She reached the end of the short row of businesses and parked her ute beside a gate leading to a field of fruit trees. Daisy had said the rest of the way would be easier on foot, which may have beentrue if she hadn’t succumbed to some ridiculous whim to wear girly heeled sandals.
The spread of fruit trees grew thinner as she walked, replaced by chilli bushes, some sort of vine growing on trestles—grapes perhaps?—and she passed a cluster of handmade beehives. Frangipanis dotted the field, their trunks growing up from within white-painted car tyres, and a tricycle sporting brightly coloured streamers on both handles rested in the shade of a campervan.
She looked at the instructions Daisy had given her:Park outside the old gate. Walk up the drive about a hundred metres. When you’re past the veggie patch, you’ll see a big old tree with a tyre swing hanging from it. That’s the Bangadoon party tree.
The directions were redundant; when the Miles family hosted a lunch, they clearly went all out. The astronauts on the space station could probably see Amy’s party preparations. Coloured flags flew from the branches of a giant poinciana, and the long table below was bright with flowers, and coloured napkins, and a pile of haphazardly wrapped presents. One of the brothers—Will, thank heavens—was lounging on a deckchair reading a newspaper.
Kirsty tucked away the instructions and walked along the gravel path.
And okay, sure, her peripheral vision may have been doing back-and-forth scans for Joe as she walked … but whatever, it hadn’t found him, so she let go of the breath she’d been holding. Maybe she could squidge herself in at one end of the table and he’d be down the far end and the awkwardness could be stretched thin by distance.
‘Kirsty?’
She spun on her heel. Joe was standing in a clearing, barefoot and—yowza—shirtless and—blinking heck—soaking wet. Boardies that had seen way,waytoo many summers to have retained anyfabric densityat allwere clinging to hips that were sort-of-very suntanned and sort-of-very lean and—yep—there was an arrow of dark hair just hangin’ about down there drawing the eye. Details she’d not seen in their middle-of-the-night tryst because a) it had been dark and b) there’d been no lingering.
Her peripheral vision was clearly shot but her up-close-to-semi-naked-hot-guy vision was working on overdrive.
Strapped to his back, her skinny arms wrapped around his neck, was an equally wet Amy, and the middle brothers, Anthony and Lachy, trailed along behind them.
‘Kirsty!’ yelled Amy. ‘You came! Is that present for me?’
Kirsty wrenched her gaze from Joe’s surprised look. Clearly he hadn’t got the memo that she’d been invited. ‘What, this old thing?’ she said, lifting the yellow-wrapped parcel in her hands. ‘Oh no,’ she said.
Amy had wriggled free from her uncle’s grip, and it was deja vu all over again … the kid was sporting her knickers and gumboots look. All she needed was a runaway chook to complete the picture.
‘You’re a terrible joker, Kirsty,’ said Amy, slipping an icy little hand into hers. ‘And it’s a pity you weren’t here earlier. We’ve been down to the creek, and there is so much water, and Lachy put an inner tube in for me to float down, and Red Ant threw Mum in, and Uncle Joey could have thrown you in too. What a bummer you missed out.’
‘Super bummer,’ she said.
Amy took the parcel from her and sat it on the table. ‘Look at all this booty,’ she said. ‘I wish I had a birthday every day.’
‘Every day would be a lot. You’d be, like, three thousand years old by now.’
‘Golly, I hadn’t thought about that. I’m going to have to open them later, because guess what’s happening now?’
The kid’s enthusiasm was so infectious, she felt obliged to pluck a few wild ideas from the air. ‘Hot air balloon rides? A pony trek to the gelati caravan?’
Amy flung her arm around her waist and gave her a hug. ‘We can save your ideas up for later, but right now, it’s time for Bangadoon Cricket.’
‘Um … do I know what that is?’
Felicity, whose dry hair and clothes suggested she hadn’t been one of the lucky ones to get thrown in the creek, appeared from within the house, a basket of bread rolls in her hands. ‘Kirsty, hey, glad you could make it. Bangadoon cricket is like backyard cricket, only less rules and more tantrums.’
Joe had plucked a tennis ball from a hanging basket of ferns. He tossed it in the air then caught it behind his back. ‘Who’s ready to get bowled out by the invincible arm of Joey Miles?’
Will set his mug down on the table with a thump and gave Kirsty a wink. ‘Oh, gameon, brother. Two bucks says I’ll hit a six off the first ball.’
‘Not with me fielding,’ said Felicity. ‘I have the speed of an emu and the eye of an eagle.’
‘Joey and the girls against the dream team?’ said Lachy. ‘I like our odds. You in, Ant?’
Anthony cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders like he was a television wrestler about to go centre stage. ‘I’m in.’ He turned to Kirsty. ‘Pick a team, Kirsty. Team Winner is me, Will and Lachy. Team Loser is Joey, Flick and Daisy.
‘Don’t forget the birthday girl,’ said Amy. ‘I want to be Team Loser with Joey.’
Kirsty took a breath. So this was what big family life was like; no rules and plenty of tantrums … what could go wrong? ‘Team Winner it is,’ she said.
An hour, a bruised fingernail, and a lot of laughing later, she found a seat at the table.