Where the Heart Is

Chapter 6

CHAPTER

6

Adelaide forgot to breathe the minute she laid eyes on Jack after all this time.

Her chest constricted and dizziness swamped her. She clutched at the doorjamb, only to find Jack’s arms around her.

‘Easy there, old girl,’ he murmured, leading her into the welcome cool of the cottage provided by centuries-old sandstone.

The familiar cadence of his voice made her chest constrict further and for some unfathomable reason tears stung her eyes. She’d shed enough tears over this man decades ago. No way in hell she’d cry now. ‘Who are you calling old, fossil?’

He chuckled and led her to a suede sofa. As he gently lowered her onto it, Adelaide didn’t know what surprised her more: the fact Jack had laughed when he should be ranting at her for abandoning him fourteen years ago, or that the living room resembled her idea of a dream house as much as the cottage’s exterior.

The rough-hewn sandstone bricks that comprised the walls were a perfect contrast for the A-frame wood-lined ceilings and mezzanine. Suede sofas and armchairs the colour of burnt toffee were split by a massive rectangular red-gum coffee table, and a state-of-the-art flatscreen TV perched on the wall above a gas log fire.

How she’d longed for a fireplace like that at the farm, where she hated having to empty ash out of the grate every day in the winter, and the prospect of finding snakes in the log pile outside. She’d asked Jack once, but he’d cited the usual ‘waste of money’ excuse, adding to her burgeoning resentment.

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, giving her time to reassemble her wits, and that’s when reality hit.

Jack hadn’t been pining for her as a small part of her hoped.

Oh no. Jack had shacked up with a woman who had the same excellent taste she did.

And she didn’t know what made her angrier: Jack moving on—and still looking damn good, with his wavy peppery hair, hazel eyes, perpetual stubble—or her giving a damn.

She closed her eyes, inhaling to the count of four, holding her breath for four, and exhaling to the count of eight, a meditation technique she’d learned many years ago when she first arrived in Tally Bay. It never failed to ground her, but as the sofa dipped beside her and she smelled an intriguing blend of cinnamon and sandalwood, she knew all the deep breathing in the world couldn’t settle her.

She opened her eyes to find Jack studying her with unnerving intensity, as if trying to memorise every line on her face.

‘Here. Drink this.’ He thrust a glass at her and damned if her throat didn’t clog with emotion again as she realised he’d made her a manhattan: whiskey, sweet vermouth, bitters, with a slice of orange peel. Her favourite. ‘Alcohol’s good for the shock. Unless you came looking for me?’

Adelaide couldn’t speak until she’d downed half the cocktail in one go, the burn of whiskey a welcome reprieve from the welling emotion. She’d wanted to see Jack this trip, to finalise their divorce once and for all, but she thought she’d have time to prepare for a confrontation. Seeing him here, now, made her head spin. Or maybe that was the manhattan on an empty stomach?

‘When’s the last time you ate?’ he asked, and she hated that he still had an uncanny knack for reading her mind.

Then again, he hadn’t done it all the time—if he had he would’ve known how unhappy she’d been in their marriage and listened to her threats of leaving.

‘I don’t remember,’ she said, barely able to recall her own name considering the shock she’d just had.

‘Cheese on crackers okay?’ He stood before she answered and walked away, giving her time to acknowledge he hadn’t lost his leanness either. Or the butt that had first drawn her attention at a B a ball she’d attended last minute with a school friend on their way to Adelaide.

She’d been a naive nineteen, her head filled with plans to travel to Italy to absorb the art of centuries; he’d been a brash twenty, cocky about his ability to run the family farm he’d just inherited. There’d been instant sparks—a raging inferno more like it—and she’d spent the night in his swag. And moved to his farm in Ashe Ridge two weeks later.

She thought they’d give a relationship a try for a few months, reluctant to shelve her yearning to paint in Europe altogether, but getting pregnant put paid to her dreams and she accepted Jack’s marriage proposal.

‘You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach.’ Jack re-entered the living room and placed a small white platter of artisan crackers topped with hand cut wedges of brie on the coffee table.

Wow, his new partner must have serious sway over this man, who’d barely hack a slice of cheddar and jam it between two slices of bread to make a toastie in the old days.

‘And you shouldn’t ply me with alcohol before checking if I’ve eaten first.’

Her retort held no malice, and he somehow knew that, because he smiled and her stomach flipped. Purely a reaction to not having eaten for hours and downing half a cocktail.

‘You always were a one pot screamer.’ He sat next to her again, instantly dwarfing the sofa and making her skin prickle with awareness. ‘You looked shell-shocked though, so I thought you could do with a whiskey jolt.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, embarrassed that it was the first time she’d expressed gratitude rather than making smart-arse comebacks. ‘My car broke down half a kilometre up the road and the last person I expected to open the door to this place was you, so yeah, I’m in shock.’

‘Eat a few crackers, then we’ll talk.’

Impressed by his thoughtfulness, she said, ‘Is it okay if I use your phone first? My mobile’s dead and I want to call Mila, see if she can stall the wedding a little.’

Jack’s expression turned mutinous. ‘There’s not going to be a wedding. Mila called a little while ago. That jackass Phil Baxter dumped her.’

‘Oh no …’ Adelaide pressed a hand to her chest, her heart aching for her granddaughter. ‘He jilted her at the altar?’

‘Almost.’ Jack snorted. ‘At least he had the balls to tell her a few hours before the ceremony.’ He pinned her with an astute stare. ‘I thought you weren’t coming to the wedding?’

Embarrassment flushed her cheeks. ‘I didn’t think I’d make it, but I couldn’t let that sweet girl get married without me there.’

‘Good to see family still means something to you,’ he muttered, an angry glint darkening his eyes, and she couldn’t blame him.

She deserved whatever he dished up and more for abandoning him. Heck, she deserved the manhattan flung in her face and the crackers dumped on her head for walking away and never looking back.

Though she had her reasons, and if their marriage meant anything to Jack, he would’ve come after her and she would’ve told him. Everything.

But he hadn’t loved her enough, and she’d given up caring, so here they were, fourteen years later, with a chasm filled with bitterness and retribution between them.

She wanted to say so much, but she settled for, ‘We need to talk.’

His brisk nod of agreement was the only sign he’d heard her as he turned away.

Her heart aching for all they’d lost, and the pain to come when they finally confronted their demons, she managed to stuff a few crackers into her mouth and swallow them.

For what they had to discuss, she needed all the sustenance she could get.