The Turnaround Treasure Shop (7 page)

‘It wouldn't. Everybody in school has a weekend job, or an evening job. There just isn't enough work around Swallow's Fall for me to get one. And I can't keep getting the bus into Cooma for a job because it would cost me time and bus fare.'

Nick knew the school bus went from town into Cooma and back every day, but he hadn't thought about how much it might cost. It might be subsidised by the government or the schools. Nick didn't know, but if any kid in Swallow's Fall wanted to get a job, most of them would have to travel to get it. Which would cost.

He put the stirrings of a thought about this behind him. He'd need to find out how it all worked before he offered assistance. ‘So how about it?' he said to Andy. ‘Have we got a deal? I think the work you do for me might be counted towards your college education too. I think they refer to them as experience units.'

Andy might not have heard, he appeared to be pondering something. ‘Maybe Mum'll let me pay for the internet bill each month,' he said. ‘I kind of need it, you know — with wanting to be a machinist.'

Not to mention everyday school homework. And what was this? Christ, Lily couldn't afford to pay the internet bill? ‘You've got a computer at home?'

‘Yeah. The old and slow kind though.' Andy laughed. ‘Maybe I could save up for a new one now. Mum could have the old one for her shop, when she gets it.'

‘Good idea.'

Andy held his hand out. ‘Thank you very much, Nick.'

Nick took his hand and they shared a firm, grown-man handshake.

‘I'll be giving money to Mum anyway,' Andy said. ‘Whether she wants it or not.'

Nick's heart clutched. A man could grow to love kids like Lily's.

Lunch fray over, Lily was in the kitchen helping to prepare for the evening meals and had undergone a much needed, self-admonished dressing-down about her attitude earlier this morning.

What ridiculous notions crossed a woman's mind when a man gave her a
look
. Looks meant nothing. They'd hardly spoken over the last year, since the
zing
moment at the Bunny Ball. Why would Nick suddenly want to start
looking
at Lily? Of course he'd given her a look back at the house. A look that said, ‘By, God — there's a near-naked women in front of me.' Not a look that necessarily said, ‘I'd like to do things with that near-naked woman standing in front of me.'

She thumped the wad of chilled pastry she'd taken out of the fridge onto a floured surface to her side and dragged a board of diced vegetables towards her.

‘Hey, watch it with my shortcrust.'

Lily swiped her brow with the back of her hand. ‘Sorry. I was miles away.'

‘Where?' Charlotte asked. ‘In the back seat of a certain silver ute?' She sniggered as she turned back to Olivia, who was sitting in her highchair eating and playing with a freshly baked cookie.

Lily felt herself blush.

‘Yeah, what's with that?' Dan asked, putting down a small keg of Marsala he'd brought in from the corridor storeroom. ‘I saw you come into town in Nick's ute.'

‘Dan!' Charlotte said, wiping Olivia's hands with a damp cloth before handing the toddler some plastic cookie cutters to play with. Some afternoons, when Charlotte had a lot of baking to do, she brought her strawberry-blonde daughter to work.

‘What?' Dan asked. ‘Can't a guy ask a question?'

Charlotte grimaced. ‘Timing, darling. Timing.'

‘But you just asked — why can't I?'

‘Okay!' Lily said in exasperation. ‘What's going on?'

‘I can't say,' Dan said at the same time Charlotte said, ‘Nothing.'

Dan grabbed Charlotte around the waist and planted a kiss on her cheek. ‘So it's all still a secret?'

‘Is what still a secret?' Lily asked, her tone telling anyone within earshot that there'd been a rise in her exasperation.

‘Nothing,' Charlotte said again, then aimed a pointed finger at her husband. ‘Be careful, Hotshot. Unless you want a repeat of the hammer-grip manoeuvre I showed you this morning.' She thrust her finger into Dan's chest and shoved him away, laughing.

Lily adored Charlotte's attitude. Her beautiful red hair went with her spirit. Prickly, according to Dan which always made Charlotte smile, especially when Dan called her Red — his personal nickname for his wife. But Lily knew Charlotte well, and her occasional prickliness was a cover-up for her sometimes shy but always generous nature.

Dan's smile widened and the sensuality in his eyes deepened. ‘Anytime, Red.' Something hot and passionate had just passed between her bosses. Something sexy and personal. Some ‘thing' Lily didn't want to think any more about since she wasn't getting that sexy thing, and probably never would. Except from books. Or the pictures that kept popping into her head.

Dan backed away from his wife, palms up in surrender mode, his smile now bordering on a laugh. ‘You can get me in
that
hold anytime. Just not now. I'm going for a run.'

‘Don't wear yourself out,' Charlotte said. ‘I might have plans for you later.'

Lily's insides melted. Theirs was a beautiful marriage. Three years into their life together, one gorgeous daughter, a yellow weatherboard house at the northern end of Main Street, and a thriving business in Kookaburra's.

Dan kissed the top of Olivia's head and she beamed up him, going all gooey-eyed at her handsome daddy and offering him her rolling pin.

Once Kookaburra's opened up as a full-blown hotel two years ago the town had prospered and the unemployment rate had dropped. But the Bradford's were careful with their generosity. Charlotte had explained to Lily that they wanted to help but did not, under any circumstances, want to be viewed as officious and pre-emptive regarding their monetary donations.

Sammy and Ethan Granger were the same. They ran a large spread on Burra Burra Lane and Ethan had employed some of the mothers in Swallow's Fall as horse riding instructors and their children as stablehands. Ethan still kept the young people in mind, catering two half-days a week in school holidays to teaching them carpentry. Sammy ran an art class twice a week for anyone who wanted to learn how to draw or paint. Children, mainly, but some of the older residents had participated and seeing how much they enjoyed the ‘oldies get-together' — their terminology — this class had now evolved into a weekly luncheon event at the Town Hall. Sammy's son, Lochie, seemed to be taking after his mother with his artistic talents and always had coloured pencils and a drawing pad in his hands. Little Edie was too young to be showing any artistic talents yet, but she always had fat crayons and scrap paper around too.

Many, many times, Lily thanked the universal deities for returning her and her children to the safety and comfort of Swallow's Fall.

‘So. Where's your life heading, Lily?'

Lily looked up from the carrots she was now chopping for the lunchtime pasties and focussed on Charlotte who dipped her hands into a bag of flour and threw a handful over her work surface, preparing to make a batch of scones for an afternoon tea party in the restaurant.

‘Probably to the library, once I finish these pasties.'

Charlotte threw her a knowing smile, which Lily returned. They were alone in the kitchen, apart from Olivia who was now intently rolling uncooked pastry on the table of her high chair with her rolling pin, and it looked like Charlotte wanted to spend some quality girlfriend time, as she was want to call the moments when they chatted about woman stuff. Like children, lipstick colours, any new products in the beauty parlour — or to renew the old conversation. Lily wasn't fooled by the casualness of Charlotte's remark. They'd had
the
old conversation
many times, with Lily closing it as she always did: by being non-committal.

‘I meant,' Charlotte said, breaking butter into her bowl of flour and crumbling the mixture between her fingertips, ‘as in for the rest of your life.'

‘I'll probably grow old like all of us.'

‘Old and
alone
,' Charlotte said, eyebrows raised to you-know-I-won't-let-this-go height.

‘I'm not headed anywhere in particular, as you very well know,' Lily said. ‘I'm happy looking after myself and my kids.'

‘Don't you sometimes dream of being swept away in a guy's embrace? Danced around the room until your toes don't touch the floor.'

‘You've been reading the kissing books from the library.' Lily put her finely chopped carrots to one side and grabbed a sack of potatoes off the floor.

Charlotte sighed, long and dreamy, as she kneaded her scone dough. ‘I love the kissing books.'

So did Lily, but if she admitted that to her boss-cum-friend she'd never get out of the conversation.

‘What about our current resident available bachelor?'

Lily peered at Charlotte. ‘What about him?' Pointless pretending not to know who Charlotte meant. Nick was the only available bachelor in town below the age of 40. Below the age of 70, come to that, if you included the widowed gentlemen. But something else was happening here. The townspeople had some sort of secret, which appeared to be centred round Lily. Did it involve Nick? Charlotte — nor any of Lily's other girlfriends in town — had never directly pushed Nick Barton her way before. Probably because they knew something had happened at last year's Ball — although how, Lily didn't know. She had never discussed that awkward moment with anyone. Her friends had spoken of Nick many times but they always came to the same conclusion. He was a loner. They'd decided he was a strong man with a determined attitude who wouldn't be swayed by a bunch of love-happy females.

‘Do you ever think he might have a thing for you?' Charlotte asked, picking up her own rolling pin and dousing it in flour from a handful on the table.

A
thing
. A
look
. Lily shrugged. ‘Don't know. I doubt it.'

Charlotte swung her rolling pin and prodded the air, aiming it at Lily. ‘And that's your problem. You doubt everything about yourself.'

‘I do not.'

‘He's got oomph.'

‘Ooof!' Olivia proclaimed.

‘What does that mean?' Lily asked.

‘Dynamic
sexuality
,' Charlotte said, whispering the word ‘sexuality' above Olivia's head as she handed the child more pastry to roll. ‘All supressed and kept close within. He's probably an exploding bomb once he lets himself go.'

Lily agreed about the dynamic vitality of the man. If that was male oomph, Nick Barton had oodles of it. But she didn't know what Nick would be supressing and didn't want to further the thought of what it would be like to be close to the sexual explosion. ‘You need to take up knitting,' she told Charlotte.

‘Oh, come on.' Charlotte dumped her rolling pin on the floury surface and walked over to Lily's bench. ‘You're not being fair.' Little Olivia was used to the comings and goings in the kitchen, and didn't seem to miss her mother's presence by her side. She started bashing her pastry with her hands.

‘To whom?' Lily asked Charlotte, plopping her diced potatoes onto the pile of other chopped vegetables.

‘To me and Sammy for a start, let alone yourself.' Charlotte leaned her hip against the bench and folded her arms. ‘When we girls have our night on the town you're the only one of us not married — apart from the twins, but they're still young.'

‘And I'm over the hill?'

‘There are things we can't discuss in front of you.'

Lily settled her features into a sardonic contemplation of Charlotte. ‘I've been married, remember?'

‘Yes, but that wasn't in any way nice. Romantic didn't even come into the equation of your marriage.'

Lily didn't argue or even feel affronted. It was true, and her girlfriends in town knew it, and she didn't mind them knowing it.

‘You're missing out on the really nice parts of a relationship. The juicy parts. The saucy bits.'

And the tender, private moments. Lily had dreamed of them often enough. But they hadn't come her way and neither did she expect them to. That's why she read the kissing books, where she was part of some other woman's romantic adventure.

‘Talking about
oomph
,' Charlotte whispered, looking over Lily's shoulder.

Lily spun to the door that led from the kitchen to the front of the hotel.

‘Hi,' Nick said, one hand on the open door. ‘Jillian was on reception. Said I could pop on through. Is that okay?' He paused. ‘At least, I think it was Jillian.'

‘Of course,' Charlotte said, a smug smile on her face. ‘We were just talking about you.'

Lily blinked as a rush of mortification swept through her body. ‘We were talking about your knives,' she said quickly. ‘Charlotte thinks they've got oomph.'

He raised the metal knife box in his hand. ‘Not sure what oomph's got to do with cutting up vegetables, but your knives are ready and sharpened, Charlotte.'

‘Thanks, Nick.' Charlotte took the box off him. ‘You've just missed Dan. He's gone for a run.'

‘I know. Saw him go. He's coming over to my place later for a gym session.'

‘Well.' Charlotte smiled heartily. ‘Must get back to my scones.' She walked over to her end of the kitchen, sprinkled some flour onto Olivia's pastry then picked up her scone dough and started kneading it intently, leaving Lily uncomfortably alone with Nick.

Lily threw a quick smile in Nick's direction and turned her focus to the potatoes. ‘I ought to get on with these pasties.'

‘Lily.'

‘Yes?' she asked, sounding husky.

‘I've got Janie-Louise's bike in the ute, and Andy's outside. I'll run you both home when you've finished work.'

Another favour. She waved a hand his way but couldn't meet his eye. ‘No need to wait for us, Nick. Honestly. I can ride the bike home, or Andy can and I'll walk.'