Chapter 3

When his phone rang, Nate woke with a start. He blinked until the blurry numbers on the screen made sense and then he groaned. This was what happened when he dodged his literary agent Garrett’s calls for a week. “It’s not even five am here.”

“That’s your problem, not mine. Now put some clothes on. I want to see your face when I tell you the best news ever.”

Nate pushed his hand through his hair and sat up, his curiosity piqued. “I’m wearing clothes.”

“Clothes you’d be happy my interns saw if they wander into my office?”

Nate looked down at his faded Utah Mountain University T-shirt and forest green flannel pyjama pants. “I’ll get a jumper,” he grumbled.

“Oh, a jumper. I love it when you speak all Aussie to me.” Garrett’s New York accent came through the line clearly. Even without seeing him right now, Nate could picture him in a funky yet professional suit, no tie, and a watch so ugly it was kind of cool. Garrett’s vintage Air Jordans would be hanging off the edge of his glass-topped desk, a Bluetooth headset in his ear. “I’m switching to video now.”

Nate snatched his Wattle Junction Wallabies jumper off the chair next to his bed, pulled it over his head and stuffed his feet into his Ugg boots. He picked up his glasses before he shuffled down the hall, stopping to pat his golden retriever, Echo, when she glared at him. “Sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Nate James, I don’t believe it. Do you have company?”

The surprise in Garrett’s tone was almost offensive. Like Nate would answer a call if he had a woman over. Not that he ever brought anyone home. The list of people who had ever been to his house was basically Charlie, Sera and his family. No one else. The screen changed, his agent’s dark hair and deep charcoal eyes filling the frame.

“Just my number one girl.” Nate aimed his phone towards the corner of the room where Echo was stretched out on her bed, her head already buried under one of her many blankets again. He kept walking towards the kitchen.

“That makes more sense. I know you’re weird about sharing your space,” Garrett said.

Nate preferred to think of it as having solid boundaries around his home, which was one of the few places he could be himself. When the old log cabin set on two hundred acres next to his parents’ property had become available six years ago, he’d snapped it up immediately. He loved the way the home was nestled into nature and how Wattle Creek ran through his land. It was close enough that he could walk or run into Wattle Junction if he really wanted to but far enough that he couldn’t see his neighbours. It was the perfect balance of being close to his family after living away for so long while still having his own space.

“Alright, you ready?” Garrett asked.

Nate flicked his coffee machine on and checked his loaves of sourdough had risen overnight before sliding them into the oven and setting the timer. He sank onto one of the stools at his kitchen island and positioned the phone against the potted peace lily Eloise had given him for his birthday. “Let’s hear it.”

“So, I’m at a dinner. Industry thing. You know how it is. Anyway, you’ll never guess who I ran into.”

Nate swallowed a yawn. After spending half the night following a plot tangent down a rabbit hole that went nowhere, he wasn’t in the mood for guessing games.

Garrett’s loud sigh announced his displeasure.

“Sorry. Who?”

“This is good news. A little enthusiasm would be appreciated.”

Nate couldn’t resist poking the bear. “So would having this conversation in three hours.”

Garrett crossed his arms, and Nate’s mouth curled into a smile. “Alright. I’m sorry. Was it that editor you’ve been talking about? The one who specialises in memoirs?” Not that Nate had any interest in writing his life story. Firstly, it felt way too presumptuous to do that at only twenty-nine years old and secondly, counterintuitive when he was trying to fade into the background these days.

“Nope. It was”—Garrett paused for dramatic effect—“Jemima Jenkins!”

Nate had never been comfortable with the celebrity associated with his former life as a professional athlete, but he’d met plenty of famous people over the years. Never anyone like Jemima Jenkins, though. She was beloved worldwide for her self-titled talk show which had run for several decades before she ended it to focus on developing her own production company. She was the kind of famous that meant it felt disrespectful to only refer to her by only her first name. Jemima Jenkins was a full-name kind of lady.

When Nate didn’t respond, Garrett groaned. “Please tell me you know who Jemima Jenkins is, Mountain Man?”

Nate stood and retrieved his now full cup of black coffee. “I do.”

“She’s looking for a new project, and we agreed your Smoky Mountain Killers books would be perfect.”

Nate returned to his stool and lifted his coffee to his mouth, blowing the steam away. “Perfect for what?” he asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“A television adaptation! Can you imagine? This is what we’ve been waiting for.”

‘We’ wasn’t the right word to use there. “I’ve told you before?—”

“I know. You don’t care about accolades. You write for your readers and yourself. It’s all very magnanimous. But I care about them. Think of it as a way to take your career to the next level. Rumour has it she’s about to launch her own publishing house as well. Do you need a sports metaphor? This is a Super Bowl-winning touchdown.”

Nate sipped his coffee. Garrett was right; this was a huge opportunity and something they’d only ever briefly discussed before. With his SMK series rapidly approaching the end, it would be a new challenge and a way to hopefully reach a whole new swag of readers.

“But we need to move fast while it’s fresh in her mind. Send me everything you’ve drafted for the final book. I told Jemima we’d have a proposal to her within the next two weeks.”

Nate almost dropped his coffee cup. “But … we were working towards a late October deadline for the editor.” He hadn’t planned on sending anything to Garrett for another month at least, which was handy considering he hadn’t figured out how to weave all the plot threads together one last time. The small-town series that revolved around a sheriff’s office in Tennessee had redefined Nate’s professional career, and it deserved the perfect ending. If the universe could tell him what that was sometime soon, that would be really handy.

“Things change. We need to hustle. She loved the first three books, was begging for an advanced copy of the fourth which I’ve already given her and is desperate to know how it all ends.”

Jemima Jenkins could join the queue. “Uh, I don’t think it’s possible.”

Garrett scoffed. “There’s the enthusiasm I was looking for. It doesn’t matter if it’s rough.”

An itch crawled across Nate’s chest, followed by a rush of heat. “Did you not hear me?”

“I’m choosing to ignore your attempt at self-sabotage. Send me what you’ve got, and I’ll have a read.”

“It’s not ready. It doesn’t have an ending.” Nate sipped his coffee, the extra bitter flavour making him wince.

“You do this every time. Stop obsessing over every little detail; even an outline is fine. If you don’t send it to me, I’ll get on a plane.”

Damn it. Garrett would do it too. “Give me a few days to clean it up,” Nate grumbled.

“That’s more like it. We’ll talk Monday.”

Phew. The time difference would buy him some extra time.

“Your Monday. Not mine,” Garrett clarified.

Great. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Just take a deep breath, go to your happy place and work your magic.”

If only writing was that easy.

* * *

There wereseveral benefits to living with one’s grandmother like being woken each day with a cup of steaming peppermint tea on her bedside table. Then Joanie would leave the door open and let the crooners from the sixties coax Eloise out of bed and into the real world. When Eloise had moved in five years ago to help Joanie recover from one of her hip replacements, the plan had always been for it to be a short-term thing but she’d just … never left.

The television in the lounge room was on mute, with closed captions rolling across the screen. Her grandmother’s only coffee of the day was on its usual coaster, next to her iPhone. Joanie looked up from the book she’d been reading—a slow-burn, second-chance romance she’d taken from Eloise’s bookcase.

“What do you think of it?” Eloise asked.

“The main guy sounds like a fox. Bet there are a few things I could teach him. I was pretty flexible back in the day.”

It was a good thing Eloise hadn’t had breakfast yet. Innuendo never paired well with a full stomach. Neither did knowing her grandmother’s sex life had been far more exciting than hers was or had ever been.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Eloise blinked. “Like what?”

“Like I shouldn’t say those things.”

“I didn’t …”

Joanie put her book down and crossed her legs. Her toenails were a shocking orange. At this rate, one day, her grandmother would start glowing in the dark. “I spent my whole life doing the right thing, doing what I was supposed to because I didn’t have a choice. Now I’m on my own”—her pencilled-on eyebrows crept up her wrinkled forehead—“in the twilight of my life, I’m determined to enjoy myself. Maybe you’d like to give it a go sometime.”

Eloise didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, she was happy for Joanie. Based on the stories she’d heard about her grandmother’s childhood, there’d been a lot of rules and pressure to be the perfect child. Then Joanie and local boy George Mandrill had married young, and while their relationship wasn’t an unhappy one, it hadn’t been what a romance author would describe as a love match. And things had got very complicated when their fifteen-year-old daughter came home pregnant. When George died in a tragic small plane crash fifteen years ago, Joanie said it was a wake-up call. She’d decided to live her life to the fullest.

“I do enjoy myself,” Eloise grumbled.

Her grandmother lifted her book, plucking the leather bookmark with a buttery yellow pom-pom at the top that Eloise had made her in primary school out of the pages. “You could’ve enjoyed yourself a lot more last night. That dress, and the girl in it, was a slam dunk. Or a goal. Which is the football one?”

“Before or after I set everything on fire?”

Joanie didn’t bother looking up. “Please. It was all a bit of a snooze fest before that. You lost your chance to have a lot of fun when you decided you couldn’t compete with the maid of honour. He wasn’t interested in her.”

Eloise’s breath caught in her throat, and she flopped onto the light pink couch her grandmother had bought a few years ago.

Joanie turned a page delicately. “Nate’s had his eye on someone else for a long time, anyway.”

Eloise buried her face in the fluffy cushion next to her. Of course, Nate wanted someone else. She’d been such a fool to think a pretty dress and high heels would make him look at her differently. He’d had plenty of time to look at her over the years and never made a move. The closest they’d ever got to having a moment had been over a year ago when Nate had driven her home because it was raining and she’d walked to work. For a fleeting second, Eloise had thought that he was going to kiss her as the rain tapped against the roof of his car and the air pulsed with the heat of a summer storm. But he’d just leant past her, explaining that the passenger side door stuck when it was wet. When was she going to get the message and realise he didn’t feel the same way?

Besides, what had she expected him to see? A woman who lived with her grandmother? Who was always covered in paint smudges and was never quite caffeinated enough to hold a proper conversation? Who talked about going on a big adventure but was scared to leave her hometown? Who’d never even had a real relationship? Why would she when her two exes—even calling them that was a stretch—had treated her so terribly and been cruel about her lack of sexual experience. Because nothing acted like a stronger contraceptive than knowing her parents had had two children by the time she finished high school.

“Everyone knows Nate’s got it bad for the shy, unassuming social worker at Kathleen’s Place.”

Eloise’s eyes widened.

The social worker?

At Kathleen’s Place?

“But I’m the … that’s me.” To further prove how ridiculous she was, Eloise pointed at herself.

This time, Joanie did look up. “I know, dear. We’ve met.”

“What do you mean ‘everyone knows’? Who’s everyone?” Eloise pushed up off the couch.

If Joanie said it was her friends, this conversation was over. Joanie and the rest of the Old Girls Gossip Brigade regularly imagined chemistry between any two people who had pulses. Of course, they sometimes got it right. Case in point: Nate’s older brother Owen and her best friend Alice. Those two had thought they were sneaking around, pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes when really all of Wattle Junction had known they were falling in love.

“It’s been obvious ever since he swapped to making sourdough.”

Eloise pivoted, her wet hair swinging like a vine hitting the back of her arms, until she could see the golden brown loaf dusted in a light coat of flour, a perfect cross in the top of it. She’d assumed her grandmother requested the change to Eloise’s favourite.

“I never said anything. He overheard you talking about how much you loved it. Ever since then, we’ve had sourdough. One plus one equals two,” Joanie said, nose buried in her book again.

Eloise walked to the table on wobbly legs. She picked up a perfect slice, little puddles of melted butter pooled in the air pockets which appeared when it was baking. The tangy flavour burst on her tongue as she nibbled at the crust before swallowing.

Joanie was wrong. Surely.

“Nate probably just likes making it because it’s more complicated. He loves a challenge. That’s why he does so many things—painting, upcycling old furniture like the table at Kathleen’s Place?—”

Mercifully, Joanie interjected, stopping Eloise from embarrassing herself further. “Come on, darling. Read the room. Or rather, the carbohydrates.”

It was dangerous to even consider that Joanie might be right. Because if Nate was interested in her—and so far, the only vaguely concrete evidence was loaves of bread—then why wouldn’t he act on it? What was stopping him? Was it her? Or—Eloise thunked her head into her hands and groaned.

Charlie. If something were to happen between Eloise and Nate and it didn’t work out, there would be consequences for his friendship with her brother.

But what was she supposed to do now? Pretend she didn’t know this? Even if she wasn’t wholly convinced Joanie hadn’t just read too many romances in which guys like Nate fell for women like Eloise.

A quick glance at the clock on the oven answered her question. There was no time to ponder it now. Her day was about to start without her.

* * *

“What are you doing?”a voice behind Eloise murmured.

She twisted around, her heart rate speeding up when she saw Nate. “You scared me,” she whispered.

“Why are you hiding in the hallway to the bathrooms?”

“My professor’s out there!” She pointed towards the dining room of the Wattle Junction Hotel. She’d recognised Professor Armstrong’s curly brown hair immediately even though most of the tables were full and it wasn’t even trivia night. The hum of conversation mingled with the noises from the kitchen to her right.

The air behind her shifted, and the warmth of Nate’s body pressed closer. She stole a glance at him. Nate peered around her shoulder, his breath sending goosebumps over her skin.

“So? Doesn’t she love you? Aren’t you doing that mentor/mentee thing together?”

“I am, but I still don’t want her to see me.”

“Why not?”

Professor Armstrong looked up, and Eloise shrank backwards, her shoulder pressing against Nate’s hard chest. Stop it. Thinking about his muscles wouldn’t help right now. “She emailed me earlier. Said we need to meet urgently. She obviously hates my major project proposal, and I’m never going to finish this master’s degree.”

“Or …” Nate twisted her around, his hands lingering on her hips just long enough for Eloise to think that maybe Joanie was right and forget about her professor. He waited until their gazes met. “She came to the pub to have dinner.”

Eloise chewed on her bottom lip, and the air around them grew thicker when she realised Nate was staring at her mouth.

Had she crash-landed on an alien planet today or something? Shaking her head, Eloise tried to focus. “It’s not my best work, but with everything that’s going on with the wedding and studying and trying to set up more community programs at work … God, what if I fail?”

Overloading her schedule in the lead-up to Charlie’s wedding hadn’t been a good idea. But Eloise had always loved being busy and helping people. As someone who’d seen firsthand how much Kathleen’s Place offered to the community, Eloise had always been driven to repay the assistance her family had received. Almost all the activities she’d done as a child had been at KPs because they were free or heavily subsidised.

She shushed the little voice in her mind that whispered the real reason she was burying herself in work: she was no closer to achieving any of her personal goals. Eloise had been single for so long that she was beginning to wonder if she’d forgotten how to have sex—although if she believed what her previous partners had told her, she hadn’t known in the first place—and she had zero plans to go on the big adventure she’d been talking about forever.

Her gaze swept the dining room again, snagging on where Alice was sitting with Owen. The loved-up couple were tucked into a corner booth, oblivious to the rest of the room as they shared a plate of nachos and a bottle of rosé. Given Alice’s disastrous first marriage, Eloise wasn’t sure they’d ever make it to the altar, but there was no question they’d be together forever.

Everyone was moving on to the next stage of their lives, and she was stuck … in a hallway near the toilets. No need to dig too deep into that metaphor.

“Come on.” Nate nudged her forward. “Let me buy you a drink. If your professor sees you, just say hi and arrange a time to meet properly.”

Eloise kept her gaze down as they wound their way through the tables.

“Is there anything I can help with?” Nate asked once she was sipping her favourite crisp and sweet Tasmanian cider.

Sure. It’d be real handy if Nate could let her know if he ever thought about what she looked like naked. And if he wanted to do anything about turning that fantasy into a reality. That’d be swell.

Eloise shook her head. “It’s fine. I’ve got Wednesday night earmarked to catch up on a few things.” Shoot. She rummaged through her backpack until she found her diary and flipped through the pages. “Scratch that. I’ll do it tonight when I get home. I’m working Wednesday night.”

She ignored the concern that skittered across Nate’s face.

“Why?” he asked.

“The guy who was running our after-school sports program got a job in Melbourne. I haven’t found a replacement yet. And before you volunteer, I’ll figure something out.”

Nate shrugged. “I could do it, though.”

Eloise smiled when Teddy deposited a steaming plate of wedges with extra sour cream in front of her. Just because Nate knew her go-to order didn’t mean he wanted to be more than friends … but she knew what her grandmother would say about it all. Teddy set a chicken Caesar salad down in front of Nate. “You do too much for KPs already. Doesn’t he, Teddy?” she said, using her nickname for Kathleen’s Place. The community home had been a part of the fabric of Wattle Junction ever since the sixties when it was first established. Eloise had always loved going there when she was younger and exploring the old buildings surrounded by lavender fields and orchards. Once upon a time, it had been the biggest homestead in the area before Nate’s great-grandmother had purchased it and turned it into a special place for anyone who needed a little extra help. Working there as the in-house social worker was a dream come true for Eloise.

“Yep. Nate loves helping at KPs. For the community. No other reason at all,” Teddy said, winking, and the brothers shared a look Eloise didn’t have the energy to decipher right now.

“I’m pretty sure Teddy has Wednesday nights free, too, don’t you, mate? He also loves hanging out with kids because he’s just an overgrown child himself,” Nate said.

The knowing smirk slid off Teddy’s face. “Uhhh …”

“And Mum’s always so touched when we volunteer at KPs.”

“It’d only be for a few weeks until I found a replacement,” Eloise said.

The resigned slump of Teddy’s shoulders prompted Nate’s lips to curl into a broad smile. It was the grin he saved just for his family and the people he really cared about. The one that always, always made Eloise giddy.

“Shoot me a text with the details, and I’ll be there,” Teddy said.

Eloise made a show of crossing the item off her to-do list. When she looked up, she swore. “Professor Armstrong’s seen me. I better go and say hi. Thanks, Teddy. I really appreciate it.”

As she edged around Nate’s chair, she was pretty sure she heard Teddy tell Nate that he was a dick … and a coward.