‘Yeah, Ellie promised me they were pretty fired up about the whole thing. Have you met her yet?’
Nick sidestepped the question. ‘I’ve only had time to grab a quick beer.’
‘She’s over with Mavis and Ron.’ Alex pointed at the bar where a big bear of a man had his arm round Ellie. ‘Mavis runs the Bowling Club pretty much single-handedly and Ron used to be the mayor before they had an electoral redistribution. Nice old couple who keep an eye on Ellie. I’ll introduce you.’ He set off without looking to see if Nick was following him.
With gritted teeth, Nick trailed along behind him. This was not what he had in mind for today. He’d planned to stay out of trouble at the back of the meeting and just gather some more intelligence. Now he was going to have to deal with Ellie in public.
Ellie wrinkled her nose at Alex who tucked a wayward blond curl behind her ear as he leant in for a kiss.
‘Hey, my friend, glad you could make it. Good drive up?’
Nicholas felt his smile brighten as Ellie angled her head just a touch, leaving Alex with her cheek rather than her lips. He also saw the flare of alarm in Ellie’s navy blue eyes as her gaze connected with his.
‘Yep, took just under five hours. Turnout’s fantastic.’
‘Thanks. They’re amazing people.’ She turned her shoulder, effectively blocking Nicholas from the conversation, but pitching her voice to reach him, he guessed. ‘I just hope we can make a difference. We do understand the developer claims to have bought the land from the council thinking it was a legitimate deal, but it wasn’t.’
She touched Alex’s shoulder for emphasis. ‘Did you check out the land when you came in? It’s a beautiful spot.’
Alex nodded, turning to include Nicholas. ‘Yeah I did, and met Nick Lawson, the consulting engineer, working out there. Ellie, meet Nick.’
Nick saw the tension in Ellie’s eyes as she turned to him. ‘Ellie. We have met before. How could I forget you?’ He reached out and she had no option but to shake. He didn’t miss the tremble in her hand.
‘Mr Lawson.’ Her voice had a catch to it.
‘My friends call me Nick.’
‘Well, Mr Lawson, welcome to the Club. Perhaps you’ll be able to explain why your development should go ahead against the community’s wishes.’
His smiled back, amused. ‘Of course, Ellie. I would very much appreciate the chance to put my company’s case. Nothing like an informed debate to clear the air. They’ll get the facts, then, not gossip that’s been gleaned by eavesdropping.’
‘Hey, that’s great. I’ll get both sides for my story,’ interrupted Alex.
Nicholas continued smoothly. ‘Fantastic, we’re all agreed. Lead the way, Ellie.’ He kept the laughter from his face as she stomped away. Bravo. Now he’d made her angry as well as unsettled.
Feeling outmanoeuvred, and still conscious of the sensation of Nick’s hand on hers and the challenging light in his eyes, Ellie swung away fuming, looking for Ron.
‘Mavis? Is Ron ready to go?’
‘Yes, love. He’s just plugging in the microphone.’ Mavis put her fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly. The overflowing room gradually stilled.
‘Er, welcome, folks.’ Ron’s voice boomed through the PA system and the crowd groaned. ‘Sorry about that.’ He moved the microphone back.
‘We’d like to thank you all for coming. We know that on a Friday afternoon you’d normally all be doing something more important than drinking Mavis’s bar dry.’ The crowd chuckled. ‘Now, you all heard the one about the man whose doctor told him he needed to lose weight.’ The crowd started to clap, hooting and laughter drowning out his words. Ron held his hand up in resignation. ‘Okay, okay. Just this once, I’ll skip the bad jokes and hand you straight over to a lifetime member of this community who I’m sure you all know – the lovely Ellie Wilding. Big hand, folks.’ Ron raised the microphone above his head, clapping loudly into it.
Ellie stepped up and waited for the audience to quieten down. ‘Thank you all for coming today. It’s a fantastic turnout. We all knew Mrs Bell. Most of us spent some time sitting on the wrong side of her desk at school and I’m sure a few of you remember her detentions less fondly. But she was a wonderful member of Half Moon Bay, with an amazing sense of community. Watching her legacy turned into a housing estate and an exclusive resort, instead of a community centre, will probably have her coming back to haunt us.’
The crowd laughed, a swell of appreciation. Ellie warmed to the responsive audience, but as her eyes scanned the crowd, her gaze snagged on Nicholas.
He was leaning against a round bar table, a booted foot propped on the rung of a stool, arms folded loosely across his broad chest. The expression in his dark eyes was unfathomable. As much as it pained her to admit it, he had presence.
Undeniable.
His stance, his demeanour, the faint easy smile – all spoke of a man in control, and not just of himself.
The short dark hair and grey suit, taut across his shoulders, heightened the impression of power. She held his gaze in silent challenge, rebelling against the attraction she felt. She framed him in her mind as a subject in a photograph. It worked and she raised her chin and shored up her composure.
‘Many of you donated money to the initial feasibility study that was conducted on the site. Many of you gave your time and expertise to draw up designs for the very best facilities. Others of you have pledged labour and materials to help keep the costs down. I know that every single one of you here today wants this project to get off the ground. We want the original proposal that was agreed upon before the council saw fit to sell the land and line its own pockets.’
The crowd rumbled with subdued anger.
Ellie nodded with them. ‘I know. That’s why it’s so important that we send a clear message to our elected representatives. Remind them all that we voted them in and we can vote them out again. They are supposed to work for the good of this community!’ Her gaze slid past Nicholas again, a pulse in her throat beating. Something had changed in his look, something she couldn’t quite pinpoint, so she hurried on.
‘We only have a couple of weeks to get the planning board’s decision overturned. I’m giving a presentation on Monday at the council chambers. I need any of you who can make it to be there. Voice your opinion. Shake the hand of your divisional councillor and tell them you don’t agree with the decision. If this attempt fails, we’ll have to go to court and that’s going to cost. Ron will talk in a minute about the plan of attack he thinks we should also implement as our first strategy. Before I hand over to him, though, there is someone who’d like to say a few words. Some of you have already met him. He’s done a bit of window shopping in the Bay.’
She smiled, inwardly satisfied with her dig at him for charming most of the women in Half Moon Bay. She saw Felicity’s wry grin. Heads were turning in the crowd looking for the outsider, and subtly a space had opened up around Nicholas and Alex.
‘Actually, I should introduce two men. Firstly, Alex Creighton. Alex is a respected journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald and he’s here to write a story about our community. Big wave, Alex.’ Her friend obligingly raised his hand above his head. ‘It’s been a while since he last visited so make sure you buy him a drink and have a chat, folks. Show him what a committed community we still have here.’ A faint self-mocking cheer undulated through the room.
‘Secondly, the man next to him is Mr Nicholas Lawson, the consulting engineer for the development.’
Some heckling broke out at the back of the room and Ellie held up her hand for silence.
‘Hey, guys, remember we’re country folk and we make all our visitors welcome. Mr Lawson?’ She held out the microphone to him as he threaded his way through the crush.
His hand was warm as he took the microphone. Damn it, she fumed. He’s too smooth and sophisticated to hate.
‘Thanks to the lovely Ellie for that warm introduction. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today. I’ll keep
it simple and get straight to the point. The company I work for bought the land fair and square from the council. We were always upfront with what we planned for the site.’
He looked over the crowd, engaging them, barely needing the microphone. ‘The council at no time indicated any opposition to our plans. The housing blocks will be large. The resort will be an exclusive retreat built to blend in with the foreshore and the line of the sand dunes. Streets will be landscaped and there’ll be plenty of public parks for the residents.’ He held them, mesmerised. ‘All our developments are about communities working together so lastly, but by no means the least, we will be donating one million dollars to build a community centre on a different site.’
There was an audible gasp from the crowd.
‘Yes.’ The expression on his face, as he met Ellie’s stricken eyes, was fathomless.
What sort of deception had the mayor planned now? One million dollars? Drug money? How much did that make the whole deal worth if they could afford that sort of largess? Ellie swallowed, caught off balance by his claims, struggling to comprehend the scale of the operation.
‘Just a minute, young man, I saw the contract of purchase and there was no mention of any donations.’ Ron’s voice quivered with anger. ‘You’re welcome to come here and sell us your dream, but don’t treat us like village idiots.’ In an instant, he’d turned the mood back. ‘This council has sold property that it had no right to sell.’
‘Ron, we and the council have the community’s best interests at heart. Our development will add enormous value to your own property. It will bring a different type of resident to Half Moon Bay, injecting money into the existing businesses. We recognise a community centre is needed, but we think it would be better sited elsewhere, closer to the need.’
His tone was warm and the mood of the crowd was shifting again.
‘Yeah, sure. And we’re supposed to trust the council to do the right thing with one million bucks? It’ll disappear into Lord Mayor O’Sullivan’s retirement fund.’ Ron’s tone stayed hard.
‘We’ll work with them and the community to find the best solution. It’s in our interest to make Half Moon Bay even more attractive than it already is.’ Nicholas shrugged, his hands open wide to the crowd, inviting them to take his side.
‘Hang on a minute.’ Ellie finally found her voice. ‘There was nothing at all in the contract about this. Without having it in writing, that donation is not enforceable and you know it. Even if it was, is it going to provide what this community really needs? Do you care if it does? Do you care what happens to all the little community groups that need somewhere to base themselves? Do you care about Meals on Wheels, the SES, the Red Cross thrift shop? Mrs Bell did, and her wishes have been ignored.’ Her voice crackled with the fire of her opposition.
‘Ms Wilding, you know this area has limited industry, that tourism is the drive behind the economy. You need more avenues of providing income, new ways of securing jobs. That comes with growth.’
‘That’s for the community to decide,’ Ellie retorted. ‘We don’t need some developer, in cahoots with a corrupt council, coming here, imposing his idea of city values on us. This isn’t about house values and money, it’s about lifestyles that nurture people, keep them safe. About building facilities this aging community needs. When was the last time you actually spoke to your neighbours? I bet you don’t even know their names.’ She shook her head in the silence before continuing. ‘Don’t presume to understand this community because you’ve been poking around it for the last few days, doing the background research and smooching up to O’Sullivan.’
Her voice rose. Even without the microphone, her words went clear to the back of the room. ‘You’re here to rip out the maximum value you can from a beautiful piece of land. You’ve no concern where this leads in ten, fifteen or one hundred years. You do not know us, nor do you have our best interests at heart. The crux of the matter is not the design you propose, but the whole concept of selling land bequeathed to the community. You’ve done a deal with a city council that has betrayed its voters and stinks of corruption. That makes you no better than them, so leave now. You’re not welcome here, just go – leave now.’ The last two words were harsh with her anger.
A voice at the back took up her words. ‘Leave now, leave now, leave now.’ In a moment, the crowd had turned hostile, chanting the words.
Nicholas held up his hand for calm, but the room was in full swing now, alcohol fuelling the people’s anger. Ron pushed through the crowd and grabbed the microphone from him.
‘Folks, please, please. Calm down now, we know Ellie’s passionate about this but please, some respect.’ His words were barely heard but a whistle from Mavis cut through the noise.
‘Ladies, gents, it will be last orders if you don’t all shut up right now.’ The elderly matron stood on a chair, hands on her hips and bristling with indignation. ‘Ellie, I think it’s time for Ron to take over now. Take Mr Lawson surfing and argue where you’ll only upset the fish. You know I hate brawls in my club, dear.’
Ellie snorted derisively. ‘I doubt your Mr Lawson knows what to do with a surfboard.’
‘I’m sure you can think of somewhere to shove it for him, love.’ A voice cut through from the back, breaking the mood with laughter.
Ron pacified the crowd further. ‘Right-o, we need people to support Ellie on Monday. We also need more signatures on the petitions to our state and federal politicians . . .’
Ellie wandered outside to the bowling greens, sipping the lemonade Mavis had thrust into her hands. She was angry with herself for losing her temper. Sometimes her dad’s red-haired fiery temperament raised itself at the most inappropriate times.
‘You should have a career as a motivational speaker. That was one hell of a speech.’ His voice was mild, but as she swung towards him the glint of admiration in Nick’s eyes and his wry smile softened the hard planes of his face.
‘Yeah, sorry, it’s such a bitch when people actually care about something,’ she snapped.
‘Admirable, I’d call it. And, for the record, my neighbours are Bill and Jenny, Siobhan and Marion. I can keep going if you like?’
‘Yeah, well, you’d be one of the few in Sydney who do,’ she responded sulkily. ‘Okay, okay. Maybe I’m generalising, but you’re from Sydney and you know what I mean. It’s different here. That’s why we love it. You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me. Just because I work for a Sydney firm doesn’t mean it’s my home. Maybe I can even ride a surfboard.’
She snorted. ‘Yeah, a regular little beach babe aren’t you, Mr Lawson?’ Her chin came up defiantly. ‘There’s only one thing I hate more than corrupt public officials and that’s people who lie to me. Don’t bother.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m being honest when I say I understand where you’re coming from. Maybe I do think community values and honesty in government are important. Maybe, just maybe, we’re really on the same side.’
She frowned. ‘The same side? I think you’ve had one too many beers. Don’t waste your time. Get on with your job, I’ll get on with mine.’
‘Don’t shut me out, Ellie. We can work together.’ The look in his eyes sent a sudden quiver of desire racing down her body. She lowered her lashes in confusion as he continued. ‘Our aims really may not be that divergent. You’re a very persuasive woman.’ His lean hand was gentle on her shoulder as he reached across and touched her.
The heat of his hand arced through her and she shrugged him off. ‘Don’t patronise me. We are not, and never will be, working for the same team. I heard you in the council chambers, or did you forget that? See you at the planning board meeting.’ She turned and walked away, feeling suddenly weary with arguing.
‘Ellie.’ The note of command in his voice stilled her feet before she could stop it happening. She swung towards him, angry with herself for stopping.
‘What?’
‘Bravo.’
She shook her head in disbelief before swinging o
n her heel, his laughter soft in her ears as she wrenched the door open.
As she burst through she almost fell into Alex’s arms. ‘Whoa, steady. That was an impassioned speech. Sure you’re not thinking of running for parliament? You’d be fantastic.’
‘Thanks, Alex. Did you get enough for a story?’
‘Dinner and a glass of wine and I’ll tell you the angle I was thinking of running.’
She felt her spine stiffen. ‘That’d be great. There are things I should be doing, so I’ll pick you up at seven. Where are you staying?’
‘I thought I’d be staying out with you,’ he said quizzically, his tone hurt.
Ellie smacked her hand to her forehead. ‘Oh, sorry. How stupid of me. Of course you can.’ She sighed tiredly. ‘Just follow me out in your car. I’ll throw something together for dinner. I got so caught up in all this I just assumed the paper would pay for you at the pub.’
‘I’m here on private business, not the paper’s.’
She blinked at him. ‘But aren’t you doing a story on us for the SMH?’
‘This trip’s in my own time. It’s not really my area, but if I do a good enough story they’ll pick it up. You know the way it works.’ He draped his arm across her shoulders. ‘Have faith. I’ve never let you down before, have I?’
‘No, you haven’t. You’ve been a good friend.’ As she leant briefly into his side, she found her gaze once more locked with Nicholas Lawson’s darkly amused eyes as he came through the door from the greens. Guilt made her jerk away from Alex.
‘Righto, I’ll just let Ronnie know I’m on my way. Where’s your car parked?’
‘Out the back. It’s the red Porsche.’
‘Porsche?’
‘Hmm, looks good apparently.’ He grinned at her. ‘At least the girls in the office seem to think it does.’
‘Alex, you know only dogs chase cars.’
He laughed at her. ‘Jealous? I didn’t think you had a catty bone in your body.’
‘And you should know me well enough to know expensive cars have never been high on my list of must-haves.’
Half Moon Bay Page 7