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Chapter 13

Fairy lights twinkled under the party tree, guitar music floated through the muggy evening air, buoyed by the smells of frying onion and popcorn and wood-fired pizza, and a giant fairy on stilts was blowing bubbles over a crowd of sugar-fuelled kids.

The Twilight Christmas Markets were underway, and the sky over Clarence had decided to cooperate with a streaky sunset and a slow-falling dusk. Soon there’d be pinpricks of starry light that would (hopefully) be actual stars and not satellites. There was no romance in satellites, after all, but starlight?

He shook his head, amused to note he’d madehimselffeel bashful. But the truth of the matter was that he’d had romance on his mind for some time now and tonight was the night he was going to say so.

To Jodie.

When he found her.

He stopped to check in with the volunteers at the entry points collecting gold coin donations (and debit card swipes) for the State Emergency Service: the front door of the pub; the huge French doors that opened out onto the verandahs; the wrought-iron garden gate that led from the beer garden down to the walking path along the riverbank.

‘How are numbers?’ he asked Hoges, who was in charge of the beer garden gate.

‘You’re gonna be chockers, mate,’ Hoges said. ‘I’d say we’ve let a couple of hundred in from this direction.’

‘Any dramas?’ There was always a drama of some sort: a lost kid; a missing phone; a fall into an ixora hedge after one too many mulled wines … it was only a matter of time until this evening’s drama revealed itself. Hopefully it wouldn’t be fisticuffs in the cake-judging tent.

‘Nothing I couldn’t handle. I hope you’ve plenty of water on sale, though. How bloody hot is it?’

‘We’ve plenty of water.’

‘The gardens have come up a treat,’ Hoges added. ‘I like these coloured lanterns.’

‘Thanks. Give me a shout on the radio if you need me.’

‘Will do, mate.’

Will left Hoges to it; the bloke was one of those aged larrikins blessed with an easy disposition and an authoritative manner. And what he and Hoges couldn’t manage between them they had planned for: paramedics from the local ambos were on site running a face painting and fake bandage stall, and a policewoman was circling somewhere with Rocky, the police dog who’d had a career pivot from sniffer dog to community service.

Will was avoiding the section of grass where the ambulance had set up shop; one of the perks of being the person to whom Carol had delegated the markets layout masterplan was that it had allowed him to tuck anything to do with medical paraphernalia into the most obscure corner of the grounds.

Jodie wasn’t near the food trucks, nor on one of the outdoor beanbags by the small stage where the guitarist was playing. As he searched, he focused on and discarded a half-dozen flashes of dark red hair or short denim skirts that might have been her but weren’t, and admitted to himself that he had it bad.

Or good.

Perspective was everything, after all.

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen Jodie for days—justaday, in fact, as Carol had needed her help with raffle tickets and menu laminating and chutney labelling and a million other tasks—it just felt like days. His head was coming around to the idea that his heart had been telling him ever since his hamstring had goneping: he wanted Jodie in his life. Every day.

Tonight was his opportunity to ask her if she was feeling what he was feeling. To find out what hold Katoomba had over her versus staying here in Clarence. To find out—and this would be a tougher conversation—what hold Clarence had over him versus upping sticks and rebooting his life again in some far away Blue Mountains town he’d never been to.

Tonight. He could ask the questions and they could both take some time to figure out their answers. His timing was terrible, obviously—he was working, Jodie was worried about Carol, and there was nowhere private to be found at the Clarence Pub tonight.

But … He looked up and smiled. Starlight. Finally. And the starlight was telling him he shouldn’t let another night pass into day without saying something. He didn’t want to just be content any longer. He wantedeverything. Starting with Jodie.

Surely they’d find a quiet moment before the Christmas cake results were announced in which the two of them could think about thingsotherthan markets and great aunts and tangled family histories and dried fruit? Things that were just about Jodie and Will.

He still hadn’t laid eyes on her an hour later, what with pouring beers at the main bar and finding a replacement hose for the barbecue’s gas tank and adjudicating a spat between Fergus and the new backpacker, who apparently had ‘feck all’ idea on how to wipe down a table. Now it was close to eight thirty, when the cake judging was scheduled, according to the last email the market committee had sent around.

Not long now.

He decided his plan to bump casually into Jodie and find a quiet patch of starlight was a washout and switched to Plan B: text.

Looking everywhere but not seeing you.

The answer came gratifyingly quickly:Same. Where are you?