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roasted up a fresh batch after she made Roly throw the old ones out. We’ve got honey peanuts, spicy peanuts, and for the traditionalists, plain old salted peanuts.’
    ‘Maude Thompson?’
    ‘That’s the one. She took Roly’s peanut stockpile out to the feedlot herself, every last box. Nearly broke his heart.’
    ‘Cows eat salted peanuts?’
    Billie grinned and headed towards a customer at the other end of the bar. ‘They do now.’
    Adam knew most of the crowd here tonight; anglers as well as darts players. A mix of men and women both – more women than he’d been expecting. The huge cedar doors hung wide open and people spilled onto the verandah, the better to appreciate the first stirrings of a fickle breeze. Billie Temple seemed to have a knack for making people feel welcome, and it wasn’t just that the old pub was cleaner than he’d ever seen it. She’d even managed to con Casey into scoring the darts on an old blackboard hung specially for the event. Crusty old Casey who’d promptly delegated the chalk work to young Cal so he could sit back and heckle the play.
    Warmth; he felt it and it wasn’t just the lingering heat of the day. Life; the old pub fairly pulsed with it. And then a dozen piping hot meat pies came through to the bar, and the stampede was on and even that was fun and funny as Roly reigned supreme and doled out Maude’s meat pies on fancy china plates until they were gone.
     
    ‘I think darts night is a success,’ Billie said to Roly as she watched yet another couple finish their farewells and exit through the huge double doors. It was nine-thirty and the crowd had thinned considerably but there was no denying that for a couple of hours at least, the old pub had done good business. Billie cast an experienced eye about the room, looking for empties and figuring how many more customers were about to finish up. ‘Do
you
think it’s a success?’
    ‘Big one,’ said Roly, with a nod towards the manager’s office where Cal had retreated to. ‘Time to get that boy of yours home. There’s a storm coming in.’
    ‘We can stay a little longer.’
    ‘I can manage. Have done for years. Besides, what I don’t get done the cleaners can finish off in the morning. That’s what they’re paid for, isn’t it?’ Roly’s tone was mildly aggrieved. Roly remaining unconvinced that daily cleaning was a necessity.
    ‘Did you get any feedback on the pies?’ she asked him. ‘I got three marriage proposals to pass on to Maude.’
    ‘I hope you told them they were dreaming,’ said Roly. ‘That woman’s downright fussy when it comes to men. C’mon, Billie. Go. You should have been home an hour ago.’
    ‘I’m on salary, Roly. I’m hardly going to charge you overtime.’
    ‘It’s not the overtime I’m worried about. It’s the weather and that goat track out to Adam’s. Now, go.’
    Sighing, Billie went and found Cal, stretched out on Roly’s office couch. It wasn’t that Roly was difficult to manage, because he wasn’t. In some ways he was remarkably open to change. Right up until he put his foot down. He’d put his foot down when it came to adding spinach and ricotta rolls in flaky pastry to tonight’s pie menu. ‘They would have worked, though,’ she said. ‘They’d have gone down an absolute treat.’
    ‘What would?’ asked Cal.
    ‘Spinach and ricotta rolls.’
    Surprisingly enough, Kincaid was still in the pub, deep in conversation with a rangy dark-haired man Billie had never seen before. He was doing a passable job of ignoring the heat between them. Billie was trying hard to follow his lead, but she couldn’t deny she’d felt Adam’s eyes on her this evening, and nor could she resist the impish desire to say goodnight as she passed him by.
    He looked up as she approached and their eyes locked and all thoughts of offering up a cheerful farewell fled.
    ‘You’re heading off now?’ he asked quietly, his gaze moving from her to Cal.
    Billie nodded. He seemed to relax