What Rosie Found Next (3 page)

The sun shone brilliantly in the cloudless sky, highlighting the magic of spring in early November, and she couldn’t resist parking at the end of the main street to take a look around Magnolia Creek. She walked past a veterinary practice with a lady sitting in the window with a cross-breed dog sitting on her lap. At a guess it was a Cavoodle, but there were so many breeds these days. She carried on past a florist which doubled as a garden centre and then came to a café with hanging baskets out front holding vibrant purply-pink blooms. It reminded her of those whitewashed Greek houses with their splashes of Bougainvillea outside that she’d only ever seen in pictures on the internet or in brochures.

Standing outside the café, she let the sun wash over her as she looked across the road at the white signpost pointing to bike trails, Clover Riding Stables, the lake and Magnolia House. She smiled. Her first job in the Public Relations industry started in two days, and she couldn’t be more excited.

A voice came from the café behind her. ‘We’re open for coffee.’ The voice grew louder and a woman with glossy black hair in looping curls appeared in the doorway and said, ‘We’ve got scones and jam, homemade chutneys.’

The tall, slender woman held out her hand. ‘I’m Bella, Bella Finnegan. My husband and I own the café.’

She shook the woman’s hand. ‘I’m Rosie Stevens. It’s nice to meet you.’

‘I thought it might be you. Jane told me to expect to see you out and about.’

Rosie smiled. She felt a part of the community already.

‘Jane and I go way back,’ explained Bella as she stacked coffee cups from a deserted table and deposited them on the far counter. ‘Well come in,’ she instructed as Rosie hovered in the doorway.

Bella’s laugh was as welcoming as the smell of fresh baking in the café with its eight tables, small counter and cosy ambience. As Bella busied herself behind the counter, Rosie sat at a wooden table covered in a red and white gingham tablecloth topped with a holder stuffed full of serviettes and a small, laminated menu. Moments later a plate crammed with scones, jam and cream was put in front of her.

‘It’s quiet this afternoon so I’ve got time to chat.’ Bella sat opposite Rosie. ‘This is on the house, by the way. Call it a “Welcome to Magnolia Creek”.’

‘Thank you.’ Rosie wasn’t hungry after the eggs, but the scones smelled divine and she politely broke off a piece and spooned on some jam, then a dollop of cream.

‘They’re my speciality.’ Bella winked. ‘And getting you to sample them today is my little ploy to make sure you keep coming back for more.’

Rosie liked how honest Bella was, and she liked her cooking just as much, devouring the scones despite a lack of appetite as they chatted about Magnolia Creek and what it was like to grow up here.

‘How do you know the Harrisons?’ Rosie asked.

‘We’ve known each other a long time now. Years ago, I was out on a hen night wearing crazy shoes—’ she eyed her sensible lace ups ‘—seven-inch heels from what I remember, and before I’d even had my first cocktail I fell over, landing awkwardly on my arm.’

Rosie winced. ‘Ouch.’

‘I ended up in the emergency department for the rest of the evening, and Jane was the triage nurse. We got chatting, as you do when there are long waiting times, and we hit it off. I ended up telling her all about Magnolia Creek and how I’d grown up here and planned to one day open up a business with my boyfriend, Rodney – he’s now my husband – and I think she was sold on the place. We swapped phone numbers and stayed in touch ever since.’

You could tell a lot about a woman by the friends she chose, and both Bella and Jane seemed down-to-earth women with genuine hearts.

‘I’d love to live somewhere as beautiful as this,’ said Rosie.

‘So why don’t you?’

‘I think my other half would be bored stiff.’

‘Nonsense. But then I’m biased.’ Her silky-red lips broke into a grin. ‘Are you planning on moving in together?’

‘We are.’

‘When’s it all happening?’

That was the million dollar question.

‘He’s working overseas right now, but hopefully not too far in the future.’

‘Well, I admire you.’

‘Why?’

‘The long-distance-relationship thing. It must be hard.’

‘It’s not so bad. I know it won’t be forever.’ Rosie wondered whether she was trying to convince Bella or herself.

‘If you end up in Magnolia Creek, your other half can commute to the city. We’ve got a train station. Yes,’ Bella nodded, noting Rosie’s surprise, ‘it’s a small town and there are limited trains running, but nevertheless it’s there. You’ll find it past the fire station around the bend at the end of the street.’

Rosie had passed the fire station yesterday. She wondered whether she’d ever reach the point where seeing those fire engines wouldn’t semi-paralyse her with sadness.

‘I saw Owen the other day,’ Bella went on. ‘I understand he took you by surprise when he turned up in town.’

‘I wasn’t exactly expecting him, or anyone else, to turn up in the middle of the night.’

‘I don’t suppose you were. But he’s harmless, a lovely guy with a heart of gold.’ Bella waved to a customer perusing the cakes. She patted Rosie’s hand. ‘More on him later, but for now I’d better get back to work before Rodney sees me slacking off. It’s been lovely to meet you.’

Rosie thanked Bella for the welcome-to-Magnolia-Creek scones and went on her way, glancing at her watch. There was no time to explore Magnolia House now. It would have to wait or she’d never get to the supermarket. She hurried towards her car, aware that if Owen had sorted another place to stay then she’d need to get back soon in order to say goodbye. He didn’t seem the type of guy to leave an explanatory note.

Two teenage girls sat on the bench at the side of the road. Sunglasses up on their heads, dolled up as though they were in the middle of the city on a night out, Rosie overheard one of them say, ‘I saw him in his leathers this morning. He’s gorgeous.’

At the mention of a motorbike she took a little longer to find her keys from the bottom of her bag.

‘You wait till he’s next at the pub,’ said the other girl. ‘He’s all mine. He very nearly was last time.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘I love a man in uniform, especially one who plays hard to get.’

What uniform did Owen wear besides jeans or tracksuit pants and scruffy T-shirts?

Rosie shut the car door and pulled on her seat belt, wondering how much truth was in the conversation she’d overheard. Those girls were barely teenagers beneath all that bling and make-up. Surely Owen couldn’t be interested in them.

She drove on to the supermarket, reminded of how lucky she was to have Adam in her life. A man like Owen didn’t appear to have many plans beyond getting up each day and doing whatever he felt like, but her thoughts didn’t stop her from zipping around the supermarket and driving a little over the speed limit on the way back to the house, wondering whether she would see him one more time before he moved on.

Owen puffed out his cheeks after Rosie said goodbye and headed to the supermarket. Finding somewhere to live at short notice was going to be tricky. He’d been determined to make Rosie leave, determined to find out what his parents were hiding, but for two reasons he had backed down and was in the process of sorting out alternative living accommodation. Firstly, he wasn’t a complete dickhead, and secondly, Rosie had signed a contract. It was the thought of the contract that worried him the most. If she had a formal agreement and he refused to leave, this could all blow up in his face. His parents could head back sooner than he’d planned and he’d never get to the bottom of what they were hiding. And now he knew there was a secret, he was hungry to find out more.

He’d also seen the way Rosie had reacted to Bertie, and he’d seen she had no idea how to fix the pool cleaner. And he was going to use her femininity to his advantage. He’d let her stay and he’d find somewhere else, but he’d insist on visiting to clear out gutters, keep the gardens hosed down ready for bushfire season, and maintain the pool that had the potential to turn very expensive should the cleaner not do its job properly. He’d time his visits when she was working over at Magnolia House and that way he could search the place and do the manual labour.

Owen dialled his brother Tom’s number. Tom lived closer to the city and was married to Sadie, his childhood sweetheart, and he was fully domesticated at the tender age of twenty-six. He was also father to Ryan, Owen’s ten-month-old nephew, and had bucked the trend by taking twelve month’s leave from his job as a pharmacist in the city. Tom was the epitome of a family man to whom Owen didn’t even try to measure up, but they were close and he knew his brother could help him out.

When Tom’s voicemail kicked in, Owen left a message after the beep. He checked his pager, but it was all quiet today, thankfully. He could tell Rosie was desperate to ask him what the pager was for, and why he kept disappearing at odd hours of the day and night, but the mystery was a bit of a laugh and he got the feeling that once she found out, the fun and games would be over.

Using this window of opportunity before Rosie returned, Owen decided the study was as good a place as any to continue his search. He’d already rifled through his parents’ bedroom – their wardrobes, bedside tables, chest of drawers – the day he’d walked in on Rosie drying her hair. He shook his head. This was no time to drift into a daydream about the girl who could be home any minute even though his mind flitted to her body in those figure-hugging jeans and lace bra. He retrieved the key from its hiding place in his bedside table upstairs. He’d kept it there so he could search the room without having to put it back to rights every time.

The large room with a long rectangular window at the end had an enormous walnut desk in the centre – the kind with a green leather top you’d expect to find in a big American bank – and on top of it sat a computer. One wall of the room was lined with shelves housing ornaments his parents had collected over the years. There was a set of thimbles that had belonged to his gran, a china jug in russet-red that his mum had picked out on a trip to Spain, photo frames filled with pictures of all three boys as babies.

He scratched his head as he looked at the two filing cabinets in the corner of the room and the eight drawers in the large desk. It was hard to know where to begin. Methodically, he opened the top drawer of the first filing cabinet and began to wade through the papers. He flipped through bank statements which showed nothing out of the ordinary, a file full of information about his dad’s pension, a folder way at the back of the filing cabinet which contained homemade cards to his mum from him, Tom and Ben over the years. Funny, he’d never thought she was sentimental enough to keep anything like that. There was a card in bright yellow with a daffodil on the front that he remembered making at school and inside he’d written – in terrible handwriting – Happy Mother’s Day. He ran his fingers over the words, but when he heard Rosie’s car pull up outside he dumped the files on top of the desk, locked the study behind him and went outside to greet her.

She bustled into the hallway, plastic carrier bags looped over each arm. ‘You’re still here.’

‘Yeah, sorry. Here, let me help you.’ He took the bags through to the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, ‘I’m on the case, should be out of your hair soon enough. Is there more in the car?’ It paid to be nice to her if his plan was going to work out.

Rosie nodded and together they went outside to get the rest of the shopping in between them.

‘This car is like a giant blob of Hubba Bubba,’ he told her. The pink VW looked even brighter bathing beneath the sun.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘You should. The Hubba suits you.’ His comment hung in the air when his phone chimed from the kitchen and he hot-footed it back inside with the bags he’d pulled out of the boot.

He took the call before it went through to voicemail. ‘Tom! Great to hear from you.’ It sounded like bedlam at his brother’s place. He could barely hear Tom with all the background noise. ‘What on earth’s going on there?’

‘We’ve got playgroup here this morning.’

Ah, that explained it.

‘I got your message,’ Tom bellowed. ‘How are you?’

The posse in the background put pay to any further conversation until at last the noise became muffled.

‘Have you shut yourself in a cupboard?’ Owen quizzed.

‘Don’t laugh … this could be you one day.’

‘As if.’ His brother always did have a good sense of humour.

‘So where are you?’

‘I’m up at Mum and Dad’s place.’

‘I thought they had a house-sitter.’

‘They did. Or, they do. I didn’t realise, so I’m trying to arrange somewhere else to stay as I’m without any forwarding address at the moment.’

Tom laughed. ‘Well, you’re welcome here any time. As long as you don’t mind the coffee mornings, sofas that have seen regurgitated baby milk for the best part of ten months, and the early morning wake-up calls.’

‘Sadie told me Ryan is up for a good play at … what was it? Five a.m.?’

‘Better. Four o’clock is his favourite time now.’

Owen shuddered. He didn’t mind early, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to be woken by a child leaping all over him each day. Then again, what choice did he have? ‘It won’t be for long, I promise. I’ll try to spread myself around.’

‘Stay as long as you need.’

The posse sounded as though they’d found Tom’s hiding place, so Owen said, ‘I’ll drive over to you later. And Tom?’

‘Yep?’

‘Don’t mention to Mum or Dad that I was here.’

‘Not a problem.’

Tom knew the deal. He knew the tension that existed between Owen and his mum.

Rosie was busy unpacking the shopping, taking eggs from their cardboard box and slotting them into the plastic container with its special holes. He leaned past her to find a can of Sprite lurking at the back of the fridge.

‘Tom says I can move in with him for a while until I get myself sorted.’ He cracked open the can. ‘What?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, turning to slot a box of porridge sachets into the pantry. ‘It sounded manic, that’s all. I could hear the yelling from over here.’

‘Yes, apparently my nephew didn’t use his lungs enough in the first ten months of his life, so he’s making up for it now, along with his mates.’

‘A ten-month-old has mates?’

He swigged from his can. ‘They start early these days.’

She paused, a bottle of milk hooked onto her fingers. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘You just did.’

‘Funny.’ She leaned against the bench. ‘No, I wanted to ask what you do for work. Do you work?’

He smiled. She thought she had him all figured out. ‘You think I live off my parents’ money, don’t you?’

He loved it when she blushed, but he didn’t want to wind her up any more than he already had. ‘I’m a property investor. I buy apartments, units, sometimes houses. I do them up, and then I rent them out. Sometimes I sell them if it’ll turn a quick profit, but usually it makes more sense to keep hold of them.’

She unpacked the last bag and stowed the dishwashing tablets beneath the sink.

He downed the rest of his can. ‘I’ll head upstairs, pack a bag. I’ll be out of your hair in the next hour or so.’

Halfway up the stairs Owen stopped at the sound of Rosie’s voice.

‘I’ve been thinking.’ She looked up at him from the hallway, her hand toying with her necklace.

He leaned against the bannisters. ‘Sounds dangerous.’

Her wide eyes flicked to the floor and then back up again. ‘This is an enormous house, so if you need to stay for a bit longer, then …’

She was in his way, no doubt about it. If she wasn’t here he’d have turned the entire place upside down – not just the study – morning, noon and night until he found what he was looking for. But since the first night when he’d found her there at the house, he’d started to enjoy her company and he was pretty sure the feeling wasn’t entirely one-sided.

‘Are you asking me to stay here, with you?’ He was enjoying this.

‘Not
with
me.’ She blushed. ‘I meant—’

‘Relax, I’m trying to make you feel uncomfortable. It’s an irritating habit I have fun with.’ He smiled down at her. ‘But thank you. Staying here is a whole lot better than being woken up by a toddler sitting on my head or sticking his finger up my nose at four in the morning.’

Her laughter wrapped effortlessly around his ears.

‘Do you have a boyfriend, Rosie?’

His sudden question took her by surprise.

‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

‘Because if I had a girlfriend I wouldn’t be too happy about her sharing a house with another man.’

Rosie bent down to make a fuss of George as he weaved in and out between her ankles. Without looking at Owen she said, ‘It’s not a problem. You can stay here as long as you need and I won’t mention to anyone that you’re here.’ She scooped George into her arms.

‘I’ll stay on one condition.’

She looked up at him again. ‘What?’

‘You let me cook dinner for you tonight.’

*

She hadn’t intended to ask him to stay. Rosie blamed her over-romanticising the coming home to someone – anyone – and the dream of being part of a real family again. It felt so long since she’d had anything resembling the norm. She also blamed the low feeling she’d felt in the supermarket as she raced around stocking up on food for solo meals with only a cat for company. She blamed her girly instincts last night when she’d heard something on the roof – most likely a possum – and wished Owen could’ve roared up on his motorbike at that very moment.

She lay on her tummy on the bed, picked up her iPad and clicked on Adam’s name. She knew she had to tell him about Owen, about sharing a house with another man.

‘This is a nice surprise.’ Adam grinned into the camera.

‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’

‘No. I’ve finished meetings for the day, so I’m all yours.’ His smile faded. ‘What’s up? You’re frowning.’

Rosie recounted the whole story: Owen turning up in the middle of the night, how he had nowhere else to go, how the house was big enough for two.

‘Do you really think this is wise?’ It was his turn to frown.

‘It’ll be fine, really.’

‘What does your contract say?’

‘It doesn’t matter about the contract.’

‘Like hell it doesn’t. There’s a reason why you draw one up in this sort of situation. It means everyone knows where they stand, on either side.’

‘I know. But—’

‘No “buts”, Rosie. You need to call the agency.’

Was it wrong to be enjoying how possessive Adam was being now? He wasn’t the jealous type, never had been, but this had unsettled him good and proper.

‘I’ll pay for you to rent a place in Magnolia Creek,’ he went on. ‘Then you can still take the job.’

She turned onto her back and rested her legs against the wall. ‘We’ve talked about this. There isn’t much to rent at the moment. And you saw this place on the iPad. It’s massive. I think Owen will be out so much I’ll barely even see him. He’s a property developer and constantly moving around.’

A sigh came all the way from Singapore.

She continued her justification for the new house guest. ‘It’s also good to have someone around in case there’s a bushfire emergency.’

Knowing her personal history, Adam’s voice softened. ‘Fires are highly unlikely, surely?’

‘You never know.’ Life could be a game of risk and she knew from painful experience that sometimes you could lose.

‘Just don’t let him take advantage of you,’ said Adam.

She smiled. ‘Of course I won’t.’

‘Don’t let him make you cook and clean up after him.’

She giggled. ‘I won’t.’ Her insides buzzed naughtily when she thought of Owen’s offer to cook tonight. This was a new feeling for her. It was living dangerously given how by-the-book her life was. Usually she knew exactly what was around each and every corner.