Chapter 1

Jamie

I was having the perfect morning.

I woke up before my alarm feeling ready and refreshed and managed to turn the shower onto the perfect temperature the first time without needing to adjust it. I pulled on my clothes, then my overalls, laced on my work boots, and then walked out the door with a whistle. The barista in the drive-through coffee place made my drink exactly the way I liked it, and I sucked down all that sugary, creamy, caffeine-y goodness. Life was good. I'm a mechanic, so I knew I had a long day of dealing with mechanical fuckery ahead of me, but sometimes… sometimes the gods smile down on you. I'd be able to loosen nuts with ease and identify what the source of that whining noise was instantly, I just knew it.

Then she had to go and ruin it.

The sound of Darth Vader's Imperial March filled the car.

Why did my hands wrap tighter around the steering wheel? Why did my eyes flick to the phone, then back to the road over and over? Why did some dickhead veer in front of me at the last minute, forcing me to slam my hand down on the horn, then put the indicator on to go left, turning down the street the garage was on? The song kept blaring, making the drive to work take on an undue ominous air.

I can't answer her because I'm driving , I thought, idling down the road at a ridiculously slow speed, willing my phone to stop ringing. It didn't. I can't answer her because I'm late to work , I countered when I pulled up in front of my workplace. I wasn't. When I looked at the display on my car dash, I saw I was a good twenty minutes early.

Because I was having a good day.

Too bad, because my mother waited for no man or woman. People talked about Karens behaving badly, but they needed to meet Majorie Kingston to discover just how difficult a woman could be. I knew exactly what I had to do to not have my day ruined by a phone call with my mother first thing in the morning, so when I killed the engine and grabbed my phone, that's what I intended to do.

"Morning, Mum," I said brightly. "I can't talk right now. I'm on the way to work."

"Oh, you can just talk to me on speakerphone," she assured me warmly. "I'm your mother."

My eyes closed and my spare hand rubbed at my forehead.

"Fairly sure mothers aren't exempt from the fine that I'm going to get if I'm caught using my phone while driving." I surged on, knowing that she'd argue about that as well if I gave her a second's pause. "And anyway, I'm late for work. I'll ring you?—"

"No, you're not." Mind like a steel trap, this woman. "You don't start until eight and it'd only be about seven thirty."

"Right, but?—"

"And anyway, what do you expect me to do? You didn't call me yesterday and I waited and waited?—"

God, here it came. Guilt, emotional blackmail, anger, or cloying sweetness, there was literally no depths Mum wouldn't sink to if that's what it took to get what she wanted. People talked about perfumed steamrollers. Well, my mother was a Chanel-scented freight train, slamming into anything that got in her way. I took a sip of my coffee, but what was once a perfect brew now tasted way too sweet.

"I didn't go through sixteen hours of labour for?—"

"Five minutes, Mum," I interrupted crisply. "I can give you five minutes now and then call you later tonight." A counsellor I'd talked to about the situation told me that I needed to be firm about my boundaries, provide clear instruction about them, and not to waver for a second. I'd only mastered some of those skills. "That's four minutes and fifty seconds now."

"Fine…" I could hear the barely suppressed frustration in her voice, but she rallied quickly. "What's going on with you?" I sucked in a breath, ready to answer, but she followed that with the real question she wanted to ask. "How are things going with those boys of yours?"

From this, you'd assume I had sons. I didn't. She could've been asking about my many male workmates at the garage. She wasn't. Mum wouldn't have been able to tell you a single thing about the guys I worked with. Or my multiple boyfriends that I didn't have.

But she thought I did.

"Have you made a decision yet, Jamie? You can't keep stringing good men along like that. I know you're a catch. You're my daughter."

That little note of pride in her voice was one of the reasons I stayed in contact with my mother.

She loved me. Never in my life had I ever doubted it, but sometimes… Her love was a bit like a big, heavy quilt. At times it was all snuggly, keeping you warm against the winter's chill, but other times it was oppressive, smothering. Enmeshed was what the counsellor had called it. Mum had difficulties identifying where she stopped and I started.

"But I worry." God, that statement summed up our relationship completely. "They'll never say otherwise, but men will go looking for something serious with someone else if they can't get it from you." I hoisted my toolbox up and out of the tray of my ute and then strode off towards the garage, the phone still against my ear. "And I… I don't want you to miss out."

"Who's missing out?" I replied with false cheer. "Millie and I went out on the weekend and we found this amazing little market?—"

"On real happiness," she continued. "I know you love your job. I thought the same until I had you and your brothers, but it's nothing compared to having a child, nothing. I want you to enjoy that before it's too late."

Too late. She thought she was hearing the clanging shut of some biological gate that would make it impossible for me to have children, but she didn't understand. I was twenty-eight and childless for a reason. One of my brothers, Dave, had gotten married to someone mad enough to put up with his shit and I loved my niblings dearly, but… I'd seen what Frannie, his wife, had gone through and knew then that even if this actually was the happiest I'd ever be.

I didn't want it.

I liked kids and respected women who became mothers, but that didn't make me want to become one of them. It was as if the instinct that every other woman possessed was just missing in me.

"I told you, Mum," I said, fighting to keep my voice calm as I walked in the open door of the garage. The place was blessedly quiet. "We're keeping things casual. There's no rush."

"No rush? No rush!" I looked around in alarm, as if the whole workshop could hear her shrieks. "If you chose one of them now you'd have to have at least a year of being together exclusively before you could even think about marriage. Then there's the engagement period?—"

"Mum—"

"You'd need at least six months to plan a wedding, but that would be ridiculously hard. You'd have to quit that job of yours."

My hand clutched harder at my toolbox handle.

"Mum—"

"Then there's trying to find venues. Perhaps we should start looking around, put in a tentative booking?—"

"Mum—"

"I know what you're going to say and I realise it sounds ridiculous, but?—"

"Mum!"

My voice echoed through the workshop, declaring to all the cars we had up on hoists that I was having family drama. Thank god the boys weren't in yet because I'd never hear the end of it. The only girl in a male-dominated workplace meant I was an easy target for teasing. It was only when they realised I could give back as good as I got that they stopped. But with new material…

"Mum, we're keeping things casual."

Keep restating your position and don't give ground , I thought furiously. "I know you'd love a wedding to plan, but you're going to have to focus on Frankie's." My brother had found a gorgeous girl that was willing to put up with him and they had just got engaged. "I'm not in the right place with any of the guys—" Make that any guys at all. "—to be making those sorts of plans."

"We'll see." I'd walked in here thinking I could deal with my mother, but that began to crumble at her words. Majorie had bulldozed over teachers, bank tellers, shop assistants and waiters before, so why would she stop at me? "That's why I called you. Your father and I are coming to town later in the week. The engagement party is on next weekend, and you'll need a date. This is a perfect time to meet these men who're hanging around, see which one is worthy of my daughter."

A faint ringing sound started up in my head, the same I'd experienced one day when I was an apprentice. Someone had shouted at me and my head jerked up, connecting with the engine bay. After the guys stopped laughing, my boss, Brock, grabbed the dolly I was lying on and dragged me out, looking me over before taking me into the break room to patch up the cut on my forehead.

"We'll work out which one is husband material," Mum assured me through the high-pitched whine. "Then we can start making bookings."

"When?"

That's all I managed to croak out. Not no, Mum, don't do that. Not no, Mum, you can't. Because the problem wasn't that I had three guys all vying for my attention and I needed to choose one.

It was that I had none.

None of the guys I went out with were worth introducing to my mother, something that made her fuss and carry on, until finally I'd caved. I couldn't just create one imaginary boyfriend, because she'd be on a plane and flying over here in seconds, wedding bells in her eyes. Two wasn't really a deterrent either, because she'd initiate a cage fight between the two of them, forcing them to battle for the honour of my hand. Three different imaginary guys meant I had an active dating life, and the possibility that one could become something serious kept her concerns at bay, while never actually moving forward.

Three imaginary boyfriends I needed to produce in a few days.

"Mum, we're just dating," I told her through gritted teeth. "Keeping things casual. Meeting the parents is the definition of not casual."

"Then perhaps it's a good thing that we're coming to town," Mum replied. "If they're not ready to get serious now, then they never will be. You'll need to move on from them and find better options. You'll thank me later."

I wouldn't. I really, really wouldn't, but as she said goodbye, I mumbled an appropriate response back, staring at the phone screen when it went black.

"OhmygodOhmygodOhmygodOhmygod…" I hissed over and over again, then did the only thing I could think of, tapping on the screen and bringing up my bestie's contact. It went straight to voicemail as she wouldn't even be up yet, because Millie was the manager of a local pub. "Millie? Mills? We've gotta talk. Mum's coming to town in a couple of days and…" I swallowed hard but that didn't dislodge the lump in my throat. "She wants to meet my ‘boyfriends.'"

I ended the call then, knowing she'd understand what that meant. When I'd come up with this brilliant plan, she'd made clear that this was gonna come back to bite me on the arse at some point, and now I'm about to get chomped.

Today was going to be a great day, I thought, stomping over to the car I was working on, then popping my earbuds in before grabbing the tools I needed and sliding under the engine bay.

And now it just sucked.