time to sit around on Cup Day while a suburban mum cried on her shoulder. The ladies’ room had begun to empty out…Tammy couldn’t think why…and they had it almost to themselves, apart from a cleaning team filling the air with the pungent scents of disinfectant and lemon.
It was the most ludicrous place for a heart-to-heart, and yet somehow they were having one.
‘Because there’s always going to be a thin, single, gorgeous, socially appropriate woman,’ Tammy said. ‘Whether she’s real, or a misunderstanding, like you turned out to be, or just my own stupid imagination, she’s going to be there, somewhere, ready and waiting. She’s the woman Laird should find to fall in love with, and I’ll always know it, I’ll always be waiting for it and it will always get in the way. If Laird and I…If by some miracle he did decide he was serious about me…’
‘Tammy, he is serious about you.’
‘I’d never be able to believe it with my whole heart. Some part of me would always be waiting for the thin, single, appropriate woman to show up and ruin my life.’
‘He’s had enough of those in the past. I know his mother. If he wanted a woman like that, he would have picked one by now.’
‘A woman he could have his own children with, Tarsha. One who’d look as good on his arm as you do. One whose only baggage is her designer wardrobe.’
Tarsha fixed her with a critical eye. ‘Tammy, you look damned fantastic in that ridiculous outfit, let me tell you. It’s only women who think that women should be thin as rakes, not men. And can’t he have his own children with you?’
‘I—I…’ She hadn’t even considered it.
‘I mean, have you had some gynae thing done, or something so you can’t? Sorry to pry!’
‘No, but—’
‘You already have five, including triplets…’
‘Oh, he’s told you?’
‘Trust me, he talks about you. And from what he’s said, he’s thoroughly enjoying your baggage.’
‘Oh.’
‘So would another couple of babies really make things so much harder? He has that property. Hobby farm, he always calls it now.’
‘Does he?’
That’s because of me.
Like the fact that he’d talked about her to Tarsha, the realisation gave Tammy a flicker of something she didn’t dare to call hope.
‘And he has enough money for fleets of help. Tell me.’ Tarsha fixed her with gorgeous, impatient, dark-eyed scrutiny. ‘Wouldn’t you have a child with Laird, if he wanted one?’
‘Yes, any time he said the word,’ Tammy confessed, and flushed.
‘As for the thin and gorgeous part…’ She took a sweeping look over Tammy’s generous figure and the bold chilli colours that mocked her emotional state of mind. ‘He wants you, Tammy. Trust it.’
‘I—I can’t.’
Trust? After Tom? The very word scared her. Trust was only a code word for ‘no safety net’, and Tammy felt like a tightrope walker still only halfway across, with Niagara Falls gushing below. She hadn’t had a safety net since Tom had left and she was just about managing, just about used to it, just about ready to think that as long as she had Mum and her own determined strength, a safety net wasn’t required…
How could she dare to lose all that hard-won strength and self-reliance now?
She couldn’t. The thought scared her too much.
‘Well, I can’t do any more to convince you,’ Tarsha said. ‘Except to say life can be short.’ She sighed. ‘If you see a chance at happiness, grab it before something happens. Don’t wait, Tammy. Don’t say no to it just because you’re scared it might not always stay as rosy and beautiful as it is at first. And don’t say no because you’ve been hurt. There’s always the chance that life will hurt. Because none of us, even the luckiest and most blessed, ever know what’s around the corner, do we?’ She brushed something that might have been a crooked eyelash from the corner of one eye, and then blinked. She was…
‘Tarsha, I’m sorry, are you…?’ Crying.
‘My make-up.’
It wasn’t. She had tears in her eyes, and for the first time Tammy managed to look beyond her own turbulent emotions to discover that Tarsha had problems, too. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Really. We’re just about to miss the big race.’
‘Do you care about the big race?’ Tammy asked gently.
‘No, not in the slightest.’
‘And you’ve just wangled my darkest emotional secrets out of me when we don’t even know each other. Couldn’t I return the favour?’
‘Where do you want me to start?’ Tarsha asked. ‘With the man in Europe who’s just left his wife, but doesn’t know how I feel about him? Or the new modelling agency I don’t know if I can manage to get off the ground? Or the—?’ She stopped. Looked at Tammy. Narrowed her eyes. Pressed her lips together, then opened them again. ‘You’re a nurse,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘You know about this stuff.’ She brushed her fingers across the underside of her left breast and grimaced. ‘I haven’t told Laird. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, or if it means anything. Tammy, I—I— Why the hell am I telling you? I’ve got to tell someone. I felt a lump in my breast in the shower this morning.’