LITMIR.BIZ

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close to cafés and shopping.

      But the point of coming home was to be close to family. Was to have them as an extended support system. Multiple places the kids could go and stay when she invariably got stuck at work. Always someone to pick up the kids if she couldn’t. Cousins to have sleepovers, share homework or catch a movie with. Aunts and uncles to spoil them and take them places and keep an eye on them. Grandparents to babysit.

      No more nanny.

      So Grace very sensibly looked only at houses for sale in the immediate vicinity of the school. The market was much more inflated in Melbourne and Grace was shocked at the prices. Luckily she’d made a good return on her investment with her place back in Brisbane and she calculated she could afford a three-bedroom house without going into a hideous amount of debt.

      Julie and Doug had provided for the children’s expenses in their wills but they’d been heavily in debt at the time of the accident so there hadn’t been much money left. And what there was Grace hadn’t wanted to touch. It belonged to Tash and Benji and she knew her sister would have wanted the money to be put towards the kids’ university educations.

      By the end of the second week she finally found what she was looking for. It was about a kilometre from the school in one direction and even less from her parents’ in the other. It was a post-war, low-set brick with a small backyard. It needed a little TLC—the décor definitely needed modernising—but it was of sturdy construction and she could afford it.

      Tash had stared aghast at the lurid shagpile carpet in the hallway and the childish wallpaper in her room the day Grace had taken them to visit their new home. She’d also been completely unimpressed that she was going to have to share a bathroom with everyone else.

      Benji had been kinder, his interest lying only in the fact that due to the backyard a puppy might be in the offing. Grace had fobbed him off, promising to think about it for Christmas.

      But maybe, Grace thought as she signed the contract, she and the kids could work at modernising it together? She could let them make over their rooms—involve them. Working part time would be very conducive to a DIY project.

      She had to try and engage Tash somehow. She’d hoped her niece would get over her resentment at being forced to move from Brisbane but it was just one more thing for Tash to hold against her. She was stubbornly recalcitrant where Grace was concerned. She was pleasant enough with everyone else but cut Grace no slack.

      It broke Grace’s heart. She’d always been Tash’s favourite aunty. Cool Aunty Grace. Whenever Grace had come back for holidays Tash had been Grace’s shadow. They’d chatted on the phone every few days since Tash had been old enough to speak.

      But those days had long gone.

      ‘Be patient,’ her mother had said.

      Except patience had never been a virtue she’d mastered.

      She was losing Tash. And she couldn’t bear it. But she just didn’t know what to do. How to reach her. She was a fifteen-year-old girl who had lost her parents and shut herself off from the one person she’d once been closest to.

      The one person who could help her the most.

      And with all this weighing on her mind, Grace would have expected there to be no room for thoughts of Brent Cartwright.

      But she’d been wrong.

      It had been eight weeks since she’d seen him, since that awkward moment in the supply room, and tomorrow she had to face him again.

      And every day after that.

      A heavy feeling had been sitting like a lead lump in her stomach ever since she’d accepted the job. Nervousness. A sense of dread.

      And that she could cope with.

      It was the rather contrary bubble in her cells and the fizz in her blood that made her uneasy.

      Very, very uneasy.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘ANXIOUS about today, darling?’

      Anxious? Grace was so nervous she could barely pick up her cup of tea without it rattling against the saucer.

      Why her mother was the only person on the planet not to have switched to mugs was a complete mystery.

      She looked around at the expectant faces at the table. It had been nice to slip back into the family breakfast ritual but this morning she could have done with a little less companionship.

      The kids were inhaling cereal like they’d never eaten before. Her father was reading the paper. Her brother Marshall had called in on his way to work to drop off his two kids and was currently eating his second breakfast of the day.

      ‘No.’ Grace shook her head and forced down the toast that her mother had insisted on making her.

      The food was in imminent danger of regurgitation but at least it gave her something to think about other than Brent.

      Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.

      Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.

      ‘You’ll be fine once you get stuck in,’ Marshall added.

      ‘I have a five-day hospital orientation first. Boring stuff like fire lectures and workplace health and safety stuff, so I won’t be getting stuck in until next week. But at least its nine to five.’

      ‘I hate starting a new job.’ Marshall shuddered.

      Trish nodded. ‘It’s always hard starting over somewhere new.’ She squeezed her daughter’s hand. ‘I know you’re my oldest and you haven’t been little for a very long time, but I’ll still worry as if it was your first day at kindy. It’s not easy walking into a place where you don’t know a soul.’

      Irritated by being babied and by their incessant need to talk about what was making her feel incredibly nervous, she blurted out, ‘Brent works there.’

      There was a moment of double-take around the table that would have been quite comical to an outsider. Her mother sucked in a very audible breath. Her father looked up from his paper. Marshall stopped chewing in mid-mouthful.

      ‘Brent Cartwright?’ her father said.

      ‘You didn’t mention that before,’ her mother said.

      ‘Wow. That’s a blast from the past,’ Marshall said.

      Tash looked from one adult to the other. ‘Who’s Brent Cartwright?’

      ‘Grace’s old boyfriend,’ Marshall said, reaching for his fourth slice of toast.

      Grace glared at him and turned to Tash. ‘He was someone I knew a long time ago. We went to med school together.’

      ‘I didn’t think you were still in touch with him?’ Trish said.

      ‘I’m not.’ She shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could gather. ‘I … bumped into him when I came down for the interview. He works at the Central.’ Grace kept it deliberately vague.

      ‘Well, how is he? What’s he been doing with his life? Goodness … it’s been, what … twenty years? Is he married? Does he have kids?’

      Grace realised she couldn’t answer any of the personal questions about him. She hadn’t asked about his life and he hadn’t volunteered.

      Had be been wearing a ring?

      The lump of lead sank a little deeper into the lining of her stomach at the prospect. Which was utterly ridiculous. Of course he’d be married by now. With a swag of kids to boot. It was all he’d ever wanted.

      A family to call his own.

      She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, we barely talked,’ she said.

      ‘Well, how’d he look?’ Trish sighed and fluttered her hand against her chest. ‘He was

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