Page 15 of Wedding Bells By the Creek

Did she see something there? Something that was not all that different from the look in Max’s eyes when he looked at Tia. No. That couldn’t be right. Max loved Tia. Ed didn’t love her. He’d only met her a couple of times. They were strangers.

Slowly Ed rose from his stool and walked towards her. This time, Helen didn’t try to fight the flutter of excitement. He was a handsome man. The lines on his face just added to the strength of it. And his smile reached all the way to his eyes. And he was looking at her. If not with love, at least with interest. When had a man last looked at her with even a flicker of interest?

‘Hi, Helen.’

‘Hi.’

Helen struggled for something to say. Something that would make her seem funny or clever or whatever would make Ed stay there with her. That might keep that look of interest from fading away. They stood in silence for a few seconds, until a ragged cheer interrupted them.

Ed frowned as people started crowding around Max and Tia, with some enthusiastic back-slapping and hugging. He looked at Helen and raised his eyebrows.

‘I guess they’ve just told everyone about the wedding,’ Helen explained.

‘At last!’ Ed said, his face breaking into a smile. ‘We’ve been expecting that for quite a while. Good for them …’ He paused before continuing. ‘Does this mean you’ll be staying around for the wedding?’

‘They haven’t said anything about a date,’ Helen said, wishing her heart would stop beating quite so fiercely. ‘But, yes, I’ll be here for the wedding.’

‘I’m glad.’

There was nothing she could say to that. Thankfully someone thrust a glass of champagne into her hand, giving her a moment’s respite to gather her scattered thoughts.

‘If you are going to be around for a while,’ Ed continued, ‘can I ask a favour?’

‘Of course.’

‘I am thinking of getting a new dog. I’m going to look at some puppies tomorrow evening. Will you come with me and help me choose?’

‘But I’ve never had a dog. I don’t know anything about them.’

‘You don’t need to. Dogs know about people. I think the puppy will be the one making the decision.’

‘Oh yes, I’d love to.’

Further conversation was hindered by another rousing cheer, and together Ed and Helen raised their glasses to toast the soon-to-be bride and groom.

Chapter Eight

The train tracks were new. Stephanie watched the train steaming past her, heading east. The two huge locomotives were pulling a seemingly endless line of wagons piled high with ore. She’d left Coorah Creek long before the mine was even a dream, but she had read about it. The train was the first sign of the massive change that must have come to the little town she had known all those years ago. The last two carriages were not ore cars. It seemed the town had grown so much, the train also carried people. Steph wondered about the people in those carriages. Mine workers, she assumed. Or maybe there were townsfolk too. Maybe someone she had known a long time ago.

The train passed and grew small in her rear-view mirror before she lost sight of it all together.

She drove slowly into town. So much was familiar … and so much wasn’t. The old wooden shacks by the railway line were deserted and looked even more forlorn than she remembered. The school, which had been a simple one room affair, now boasted at least two new buildings. And was that a swimming pool?

The years, and the mine, had obviously been good to Coorah Creek. There was money here now, it seemed, and a feeling of prosperity. With all those new people, there might actually be a social life. All things that Coorah Creek had lacked when she lived here. Things certainly had changed. The town didn’t look quite so shabby as it had before. Or maybe she just expected less now.

Stephanie had changed too. She looked down at her hands on the steering wheel, and the rings on the third finger of her left hand. The rings that were a lie. She had benefitted from that lie, but in the end, the lie had caught her out. Now she was coming back to face the truth, with no guarantee it would serve her any better than the lie.

Her stomach churned a little as she approached the T-intersection at the centre of the town. The pub was there on her right. And opposite it …

Steph glanced at the garage. That looked as if nothing had changed. She slowly turned the corner and parked nose in outside the pub. From there, still sat behind the wheel, she took a good long look at her former home. The garage was exactly as it always had been. Two bowsers out the front covered by an awning and a long low workshop cum shopfront stocked with cans of oil, wiper blades and other car-based needs. The big sliding doors of the workshop were open, but Steph couldn’t see anyone. The house was barely visible behind the garage, but the garden looked reasonably neat.

What if he wasn’t there anymore?

She opened the glovebox and pulled out the newspaper clipping. The notice didn’t say Ed still lived in Coorah Creek. But nor did it say he had moved. It simply said he was trying to contact his wife. It was dated two months ago. An impulse had made her tear it from the papers and keep it. She’d never expected to act on it. That part of her life was over, and she had sworn long ago that she would never go back.

Steph wasn’t big on regrets. She had never regretted leaving Coorah Creek and she didn’t regret coming back. At least, not yet.

She tensed as a car pulled off the road and pulled up at the petrol bowsers. She ducked a bit lower in her seat as someone come out of the workshop. He was dressed in blue overalls, and was wiping his hands on a rag. She strained to see his face, but he remained in the shadow of the awning as he filled the car with petrol.

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