Chapter Six
‘You lied to me.’ Lachlan stared ahead. They were outside in the darkness, surrounded by the scent from the beautiful roses.
The sounds of others frolicking in the pool echoed into the evening air and Carrie nervously put her hand on her boyfriend’s arm. ‘I didn’t tell you because I knew how you’d react.’ Bella had let it slip that Carrie had been a part of Owen’s life before Rosie came along.
‘You should’ve mentioned it. Being blind-sided isn’t what I had in mind when I came here tonight.’
‘Tell me something…’ She trod carefully. ‘Would you have been comfortable with Owen doing the renovations at my place if you knew we’d dated?’
The tension in his jaw was still there. ‘I don’t suppose I would, no.’
Carrie leaned her body against his and put her arms around his waist. ‘Owen only has eyes for one woman now, and that’s Rosie.’
‘I met her, she seems nice.’
‘She’s lovely. They met when I was dating Owen.’
He pulled back, intrigued. ‘Really?’ And over by the rockery she told him the entire story before they made their way inside to mingle some more. But as they reached the door Lachlan leaned in and said, ‘I just don’t like knowing he’s seen you naked.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that mate. I didn’t realise she was there.’ Noah had appeared in the doorway just as Carrie was about to reassure Lachlan that he had nothing to worry about. He smiled, oblivious. ‘And then the next minute there she is on the other side of the window, dripping wet from the shower. I think we were both as shocked as each other.’
Carrie’s insides plummeted and Lachlan wouldn’t even look at her this time. She asked him if he wanted a beer or a wine and he grunted a response but Carrie couldn’t wait to get away. Noah sensed he’d put his foot in it somehow and escaped the second Carrie went to get the drinks, leaving Lachlan talking to Owen’s dad, Michael – a safe bet for a good chat given he’d been a doctor too, once upon a time. Lachlan could talk about medicine until the end of time. It was his life. His reason for being.
Rosie filled two glasses with sauvignon blanc and Carrie turned to take them outside, almost bumping into Noah as he reached for a beer from the selection on the kitchen benchtop.
‘Did I cause a problem back there?’ he asked.
Carrie smiled although she was a little embarrassed at having had her naked body brought up in conversation again, especially after she’d only just settled things between her and Lachlan over her history with Owen. ‘Not at all.’
‘Only your boyfriend seemed shocked I’d seen you naked. From what I’d overheard, I thought you’d just told him the whole story and were laughing about it.’
‘We weren’t talking about you.’ She went to leave but he obviously hadn’t finished and as he moved in to talk to her again she caught a waft of aftershave she wouldn’t usually associate with him. She was used to seeing him with mud over his legs, his hands and face showing signs of his work as an outdoor labourer, but here he was in a freshly laundered shirt, ironed impeccably, with jeans that didn’t give any hint as to his occupation.
‘Then who?’ he asked, but it didn’t take long for the penny to drop. ‘Ah, he’s jealous of Owen.’
She shushed him. ‘Keep your voice down.’
‘The jealous type is he?’ He swigged his beer.
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘Fine, I’ll go shall I?’
‘I think that would be best.’ She scurried through the throng of people, most of whom she didn’t know, and found Lachlan looking less tense as he spoke to Michael Harrison. She stood patiently by his side like a sports widow, except instead of talking wickets, goals and tries they were discussing the latest techniques in cardiothoracic surgery.
‘He’s a good man,’ said Lachlan when Michael excused himself to talk to Bella’s husband, Rodney, who’d spotted the resident blue-tongue lizard scarpering across the back of the rockery. The rockery was all lit up and looked equally impressive as the rest of the garden.
‘He’s nice,’ Carrie agreed.
‘I guess you’d know that already. You’ve obviously briefed him though because he didn’t say a word about you. And who knows, maybe he’s seen you naked as well.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’ She snapped at him but then her voice softened. ‘I haven’t briefed him, Lachlan. I’ve never met the man before.’ She took his hand and led him to the other, less populated, side of the deck. ‘Owen and I were never serious, it was a bit of fun.’
Lachlan raked a hand through his hair although it was so short it daren’t move. ‘Sometimes I wonder if by you coming up here, it’s the beginning of the end between us.’
Carrie gulped.
‘If you stay here, in that house, you’ll rarely get back to the city, and with my shifts at the hospital I don’t see how we’ll survive.’
She didn’t know what to say. How could she reassure him when she had no idea what was going to happen long term? There was the house now, her career, her feelings. So much to consider, and she was beginning to feel stifled again with no clear path through the fog.
Lachlan leaned closer and planted a kiss on her lips, a kiss that said he hoped everyone around could see that she was his. And although not entirely comfortable with the display of affection at someone else’s house, she couldn’t be too annoyed at him. He was a strong, together surgeon and often described as unflappable, but that was at work. When it came to his home life, Lachlan could be entirely different.
‘No more men seeing you naked.’ Lachlan took her wine glass and put it on the table. He pulled her against him again. ‘Unless it’s me, agreed?’
She sighed against his chest. ‘Agreed.’ She moved to go inside the house but he pulled her back.
‘How about we get out of here? The cottage is waiting for us and from what I’ve been told it’s got a corner tub for two.’
She smiled. ‘All in good time, but I want to see a bit more of the girls first.’
He made a sound as though he was pained but it was short-lived as Michael reappeared and the two men, with Rodney, launched into conversation about football.
‘Your boyfriend seems to be hitting it off with everyone,’ said Gemma when Carrie went inside. ‘And he’s gorgeous too. I wouldn’t mind him being my doctor.’
‘Get in line.’ Bella joined them at the kitchen bench as they helped themselves to the mini cheese and bacon quiches. She leaned closer to Carrie as Rosie came over and poured three glasses of champagne. ‘I’m sorry if I put my foot in it earlier, with Lachlan,’ said Bella. ‘I assumed he knew who Owen was, what with him working at the house.’
Carrie shook her head. ‘Absolutely no need to apologise. I should’ve told him in the first place, but we’re all good now so please don’t give it another moment’s thought.’
Rosie handed the champagne to Carrie, Gemma and Bella and they moved outside with their drinks. Lachlan looked comfortable with the men and so the girls made their way down to the gazebo at the back of the pool and sat on the bench overlooking the water.
‘You going to swim tonight, Carrie?’ Rosie looked at many of the town’s residents making the most of the fine March weather, the warm endless evenings that would soon disappear when autumn was upon them.
‘No, not tonight.’ She’d bought her swimmers as instructed on the invite Owen had dropped round, but getting near-naked in front of all these people would surely be too much for Lachlan to cope with.
‘She’s in trouble,’ Bella whispered, and Carrie had to laugh. Her delivery was clearly fuelled by too much of the fizzy stuff.
‘Why?’ Rosie and Gemma wanted to know.
‘She didn’t tell Lachlan she’d dated Owen,’ Bella explained.
Carrie took it from there. ‘He’s a little uncomfortable. I mean, he’s just found out the host’s son was with his girlfriend once upon a time…’ She hesitated but Rosie dismissed her concern. ‘…sorry, Rosie.’ She laughed then, the bubbles going to her own head. ‘The man renovating my house used to be my lover, and the man doing my garden has seen me naked. It’s too much fuel for the fire, shall we say.’
Gemma’s mouth fell open. ‘What?’ Rosie had already heard the story but Gemma and Bella were intrigued. ‘Noah? What was he doing seeing you naked?’
Carrie enlightened them. ‘I was so embarrassed. No, mortified. I mean, I thought I was in the middle of nowhere and then there’s a man the other side of my window.’
‘How much did he see?’ Bella wanted to know.
‘From my waist up, so enough.’
Bella sniggered. ‘I bet he got excited…bet he needed a cold shower of his own after that.’
‘I’m not surprised Lachlan is feeling a bit threatened,’ Gemma surmised.
‘He must think we’re all a bunch of interbreeding weirdos.’ Bella’s giggle echoed into the night.
‘OK, no more of those for you,’ said Rosie, pointing to Bella’s empty glass. ‘You should eat something.’
‘I will, I will. I’m letting my hair down for once. Managing your own business is tough and although I’m glad the café’s up and running again, I’d forgotten how your time is never your own. You’re either in there serving, or you’re cleaning up, or you’re cooking and planning menus, and then doing the books in every spare moment you have.’
Gemma nodded. ‘You sound like Andrew. But I bet, just like him, you wouldn’t have it any other way.’
‘You’re right, and I’m doing it with Rodney so that makes it easier.’
‘How’s the nannying going?’ Rosie asked Carrie. ‘Still hard work?’
‘It is, but I think Maria and I are starting to come to an understanding. No longer does she say jump and I ask how high.’ She laughed. ‘Actually, that’s bullshit. Whatever Maria wants she pretty much gets. She’s not even a year old so I don’t think the art of manipulation will enter her mind for a long time yet.’
‘And what about the baby-cuddling program you mentioned?’
‘I was at the hospital today, and the organisation of it is much further along than I thought.’ Carrie went into detail about the program, what the aim was, how it would roughly work.
‘So you’ll be advertising for volunteers?’ Bella asked. ‘Will you do a shift yourself?’
‘I hadn’t thought I would,’ Carrie confessed. ‘But reading more about the program and being in charge of bringing it to fruition, I think I might.’
‘Are there any qualifications volunteers need to have?’ Gemma wanted to know.
Carrie shook her head. ‘Not at all. Volunteers will be screened to check backgrounds and their suitability, but all training is given and really it’s a case of whoever wants to volunteer can.’
‘It’d be good practice for you.’ Bella nudged Rosie. ‘Then again, it might scare you off. I mean, how sick are these babies, Carrie?’
‘I won’t lie to you,’ – she wanted to be as honest as possible – ‘there are some really sick babies and that is the hardest part. Some babies are born to drug-addicted mothers and might be going through withdrawal.’ Bella gasped. ‘I know, it can be confronting. All these babies have one hell of a journey ahead and they can be agitated, have difficulty sleeping, they’re jittery. It breaks your heart to think about it, but what they really crave is being tightly swaddled, held, and that’s what the program is about.’
‘Are all the babies in the same position?’ Gemma asked.
‘Not all. Often the cuddling program helps parents of multiple births because obviously they can’t hold all three or four babies at once, or it offers parents who live a distance away and who have other children to care for the chance to be at home with their family and know their baby is being held and looked after at the hospital when they can’t be there.’
Rosie’s face fell. ‘I can’t imagine what it must be like for those mothers.’ She looked at Carrie as she touched her baby bump. ‘I would hate for this little one to be at the hospital without me.’
‘If you had another child at home then it might be what you had to do. Some of these parents don’t have a choice. The hospital opening means families aren’t having to travel into the city all the time but, still, it’s often a distance from where they live.’
‘You know,’ Rosie began, ‘you hear parents talking about wanting their kids to join certain clubs, be at a particular school, succeed in their exams, but, at the end of the day, none of it matters, does it? You just want children who are happy and healthy.’
‘I’ll raise a glass to that.’ Bella lifted up her glass with the others to toast but collapsed in a fit of the giggles when she realised the vessel was empty.
‘Here.’ Gemma poured some of her own champagne into the glass for Bella.
‘Thank you.’ Bella sounded as though she was verging on the emotional. ‘You know what we should do?’
‘What?’ Gemma grinned and rolled her eyes at Rosie, as they wondered what would come out of Bella’s mouth.
Bella raised her glass and looked at Carrie. ‘I think we should do it. All of us.’
‘Do what?’ Carrie jerked back slightly when someone bombed into the pool and sent water over the jacuzzi and onto her legs.
‘We should go cuddle those babies. Poor little mites.’
‘You know, she’s actually talking sense,’ said Gemma.
‘I think for once she might be.’ Rosie earned herself a playful slap from Bella.
‘You’re serious?’ Carrie asked. ‘You all want to sign up as volunteers?’
‘Not just us, you too. You’re one of us now.’ Bella was on her feet and gestured for the others to do the same. She raised her glass and waited for the other girls to follow suit. ‘To us. The volunteers of the baby-cuddling program.’ After they’d clinked glasses she jumped up and down on the spot in excitement. ‘What should we call ourselves? We need a name!’
‘I don’t know – we’ll have to think, won’t we?’ Rosie leaned back from her seated position and plucked a bottle of water from the fridge in the gazebo.
This time it was Carrie on her feet, in amongst a group of friends and taking the lead. ‘To the Magnolia Girls!’ she declared.
‘That’s it!’ Gemma smiled.
‘It’s perfect,’ Rosie agreed.
Carrie looked at each of them as they all smiled excitedly at their new collective title. And when she held up her glass they followed suit, their vessels meeting mid-air.
‘To the Magnolia Girls!’ they chorused.