Page 22 of Outback Reunion

Mark passed a couple who looked to be having a romantic dinner as he weaved through the tables to the bar. Should he buy Gabriela a drink? He remembered the cocktails she’d been drinking the night they met and knew Liam could make anything he requested, but what if her tastes had changed since then? Maybe he should wait until she arrived before ordering, he thought as he took a seat beside Sexy Rexy. ‘Hey, mate.’

The old bloke, who was as much a part of The Palace as the stool he was sitting on, smelled like he hadn’t had a shower since finishing work at the tip. He tipped his pint towards Mark in greeting.

‘What’s got you looking all cat-got-the-cream?’ Henri Forward said from behind the bar.

Ignoring her question, Mark said, ‘Never thought I’d see the day you were pulling beers in here.’

Henri was an agricultural pilot by profession and the last person he’d ever expected to see behind the bar. Although she’d grown up in Bunyip Bay like him, she mostly worked far away, but just before Christmas she’d fallen for the publican.

She shrugged and grinned. ‘Lust makes a girl do crazy things.’

‘You meeting your lady friend from the circus?’ came a voice behind him.Faith.

He turned to see Frankie right behind her.

‘She’s not mylady friend, but yes, I am meeting her.’ Mark tried to tame his grin.

He hadn’t planned on asking Gabriela on a date, but now she’d said yes, he felt like a kid at Christmas waiting for the arrival of Santa Claus. Perhaps she was exactly the distraction he needed to help put Tahlia behind him.

‘What lady friend?’ Henri demanded, leaning her elbows on the bar. Liam and their two backpacker bartenders were busily serving drinks nearby.

‘Mark’s got a friend in the circus,’ Frankie all but sang. ‘Can we get a bottle of your best sav blanc and five glasses, please?’

‘Only four,’ Faith corrected. ‘Stella’s breastfeeding so she’s not drinking.’

Stella was married to another farmer friend, Adam Burton. You’d think there was something in the water here, considering how many of his old mates had recently got engaged or hitched and started having kids.

Then again, maybe it was just that time of life. Hadn’t he also tied the knot?

Fat load of good that had done him. So much for standing by someone in sickness and in health.

Pushing his soon to be ex-wife out of his head as Henri turned to fetch the drinks, Mark looked to Faith. ‘What have you done with your kids?’

She grinned. ‘Ryan and Grant came in and collected them. They’re having a sleepover with their favourite uncles so I can have one last hurrah with the girls before heading back down south.’

‘It’s gonna get messy,’ added Frankie.

Mark chuckled.

‘What was the circus like?’ asked Henri as she placed the four glasses and an ice bucket with the bottle in it on the counter. ‘When I was a little kid, we saw one when we were on holiday in Albany, but I’ve not been since.’

‘It was actually amazing,’ Frankie said. ‘Much better than I imagined. You and Liam should try and go. I think there’s a matinee on Sunday.’

Overhearing, Liam snorted from a few feet away where he was shaking up some kind of cocktail. ‘No thanks. I’d rather shove my head in the oven and serve myself to the CWA on a platter.’

‘Aw, but you’d go ifIwanted to go, wouldn’t you, babe?’ Henri said, batting her eyelids at Liam in a very un-Henri way. She and Mark had been sparring partners at school and on the footy oval. She’d been the resident tomboy—not that you were supposed to say that anymore—and seeing her act all smoochy and lovesick was bizarre.

Liam scowled at his new girlfriend. ‘Doyou want to go?’

She shook her head and laughed.

‘Thank fuck,’ he said, unscrewing the lid of the cocktail shaker.

‘What can I get for you, Mark?’ Henri asked.

He glanced towards the door, wondering when Gabriela would get here. ‘Just a half pint, thanks.’

‘Do you want to join us until your friend arrives?’ Frankie asked, nodding over to a table where Simone and Ruby were sitting with Stella, a baby strapped to her chest in some kind of sling contraption.

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