Next chapter is online. Have fun and leave me a comment, please.
As always: thanks to my beta, Isi.
Disclaimer: I don't own McLeods Daughters or anything related to it.
16. Early Birds
As an early bird Claire awoke at her usual time although the last days had been exhausting, especially for a pregnant woman.
Last night she had made a plan: get up early, get a quick breakfast and leave the house. That way she would have a chance to avoid Tess and Alex at the breakfast table. If that plan worked she wouldn't meet anybody, neither her sister nor Alex.
Her clothes lay on the chair where she had left them last night, she took them and got dressed.
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Alex awoke early too because he had slept sitting at the wall to Claire's room. His back was hurting as well as his butt but he had wanted this. So he got up, stretched his muscles, put some clothes on and made his way to the bathroom. His things lay already there so he took his electric razor and shaved his face and did the rest of his morning routine. When he finished that he wanted to get downstairs, get something to eat and train the horses. He hadn't done a good job with them yesterday because his mind had been distracted.
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Both didn't know that their plans wouldn't work out at all.
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Claire stepped into the hallway at the same moment as Alex left the bathroom.
"Here we're finally meeting again." He thought and looked at her.
"Yes, you can." She tried to convince herself and returned his look.
"We have to ..." Both started at the same time and had to laugh about it. It seemed like they knew what the other was going to do or to say.
"Let's go downstairs and talk." Claire proposed.
"Lady's first." Alex replied and let her go first.
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On their way to the staircase they passed by Tess' room. The door was open so Claire looked into it. She wanted to know if she was awake otherwise she wanted to apologize to her too. But instead she saw something unexpected although she had wished to see this happening a long time ago. "Why did this happen tonight?" "Alex, have a look." She whispered.
That whisper made him curious. He had noticed that she had stopped so he turned around and went back to her. Her hand pointed towards Tess' room so he looked into it. A look at Claire told him that she was as surprised as he was. They had a lot to talk about and it wasn't just last night it was this morning too. He pointed with his indexfinger towards the staircase as a sign that they should go downstairs and talk.
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Like before Claire went ahead towards the kitchen, Alex followed her.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you last night." He started after they had entered the kitchen.
She looked at him. "How could I have been that angry with you?" They still stood in the kitchen, they hadn't sat down and she hadn't said a word yet.
"Say something."
That got her out of her thoughts. "Of course it is. I'm sorry too. Actually it was my fault as well. I was tired, the headache was killing me and the appointment was exhausting. So I overreacted." Claire said and went closer to him. Claire didn't know what would be right to do or say but she knew what she wanted to do so she did that and pulled him into a hug. She wanted to keep him close, give him no chance to go away or end the hug but that would be odd for friends. So she slightly started to move away from him, making space towards him.
Alex was surprised by this, he hadn't seen it coming but he enjoyed it after their fight last night and obviously because of his feelings towards her too. "This should never end." But Claire brought it to an end because she moved away from him like a friend would do and would expect of another friend. "But what happens when one of them has fallen in love?" He asked himself and she thought about the same thing but this time both didn't know and didn't speak about the thoughts of the other.
"Turn your thing on, Alex. It had worked on women before." He encouraged himself but thought about the way he had liked them but hadn't loved them, even Tess had been the like-type to him. It was no wonder that their relationship didn't work out although he had broken up with her because of his brother. Actually he wanted Claire since the first day they had met but Claire was different and never gave him a chance, even at his 21st birthday she didn't want to kiss him. "Will that ever change?"
That moment was too personal to her so she wanted to change the subject otherwise she would tell Alex about her feelings and she wasn't prepared for his reaction. She couldn't stand to lose him as a friend. They hadn't spoken about the thing they had witnessed upstairs, a perfect, different subject.
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"Have you seen that coming? Nick and Tess! I thought it would take decades until they would get it right."
He thought about it for a moment and saw the picture of them again. Tess asleep in Nick's arm, no space for a piece of paper left between them.
"No, I haven't although he had told me yesterday that there was something between them when she was over at Wilgul."
"Maybe we have to plan two weddings then."
"What would that look like? Your idea and Tess' idea of the perfect wedding don't fit together."
"You've got no idea how my wedding will be. You're man and they aren't interested in weddings and other girl stuff. Oh no, I'm wrong. They are interested when they can get something out of it like a date."
"I don't think so. Do you wanna bet on that? Bet that I don't know how your wedding will be?"
"Actually I do. So tell me how it will be."
"You would wear a classical white dress, neither too fancy nor too simple, just matching to you. It would look great on you. Your groom, that would be me, would wear a black tuxedo, simple but classical too, because I shouldn't upstage you. The bridesmaids are allowed to pick a dress on their own or to wear one of their own because you hate to wear clothes somebody else picked for you. By the way that's the reason why I hardly recognize you in a dress but you looked great everytime I've seen you in one. The ceremony would be hold here, possibly out on the paddock close to the graves of your family members because you would want them to be part of the wedding. White roses and white lilies would be wherever you look. There wouldn't be many guests because you would only invite people who are close to you, family and friends. Tess would walk you down the aisle and I would be waiting there for you." Alex ended his idea of Claire's wedding with a smile on his face. "How was that?"
Claire didn't say a word. "Unbelievable!" That was her wedding how she had planned it her whole life at least when she had had some girl moments as a teenager. "Not bad. You planned a nice wedding but I'm not sure if that's mine." Claire answered smiling.
"You know that we have to start the planning of that event soon otherwise that little baby you're carrying in your belly won't have a married mother." He replied still smiling by the idea that he was going to marry her.
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The topic was still personal, too personal for Claire so Nick and Tess hadn't helped. But she tried a second time. "Are you hungry? I could fix us something to eat."
Alex knew Claire's non-present cooking talent and didn't want to try anything else than a slice of bread fixed by her. "Good idea but a slice of bread and a cuppa would be enough. Not much fixing to do."
"Ha ha, really funny Alex. I don't want to cook for you." She replied, got up and took bread, butter, jam and cheese out of the fridge. Afterwards she filled the kettle with water and put it onto the stove because they needed coffee to start the day. After some time the coffee was ready and she filled two mugs with it, handing one over to Alex, who already had sat down at the table, and sat down with her own at the table too. They ate silently until they finished their meal.
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"Now I'll have a look at the horse. Did it work out well yesterday? Hadn't had a look at it at all." Claire asked.
"There wasn't much time left for it yesterday because of the renewing as well as moving out of Killarney and moving in here. Sorry."
"No need to apologize for. I totally understand. You had a lot of work to do and I wasn't here to help you. I should be sorry instead of you."
"No worries. I loved to do it. You should have a closer look at my room later on. By the way I did some repairings at the roof too because some roofing tiles had been broken."
"Ok, thanks for that. What about the money?"
"Forget it. I took the things I needed from Killarney. Harry gave his permission so there were no costs at all."
"Well then. I'm ready now. Shall we go outside, Alex?"
"Yeah, sure." He replied and left the house together with Claire. They arrived at the paddock and Alex went into it. Claire stood outside leaned against the gate.
This work needed concentration but he couldn't concentrate because he knew Claire was watching him and because of that he made more mistakes then he did ever before.
"What's wrong Alex?"
"Nothing, I just need to concentrate. I'm still tired that's the problem I guess."
"Well, then start to concentrate more or we will never get another horse to work with." Claire replied laughing and watched Alex' back and the part underneath that. "Not bad, not bad at all."
"Yeah, I will." He replied turning his head around and laughed too. "When I'm done here I'll go back to Killarney. Harry wants me to be there. He won't let me go before the end of the week. Otherwise I wouldn't get my payment. It will probably get late. Don't wait for me with dinner. I'll call you when I know a time."
"Alright then. I'm going back to the house. The others should be up by now. I can talk with them about today's details. See ya." Claire said and walked back to the house.
A while after she had left Alex finished his work and went back to the house too. He went into the bathroom, took a quick shower, put some clean clothes on and was already on his way to Killarney.