Page 1

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.