Serena sat at a corner booth in the Ace in the Hole, sipping red wine. A schooner of beer sat on the table, waiting for Paul when he joined her. She looked up as he slipped into the seat opposite, picked up his glass and touched it to hers.
‘Here’s cheers.’
‘Cheers. Although a pub meal two nights in a row seems extravagant.’
‘It might be if your landlady hadn’t dashed off to visit her sister in hospital. What was it? A broken hip?’
‘Yes. Still, I could have made toast at Trish’s place.’ And planned her approach to begin her search. The drama unfolding around her had pushed it into the background, but tomorrow, she would make a proper start.
Maybe tonight.
She considered the older men at the bar and wondered.
‘You’d deprive me of chowing down on the best steak in the west?’
Paul’s comment brought her back to the present. She hadn’t decided if she was ready to tell him about the search for her father. His actions towards young Emily had made her reconsider. There were hidden depths beneath Paul’s charming exterior, but was it fair on him to bring serious stuff into a night out?
She opted for pleasure over business. ‘I’d never come between a man and his steak. Or his beer.’
Paul chuckled and swallowed a mouthful. ‘Herbie said Warren Leadbeater is at a meeting. Knowing Wazza, he’ll stop by the pub for a debriefing when it’s finished. I should be able to catch him then.’
‘That’s what you call a trip to the pub, is it—a debriefing?’ She laughed and ran her finger around the rim of her glass, but her gaze was drawn back to the drinkers at the bar. ‘I guess he knows all the workers at the mill?’
‘For sure. Warren can be blunt to the point of rudeness, but he cares about the people he represents.’
‘They need somebody looking after their interests.’
There was a good chance her father worked at the mill, and the idea of him losing his job because it closed made her angry. Maybe Hayden was right—maybe confronting the mill owner and demanding answers was the way to go. Leaving aside Paul, would the union rep be a better person to ask for help finding her father? When Warren showed up, she’d introduce herself and her search. ‘I’m glad I decided to visit Mindalby rather than chat online with you.’
‘So am I. Just curious, but what do those last two statements have to do with each other?’
Serena’s heart leapt in her chest. She frowned; now that Paul had asked, maybe it was the right time to tell him her other reason for being in town.
‘Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you came. I only meant Mindalby is a long way to drive from Sydney for a meeting.’
Serena wrapped both hands around the bowl of her wine glass and smiled at him. ‘You’re right; it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Talking to you online would have been more convenient. And quicker and cheaper.’
She sipped her wine, came to a decision and set the glass down. ‘Coming here was only partly about the cotton festival. The offer to design for the show was purely coincidental, but what pushed me to make the trip in person—’
A raucous laugh and some heavy-duty table thumping at the next table interrupted her explanation.
Three middle-aged mill workers stared into half-drunk beers. Lifting her glass again, she peered over the rim and tried to see if one of them had green eyes. Was there a faint resemblance to her in the nose of the nearest man? Was the one with an unusual whorl in his ear her father?
Trying to imagine what she would say when she met her father for the first time, she turned back to Paul. ‘It must be difficult to get work when you’re over fifty and your job suddenly disappears.’
‘You mean because of their age?’
‘Yes.’
‘They’ll find it tough, poor buggers.’
She nodded. Paul had confirmed her fears. She was riding a crazy emotional rollercoaster—excited about finally connecting with her father, angry at what might be happening to him. Her stomach clenched, and she blinked away moisture from her eyes and sniffed.
Even if she found him, there was any number of reasons her father wouldn’t welcome the appearance of an unknown daughter. Would he feel angry he hadn’t known about her, or be overjoyed to finally learn of her existence? And meeting her, would he feel ashamed of his unemployed status?
Regardless of the reception she received, she wanted—maybe needed—to know the man whose DNA she carried.
But it wasn’t like she could waltz up to someone and ask if he’d had a one-night stand at Byron Bay twenty-seven years ago. Paul was her best chance.
‘Penny for your thoughts. What’s got you checking out the men here? Should I be jealous?’
A chair scraped along the wooden floor as the stocky man at the neighbouring table stood and gathered the empty glasses from his mates. Serena followed his passage to the bar before meeting Paul’s dark brown gaze.
‘I was thinking—I turned twenty-six at the end of January and I don’t know how I’d handle what’s happening here.’
‘I was twenty-eight on the thirtieth of January.’
Diverted by the small coincidence, she smiled. ‘Snap. Same day, but two years apart.’ Rolling the stem of her wine glass between her fingers, she sought a way to begin telling Paul. What was the beginning of her story?
The end of her mother’s innocence?
‘For most of my life, for every one of my twenty-six years, I’ve been missing something—someone—’ Paul had both parents and a brother. How could he begin to understand the depth of her longing to know her father?
She reached over and touched his hand where it rested on the table beside his glass. His skin was warm, much warmer than hers. He turned his hand and held hers, and a slow burn began low down in her belly. There was something about Paul that attracted her in spite of her determination to avoid the Max-type extrovert.
Squeezing her thighs together she pressed her feet into the floor before she did something silly. Like slide in beside him and press her lips to his in front of half the town. That would set tongues wagging.
‘Emily was right, you know. You’re a good man, Paul.’
Before Paul could reply, a shadow fell across their joined hands as someone stopped beside the table. Slowly she lifted her head as an all too familiar voice interrupted them.
‘Serena, what are you doing here?’