Two Weeks 'til Christmas

by Laura Greaves

  Scotty sighed. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately. ‘I gave you my word. I won’t let you down.’

  ‘Mr Decisive,’ she said. ‘Solver of the world’s problems. Don’t forget, Scotty, that you don’t have to cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.’

  ‘That sounds like something straight out of the yoga handbook.’

  Nina arched an eyebrow. ‘Maybe it is, but it doesn’t make it any less true.’ Her tone turned serious. ‘I’m giving you an out. No strings attached. It’s up to you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Scotty said. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  But he knew he wouldn’t call off the wedding. He’d made a promise to Nina and she didn’t deserve to have her life turned upside down because her fiancé had a schoolboy crush he couldn’t get over. Scotty’s word was his bond. He always did what he said he would.

  There was no reason to cancel the wedding anyway. He knew where Claire stood. She didn’t want him. She had been unequivocal about that – he’d just been too hard-headed to see it. In fact, Scotty understood now that Claire had been telling him for years that she could do without his love. It was time he started listening.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get back to our party. People will be wondering where we’ve got to.’

  Nina turned and went back down the path to the beach. Somehow, Scotty managed to put one leaden foot in front of the other and trail after her.

  He followed his wife-to-be back to a celebration for their sham wedding, while the woman he’d always dreamed he would marry was out there somewhere, alone, in the dark.

  The shrill ring of her mobile phone roused Claire from sleep on Thursday morning. She sat up with a start, her head spinning. Her mouth felt as dry as the sand on Bindallarah Beach. But this wasn’t a hangover. She hadn’t had a single drink at Scotty and Nina’s party.

  This was actual sand. She had fallen asleep on the beach and she was covered in it. Claire felt parched and shaky. She figured the salty air had made her dehydrated – that or the hours of violent sobbing she’d enjoyed the night before.

  Without warning, a deluge of gut-wrenching snapshots of the evening crashed into her brain with the force of a rogue wave catching a swimmer unawares. Realising she’d wasted months trying to delude herself that she wasn’t still in love with Scotty, when all he needed to hear was that she was. Learning he’d been ready to give them a second – or was it a third? – chance if only Claire had managed to stop vacillating long enough to make a decision.

  Finally understanding that Scotty would not be coming back to her. Ever.

  Claire fought back a fresh batch of tears as the magnitude of her loss sank in. She had squandered her last chance to have the love of the only man who had ever made her happy – and she hadn’t even known she was doing it.

  Her phone trilled insistently and with trembling fingers Claire retrieved it from her bag. Good old Bindy, she thought as she saw that her wallet and keys were still in there. Searching for her belongings after waking up on a Sydney beach wouldn’t be such a heartening experience, she knew.

  Claire frowned as she saw Jackie’s name flash up on the screen. She had been keeping her friend up to date on the disaster that was her life in Bindallarah via text message, but they hadn’t spoken since Claire had left Sydney nearly two weeks earlier.

  ‘Jackie?’ she said by way of a greeting. ‘What’s up?’

  She expected Jackie to launch into a detailed description of some horse emergency she needed help with. Instead she said, ‘Thirty days.’

  Claire’s brain was still too foggy to say anything more intelligent than ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about your one-and-only’s shotgun wedding,’ Jackie said.

  ‘It’s not a shotgun wedding, Jac. Nina’s not pregnant. I’ve seen her sink half a bottle of rosé in one go.’ It was a catty thing to say, but she couldn’t muster any magnanimity at this hour. She recalled the horrified look that had crossed Nina’s face when Claire had jokingly mentioned her future grandchildren the day they’d gone dress shopping. She was certain no bundles of joy were imminent.

  ‘Maybe not, but something just didn’t sit right with me about it,’ Jackie went on.

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  ‘Right? So I finally got around to doing a little bit of googling.’ Jackie suddenly fell silent.

  ‘And?’ Claire prompted. Her friend was acting like Hercule Poirot laboriously explaining how he’d solved a murder mystery.

  ‘And it turns out you can’t get hitched in New South Wales until you’ve lodged a Notice of Intended Marriage,’ she said triumphantly.

  ‘So? I’m sure Scotty and Nina are on top of the paperwork.’ Claire frowned.

  ‘No,’ Jackie said, and Claire could practically hear her rolling her eyes. ‘You can’t legally get married until thirty days after you lodge that notice. They got engaged on the Friday night of the heat stroke, right?’

  It was seeing Scotty in the flesh after eight long years that made that day significant in Claire’s memory rather than Autumn’s first brush with death, but she replied, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And Scotty didn’t get back to Brindywoopwoop until the Monday after you saw him here in Sydney?’

  ‘Bindallarah.’ Jackie was doing it on purpose now, surely. ‘And yes, that’s right.’

  ‘So even if he and Little Miss Yoga were at the registry to file their form at nine o’clock on the Tuesday morning —’

  Claire could suddenly hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears. ‘They can’t legally marry until . . .’ She squeezed her eyes shut and pictured a calendar in her head. ‘The middle of January.’

  ‘January eighteenth, to be exact,’ Jackie confirmed.

  ‘So . . .’ Claire shook her head, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘So what the hell is this charade you’re subjecting yourself to on Christmas Eve?’ Jackie supplied.

  The words on the tip of Claire’s tongue were a little more colourful, but Jackie had summed up the gist of her feelings.

  ‘Are you sure about this, Jackie?’ she said. ‘There must be some explanation. Are there exceptions to the thirty-day rule?’

  ‘There are,’ she replied, ‘but none of them seem to fit. It’s stuff like work or travel commitments, religious reasons, legal proceedings. I’ll text you a link. Call me back when you’ve read it.’

  Claire promised she would and ended the call. Seconds later, a text message arrived containing a link to the website for the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Claire clicked on it and her internet browser opened automatically. She suddenly felt absurdly grateful for Bindallarah’s decent mobile phone reception. Only a few years ago, she would have had to dash back to Vanessa’s place and fire up her wheezy old desktop computer to try to figure out why the man she inconveniently still loved had lied to her about his wedding date.

  None of it made sense. Why were Scotty and Nina racing to the altar on Christmas Eve if their union couldn’t be legal for another fortnight? Was this what Nina was hinting at when she said it wasn’t her place to tell Claire what was really going on?

  Claire couldn’t imagine any reason they would have been granted an exemption. It was unlikely either of them had to race off to deal with some urgent work-related thing. She couldn’t think of any pressing commitment that would require a veterinarian’s attention over the Christmas period, at least not outside of Bindallarah. And yoga was hardly a deadline-driven occupation.

  Religious reasons were out, too. Scotty was an atheist and, while Nina obviously had a spiritual side, Claire was fairly confident she wasn’t a regular churchgoer. Besides, marrying at Cape Ashe Stud meant they had to have a civil rather than religious ceremony – surely, if she were devout, Nina would have insisted on a church wedding.

  Legal proceedings? Claire had done jury duty years earlier and knew the courts shut down over the Christmas period, so that was out. For a second she wondered whether Scotty or Nina
was about to be sent to prison, but dismissed the idea as crazy just as quickly. At least try to stick within the realms of reality, Thorne.

  Claire kept reading. There was one possibility listed on the website that Jackie hadn’t mentioned: medical reasons. She broke out in a cold sweat.

  She knew who that exemption was for. It was for people who were sick. Really sick. People who weren’t going to make it.

  She dialled Jackie’s number.

  ‘What do you think?’ was her friend’s opening gambit.

  ‘One of them must be terribly ill,’ Claire said, her voice barely a whisper.

  There was a pause. ‘That’s what you’ve come up with?’ Jackie said eventually.

  Claire couldn’t respond. If she tried to speak she knew she would scream.

  As if sensing her turmoil, Jackie huffed out a breath. ‘Claire, get a grip. Nobody’s dying,’ she said.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because if they’d been granted an exemption on that basis they’d be married by now. Those are for people who have hours to live, not weeks.’ Her words were blunt, but there was kindness in her voice. She must have felt Claire’s panic. ‘Trust me. Scotty is a very healthy-looking man. He certainly didn’t look sick to me the other week, and didn’t you say Nina’s some glowing Italian-American supermodel?’

  Jackie was right. Neither Scotty nor Nina appeared to be unwell, and Claire was certain the bush telegraph would have told her otherwise. Illness was almost impossible to hide in a town the size of Bindallarah. The CWA would organise a meal-delivery roster at the first sign of a sniffle.

  Claire stared out to sea as she tried to fit the pieces of the puzzle together in her mind. The overcast conditions of the past few days had blown through and the sky was a deep, cloudless blue. It was shaping up to be a spectacular Bindy Christmas – at least in terms of the weather.

  She felt herself start to relax a little. She needed to take Jackie’s advice and try to maintain some semblance of perspective. It was just so hard to do when she was beginning to doubt whether anything Scotty had told her was the truth.

  ‘What else could it be? None of these exemptions applies,’ she said. ‘So how can they be getting married on Christmas Eve if they only lodged their Notice of Intent nine days ago?’

  ‘That’s exactly my point. They can’t be,’ Jackie replied.

  ‘But that means . . .’

  ‘Yep. The most obvious option is usually the answer. This wedding – or at least this wedding ceremony – is as fake as a three-dollar note.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Alex gave a low whistle as Claire opened the front door on Sunday evening.

  ‘Wow, Thorne,’ he said. ‘You scrub up all right.’

  ‘Is it okay?’ she said, casting a critical eye over her outfit for what must have been the fiftieth time.

  She was wearing another one of Gus’s cast-offs. Gus had taken one look at the random assortment of dresses Claire had thrown into her suitcase two weeks earlier and declared them all hideous. She had to admit her cousin had a point. Claire hadn’t packed anything that was really suitable for a wedding, because she had left Sydney determined there wouldn’t be a wedding. In her head, she had been certain she could convince Scotty that marrying Nina was lunacy.

  How wrong she had been. About everything.

  So now she was wearing the dress Gus had worn to her school formal: a dove-grey gown with cap sleeves, a lace bodice and a flowing chiffon skirt. With the help of a YouTube tutorial, Claire had wrangled her long curls into a fishtail braid, which hung over one shoulder.

  ‘Okay? It’s breathtaking,’ Alex said and Claire felt her cheeks flush. ‘Are you really sure about this “just friends” business? Because I’ve got to be honest, I’m having some distinctly unfriendly thoughts about you right now.’

  She laughed, grateful for Alex’s bawdy humour. Maybe a bit of levity would help alleviate the feeling that she was going to a funeral rather than a wedding.

  ‘You’re looking pretty sharp yourself, Jessop,’ she shot back, mimicking his jovial tone. If he noticed that she’d sidestepped his question, he didn’t say so. He did look great, this time wearing a tailored eggplant-coloured suit. Once again, Claire silently scolded her obstinate heart for refusing to be moved by anyone other than Scotty. ‘Not many men can pull off a purple suit, but you’re working it.’

  ‘Well, you know, it’s Christmas Eve. I figured I could get away with something a little more festive. Shall we?’ Alex cocked his elbow and Claire took it, letting him lead her to the gleaming sports car parked at the kerb.

  ‘Nice wheels,’ she said as she eased herself into the low-slung passenger seat and gathered her flouncy skirts around her. ‘Not much good on dirt roads, though. I’m guessing you won’t be taking over your parents’ farm one of these days?’

  He laughed and started the engine. ‘Nah, that’s more Callum’s scene,’ he said, naming his older brother. ‘I may be a country boy, Claire, but this baby has only ever seen tarmac.’

  They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes as Alex drove out of town and up into the hinterland. The sky above the hills was beginning to turn a dusky-pink colour. It was a beautiful evening for a sunset wedding – even a pretend one.

  ‘So you must know Nina pretty well, being her boss,’ Claire said, affecting what she hoped was a neutral tone.

  She saw Alex cast a sidelong glance in her direction. ‘Yeah, she’s a pretty fantastic woman,’ he replied. ‘I like her a lot.’

  ‘So do I,’ Claire said. She meant it. She thought Nina was great – just not for Scotty. ‘Were you surprised when she and Scotty got engaged so quickly?’

  Alex considered the question. ‘Yes and no,’ he said eventually. ‘I didn’t realise they were that serious, to be honest. I mean, I knew she and Scotty had been out a few times, but I talk to Nina literally every day and she never mentioned marriage.’

  Ha, Claire thought sourly. She knew what it was like to think you knew someone and yet still be totally blindsided by their life choices.

  ‘But then,’ Alex went on, ‘you know what Scotty’s like. Once he makes up his mind about something, that’s it. He’s the most bull-headed bloke I reckon I’ve ever met. All the Shannons are the same. They should raise cows, not horses.’

  Was that true? Claire had never considered Scotty’s intractable nature in the broader context of his family. But thinking about it, she realised Alex had a point. Chris was every bit as determined as his older brother. He’d been a new broom at Cape Ashe Stud – Claire had been blown away by the changes she’d noticed there, all of which Chris had proudly told her he’d made since taking the reins.

  Even the boys’ parents, Mike and Janine, shared the stubborn streak. Scotty loved to recount the tale of how everyone in the district told them they were crazy when they announced they were establishing a horse stud. This is cattle country was the consensus in Bindallarah at the time. You want to breed horses, head six hundred clicks south to the Hunter Valley.

  But the young Shannons wouldn’t be dissuaded and their sons had obviously inherited their tenacity.

  ‘What do you think this wedding is about, Alex?’ Claire said. ‘Is it the real deal?’

  ‘That’s an interesting question,’ he replied, his tone guarded. ‘Don’t you think it is?’

  Claire gazed out of the window at the trees whizzing past. ‘I don’t know what to think any more.’

  Alex didn’t respond. He turned off the road and eased his fancy car into the driveway of Cape Ashe Stud. The flaming bamboo torches that had lit the path to Scotty and Nina’s beach bash on Wednesday night had been recycled – now wrapped in silver tinsel, they led the way past the main house and stables to the large paddock that had been set aside for guest parking.

  Alex found a spot and killed the engine, then hurried to Claire’s side of the car to open her door. She giggled as he extended a hand like he was her butler.

  ‘Such a gentlema
n,’ she said, not bothering to try to hide her surprise. ‘How come you were never like this at school?’ Claire grasped his fingers and tried to appear elegant as she hoisted herself out of the car.

  ‘My motives are purely selfish. Those shoes you’re wearing are totally impractical for walking on grass. I just don’t want you taking me down with you when you fall over, which you definitely will.’

  She elbowed him good-naturedly, not wanting to admit he was on the money. The vertiginous heels Gus had convinced Claire to wear not only mercilessly pinched her feet, they also sank into the grass with every step. She was glad she’d thought to bring a pair of thongs in the car with her at the last minute – there was no way she’d make it through the night in her borrowed shoes.

  It was going to be a long walk to the fairy-lit clearing she could see at the top of a small rise behind the paddock. Claire could see dozens of guests already mingling in the velvet dusk. Just as at the beach party, some wore Christmas hats with their wedding finery. She gasped as she spied Nina among them.

  She knew this was a low-key wedding, but she hadn’t expected to see the bride casually chatting with well-wishers before the ceremony. Wasn’t she supposed to arrive fashionably late and make a grand entrance?

  Though one glance at Nina told Claire she would make a show-stopping entrance no matter when she arrived. She looked incredible in the pale-green gown Claire had helped her pick out. Her hair tumbled down her back in loose waves and a single diamond pendant glittered at her throat.

  Nina looked up and saw Claire and Alex approaching. She waved and even from a distance Claire could see the anxiety in her eyes.

  She looks scared.

  Not nervous. Not like she felt the excited last-minute jitters expected of a woman about to marry the love of her life. This was doubt. This was fear.

  Or was Claire just projecting her own feelings about the wedding onto Nina? It was probably a figment of her imagination – just like so many other things had been lately.

  She felt panic start to claw at her as she scanned the growing crowd for Scotty. If Nina was on meet-and-greet duty, he surely would be too. She wasn’t prepared to see him, to watch him smile and laugh and shake the hands of the people who had come to watch him get married. She had come to watch him get married, because she knew it was the only way to rid herself of the dream of him – to exorcise his ghost once and for all. But she wasn’t ready. Not yet.