Page 23 of The Vet from Snowy River
‘Thinking with your stomach. How very like you. Come on, we don’t want to be late; Marigold will give us The Look if we interrupt her service.’
‘Marigold Jones,’ Josh said with relish. ‘Kev still kicking?’
‘Of course. The two of them still gambol about like spring lambs. Love or yoga—one of the two—is keeping them young.’
‘Which one, I wonder?’ said Josh, as he held the back door open for Hannah.
‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said as she passed him.
‘Yeah,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I wouldn’t know either.’
The funeral was sweet. From the heart, as anything was when Marigold Jones officiated, and poignant. Sadness emanated from the bowed shoulders of Mr Juggins, alone in the front row but for Kev, who had the knack for knowing just where he was needed most.
The Jugginses had run the garage out near the local primary school for years. He could remember George Juggins as a younger man in green-stained overalls, rolling out from under a car to offer up some old-fashioned service at the fuel bowsers. His wife had managed the store and sold soft drinks and hot pies to schoolkids passing by who were lucky enough to have a few bucks in their pocket.
By the time the small crowd had made it from the cemetery down near the lake to the private room of The Billy Button Café, the general air of decorum had dissipated, leaving the older townsfolk to resume the chitter-chatter and story-swapping of people who’d known each other half a century or more.
He’d missed this. The sense of belonging, of being known. He’d thought Poppy had finally been willing to give it a try, but her school holiday was about a third over and there was still no sign of her.
No phone calls, either, and even the surly text messages had dried up. She was ghosting him, and every day she didn’t arrive, his hope grew dimmer.
He hadn’t missed all the country-kiss greetings, though. He’d been kissed by so many old biddies in the last hour, he was sure he had coral lipstick stripes on his cheeks: the wife of his old Scout Leader, the lady who ran the bowling alley where he’d hung out after school some nights, even Marigold had cornered him, demanding to know why he’d not found the time to drop by. She’d slipped him her yoga schedule for dawn stretches in the park.
Yeah. Like that would happen.
The one pair of female lips in the room that hadn’t made their way to his cheek were currently on duty by the tea urn. He let his eyes dwell on them for a minute. Soft. The colour of pinot noir in a glass held to the sun. Kissable.
‘If you’re sick of the tea, mate, I can make you a coffee that’ll strip the hairs from your chest.’
Josh turned to the waiter he’d met the other day. ‘Graeme, isn’t it? Better not. I’ve already had about six cupcakes. I won’t fit into my scrubs.’
His eyes wandered back over to Vera. She stood apart from the crowd, looking … he thought it over, tried to find the right word. Unsettled? Anxious?
‘Girl can cook,’ said Graeme in his ear.
‘Mmm,’ he said, but before he could wonder if he was embarrassed about being caught staring at the waiter’s boss, Vera picked up a plate of salmon blinis from the buffet table and began passing them around.
The crowd shifted, Graeme disappeared to collect glasses, and before he knew what was what, she was standing right before him.
She was even more breathtaking up close. Colour warmed her cheeks, throwing the paleness of her skin into sharp relief. She’d tied her hair back into some sort of braid, but wisps of it had escaped, softening the formal black suit she wore.
‘Blini?’ she said.
‘Josh.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Just reminding you what my name is.’
She sighed, a quick in-out-in that made him wonder if she’d noticed him in the same breath-seizing way that he’d noticed her.
‘I know your name. I really should keep serv—’
Before she could move on, Marigold began tapping a teaspoon against a pink and white floral teacup.
‘Can I have your attention, everyone. Everyone! George thanks you all for coming here today to celebrate the life of his wife, Joyce.’
Josh surreptitiously glanced at his watch. He was due back at the surgery in ten minutes, and Marigold Jones wasn’t famous throughout the whole Snowy River region for her brevity.
