Page 54 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
‘Tell me about the bride,’ Tom said.
‘Karen Flemington. We shared a room at one of the residential colleges on campus. We were both from small towns, so we stuck together. Sydney was … a shock.’
‘And you’ve kept in touch?’
‘A little. Birthday cards, the odd email, that sort of thing. I was surprised when she invited me to her wedding.’
His smirk was back. ‘You’re not that unlikeable.’
She pinched his arm. ‘Thanks. I’m okay now. Hopefully she’s the only one of them here.’
The wedding passed in a blur of songs and vows and shuffling of feet as the guests rose to sing, sat to listen. Hannah found it difficult to pay attention to anything beyond the long line of Tom warming her from ankle to shoulder, and her thoughts about the upcoming reception. She’d orchestrated this, and now she was here, with him, and pretty soon the wedding photographer was going to be circling amongst the guests and it was too late for chickening out.
There’d better be champagne. Bubbles of gold to settle the bubble of nerves welling up inside.
The ceremony done, Hannah kept her eyes on the aisle as Karen walked by, her groom on her arm. The radiant bride: Karen had a smile on her face a mile wide. Hannah shuffled along the pew as the church emptied and they joined the queue to congratulate the happy couple.
‘Hannah! I am so pleased you came.’ Karen held her hands for a moment, then gathered her in for a hug. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she whispered in her ear, before turning to her new husband. ‘This is Raj. Raj, you remember I told you about Hannah, my friend from med school?’
Hannah stiffened. What, exactly, had she told him?
But Raj’s smile held nothing more than welcome. ‘Pleased you could make it,’ he said, shaking her hand then turning to Tom.
‘Oh, this is Tom,’ she said belatedly. ‘My—’
She looked up at him and he raised his eyebrows at her. Yeah. Good question.
He gave up waiting for her to decide what he actually was to her and stepped forward. ‘Tom Krauss,’ he said, shaking hands with Karen and Raj. ‘Beautiful ceremony, congratulations.’ And he whisked Hannah off out of the queue before she’d had time to work out what words she would have chosen.
‘You need a drink as much as I do?’ he said.
‘Hell yes.’
He took off and if she hadn’t been wearing the dumbest shoes in the universe she might even have been able to keep up with him.
The function room of the Shaw Winery was modern, built in sleek lines of stone and glass and timber. Grape vines on criss-cross trellises stretched like neat rows of sutures over the rounded hills. Luckily Tom hadn’t locked the car so she was able to retrieve the silver photo frame she’d bought in the little retro store on Hope Street back home.
He waited on the front stairs for her, then tucked her gift under his arm and held his hand out for hers. Which made it twice in one day for handholding. Or was it three times?
The clarity she’d had about what she wanted from Tom and what he had to give her was starting to get very blurry.
Inside, a large room with tables was set up for dinner and flowers were festooned everywhere. Beyond the room, a narrow sign was lit with the magic words CELLARDOORand, following it, they found themselves in a snug bar.
‘What do you fancy?’ said Tom, when they’d settled themselves into a corner table where a little candle flickered merrily against the dark. It was—awkwardly—rather romantic.
‘I fancy ditching the reception. I fancy hearing you change your mind about being my sperm donor so I can have a child,’ she said. Because all this handholding stuff, and the flowers, and the candlelight, and even the silly shoes, had tapped into some very dormant part of her that liked it. If she’d called herself disinterested last week, she’d been kidding herself.
She took a breath. ‘I fancy us making a plan to get the deal done. And—’ she had to take another breath, because either the incy-wincy candle was making the room very, very hot or she was having some sort of weird hormonal surge ‘—maybe we think about trying it the old-fashioned way.’
‘Hannah, I don’t—’
She rushed in to speak over him. ‘Or, if that idea doesn’t appeal to you, then no worries. I can put a rush order in for some insemination equipment from my vet supply company.’
He cleared his throat. ‘That is quite an inducement. Two champagnes it is,’ he said, turning to a waiter who had been hovering awfully close. Please, god, not close enough to hear her spill her guts like that.
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to be practical, and insemination is tried and true. I want a baby; you’re single and unattached and you told me yourself you didn’t see yourself as a family guy.’
‘I did indeed say that.’
