by Stella Quinn
‘Joshua Preston Cody, bless my heart, it really is you.’
He looked up, met the inquisitive gaze of a tiny little woman wearing a pink and white flowery dress, and groaned inwardly. Trust him to time his outing to run into Mrs LaBrooy, who was the undisputed Hanrahan gossip queen despite the fact she lived a forty-minute drive out of town. She was also one of his favourite people in all the world.
‘Mrs LaBrooy, you’ve not aged a day.’
She let him kiss her cheek then held him close while she gave him the once-over. ‘Still charming the ladies, Josh. There were hearts aplenty broken when you left Hanrahan.’
He patted her hand. ‘One of them mine, Mrs LaBrooy. I never forgot you.’
She chuckled. ‘Or my apple pie, I’ll be thinking. You come visit when you’re settled, I know Tom’ll be itching to see you. Bring that sister of yours with you. I miss her since she quit visiting the stables.’
He took a step back when Mrs LaBrooy paused, and zeroed in on her face. ‘Hannah used to visit Ironbark Station? I didn’t know she was looking after the stock horses.’ He certainly hadn’t seen their files. Or, now he thought about it, any plump cheques being deposited from the deep coffers of the Krauss family. He cocked his head. ‘Is there something going on I don’t know about?’
‘Oh, pet, just forget I said that, will you? Tell me about yourself. Where’s that precious little babe of yours?’
Fine. He’d grill Hannah later. If she wanted her junior partner to keep doing the daily coffee run for her, she could tell him what was going on between her and the up-country station where Mrs LaBrooy was housekeeper.
He slid his hand under Mrs LaBrooy’s arm and walked with her down Dandaloo and across the pretty park that formed the town’s centre. ‘Poppy’s no little babe anymore. Fifteen now.’
‘Fifteen? Never say it.’
He grinned. ‘I know, right? Her last birthday clocked over and it was like the gates of hell opened. Sass, eyeliner and obnoxious music all arrived in my life at once.’
She chuckled. ‘Josh Cody, brought to his knees by his teenage daughter. Lordy me, how happy am I to see this day. And … um …’
Here it comes, he thought.
‘And Beth?’
‘Poppy’s mother’s doing fine. She’s married to an architect, and they have twin sons that just started school. She’s even back teaching.’
‘Really? Teaching high school students? I would have thought that—’
He stopped her right there. ‘Beth is my very good friend, Mrs LaBrooy. No-one criticises her in my hearing, is that clear?’ He kissed her on her plump, vanilla-scented cheek. ‘Not even dear old friends who’ve promised to bake me apple pie.’
She turned watery eyes on him. ‘Josh, my love. You are so right. Accept the apologies of a foolish old busybody, won’t you?’
He tucked her hand back under his arm. ‘It’s forgotten. I’m just on my way to get coffee. How about you take pity on a lonely thirty-something bachelor and join me?’
She giggled. ‘Like a breakfast date?’
He laughed. ‘Like I even remember what a date is. So, you’re the expert. Where do we go to get the best coffee in town at this time of the day? Last time I was here, I was more of a chocolate milk from the servo kind of guy.’
Mrs LaBrooy gave his arm a squeeze. ‘I know just the place. Remember the old bank building?’
He looked over at the lake end of the park, to the corner of Paterson and Curlew. ‘Sure. Mr Pidgin, wasn’t that the bank manager’s name? Always wore a bow tie.’
‘Fancy you remembering that.’
Josh ambled beside Mrs LaBrooy through the roses growing in their neat beds of mulch, past the pale marble cenotaph. There was Cody history there, too: Preston Wilfred Cody, his grandfather’s uncle, lost to the Great War on the other side of the world when he wasn’t much older than Poppy was now.
‘I never forgot Hanrahan, Mrs L.’
‘You must notice some changes, though.’
He smiled. ‘Well, sure. The tourists, for a start. Who knew the place could be so busy either side of the ski season? There’s always a bus or two parked along the road out to the Alpine Way, and people snapping photos of the ducks down along the Esplanade.’
‘Have you seen the new development down on the southern outskirts of town? Fifty houses, I heard. City people buying them up as weekenders. House prices have skyrocketed too.’
‘I haven’t driven down that way,’ he murmured, his eyes on the distant ranges. This northern arm of Lake Bogong was narrow enough for him to see the grass plains on the far side of the lake, the stands of eucalypt hunched together like old men around a campfire. And above them, stark and rugged, the towering peaks of the Snowy Mountains. Snow still shone white in crevices and crags, and some huge raptor—a wedge-tailed eagle, perhaps—soared serenely from peak to peak. No-one who’d grown up here could have forgotten these mountains. This view.
‘Here we are,’ said Mrs LaBrooy, squeezing his arm. ‘The Billy Button Café. The new owner used to be a big-city journalist. She’s having herself one of those tree changes, I expect.’
Trust Mrs LaBrooy to have all the inside goss; this town didn’t need a community section in its newspaper.
The café stood on the end of a row of terraced Federation-style buildings, with tall windows and deep stone windowsills. Aged red brick that had seen a century of summers gleamed behind the wrought iron of the upper storey’s railings. The terraces looked like the shorter, younger siblings of the Victorian stone buildings on the opposite side of the park where the clinic was. Hanrahan had the gold rush to thank for the money that had been spent on the town’s infrastructure in the late 1800s … and fate to thank for being high enough to escape the flood when the Snowy River was dammed nearly a century later. He should take some photos, perhaps visit the local Historical Society museum; make sure the renovation plans he had for the Cody building were sympathetic to the era.
As they pushed open the heavy timber and glass door, Mrs LaBrooy leaned in to him.
‘You’re going to want to try the sourdough butterscotch donuts,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how the new owner dreamed them up, because they’re not like any donut I ever saw. Like a sugared ball, with a dimple, and that dimple just oozing with sticky sweet goodness. Tom brought some home with him the other day. Are you listening to me, Josh Cody?’
But Josh wasn’t listening. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if his ears still worked. His thoughts had scattered, too, details of architraves and Federation fretwork and gyprock driven out by the vision splendid before him.
‘Mrs LaBrooy, who is that?’
‘Who is who? Oh. That’s the new owner. Vera, she calls herself. Moved up here from Canberra, I think. Took up the lease on this place and had it all kitted out like an olden-day film set in no time at all. She’s a worker, and boy, can she bake.’
Boy, could she catch the eye. His eye, that was for sure. Her face was pale, like an antique cameo, and he rather thought her eyes might be grey. She was lean—almost too thin—like an athlete who’d run herself too hard for a season, and her hair was a deep, chestnut brown.
As she turned, her eyes met his, just briefly, for one long breathless pause of looking, before she returned her attention to her neat, neat rows of cake.
‘Good morning, welcome to The Billy Button Café. Would you like a table?’
Josh dragged his eyes off the woman placing food in the glass-fronted cabinet and settled them on the waiter by their side.
‘Umm,’ he said.
Mrs LaBrooy answered for him. ‘A table for two. This handsome young man’s invited me out on a date.’
The waiter grinned. ‘In that case,’ he said with a flourish of the white napkin in his hand, ‘allow me to place you at our honeymoon table in the window. I’m Graeme. I’m the café manager.’
Whipping two menus from his catering apron as though he was performing a magic trick, he set them down on the starched tablecloth
and whisked away a fallen petal from the table’s vase of flowers. He held Mrs Labrooy’s chair for her while she took a seat. ‘I’ll give you a minute to choose what you’d—’
‘We’re having the donuts,’ said Mrs LaBrooy. ‘And a latte for me, young man.’
‘Well, aren’t you a lamb. It’s been a decade or two since anyone called me a young man. You come back again. Something for you, mate?’
Josh craned his head past the waiter, but the dark-haired woman had disappeared through swinging doors into what he presumed was a kitchen.
‘Coffee? Tea? Table water?’
He felt the not-so-subtle point of Mrs LaBrooy’s shoe jabbing him in the ankle and snapped his attention back to the waiter. ‘I’ll have the same.’
‘Lattes and donuts coming up, Dr Cody.’
Josh tilted his head, took the time to look properly at the man serving them. Somewhere between his age and Mrs LaBrooy’s, who had to be pushing seventy if she was a day. Fit, tanned, bald, neat. ‘Do I know you?’ Maybe the bald head was throwing him—he’d been gone for sixteen years, after all; a lot could happen to a guy’s hairline in that time.
‘Graeme Sharpe,’ said the waiter, holding out his hand to shake Josh’s. ‘I’ve lived here in the district about a year. We’ve not met before, I just read your name tag: DR CODY, VETERINARIAN.’
Josh touched the badge buttoned to his work shirt. ‘Call me Josh,’ he said, shaking the manager’s hand. ‘And this is Mrs LaBrooy, housekeeper out at the Ironbark Station. She’s also the town flirt, so guard your heart, Graeme. She’s left a string of broken men from here to the coast.’
Mrs LaBrooy batted his arm, clearly enjoying the attention.
‘You can flirt with me any day, love, I promise. I’ll have those coffees and donuts with you in a tick,’ said Graeme.
Half an hour later, as Josh wandered back into the vet clinic to see his first scheduled appointment for the day, he was still thinking about the dark-haired woman behind the counter. Mrs LaBrooy hadn’t overstated the case about the new café owner’s baking skills—he should have brought a batch of those sugary donuts back to the clinic for later—but it was the woman’s face that had stayed with him. Not grey, but green, he thought. Her eyes had been the quiet green of alpine grass.
Too bad he didn’t have time for romance. He’d have liked those eyes to rest on him a while longer.
He let himself in the door and there was his sister, hands on her hips, looking like a patient had just sprayed a hefty dose of cat pee on her top lip.
‘Well?’
He frowned. ‘Well what?’
‘Where the hell’s my coffee, Joshua Cody?’
Crap. And he’d forgotten to deliver the lost dog notices.
CHAPTER
5
‘Hot vet alert.’
Vera was running a wire cutter through a plum and crème anglaise tart when Graeme sauntered behind her.
‘Second visit today. But is it for the cakes or the cake baker?’ he murmured.
She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know her café manager was waggling his eyebrows and doing a little shoulder shimmy. Graeme had missed his calling as a comedian; she’d laughed more this week since they’d opened the doors of The Billy Button Café than she had in months.
‘He’s all yours,’ she said.
‘Not this one, lovely. Had his eyes on you like gum on a shoe this morning.’
Her thumb slipped into the hazelnut crumb, and her eyes shot to the footpath they could see through the café windows. Surely not. Besides, it would be a dark day in hell before she’d be getting involved with a man again. A betrayed, bitter woman with a café business to build up and a prison sentence to face down did not chat up customers.
Not after the last disaster.
Graeme wasn’t wrong about the hot factor, however … even a people-challenged, down-on-her-luck café owner could see that. The man entering her café for the second time that day was hotter than her new six-burner commercial stovetop.
The vet was tanned and outdoorsy looking, as though he spent his weekends logging timber with his bare hands, or rock-climbing the famous escarpment on Old Regret. His tan didn’t go at all with his close-cropped hair, though. The trim style made her think of the big-city lawyers who’d spent the last year screwing her out of virtually every dollar she’d saved, and most of her dignity.
‘I’m the kitchen person; you’re the people person, Graeme. That’s why we make an awesome team. I’d rather peel potatoes than do the meet and greets.’
‘Vera. If you want The Billy Button to be a success, you’re going to have to play nice every now and then.’
Graeme was right, damn it. She lived in Hanrahan now, and this wasn’t the outskirts of Canberra, where residents and tourists outnumbered coffee shops a zillion to one. Her café would need regulars to thrive during the off-season, which meant she needed to stop hiding behind her pots and pans and engage with people. Gritting her teeth, she kept her place behind the counter. She could do this.
‘Hi,’ he said.
She worked up a smile and hoped it looked genuine. ‘Hi. I’m Vera. Would you like a table?’
‘No, thanks.’ He grinned, and she felt a little dizzy by the onslaught of all that handsome smileyness being directed straight at her. He was older than she’d first thought. Friendly eyes the colour of chocolate sauce, lashes the same hazelnut blond as his hair.
‘I’m Josh Cody, from the vet clinic across the park.’ He held his hand out over the counter.
She hesitated. She’d have thought nothing of shaking hands with strangers back when she worked at the newspaper. Executives, stay-at-home parents, small-business owners, sporting celebrities—she’d have shaken their hands, grilled them within an inch of their lives about whatever story she was pursuing, and marched on back to her desk to bash out an article without batting an eyelid.
But that was before.
She huffed out a breath, annoyed with herself. She was overthinking this. She reached out and gripped his hand, then gave it a firm shake. Definitely spent his weekends hefting man tools, she thought. His hand was warm, strong, steady. Like a stone hearth in a homey country cottage.
Her skin clung to his as she drew away, and she realised too late her fingers were covered in powdered sugar and hazelnuts. She really should have stayed in the kitchen. ‘Sorry. Sticky fingers … it’s an occupational hazard.’
He smiled, and her heart did that pit-a-pat thing she’d read about in novels.
‘No problem.’ He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a few sheets of paper. ‘We’ve a lost dog at the clinic. I wondered if we could post a flyer in your window?’
She smoothed the paper out on the counter. A photo of a dog, contact information and phone numbers, and—shouting out loud and clear from the bottom of the flyer—the words Cody and Cody Vet Clinic. Oh, a husband-and-wife team, which was just as well … she had no time to be having hot thoughts about Snowy Mountain vets.
Pull yourself together, Vera, she chided herself. She was exhausted, what with running out of coffee beans on opening day, and having the grease trap in the kitchen blow a fuse, and baking late into the night all week. The drama of the café’s first week in business was clearly playing amuck with her brain function. She’d sold everything she owned and ditched Queanbeyan to work hard, find a new solitary life, and a place of peace and tranquillity for her aunt.
A clean slate.
Sizing up random married guys over cake crumbs and coffee grinds was an absolute no-no.
Taking a breath, she gave him the best customer relations smile she could muster. ‘Sure. I’ll put this straight up.’
‘Appreciate it.’
She pulled some sticky tape out of the cubbyhole beneath the till, and made to walk around the counter, thinking he’d leave, but he perched on a stool and fixed his eyes on hers.
‘How are you settling in?’
‘Er …’ She tried to think of a respon
se. It had been so long since she’d engaged in small talk, she almost blurted out the truth: she was anxious, she wasn’t sleeping, she had to check her bank balance before every five-dollar purchase to make sure she didn’t go into the red. ‘So far so good,’ she managed. ‘This late September weather is a little chillier than I’m used to.’
‘Yeah? Where did you move from?’
She swallowed, and wondered if she should edge past him towards the front window to bring this conversation to an end. The less anyone knew about where she was from, the better. ‘The coast,’ she said, waving her hand towards the front door as though that was an adequate answer.
‘I just moved back myself.’
Yep, she was going to make a break for it to the window. She waggled the flyer in the air. ‘That dog’s owner could walk past any minute now. I’d better, um—’
His eyes crinkled in a way which ought to be banned for married guys, because now she was so flustered she’d dropped the sticky tape. She reached down for it but the chatty vet beat her to it. He dropped it into her hand, and she scooted past him to the window before he noticed the colour she could feel heating her cheeks.
He stopped in the café doorway as he headed back out into the sunlight. ‘Welcome to Hanrahan, Vera. I’ll see you around.’
‘Sure,’ she lied brightly, mindful of Graeme’s instruction to play nice, while making a mental note to keep a wide distance between her and all the distracting vets in the district. ‘See you.’
Vera successfully resisted the urge to watch Josh Cody disappear up Paterson Street.
‘You see?’ she said to the cloth she’d pulled out of her apron to polish the pane of glass beside the front door. ‘This is how you stick to your goals. Discipline, hard work and averted eyes.’
She pushed the vet out of her thoughts as she fussed about with the flyer, wondering what the optimum height was so as to not interrupt her customers’ view out. A noticeboard would be better for community flyers—something timber and ornate, maybe in the alcove on the side wall by the fireplace—with a bookshelf below it. A fern in a copper pot above the books would match the copper light fittings, and perhaps she could source some vintage photos of the historical buildings lining Hanrahan’s pretty park … create a fireside nook to encourage customers to linger.