Meant To Be (10 page)

After their shower the night before, they'd both sat up in bed flicking through her new magazines. They'd had fun nudging each other and pointing out things they liked. Eventually Jake had put down his magazine, shuffled in closer and they'd gone through the one publication together. Much better. That they so clearly had a shared interest made Emily's heart glow. And they seemed to like a lot of the same things. It certainly boded well for the future.

So far, so good, her gran would have said. Emily felt sure Gran would have loved Jake and it made her a little sad that she wasn't around to see how happy she was with him.

As they walked, she kicked a stone and watched it bounce and bobble along the ground in front of her. Their steady footsteps, and her occasional kicks, were the only sounds other than the usual morning calls of birds.

‘You're very quiet,' Jake suddenly said. So deep in thought was Emily that she started slightly.

‘Oh. Sorry. Just thinking about Gran. Wishing she was here to see me so happy. She would have loved you.'

‘And I'm sure I would have loved her too. I get the impression she was quite the character.'

Emily smiled up at him. As she began to look back down at the stone she'd been kicking, her attention was caught by something behind Jake. She stopped in her tracks as she saw a new steel
structure standing beside what had been the last shed. She looked from it to Jake with her mouth open.

He smirked back at her. ‘Surprise,' he said, opening his arms wide. He now grinned broadly.

‘Wow. WOW! You moved it! Oh, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!' she said, throwing her arms around him.

‘David's the one you need to thank, but I'll always take a hug,' he said, wrapping his arms tightly around her and kissing her neck.

After a moment, Emily pulled away and got her mobile out of her pocket. It was only seven-thirty, but hopefully it wasn't too early for David and Barbara. She found their number and pushed the green key to make the call. As she waited for it to be answered, she stared at the steel structure, the excitement building inside her. She was all but jumping up and down on the spot when Barbara picked up.

‘Oh my God, oh my God, OH. MY. GOD!' she cried into the phone.

Barbara laughed and said, ‘I take it you're talking about the shed.'

‘Yes I'm talking about the shed! Thank you, thank you!'

‘I'll put David on.' A split second later, David was on the line.

‘Hey Em, I take it you like your surprise then,' he said.

‘Do I ever! I'm just so blown away. Thank you so much.'

‘You knew it was going to happen sometime soon.'

‘Yes, but it's actually done! Again, thank you!' The words seemed inadequate, but what else could she say?

‘It's my pleasure. We'll be over tomorrow to do the iron. The footings need a day to cure; perfect timing being a public holiday and all.'

‘Who's “we”?'

‘Jake and me, Bob Stanley, Steve Olsen, and Grant Anderson. And don't worry, I made sure Jake didn't overdo it – I had him in the tractor operating the loader bucket.'

‘Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. I'm happy to pay everyone for their time, just let me know…' At that she looked up to find Jake shaking his head.

‘I can't speak for Jake, but there's no need to pay me or the other guys. Grant and Steve are on annual leave, and Bob owed me a favour. They're all happy to help you out. They thought you got a rough deal with John and wanted to go some way to evening the score. Steve and Grant feel bad about snubbing you that day just after you'd split up from him too. You've got a lot of friends around here, Em. Just you remember that.'

Emily felt her throat suddenly tightening and tears gathering behind her eyes.

‘Thanks David,' she managed with a croak. ‘Can you put Barb back on?'

‘Yeah, she wants to speak to you again too. Here she is.'

‘I hope to hell you're not crying!' Barbara said, causing Emily to laugh.

‘Maybe just a little,' she said.

‘Well, I'll leave you to it. See you soon.'

‘Okay. See ya. Thanks so much, again, both of you.'

‘It's our pleasure. See ya.'

Grace stood beside them with her head cocked to one side, showing obvious concern for her mistress. Emily pulled a crumpled tissue from her sleeve, blew her nose hard, wiped away the couple of tears that had escaped, and took a deep breath.

‘Shall we continue?' she said, giving Jake a weak smile.

‘Yes, let's,' he said, offering a bent elbow for her to slip her hand through.

Grace, sensing all was well again, bounded off ahead of them.

Just as they started to pick up speed again, Jake said, ‘Or would you rather go the other way now?'

‘No, the rubble is still there – unless you guys moved that too,' she added, sounding hopeful.

‘No, but I've been thinking about that.'

‘Yes? And?'

‘Why don't we rebuild it?'

‘How much would it cost? I remember you saying it would be a pretty big job.'

‘Well, it won't be cheap, but the stone is there, and I'll happily throw in my labour.'

‘You can't do that.'

‘Of course I can.'

‘You're meant to be taking a break. Resting.'

‘I'm fine. And maybe a bit of manual labour is just what I need. As I said, I've been thinking about it anyway. It could be a win for both of us. I could use it as a sample of my work – like an advertisement – and you could have your B&B.'

‘I think I've gone off the B&B idea,' she said, a little apologetically.

‘Well you could have your cottage, for whatever you want to do with it. You could rent it out for extra income, set up a shop, or a café. The options are pretty endless.'

She thought about it. ‘So you were serious the other day when you talked about setting up an agency for your business here?' Emily said.

‘Yeah. It's certainly worth crunching a few numbers. It's a pretty low-risk proposition for me because my main business is so well established. I'm not talking about taking over the world or anything, just the odd project here and there to keep my hand in. The cellar door market might appreciate stone buildings if there was someone local to keep costs down. If I'm going to stick around I'd like to keep doing something I love – but without the
pressure of dealing with big corporations and government departments. So what do you say?'

‘Are you trying to make me cry again?'

‘It's nothing to cry about,' he said. Jake stopped walking. He turned to face Emily and grasped her by the shoulders. ‘I love you. I want to be here for the long haul if that's what you want too. I know I said we wouldn't rush things, but I want you to know that I'm serious about us, serious about staying.'

‘But what about Melbourne?'

‘Hmm, big city, lots of cars, squealing trams, a strange road rule called a hook turn,' he said, grinning at her. ‘What about Melbourne?'

‘Er, you have a thriving business there.'

‘There are plenty of good project managers around. It's a well-run business, but I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm indispensable. And it's not as if I'm totally walking away. I'll keep an eye on things, but from a distance, and not so often.'

‘Won't you miss the hustle and bustle of city life?'

‘I don't know. Maybe. But then a trip back now and then would probably be enough.'

‘But what about your gorgeous apartment?'

‘Rent it out, sell it if I need the money. It's only a building, Em,' he said with a shrug.

Only a building.

‘Different things mean different things to different people,' he said, as if sensing her thought. He took her face in his hands. ‘I know how much the cottage means to you – and how much your husband hurt you when he pulled it down. I can make that better for you. And I want to. Please let me. You'll never know how much it meant that you dropped everything to come to Melbourne for me when it was so out of your comfort zone. I'd
like to repay the favour. And you'd be doing me another favour by letting me use it as a display, remember?'

‘But what about your adrenal fatigue? You're meant to be taking time off…'

‘I think this will be okay, it'll be a scaled back version of work. Besides, I'll be bored in a few months if I don't do something. This will all take time to get up and running; I've only just started to think about it…'

‘I'm just concerned you're taking on too much too quickly.'

‘Unless, you don't want all this, us,' he said suddenly, looking at her. ‘It's just that you're finding a lot of reasons for me
not
to do this.'

Emily rushed to reassure him. ‘It all sounds perfect to me,' she said wistfully. ‘As long as you're sure.' She felt all warm and cosy inside.

‘There's still a lot of research to do, planning, decisions to make, figures to go through…'

‘Well, if you're in, I'm in,' she said decisively, with a nod of her head. How good would it be to have her cottage back, an even better version? And what could be more romantic than building a house with the man you loved? Emily felt excited to be embarking on a major project together.

There would probably be a considerable financial cost, of course, but this certainly was true love. She was just thinking she couldn't walk – she was so deliriously happy – when Jake grasped her hand and gently pulled her forward.

‘Come on,' he said. ‘Let's earn ourselves a big breakfast and a day inside making plans.'

‘Hmm, actually, I've got another form of exercise in mind,' Emily replied, leading him back towards the house.

After a big bacon-and-eggs breakfast, they walked over to the mound of rubble that had once been Emily's dream. Her stomach flip-flopped. Could they really do it?

Again she found herself wondering about the family that might have lived there over a hundred years ago. It didn't matter that she was no relation. The feeling that she wanted – no,
needed
– to do this for them engulfed her. Her heart rate rose. Maybe simply putting up a little weatherboard place would make more sense financially. But it just wouldn't be right. This was absolutely the place for a limestone cottage.

Not to mention Emily's desire to right John's wrong. She felt as strongly about that as she did about anything else.

As hard as this will be, it will be worth it. If it wasn't meant to be, the universe would have sent a sign.

She couldn't wait to get started. She knew it was all a little silly, melodramatic, overly romantic – whatever you wanted to call it – but she just could not shake the feeling.

And she had Jake to thank. She looked up at him and smiled warmly, and forced her romantic notions aside to focus on what he was saying.

‘I think building just in front would be a good idea. That way we won't have to move everything twice.'

Emily stared at the rubble pile. In the months since John had knocked it down, the mishmash of bricks, timber, corrugated iron, stone and other unidentifiable building debris had become overgrown with weeds. As the scale of it struck her, she started to feel a dose of reality seeping in.

‘Jesus, where do we start?'

‘First we'll have to go through it all to sort the rubbish from what is reusable.' Jake was getting more animated. He went to the edge of the pile and picked out a few rocks.

‘See,' he said, holding up two for Emily to examine. ‘We'd need to chip off the old mortar and get the stone clean. It's not hard, just time-consuming. You could do it – I can teach you, if you're interested. We could do it together.'

Emily closed her eyes and breathed in deeply.
Ah, bliss.
She could imagine them spending whole days working side by side; taking rocks from one pile, chipping away to clean them up, adding them to a new pile, stopping to eat and sip on water, taking the occasional rest together. At the end of each day they'd walk back to the house, exhausted but happy and fulfilled. Hopefully not too worn out to make love…

The next morning they'd return – hand in hand – and start all over again. Maybe it was a bit pathetic, but it was totally romantic too. Not unlike men in her grandparents' era building their future brides a house as a wedding gift.

Oh, Jake, could you be more perfect?

Standing there in the partial shade of the large gum trees with the sun gently drumming on her back, Emily literally felt warm and fuzzy right through to her bones. Her negative voice tried to tell her he wasn't actually building her a house – she was paying for it – but her positive voice wasn't having a bar of it.
This is going to be great.

‘It won't be easy, but it can be done,' Jake added, as he put the rocks back down onto the pile. Emily suddenly had the feeling Jake was losing enthusiasm. Perhaps because she was just standing there looking all weird and vacant.

‘If you think it can be done, it can be,' she said enthusiastically. ‘And I'm willing to get my hands dirty,' she added, linking her arm through his. Wasn't this what she'd dreamt of with John? Back then she'd hoped they would run the farm shoulder to shoulder, but what did the project matter? What mattered was a mutual goal to work towards.

Suddenly Emily could see how Gran could have given up her posh home life with all its trappings to become the wife of a mere farmer – no disrespect to Grandpa. She had loved her man, and had known they could do anything as long as they were together. Their goal had been the farm and raising a family. Emily's was a little different, but she felt sure the feelings were the same. At that moment she felt on top of the world; like she could achieve whatever she put her mind to.

‘Come on, I want to start making some notes and calculations,' Jake said, leading her back towards the main house.