Page 48 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
Hannah, she read.I know you’ve said you won’t come, but please reconsider. I’d love to see you and I would love us to be friends again. Best, Karen.
She chucked the envelope back on the receptionist’s desk. ‘Bin it, would you, Sandy?’ she said. ‘Now, let’s see if I can survive an encounter with Teddy.’
The rush didn’t let up for three hours, and while a lie-down before the afternoon clinic would have been welcome, she had a darned coffee date to prepare for and—even worse—Kylie had dropped in, uninvited.
Hannah slumped on her pillows while Kylie stood before her wardrobe doors, mercilessly ripping clothes from hangers.
‘I don’t know why you’re so calm about this,’ said Kylie. ‘This is an emergency—your clothes are awful.’
‘And I don’t even know why you’re here.’
‘My BFF since kindy is going on her first date since Methuselah grew a front tooth and you’re wondering why I came over to help you get ready? Girl, this is An Event.’
‘It’s not a date. It’s coffee. How do you even know, again?’
‘You told me.’
‘Well, I do not need to change my clothes, for heaven’s sake. We’re meeting—totalk—at the café where I go pretty much every day, often in my scrubs.’
Kylie was paying no attention. ‘You should have come over to my place. I at least own skirts. And lipstick. And clothing that was bought this decade.’
Hannah ignored the slight on her fashion sense and turned to her more pressing problem. Mulling all morning had brought her no answers and, let’s face it, she was out of her depth. ‘Can I tell you something? Without you getting all demented about what single women intuit from hours of watching television?’
Kylie threw three coat hangers to the floor and turned to face her. ‘You have my undivided attention.’
‘Okay. So, I haven’t been totally upfront with you. Last year, shortly after Tom returned to Hanrahan, I was up at Ironbark one day in the stables after taking Skipjack for a ride and he was there.’
Kylie nodded. ‘In the stables. Him. You. A sweaty horse. Go on.’
‘And … well. The long and the short of it is that he leapt on me like a hormone-crazed teenager.’
‘Holycow.’
‘But later, and by later I mean last night, whenIdecide to kisshim—for purely sensible reasons, I might add, in the way of an experiment of sorts for his own protection—he puts the brakes on. Does that seem fair to you?’
‘Wait. OMG, I have so many questions. You’re going to have to give me alotmore details about the stable encounter. I cannot believe you waited months to tell me. Start with where his hands went. How they felt.’
Hannah rolled her eyes. ‘Kylie.’
‘What? I’m in a man drought. I need to live vicariously through you.’
‘They felt good, all right? Good enough to make me wonder if it hadn’t been your everyday, garden-variety snog in a stable. Also, it was a little freaky, if I’m honest.’
‘You think that six-foot hunk of blond man-cake is freaky?’
‘Yeah. I guess I do.’
‘You’ve got rocks in your head.’
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘it was confusing, that’s all, to hear him tell me straight out that he’s not interested, even though it felt like hewasinterested.’
Kylie fanned her hands about her cheeks like she was trapped in a heat wave. ‘Tell me more. Did he kiss your neck? I love it when they kiss your neck.’
Hannah threw a pillow at her. ‘So now, even though he’s definitely not interested, he wants to meet at the café—’
‘The contrary rat.’
‘—to discuss the “something” we didn’t get around to discussing last night.’
