No Place Like You

by Marnie St Clair

  ‘Yes, and the more I learn, the more I feel this idea really has a shot. The books are great, but maybe I could run my plans by you some time? I’d really appreciate some real-world advice.’

  ‘Sure.’ His hands clenched the steering wheel. The only advice he’d be giving her was that there was no way it could happen. Not at Mirabook.

  He had to tell her. Now. Right this instant.

  ‘Lily …’

  But she gripped his arm in excitement, pointed out the window towards a hump of branches a couple of hundred metres away. ‘Over there! Those ones are perfect! This is going to be so good.’

  Was he really going to tell her about it right now? While they were out collecting branches for the ball she was so enthusiastic about? What he had to tell her would ruin all her enjoyment in the event. After all the work she’d done, that didn’t seem fair. Especially considering that telling her wasn’t going to change the end result—knowing about the debt wouldn’t help her hold on to Mirabook.

  He should stick to Plan A. Wait until after the ball.

  He pulled up next to the clump Lily had indicated. Leaping out, she circled the pile of branches. Josh had no idea what she was looking for, so he got out and leaned back against the car and waited. He smiled as he watched her, crouching and twisting to examine them from all angles.

  ‘This one!’ she said, after a minute, pointing to a big branch in the middle of the pile. ‘Can we get it into the tray?’

  He walked forward to take a look. ‘Yeah, easy.’ He pulled down the back of the tray, then came back to the pile to shift the other ones off it. ‘Okay, I’m about to lift. Move back a bit.’

  ‘I’ll help.’

  ‘I’ve got it.’

  She headed towards the smaller end of the branch, bent over and wrapped her hands around it. ‘You don’t have to do everything by yourself, you know.’

  Why’d he get the feeling she was talking about more than just branches? He shot her a quick smile. ‘Okay. On three then.’

  ‘I cut you off before. Were you going to say something?’ she asked as they walked with it between them.

  ‘No,’ he replied, laying the branch down in the tray. ‘Anything else from here?’

  She looked at him hard for a moment, then ran her hands over her hair and gave the pile in front of them a quick look-over. ‘No, that’s it.’

  They climbed back into the vehicle and drove towards the next promising pile.

  ‘Now maybe?’ she asked out of the blue.

  ‘Now maybe what?’

  ‘Now maybe we could talk about the business?’

  ‘No time like the present,’ he responded dryly. It just wasn’t going away, was it? Maybe this was his punishment. Maybe he deserved the torture of listening to her discuss her dreams, all the while knowing he was going to be the one to crush them.

  ‘I’ve got so many ideas. There are so many things I want to do, so many things I want Mirabook to be.’

  She talked as he drove, hands moving rapidly as she outlined her ideas. How she’d already checked out the competition and there was nothing similar in the region. How she’d done some basic sums and estimated she’d hit break-even point in two years. How she planned to promote as many local businesses and employ as many locals as possible, from photographers to musicians to florists. Her plans to develop the property, potentially converting the stables and barn into accommodation. How she wanted to open the gardens to the public for picnics and parties. Design areas especially for kids to play in. Fairy dells and a maze.

  It was hard not to be impressed.

  ‘I want Mirabook to be part of Yarrow, and vice versa,’ she finished as they pulled up alongside the new pile. ‘They should be part of each other.’

  She was right, and that’s how it used to be. The estate and the town had developed together—totally dependent on each other, histories intertwined.

  ‘I don’t want it to be like it used to be, when Mirabook was Mum’s.’ A pause. Like she was sad. She probably was. ‘Maybe you think all of that is stupid,’ she added quietly.

  He didn’t. In fact, it was exactly how he felt. Mirabook should belong to someone who was part of the community, and be run for the benefit of the community. It was his justification for wanting to own it for himself. ‘You’ve put a lot of thought into it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was looking at him, waiting for a decent response. If he was honest with himself, he was a little blown away. Her plans went way beyond his wildest dreams. He’d intended to return the place to a working sheep station. She wanted to convert it to some kind of Garden of Eden.

  He’d always thought that by claiming Mirabook from Lily’s family, he’d be doing everyone in town a favour. But based on what he’d just heard, there was no conflict between Lily and Yarrow. In fact, quite the opposite.

  Lily should keep Mirabook.

  A simple thought, but stunning in its implications. Because where did it leave him, his own goals and the debt situation he’d created to reach them? And where did it leave the two of them?

  ‘You’re staying.’ It wasn’t really a question or a statement, just the words at the top of his head.

  ‘Yes,’ she said after a moment. ‘I am staying.’

  Her words came out confused, and Josh wasn’t surprised since as far as she was concerned, they’d covered that weeks ago. But for him … This was the first time her staying for good had actually felt real. In his head, it’d always only been the month. Maximum.

  I am staying.

  Another deceptively simple statement.

  Uncomfortable, he hopped out of the car. ‘Which one?’ he asked as she joined him, still looking at him searchingly.

  She diverted her gaze long enough to consider and choose a particularly large branch, then it returned, no less intense than before.

  ‘That one’s going to need the chainsaw.’ He turned away to retrieve the small electric chainsaw from the tray.

  ‘Since when have you thought I’m not staying?’ she pressed, following him.

  Since forever. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do. He stood before her, chainsaw dangling from his hands, and just looked at her.

  ‘Don’t you want me to?’ she added eventually.

  Did he? He’d never thought of this as long term. Did they really have a shot at some normal kind of relationship? Hadn’t he just decided he was aiming for marriage and children, with some woman he had yet to meet? This nameless, faceless female who he knew nothing about, except that she was everything Lily wasn’t. Conservative, country and prosaic.

  His first reaction was repulsion. No offence, but he didn’t want her, whoever she was.

  He just wanted Lily. Always had, always would.

  What was he, crazy? He didn’t want Lily to go. Why didn’t he just tell her that?

  But he’d taken too long. His hesitation, his uncertainty, had already hurt her. She marched over to a stand of young gums, started stripping off young, round-leaved branches with angry efficiency.

  He wasn’t deliberately jerking her around—these were uncharted waters for him just as much as they were for her. His previous romantic life, such as it was, had consisted of a series of one-night stands. This thing he had going on with Lily was already the longest, most involved relationship he’d ever been in.

  So what, fool? Think.

  He put on the protective eyewear, started the chainsaw, and got to work on the branch.

  If he didn’t want her to go, if she should keep Mirabook, could he work out some way for her to stay? There were two issues here. Two quite distinct issues. He needed to separate them and deal with them individually.

  One was Lily.

  One was Mirabook.

  Problem was, they were so deeply intertwined, he didn’t know where one started and the other ended.

  What if he tried to find a way for her to stay at Mirabook? His partners were reasonable guys, he could talk options with them. Maybe they’d be open
to restructuring the loan. Or maybe Lily could rent Mirabook from them, continue to use it as her home and place of business. He discarded that idea immediately—too expensive for a start-up. Okay, so what about a debt-equity swap? Maybe they’d consider taking a stake in her business.

  If they couldn’t work something out, if losing Mirabook was inevitable, would she stay anyway? But what would she do without it? All her plans hinged around that beautiful house.

  Would she move in with him? Did he want her to? Maybe she wouldn’t even be talking to him, knowing the part he’d played in her losing her home. It was going to come out some time, and he had no idea how she’d react. He’d never felt that he’d done anything wrong before. Elisabeth was letting the property go. It was devastating to watch all his dad’s hard work decaying through neglect. All he and his partners had done was loan her money. Whether Lily would see it like that was another matter. Would he, if the shoe was on the other foot?

  So many questions. So many unknowns. And they’d all be answered, sooner rather than later. In the meantime, he’d hurt her again.

  He put the chainsaw back in the ute, and looked at her slim, stiff back for a minute, braided hair tumbling down her chambray shirt.

  He knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to her, pull her into his arms, tell her she was amazing, and her plans were amazing, and he wanted her to stay. He wanted to tell her the truth. That he’d been angry with her, bone-deep, soul-deep angry. And he’d made a mistake. He’d set something in motion that he no longer wanted to see come to fruition. But that he’d fixed it, made it all okay again.

  But he couldn’t do that, because he hadn’t fixed it. Not yet.

  He’d call his partners tonight. See if he could stop this thing he’d started.

  If someone had told him a month ago that in a matter of weeks, he’d be deeply involved with Lily and actively trying to find ways for her to keep Mirabook, when it was right there within his grasp, he would have fallen over laughing.

  Ten years of planning and plotting, undone in under a month.

  He walked over to where Lily now held a massive armful of young eucalyptus branches. She didn’t acknowledge his presence as he joined her. He didn’t really blame her.

  He couldn’t give her much, not yet, but he could do better than this. ‘Lily,’ he said quietly, waiting until she looked at him. ‘I want you to stay.’

  She gave him a half smile. Better, but not totally forgiven.

  It’d have to do for now. Maybe tomorrow, things’d be different. Until he’d sorted this mess out, he didn’t have anything to offer her.

  Chapter 15

  ‘This one?’

  Lily held the green silk dress up against herself, and tried not to think about how much side-boob would be on display if she wore it. It was her mother’s, left in the closet ten years ago. Luckily, or unluckily, they had the same build.

  She hadn’t even thought about what she’d wear on Saturday night until Saxon had brought it up. Despite the It-girl write-ups she’d attracted from time to time in Sydney social media, she’d never much been one for partying and she didn’t own many formal clothes. Frankly, she preferred dressing for comfort. Maybe it went with having such a hands-on job. But Saxon had pointed out that since she was the hostess, she had a special obligation to look good at the ball, and she couldn’t really argue with that. So they were scouring the closets for options.

  ‘Not bad. A little too J-Lo circa the new millennium for my liking. I think we can do better.’

  ‘Not from this closet. We’ve seen everything.’ She sighed. ‘Maybe I need to go shopping.’

  ‘Me too. I didn’t pack a tux.’

  ‘No one’s going to be wearing a tux!’

  She got a mental image of Josh in a tux and almost swooned. He was handsome enough in jeans and a T-shirt, she wasn’t sure she could handle how he’d look in a tux. Although, she contemplated, returning the dress to the wardrobe, could anything really top naked?

  ‘Okay, so maybe not a tux, but I didn’t bring anything nice,’ Saxon continued. ‘Do you think we can squeeze a trip to Sydney in?’

  She sat beside him on the bed in her mum’s old bedroom. With everything they had going on this week, a trip to Sydney would be pushing it. But then, she’d have nothing to wear to the ball either. ‘Maybe. If we work like demons over the next few days.’

  ‘Fine with me. Except for tomorrow night.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she smiled. ‘The big date.’

  He grinned, green eyes sparkling with the special light she’d notice appeared when Katie was mentioned. ‘As much as I love you, and as much as I want Mirabook to look resplendent, I have my priorities. I’m sure you won’t be able to help working hard enough for the both of us. Let’s do jewellery.’

  ‘Good idea.’ She retrieved the box from her mum’s dresser. She held up an opal brooch, and Saxon made a face. Not that one, then.

  ‘You know, Josh told me today that when you first arrived, he all but accused you of not knowing what real work was.’

  She remembered.

  ‘I think he now realises how wrong he was,’ he added.

  ‘Yeah?’ she questioned. Good. That was progress. Then she felt a little depressed as she realised how much that simple statement meant to her. Why did she have to rely on a third party—even if Saxon was her best friend—to provide validation for her relationship with Josh?

  ‘When we got to the hundredth hay bale, a sentence linking the words Lily, maniac and slave driver might have come out of his mouth.’

  Maniac slave driver. Yep, that sounded about right. The four of them—she, Josh, Saxon and Katie—had had another big weekend of work. She’d feel guilty about asking for so much of their time if it wasn’t obvious that Saxon and Katie wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world. The work just gave them an excuse to moon about making eyes at each other.

  And finally, the ‘done’ list was starting to outsize the ‘to-do’ list. It still looked like a total shambles, but things were heading in the right direction. The verandahs had been scrubbed, sanded and varnished, the branches had been attached to the walls of the ballroom, and the decade-old hay bales, too old to make good feed according to Josh, had been brought in from the barn, ready to assemble into tables and seating.

  ‘If everything goes smoothly at the dress rehearsal, maybe we can take Friday off. Maureen said to take time if I needed it,’ she said, rummaging around, and pulling out an industrial looking brass chain necklace. ‘Do you think I could find something to go with this?’

  Another face from Saxon, and he pulled the box over to sort through the jewellery himself.

  She hadn’t wanted to take any time off, because this was her last week working at the café. Her four weeks were up, and Kelly’s sister would be available from Monday. It was time—she had her own plans to pursue—but she was going to miss it.

  Still, maybe it was better to plan on having Friday off. If everything went well at the dress rehearsal, she and Saxon could hit the boutiques in Sydney. If not … well, given that the ball was on Saturday night, if something wasn’t working by Thursday evening, she’d need Friday to fix it, wouldn’t she?

  ‘Friday it is,’ confirmed Saxon. ‘Not that it will help me tomorrow night. I want to dress to impress, but I haven’t got anything decent to wear here.’

  Oh. That was so sweet. Katie was one lucky girl. ‘I’m sure she’ll be impressed no matter what you wear.’

  She would be too. Katie was so sweet on Saxon, it was almost sickening. And the feeling was mutual. Double-sickening.

  ‘Hey, why do you look so sad all of a sudden?’ he asked.

  Did she? Oops. She wasn’t sad exactly, and she didn’t begrudge her friend his happiness, it was just that he was so excited about seeing Katie, and going on romantic dates was what couples did. She and Josh hadn’t had anything even approaching a date.

  ‘I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess it has something to do with Josh,’ he
said, holding up some earrings with some kind of green stone pasted in.

  She shook her head, and groaned. ‘Sax, please don’t start again.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’ An uncharacteristically long pause from her verbacious friend. ‘I hate to admit it, but I’m warming to the guy. Just a little.’

  He and Josh had spent a fair amount of time together over the past two weekends. ‘Really?’ she questioned, relieved.

  ‘Really. He might be all right. I’m still watching him, but he might be all right. So, I’m sorry I was so down on you guys before. You can talk to me about it now, and I’ll listen like a good friend. Really.’

  ‘There’s no problem really. I mean, everything’s good. Like, really good …’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘I’m going to assume you’re talking sex, and since you’re almost a sister to me, we’re going to agree that it’s a good thing it’s good and move past it really quickly. Unless that’s what you want to discuss?’

  He looked so pained, she had to laugh.

  ‘No, that’s not it.’ The smile dropped from her lips as she tried to put into words what the problem was. She sighed, gathering her thoughts. ‘When you were just talking about going on a date with Katie … Well, Josh and I haven’t been on a date, and I can’t imagine him being excited about taking me out, deciding what to wear, and all that.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m textbook yummy.’

  ‘You’re … what?’

  ‘Young urban male, into clothes, hair product and labels. Like an updated metrosexual. I read about myself in the paper the other day. Anyway, point is, Josh is the stoic, rugged farmer type. Of course he’s not going to give a moment’s thought to clothes. Except yours, by the way.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He might have mentioned how much he liked your overalls.’

  Just how close were Josh and Saxon getting? She shook her head. Something to think about at another time. ‘It’s not about clothes, Saxon,’ she said, and couldn’t help the sigh which escaped.

  ‘That bad?’ he queried.

  ‘It’s just … We never talk about us. I have no idea what he’s thinking or feeling, or where he thinks we’re heading. Apparently, up until a couple of days ago, he didn’t even believe I was staying.’