Bilgarra Springs (16 page)

Cal didn’t see her as he ducked into the room. Aurora wasn’t close enough to hear exactly what Rick’s response was, but she did make out the words ‘big skirt’. She bit her lip to stop the chuckle that was about to erupt. She didn’t want them to think that she was eavesdropping.

What interested her more was the fact that Callan and Theresa were sleeping apart. For the life of her, Aurora couldn’t work out why. Their relationship surely wasn’t a secret. If so, it was one of the worst kept secrets ever. Maybe there was a more simple explanation. Perhaps it was for the sake of keeping up appearances. Or maybe they really didn’t sleep together. Possibly they were saving themselves for marriage.

Whatever.

It was none of her business and she needed to get over this awareness of feelings that had been creeping up on her for a while.

Bottom line was, Callan was off limits.

Get over it.

She steeled herself and made her way back out to the car to bring in the rest of her gear.

From that point on, the afternoon was a whirlwind affair. Trudy came and collected her and introduced her to the soon-to-be bride and groom, her parents, his brother and his parents. She rationalised that she could probably, if she tried hard that is, remember the names of the pair getting married, but as for everybody else, she figured there was not a snowflake’s chance in hell of being able to recall them later. Her inability to remember names was one of her failings as a lecturer. She would be better off calling her students by their student numbers, which, incidentally, she had no problem at all remembering. Well...maybe not the whole hundred students for her lectures, but certainly those for her tutorials. Numbers had always been her thing.

A few drinks in the afternoon had become a barbeque in the evening, and Heather had been right. So far it had been an absolute riot. She hadn’t laughed that much in a long time. The beauty of their humour was that for the most part they weren’t poking fun at each other, they tended to aim their barbs at themselves. She hated herself for it, but she had been a little warm and fuzzy on the inside when Cal had come over and sat down with Trudy, Rick and her. Oddly, Theresa had stayed on the other side of the group, heads together with the bride.

Aurora hadn’t noticed until fairly well into the night, that Theresa had on what appeared to be an engagement ring. She felt incredibly stupid for her own silly belief that Callan had chosen to be close to her during the evening. Aurora’s insecurities flared. All things considered, why would he be interested in somebody like her when he already had as close to perfection as he could possibly get.

She had only noticed the ring when one of the other women had leant over Theresa and picked her hand up for a closer look. Aurora didn’t think she wanted to examine the ring herself. She figured that it would be just like Theresa – beautiful and sparkly. At least the fact of their engagement put her feelings into perspective and although she felt foolish for the moment, so far it was only her that knew what her feelings for him were developing into. At least she didn’t have the extra worry of what everybody else was thinking.

Given that there was a wedding tomorrow, Aurora had thought that it would have been an early night, especially for the bride and groom. She was surprised therefore when it was eleven or so before the likes of Fiona and Arthur, and Rick and Trudy had pulled up stumps. After that people had started drifting off one at a time.

She herself had called it quits around 1:30 a.m. The constant opening and closing of doors as everybody else had made their way back had meant that she hadn’t slept well for the next three or so hours. She had checked her watch at 4:30 a.m. wondering how the hell she was going to stay awake through the wedding and function at all during the reception party. Come to think of it, she wondered more particularly how the others were going to fare tomorrow due to the fact that she herself had only had a few drinks. They had still been going strong when she left. The fact that she was worrying about that made her feel old, but the feeling only lasted a second before sleep overcame her again.

Given the extremely late night for most, Aurora had expected them to sleep in to mid morning, if not late morning. She was, therefore, incredibly surprised when the opening doors and general noise started again at dawn. She would gladly have throttled one of them. Instead, she rolled out of bed and dragged herself over to the area where they had all been last night, doing her best to be as animated as possible under the circumstances.

The happy couple where preparing breakfast along with most of the Bilgarra crew. It sucked to be the only non-morning person amidst a group who bounced out of bed chirpy. Then the fact that the bride and groom were in the same place registered somewhere in the recesses of her brain. She figured that in the circumstances it may be a little hard for them to stay clear of each other until they said their vows, and quite frankly, who nowadays was superstitious anyway?

She was trying to huddle into the corner, desperately clutching her coffee when she noticed another man stride into the group. He hadn’t been there last night. She would have noticed as he had a city boy look about him and he stuck out from the others. The deck shoes and designer jeans and collared shirt very much gave him away. What really made her eyes bug was the fact that he strode straight over to Theresa, grabbed her in a monstrous hug and kissed her very soundly, in a way that was certainly NOT brotherly.

Aurora’s eyes searched for Cal. She was even more horrified when she spotted him at the back of the group, being firmly slapped on the shoulder by the interloper. Aurora had never taken him for a man who would be happy to share his fiancée with another. She gently shook her head as if to clear it. Maybe she was seeing things due to sleep deprivation and too much caffeine on an empty stomach. When she looked back, she realised that her eyes were not deceiving her, the man was standing there with his arm around Theresa.

She figured that there had to be some logical explanation. She sure as hell wasn’t going to ask. It was hard enough dealing with feelings she shouldn’t have when she was the only one who knew about it. It would be infinitely harder if others worked it out. It would create a lot of tension and unease. And she had to face it; she was only at Bilgarra for a couple more weeks. She made a determined decision to try an ignore Cal, Theresa and the stranger for the next few hours and just sit back and enjoy not having to do anything in the middle of a group of people who were fun and hell bent on enjoying themselves.

The wedding ceremony was held under one of the big trees to the side of the main house in the late afternoon. There was a slight breeze blowing and the gentle swish of the leaves was almost nature’s concerto to the happy couple. The subtle movement of the veil and the soft folds of the bride’s dress added movement to the music. Aurora had been to some very flash weddings in Sydney over the years but none of those came anywhere near to this one for its impact.

The bride and groom stood under a sprawling tree, blue skies above, the wheat coloured grass and the mountains behind. The simplicity of the picture and the couple was beautiful. She could tell from their attention to each other that making the commitment was more important than staging a gala event. Her eyes welled up when they took their first kiss as husband and wife. Whilst her rational brain told her that they had no doubt kissed hundreds, if not thousands of times before, this one carried special significance. Callan and Theresa stood beside the groom and bride respectively and it crossed Aurora’s mind that it would be their turn soon.

As hard as she was trying to ignore him, and her newly discovered, and very inappropriate, feelings for him, she couldn’t miss the statement that he made in black suit pants and open necked black satin shirt. He normally had a masculine rugged air about him but in the groomsman outfit he looked like a real bad boy all he needed to complete the picture was 2 day stubble. She was thankful in a way that he was off limits. It would be so easy to make a fool of herself over him.

After the congratulatory huddle around the bride and groom had died down and the photographer had assembled everybody for a group shot, he borrowed the bridal party and immediate family for some photos. There was some great scenery here and Aurora didn’t doubt that the wedding photos would be absolutely stunning. The photographer was lucky he had attractive subjects and a fantastic backdrop. If he couldn’t work magic out of that there was no hope for him.

The group moved over to where the buffet tables had been set up. The whole ‘reception’ was taking place under the stars. Strings of fairy lights had been criss-crossed over the area and a large wooden dance floor erected to one side. There were tables and chairs set out with stark white cloths and table centrepieces made of native flowers that matched the bride’s bouquet. Once again, the simplicity of it all struck Aurora. There were no formal place cards or seating plan and one of the others had told her that the bride and groom had banned speeches so she guessed that it was not going to have any of the formal hallmarks of a traditional wedding reception.

There had been two spits roasting for a few hours now one with beef and the other with lamb. The women, herself included, had spent a lot of time this morning organising vegetables and side dishes. The idea had been to serve dishes that were not going to require a lot of attention to cooking so that nobody had the burden of worrying about the catering. So far it seemed to be working well and the men had organised the alfoil packages of roast vegies into the coals under the spits. The side dishes didn’t require refrigeration and were already on the tables, covered, so there was nothing left to do but sit back and enjoy.

A band had been brought in from Charters Towers and they started not long after the end of the ceremony. The family returned from photos relatively quickly, with the bridal party making their entrance just on dusk. Aurora’s eyes went straight to Cal and Theresa entering together behind the bride and groom. They had to be excited over the fact that they would be doing it themselves soon. Their faces were certainly radiating happiness.

She turned her attention away, quickly scanning the crowd, checking out people and outfits and generally absorbing the atmosphere. People were milling about, chatting in small groups when Cal whistled incredibly loudly, snagging everybody’s attention and there was an almost immediate hush that fell over the group.

‘Thanks everyone. Look I know that there are to be no speeches and I was expressly told that I wasn’t to prepare one and don’t panic, I haven’t, but I think it would be wrong for us to celebrate the marriage of Sophie and Jeff without a formal introduction of Mr and Mrs Calvin and a toast to their good health and a long and fruitful union.’

At that point a young guy from the area over towards the drinks on ice yelled out that he bet that Jeff and Sophie had already been practising producing fruit. Cal chuckled at that and continued.

‘In all seriousness, Soph and Jeff, all the best.’

With that he raised the can in his hand, the group following suit with a chorus of ‘To Sophie and Jeff.’ Catcalls and whistles followed with cutlery being hit against glasses, calling for a kiss. With a genuineness that touched Aurora, Jeff placed his hands on either side of Sophie’s face and kissed her in an incredibly tender fashion. Applause rippled through the guests and the band took that as their cue to launch into a version of an early Madonna number,
Crazy for You.

Completely breaking with tradition, Jeff grabbed Sophie’s hand and pulled her over to the dance floor. The pair of them moved to the song, speaking in hushed tones and lost in their little world together. Before she knew what was happening, Cal had grabbed Aurora’s hand and pulled her to her feet.

‘Come dance with me.’

Aurora was too stunned to disagree and blindly followed him out to the dance floor. Cal didn’t hold her in the traditional waltz position, but rather looped his arms around the back of her waist. She didn’t feel comfortable in putting her arms around his neck so she left her hands resting awkwardly on top of his arms. When they spun around she noticed that Theresa and the guy from this morning were wrapped around each other in a very surprising way. She wondered whether Cal’s interest in her was some sort of jealous payback for Theresa’s behaviour with the other man. That realisation took the pleasure out of the moment for her.

The song ended and the band launched into a fast number. Some people stayed on the floor bouncing around but when Cal raised a questioning eyebrow at her she shook her head and he walked her back to where she had been sitting. Trudy and Rick had sat down and once she herself had sat down, Cal and Rick launched into an in depth conversation about some breeding programme that the owners of this property were considering trialling.