LITMIR.BIZ

       ONE

      ‘Laptop and mobile chargers packed? Did you check the oil in the car?’

      Lu Sheppard stood in the east coast early-morning sunshine and, because she knew that throwing her arms around the hairy knees closest to her and hanging on tightly wouldn’t be appreciated, jammed her clenched fists into the pockets of her faded denim shorts. Turning her head away, she swallowed furiously before digging deep and yanking out her patented, much practised I’m-OK-you’re-OK smile.

      ‘Lu, you did,’ answered Daniel, the younger of her twin brothers. ‘Twice.’

      That was right. She had. And she’d ticked it off on the list she’d made for them. Not that either of them had looked at it. Lord, how was she going to do this? These boys had been her life and her focus for the past decade. How was she supposed to just let them get into their car and drive across the country to university and, to all intents and purposes, out of her life? She’d yelled at them, cried with them and cried over them. She’d provided meals and lifts, helped with homework and bugged them to talk to her. She’d been father, mother, sister and friend.

      She was twenty-nine years old and not only was she unable to stare empty nest syndrome in the eye, it was also kicking her non-sexy butt. But, like so many other emotions she’d experienced over the past ten years, the boys didn’t have to know that...

      Daniel leaned back against the door of his jointly owned car and cleared his throat. Lu saw the look he gave Nate and felt rather than saw the nod Nate gave in reply. Nate moved to stand next to his non-identical twin, equally tall, equally good-looking.

      Daniel cleared his throat again. ‘Lu, we are grateful that you stepped up to be our guardian when Mom and Dad died. If it wasn’t for you we would’ve ended up with some crusty relative who probably would’ve shipped us off to boarding school and holiday camps.’

      Since their parents had both been only children, Daniel’s comment wasn’t far off the truth. All their relatives were old, crusty, and generally waiting for the light in the tunnel.

      ‘But it’s time for a new start...for us and also for you.’

      Huh? ‘What do you mean?’

      Daniel rubbed his jaw. ‘We think it’s time for you to do all the things you couldn’t do because you were raising us.’

      Lu frowned. ‘Where is this coming from, guys? We talked about this—about you two leaving.’

      ‘Sure—about what uni was like, how we felt about leaving, what we were getting into. But we never spoke about you.’ Nate chipped in.

      Lu’s expression was pure confusion. ‘Why did we need to? My life isn’t changing.’

      ‘It should,’ Nate retorted.

      ‘But why?’

      ‘Because nothing about your life is normal for a single woman of your age! When did you last have a date?’ Nate demanded.

      Lu couldn’t remember. It had been a while—six, eight months? She could barely remember the man, just that he hadn’t been able to wait to get rid of her after she’d told him that her twin brothers lived with her and she was their guardian. She couldn’t blame him; his had been the standard reaction from the very few men she’d dated over the years: shock followed by an immediate desire to find the closest exit.

      Add a large house, two dogs, an enormous saltwater fish tank, three corn snakes—no, they’d been moved to a reptile centre when she’d refused to look after them after the boys left—and cats to the pile of her baggage, and it was no wonder her dates belted away.

      ‘We need to talk to you about...you,’ Nate said.

      ‘Me?’ Lu yelped as she pulled a band from her shorts and finger-combed her straight, mouse-brown hair into a stubby pony.

      Uh, no. She looked after them—physically, mentally—they didn’t look after her. That was the way their little family worked.

      ‘Look, Lu, we’re not only leaving, we’re leaving you. You know our plans: degrees, then we want to travel. We have no idea where we’ll end up but there’s a

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