What Rosie Found Next (7 page)

The familiar warmth of Adam’s body enveloped Rosie.

‘This place is quite something,’ he said, arm around her shoulders as they stood in the kitchen and Owen unpacked the rest of the shopping. She’d introduced the two men, omitting the tales of trips to the supermarket with her housemate, a visit to the pub, a ride on the back of his motorbike.

‘It is,’ Rosie agreed.

‘I wasn’t sure I’d see you,’ Adam said to Owen. ‘I thought you’d be hot-footing it around the country buying up property.’ He hugged Rosie closer.

‘Not this week,’ Owen replied, halting any further conversation.

She separated the two men by taking Adam outside to see the garden and the pool. With his arm still round her shoulders, he nuzzled her cheek. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

‘I’m glad you came.’ She wondered if Owen’s presence had propelled Adam’s little surprise as she listened to him extoll the virtues of the garden, the backdrop, the pool, the cabana.

His blond hair shone beneath the sunlight as they stood beside the pool. ‘It’s quiet out here.’

‘It’s lovely,’ she answered, almost to herself. Should she mention the derelict cottage in Daisy Lane? Or should they go for a walk later and stumble upon it accidentally? That way she could judge his enthusiasm and hope it measured up to her own.

‘This town is a complete contrast to Singapore.’ He stood away from the glass surround of the pool and brushed his shirt sleeve for imaginary dust. ‘You wouldn’t believe the mayhem at rush hour or even in the middle of the day.’

She’d never shared his thrill of big buildings, a heavy layer of smog, the way people were unable to walk along and appreciate their surroundings. It wasn’t looking good for the little cottage on Daisy Lane.

Rosie stayed against the glass fence but reached out for Adam’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Adam – reliable, solid, Adam. He bent down to kiss her and she let herself melt into the familiarity of it.

‘What’s that?’ When they pulled apart, Adam caught sight of Bertie as the blue-tongue dragged its body across the top of the rockery and into the bush beyond.

‘That’s Bertie. He scared the life out of me when I first saw him, but I’m used to him now.’

‘But you hate wildlife.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s not so bad.’

Rosie updated Adam on her part-time job: her duties, the people she’d met, how she was falling little by little for the small town.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you around.’

At the front of the house, Owen was standing beneath the shade of the open garage door, music blaring out. His arm plunged into a bucket of steaming soapy water and then dropped snowy suds across the paintwork of his Ducati. He rubbed vigorously at the headlight and didn’t turn round as Rosie and Adam left the house. Rosie felt sorry for the windshield he moved onto next – she sensed it was about to be scrubbed to within an inch of its life.

When Adam mentioned, again, that they were in the middle of nowhere, she bypassed Daisy Lane and they strolled towards the main street. They went via the lake that sparkled obediently, and even he had to concede that the setting was beautiful.

‘You’re smitten with this place, aren’t you?’ he said.

‘I suppose I am a bit.’

‘Holidays and weekend getaways are one thing …’ Here we go, thought Rosie. ‘… but the commute every day would be hard.’

‘I know.’

‘And, can you honestly say you’d be happy living in a bushfire area?’

‘There hasn’t been an incident for years.’ A bumble bee wiggled its bum and dived into the centre of a flower as pink as Rosie’s Volkswagen.

Adam took Rosie’s hands in his. ‘I want us to get a place together too, but we may have to be realistic, start with an apartment nearer the city. In years to come we might decide we’ve had enough of all that, but for now it’s not practical to be as far out as this.’

‘You said that.’ She looked at the dried earth beneath her feet. Adam said plenty of sentences with the word ‘we’, but Rosie sometimes wondered whether ‘I’ would be a better fit.

‘Rosie, it’ll happen one day. It nearly happened before. We’d be in our own place by now if we hadn’t been outbid. But perhaps it was meant to be.’

‘So you’re happy we lost the apartment in St Kilda?’ She stood back, arms folded.

‘Of course not.’ He scooped her hair behind her ears. ‘What I’m trying to say is that we lost out on the apartment and soon after I got the overseas posting. But the good thing is that you’re not at our place alone, we’re both saving money and eventually we’ll be able to get a place together.’

He kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘Show me some more of the town.’

They made their way to Finnegan’s café, where the little bell above the door chimed as they left the warm street for a cooler yet no less welcoming interior. Rosie waved over to Jackie, one of the kitchen staff at Magnolia House, who was sitting with her young daughter busy colouring the disposable tablecloth as her mum sipped on tea.

Bella didn’t waste any time coming over to their table to investigate the boyfriend.

‘Well, it’s a delight to meet you, Adam,’ said Bella after Rosie had introduced them to one another. She wiped down their table and swiftly laid out two sets of cutlery and napkins folded into triangles.

Rosie began to realise it mattered to her what Bella thought. Since she’d started going to Finnegan’s after work each day, Rosie had told the other woman all about her boyfriend. And now, the more she felt settled and at home as part of the community, the more she wondered how she’d feel in January when her time here would be up.

Adam’s crisp, beige chinos left him at odds with the other clientele – a man in the corner wore shorts and sandals, Jackie had on a floaty summer dress and Rosie wore a navy cotton shift dress.

Rosie ordered the scones with jam and cream and a pot of Earl Grey tea for them both to share, and when Bella went to fill the order, Adam said, ‘You didn’t even ask what I wanted.’

She looked at him. His top button was undone to show golden-tanned skin beneath, a five o’clock shadow creeping across his chin and up the sides of his face. It was different to his usual corporate image, and ordering for him was certainly something new. But Owen’s comment the other day kept cropping up in her mind at the oddest of times. He was right. She needed to step out of her comfort zone, and maybe this was all part of it.

‘You’ll love the scones,’ she said, grinning at Adam, ‘and I knew you’d say you wanted something healthier if I let you order.’

‘I need to watch what I eat after all these hotels and the flight,’ he said, patting his belly and smiling at her.

‘Time to take a risk.’ Uttering similar words to Owen’s made her feel alive, in control.

Adam’s hand found Rosie’s across the table. ‘You look happy. More relaxed than I’ve seen you in ages.’

She felt her insides flicker. ‘I am.’

The food and tea arrived, and Rosie took a huge, delectable bite of the still-warm scone, putting her thumb up in Bella’s direction when she looked over.

She caught the crumb at the corner of her mouth. ‘How long can you stay?’

Adam dotted a tiny globule of cream onto a piece of scone. ‘I’m heading to Sydney tomorrow.’

He’d done it again: thrown her world into disarray and then planned to saunter off. Her face fell and it didn’t go unnoticed.

‘I’m sorry. I know you think I work too hard and I’m obsessed by my job—’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘I’m not as obsessed by my job as I am about my girlfriend – the girlfriend I thought would be ecstatic to see me.’

His smile placated her. ‘I’m sorry. I’m disappointed, that’s all.’

‘We’ve still got tonight.’ He poured out two cups of tea and added sugar and milk to his own. ‘I’m assuming I can stay at the house?’

‘Of course, why wouldn’t you?’

‘Owen might not like it.’

‘He’ll be fine. He’s been pretty helpful at the house, actually.’ She didn’t mention that as well as Owen being at the house far more than she’d anticipated, he’d also become a friend. Not wanting to make Adam overly jealous, she added, ‘He’s a volunteer firefighter with the CFA, so he’s hardly ever home.’

‘You sound as though you’re fighting his corner.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She crammed the remaining piece of scone into her mouth before he could ask her anything else.

They walked back to the house chatting about Adam’s time in Singapore, how he’d got lost on his first day, the heat and the buzz of the city. And when they turned into Lakeside Lane, Rosie couldn’t help but laugh at Adam’s story of hitting the pothole earlier and spilling his bottle of Coke everywhere.

‘You learn to avoid that.’ She grinned. As they passed Daisy Lane, she decided it still wasn’t the time to show him the cottage.

Owen was in the same place, beneath the shade of the garage door, and raised a hand when they approached. The music was quieter now, and instead of vigorously scrubbing and sending suds everywhere, he dabbed a rag in a pot of wax and tenderly polished the paintwork in circular motions as though the bike had gone from being a beast that needed to be tamed to a delicate being in need of tender loving care. A can of WD-40 sat beside the front wheel, and another rag lay across the corner of a gleaming windshield that didn’t need the help of the sun for its sparkle.

Rosie nodded hello and left him to it, and a short while later she heard the engine purr into life and drive away from the house. She prepared and cooked dinner with Adam and they ate outside, conversation and wine flowing easily until they giggled their way upstairs for the night.

After they’d had sex, Adam took seconds to fall asleep. But as he lay there snoring softly, Rosie lay awake. She was still wide-eyed when she heard Owen’s bike turn in off the main road, make its way down the lane and crunch onto the gravel driveway. She listened to the internal door open and shut downstairs, the sound of boots being taken off and dropped on the floor, his feet as they took the stairs to bed.

Her eyes only shut when she’d seen his shadow block the landing light as he walked past her bedroom door.

‘Perhaps Evel Knievel’s off fighting fires or saving the world this morning.’ Adam tucked into toast topped with mushrooms as he sat having breakfast on the deck with Rosie the next morning.

Rosie speared the last of her mushrooms with a fork. ‘Don’t call him that.’

‘It’s a joke. You don’t have to be so touchy.’

It was as though Adam had done something in her dreams because she almost resented his presence this morning. Maybe she was tired. Part of getting used to Adam each time he came back was that she had to share a bed. She’d taken a while to fall asleep last night and then when she did, every time he’d moved she’d woken up and found it next to impossible to get back to sleep.

She watched Adam sitting outside, in these beautiful surroundings with the lyrebird trilling its song and nothing much else for company apart from the rushing sound of the wind against the leaves of the gum trees. He was a businessman, and sitting in a Magnolia Creek country house in a suit and tie, he looked as though he was out of a New York film set where he should’ve been running into the nearest Starbucks
shouting for a ‘large latte to go’ and then dodging between big yellow taxis, his cup held aloft.

‘What time’s your meeting?’ She’d noticed him check his watch.

‘Not till this afternoon, but I fly late morning. I need to run through a presentation on my laptop while I’m at the airport.’ He slurped the remains of his coffee. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of days.’

Rosie hugged him. ‘Looking forward to it already.’

After Adam left for the airport, Rosie relished some alone time in the garden. Her shift at Magnolia House didn’t start until lunchtime, when she would be helping set up for a wedding this afternoon. She picked up the net beside the pool and swished its long pole through the pool water, finding therapy in the motion as she cleared the surface of leaves and a couple of dead cockroaches who’d met their fate.

The water was too tempting to ignore any longer, and after she’d fished out a twig she was afraid could block the filter and tipped the debris into the garden bin, she grabbed her bikini from where she’d left it in the laundry and ran upstairs to get changed. She checked the SunSmart
app and slathered on a generous helping of sunscreen, impatiently waiting the requisite ten minutes for it to soak in before she could jump into the water.

Inside the pool’s modern square lines, she glided up and down, notching up thirty-two lengths in all. Satiated, she climbed out of the water and into the teardrop-shaped spa carved out at the far end in front of the gazebo. She pressed the square button to set the spa into motion and positioned herself on the longest seat with jets at the feet, behind the knees and two focused on her shoulder blades. As her breathing steadied into a more sedate rhythm, she rested her head back on the cream leather pillow, tilted her face to the sun and let the massaging waters, penetrating nozzles and millions of bubbles take her away.

Not long later, her eyes flew open when she heard an almighty splash behind her at the other end of the pool. She blinked as the foaming white waters of the spa splashed up at her, and she reached out for the sunglasses she’d left with her towel. When she turned she saw Owen rocketing up and down the length of the pool doing full tumble turns each time he reached the end. Length after length he swam, barely coming up for air, flashing the rose tattoo each time he lifted his arm out of the water and before his hand plunged in to do another stroke.

The buoyancy made her feet float up and flash crimson-painted toes as she moved to the seat facing the pool. Watching Owen, either something was bothering him or he’d chosen to take part in an Olympic swim and had forgotten to train. He finally stopped at the opposite end, and from behind her sunglasses she watched his shoulders move up and down with his breath until he recovered. Only then did he lift his head and see her watching him.

He swam at a more sedate pace towards her, and when he reached the side he rested his arms on the concrete beside the pool, his body still in the water.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ she asked.

‘Not really.’ It wasn’t long before he added, ‘Your boyfriend can stay here for as long as you like.’

‘Thanks. I was going to email your mum and check though.’

‘No need, I spoke to her earlier today.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah, I made the mistake of telling her I was here.’

Before she had a chance to reply, he ploughed out another six lengths – Rosie counted – just as fast as the rest. When he reached the edge of the pool again, he adopted the same position: arms plonked on the concrete, chin resting on his forearms, eyes shut as though he needed to take a break from the world.

Rosie saw her opportunity to avoid having fingers that resembled tinned prunes. She flicked the button to turn the bubbles off, stayed beneath the water to check her bikini was properly adjusted and then climbed out. Of course that was the exact moment Owen chose to open his eyes.

They locked gazes for a second before he buried his face and dark hair beneath the water and began shuttling from one end to the other all over again. Rosie climbed out of the spa and grabbed her towel. She was petite, but she still had her gripes: her legs weren’t as toned as they could be, and she didn’t like the slightly rounded tummy that Adam liked to remind her would only get worse if she kept eating all those freshly baked scones at Bella’s café. And Owen had seen enough the other day when he’d come home and shown her the pictures in the study.

‘You’re pretty fast,’ she said when Owen finally came to a stop and she was safely ensconced in the fluffy butterscotch towel beneath the cabana, away from the sun’s glare.

‘Can I grab one of those?’ Owen nodded towards the Diet Coke she’d pulled out of the fridge next to the barbecue.

‘I can get you a beer if you like.’

‘Can’t. I’m on call, and it’s way too early.’ His mouth curved into a smile.

Rosie pulled another can from the fridge then sat beneath the gazebo at the stone picnic-style bench looking out over the pool and couldn’t help but watch Owen as he hoisted himself from the water. His muscles strained to bear his weight and the water cascaded off his body. He shook his head vigorously, sending water droplets flying from side to side, and then rubbed a towel across his face and head, his top half and finally his legs.

‘Do you get fed up being on call all the time?’ She handed him the can of drink, hoping he hadn’t seen her gawping at him.

‘I don’t mind it. Everyone in the team pulls their weight.’ He glanced at the milky white skin of her shoulders. ‘You need to be careful, Stevens.’

Rosie noticed a telltale pink tinge that hadn’t been there before. She hoped it was just from the heat of the day.

‘Have you got sunscreen on?’ he asked.

‘Of course. The UV index is extreme already.’

The hairs on her arm stood on end when his arm brushed against hers as he lifted his can to take a sip. ‘How do you know stuff like that?’

‘I’ve got an app.’

‘You’re as bad as my mother, checking apps every five minutes.’

They sat for a while, sipping their drinks, letting the tranquillity of the setting fall over them, the glugging of the pool filter making the sounds of summer. Rosie looked sideways at Owen. His eyes were fixed on the water.
Flick
,
flick
, went the ring pull on the top of his can, as though it could tap into his thoughts.

‘Do you know what I wish?’ he asked, not looking her way or waiting for an answer. ‘I wish my mother knew how to have a row. I’d rather have one of those horrendous slanging matches where I’m called all the names under the sun, but she doesn’t seem to know how to let go. The quiet treatment gets me every time. I’ve no idea what she’s thinking.’

Rosie had never had a huge slanging match with her mum either. Her mum had upped and left before she’d ever got the chance.

‘Has she always been that way?’ She knew this couldn’t be the whole story, but she wasn’t sure she knew Owen well enough to delve further.

‘For as long as I can remember. It’s almost as though she detaches herself from half the things I say or do.’

Rosie waited to see if he’d add anything else, but it seemed Jane Harrison wasn’t the only one who kept her feelings well hidden.

‘I know I’m not the easiest person to live with, Stevens.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I don’t think Adam approves.’

Rosie took a deep breath. ‘You leave Adam to me.’

‘Well if it gets too much, just say the word and I’ll move on.’

‘Owen, if you were really annoying me, you’d know about it, believe me.’

‘Talking of Adam, where is he?’

‘He’s away for a few days, working.’ She looked at him. ‘What’s that face for?’

‘What face?’

‘Your judgement face.’

He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Oh, I have a “judgement face” now, do I?’

‘Yep, you’re judging because Adam’s working.’

‘I’m not judging, and you’re paranoid.’

She finished her drink. ‘I’d better get ready for work.’

It was his turn to climb into the spa. ‘How about a barbecue later?’

‘Sounds good to me.’ And dizzy with the feeling of belonging, she went inside to get changed.

*

Owen lay back in the spa as he watched Rosie go inside. He did his best to ignore how attracted he was to this girl whom his mum was more worried about than him.

‘I don’t want to breach the agreement, Owen,’ Jane had told him after he’d surprised her with a phone call. He’d had some crazy notion that maybe if she was thousands of miles away she might be more open to discussion, and maybe if he was brave enough he could broach the subject of what she was hiding. God knows he’d found nothing around the house that could enlighten him.

‘If Rosie doesn’t want me here then she can tell me to go, but she seems to like having someone around,’ Owen had insisted. ‘I’ve been clearing gutters, watering the garden, mowing the lawn. I’ll make sure she can tell one end of a rose from another too,’ he’d laughed.

His comment had met with a deafening silence and Jane Harrison had wrapped up the phone call quickly. He’d gone out on the bike after that, the usual tonic when he was stressed, but when that hadn’t worked to clear his head, he’d returned home and jumped into the pool, thrashing out length after length. He’d begged for the coolness of the water and the struggle for breath to squeeze him back into life as he thought over and over about his relationship with his mum.

As a child he’d imagined he had superpowers to make him completely invisible to his mum. He’d pretty much felt as though she couldn’t see him a lot of the time anyway when she was physically present yet emotionally not there at all. She’d praised him when he’d done something good, scolded him when he’d been naughty, but growing up Owen had often felt as though whatever he did would never be good enough.

He tilted his head back, letting his face, forehead, nose and cheeks be kissed by the sun. He thought of Rosie lying in this same place, her silky skin and her hourglass figure that set his pulse racing every time he let it. Had he shared too much with her earlier? She was a good listener, not interrupting and not probing too much. He had a sneaky suspicion that she was better at listening to others than she was at confiding her own troubles.

*

Rosie buzzed through the afternoon, loving every minute of setting up for a wedding. She took delivery of exquisite flowers, found platters for the caterers to arrange the most delectable canapés, delivered champagne to the bride and bridesmaids as they got dressed in stunning gowns upstairs. She helped weave fairy lights around the veranda to create a magical atmosphere for guests congregating there for fresh air and chatter.

At home Rosie showered and changed and pulled on a thin cotton dress. Owen hadn’t fired up the barbecue yet, so she had a chance to flick on the iPad and check out her handiwork with the Magnolia House website. She’d updated their online profile and added extra photographs, and looking at it on the internet now, she was proud of all she’d achieved in her first public relations position. Once she’d viewed the website, she checked her emails and got rid of all the junk mail before she spotted one lingering in the inbox from Jane Harrison. She clicked on the email and read:

Dear Rosie,

I hope you are well and enjoying your stay in Magnolia Creek. We are managing to sort out my sister’s affairs in London, and it’s lovely to know our home is being so well looked after in our absence.

I’m writing to you because I understand my son Owen is staying there with you. I know this wasn’t in the contract, and I really wanted to make sure everything is okay with that arrangement.

If there’s a fire in Magnolia Creek – and I’m hoping there isn’t as we haven’t had one for years – could you please get in touch with me? Any time, day or night, I’d like you to call on one of the numbers I listed for you. There are some specific items on the property – personal items – that I need you to keep safe for me. I also need your word you won’t pass this information on to Owen, not under any circumstances.