Public Property (12 page)

‘Have you changed
your mind about wanting to marry me?
’

He stopped walking and turned to face her.

‘No.
God
,
Nick no
.
Don’t be stupid
,’
she
exclaimed, taking hold of both his
hands and squeezing them tight
.

‘
Then what is it? What’s freaking you out about setting a date for our wedding?
’

‘
Oh I don’t know
.
T
he thought of planning it all probably.
I mean weddings are about families and I don’t have one
.
That
kind of means your side of the church is going to be packed full of people and mine is going to have the
Petroholis
family,
’ Freya
said, sighing
.

‘
I haven’t exactly got a big family
,
Freya.
Any
way,
if we invite all the
Petroholis
family, including
all their
aunts, uncles and cousins we
’
ll need to hire the entire Empire State Building for the reception
.’

Freya smiled. He was right. Once that Greek family got together it was like a crowd inside a baseball game.

‘
And it takes a lot of
organisation
,
which is fine if you
’
re Emma
,
but not so good if you
’
re me. I mean
,
I couldn’t
organise
a personal
organi
s
er
,’
Freya told him.

‘
So
,
do you want a
lavish
white wedding with ten br
idesmaids and a team of coordinators
?
Or
w
ere you planning to sell th
e rights to the photographs to
Shooting Stars
magazine?
’
Nicholas asked her.

‘
Well
,
no
.’

‘
Then what’s the problem? Let’s set a date and plan
the
wedding we want.
A
quiet wedding if that’s what you
’
d prefer
,’
he suggested
.

‘
But is that what
you
want too?
I
t isn’t just about me
.’

‘
I want whatever you want
,
Freya.
I just want to ma
ke a commitment to you.
I want you to be my wife
.
H
ow we
make the com
mitment isn’t so important as long as it’s special, for both of us.’
 

‘
So
,
if I said I wanted to just fly to Las Vegas one day and get married in a drive
-
through chapel with two witnesses and an Elvis impersonator you would be cool with that?
’

‘Yes I would.
I
f it means making you
Mrs
Kaden
I
’
d be cool with anything
,’
he
told her.

She
nodded and then turned away from him and began walking across the street towards the road to their home.

‘
So? Is that the end of the conversation? Do you need time to think about it or something?
’
He hurried to catch her up.

‘No one’s been able to tell me if we’re going to get snow here. Do you think a winter wedding would be cool?’

‘You want to do it now?
Near Christmas?’
The excitement in his voice was clear.

‘
Yes, is that too soon for you? I thought that if we
’
re going to do it
,
we
’
d better do it before you go all
Out of Africa
on me
.’

‘A winter wedding
sounds fantastic
.
C
ome here
,’
he
ordered her
. H
e took hold of her arm and pulled her towards him.

L
ook
ing down at her, he
gently ran his fingers across the surgeon’s headscarf
covering
her forehead
. He
cupped her face with his hands. Freya smiled at him and put her arms around his neck, pulling him towards her to kiss him.

‘
I love you
,
Freya
.’

‘
I love you too
.’

He kissed her nose and slipped his hand into hers.

‘
So d
o
you really want to go to Vegas?’ he asked.

‘
I haven’t decided how I want to do it yet
.
B
ut one thing I do know
…
I
’
m
going to be the one wearing the dress
.’
S
he pulled at the hem of Nicholas’ nurse
uniform
and ran off up the road laughing.

Elvis was singing to her. It was ‘Love me Tender’ and he was dressed in a white flared jumpsuit covered in rhinestones. His hair was jet black, styled in a
qu
i
ff
and he was wearing huge gold sunglasses. And then her nose felt wet and scratchy. It was like someone was rubbing a damp emery board across it.

Freya opened her eyes and felt fur touch her cheek and whiskers poke her eyes. It was Willis
, licking her nose.

‘You hungry?’
Freya asked him.

She turned on her side, trying not to
make Willis topple from the bed
and reached for her glasses
on the nightstand
. She caught sight of the time on the clock radio
. I
t was almost seven thirty.

‘
Daddy up early again
,
Willis
?
Come on, let’s go and get you some breakfast and see what he’s up to
,’
Freya
said. She
strok
ed
the cat’s head.

She got out of bed, tied her robe around her and headed out of the bedroom. Willis skipped in front of her and led the way down the stairs.

The door
leading
to the basement was open
. That meant
Nicholas was working out. Converting the cellar into a state
of
the
art gym was the only modification they
’
d made to the house since moving in.
Freya knew
he found it tiresome,
but
keeping himself in shape was essential for Nicholas
’
profession. When the equipment
was
first installed
,
she’d
attempted to have a turn on the running machine
.
S
he soon found out it wasn
’
t an activity you could multitask on. She had nearly choked on a chocolate muffin and almost scalded herself with a hot cup of tea. She hadn
’
t been near the equipment since.

W
illis weaved in and out of her legs as she negoti
ated the stairs down to the gym.
Nicholas was seated, his back to her,
bare from the waist up
, using the lateral pull
-
down.

Freya stood and watched him. He
h
a
d
an amazing physique she could look
at all day. She quickly pulled a small digital camera out of the pocket of her robe and snapped a couple of pict
ures
.

‘
Hey
,’
he greeted
. He
let
go of the weights and turned
around to face her.

‘
Morning.
So
,
at what hour did you decide you
’d
rather spend time with these boring, ugly
, stiff machines instead of me?’
Freya
asked, walking
towards him, Willis hot on her heels.

‘
It was about six, or just after. I woke and I couldn’t get back to sleep and I thought if I do this now I won’t have to do it later
.
I thought
maybe we
c
ould
go out to dinner tonight
.’
He stood up, reached for his towel and rubbed his face with it.

‘
My choice?
’

‘
Ye
a
h, why not.
I
’
ve just about recovered from the last feeding frenzy we went on when we did four different restaurants in the one evening
.’

Willis let out a
mi
aow
and jumped up on to the stepper machine
. It started to move
and scared him
. He leapt off
and raced up the cellar steps.

‘
Willis is hungry and so am I. Have you eaten?
’
Freya asked
. She took
the towel from him and rubb
ed
the sweat from his back.

‘
No, what have we got?
’

‘
The leftover pizza
’s
still there
.
I
t’s probably still good for one more day. Or there
’
s a carton of Chinese we didn’
t finish on Tuesday
.
O
r there are blueberry muffins from the diner but they
’
ve been hanging around a while so perhaps they ought to go in the bin
,’
Freya
recounted
as they made their way back up to the main house.

‘
Do we not have bread and eggs or
c
ereal?
’

‘
Well ye
a
h, we have those things
.
B
ut they aren’t very exciting
.’

‘
I’m making scrambled eggs with toast and I
’
m putting all that leftover takeaway food in the trash
,’ he
told her.

‘
The
“
bin
”
God
damn
it
!
T
he
“
bin
”
!
Even the p
izza?
It’s got everything on it.’

‘
Especially the pizza
.
If it’s been around that long it’s got everything on it and a whole lot more.’

Willis was sat on the kitchen counter when they arrived in the room, rubbing his
head against the cupboard
hous
ing
his food.

‘
So
,
you haven’t forgotten what we
’
re doing today have you?
’
Nicholas
asked
.

‘
Do we have something planned?
’

‘
The new scanning equipment
’
s going to be used for the first time at Carlton General Hospital today. We
’
re doing a meet and greet with the patients, cutting a ribbon and having lunch with the hospital board. You really had forgotten
,
hadn’t you?
’

‘
Oh God is that today?! Yes
,
I
had forgotten, but that’s fine.
I’ll call
Sasha
, have her check the diary and cancel anything I might have stupidly put in. I did say I wasn’t an
organiser
,
’
Freya
reminded him.