Ally fell asleep quickly

She woke a few hours later, her mind churning, wondering alternately whether she and Ben would get along at all or whether they would get along too well. Had she leaped out of the frying pan and into the pressure cooker, so to speak?

Would that be so bad?

She let her imagination run rampant, and the mental images got her so hot she threw off the covers. But while the fantasy of making love with Ben held some appeal, she felt instinctively it would be a mistake to take up with him on the rebound. She needed to figure out where she kept going wrong with men before she embarked on another romance.

Engaging in sex without love would cloud her judgment and delay finding Mr. Right. She was too old to waste time on Mr. Right Now.

Dear Reader,

Just as food nourishes the body, so does love nourish the soul. In Party of Three, Chef Ben Gillard seduces Ally Cummings with food and nourishes her with love. Gradually she rediscovers her passion for life, and in doing so opens up a whole new life for Ben and his son, Danny.

I had a ball writing this book. I was given the opportunity to observe the inner workings of a restaurant kitchen, take part in an olive harvest and spend a romantic weekend in the country with my husband, all in the name of research.

Party of Three takes place in a resort town in my adopted country of Australia. It was a pure pleasure for me to use a local setting. So make yourself something good to eat, pull up a chair and have a few laughs with Ally and Ben.

I love to hear from readers. You can write to me at P.O. Box 234, Point Roberts, WA 98281-0234 or visit me online at www.joankilby.com.

Sincerely,

Joan Kilby

Party of Three
Joan Kilby

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I’d like to thank Chef James Redfern of Montalto Restaurant

for allowing me to observe his kitchen during lunch service

and giving so generously of his time, experience and

expertise. Thanks also to the rest of the staff of Montalto

Restaurant and Winery for their help in

answering my many questions.

I’m very grateful to George Mistriotis and

his family for a warm welcome and a most enjoyable and

informative day on his olive farm.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

EVERY MORNING at precisely seven forty-five Ally Cummings tapped the glass of the antique brass ship’s barometer that hung in her house high atop Wombat Hill. George, who was always trying to psychoanalyze her, claimed she was anal retentive with father issues, but she simply liked to know what lay ahead.

Tap, tap. The needle swung left; the barometric pressure dropped twenty millibars.

Change was coming.

Deep inside, a tiny voice insisted, About bloody time.

Then her eyebrows drew together in a frown and her lips pursed as she brushed that thought aside. She didn’t care for surprises.

George walked past, flipping the wide end of his blue silk tie through the loop and pulling it tight. “Are you working late tonight?”

Every Friday like clockwork George asked her that same question. Every week she gave her standard answer. “I have to stay to close the office at eight. Will you be all right on your own until then?”

“I’ll manage,” he said and headed for the kitchen.

Ally twisted the diamond engagement ring on her left hand. Ever since George had moved in she’d had that horribly familiar sinking feeling their relationship was doomed. Surely it couldn’t be happening again. George was perfect for her—predictable, reliable, as wedded to routine as she was. Yet, inexplicably her feelings had cooled.

This wasn’t the first time she’d lost interest once she had the man in the bag, so to speak, but it was the first time she’d gone so far as to get engaged before dumping the guy. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t cruel or callous; she didn’t want to hurt people.

She followed George out to the kitchen and put on a pan of water while he read the paper. She wasn’t much of a cook but she always made breakfast because she liked her eggs done just so, the whites set and the yolk soft, but not too soft. A lot of people felt like that; it wasn’t only her.

George usually fit easily into her routines but today he grumbled when she put his poached egg in front of him. “Don’t feel like this. I’ll just have toast.”

“But, George, Friday is Egg Day.” Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were Egg Days. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays were Muesli Days. It was called having a balanced diet. Sundays she left open just to show George she could be spontaneous.

“Egg Day,” he admonished her from behind the business section of the newspaper, “is a construct of your id, an attempt to impose order on a chaotic universe.”

Ally suspected he made things like that up but she couldn’t ever be one hundred percent sure. She hadn’t spent seven years studying psychiatry, as he was all too fond of pointing out. His perfectly cooked eggs cooled on the plate while he spread boysenberry jam on a piece of wholewheat toast.

The waste killed her. “We should get a dog.”

“Don’t want a canine,” he mumbled around a mouthful. A dab of jam trembled on his bottom lip and fell onto his white shirt. “I’m a cat person.”

Siggy, George’s gray Persian, lay curled in the clean cast-iron frying pan. Lazy, selfish, pampered beast. For one glorious Walter Mitty moment Ally saw her hand turning the gas up high and Siggy leaping off the stove with an outraged yowl.

Ally blinked herself free of the image. What deeply repressed psychosis would George diagnose from that? As if she would harm an animal. Scooping up the cat, who mewed in protest, she deposited him gently on the tiled floor. He stalked off, tail upright as a flagpole, tip twitching.

“In a few years you can have a baby,” George offered magnanimously.

Ally itched at the patch of dry flaky skin on the inside of her elbow where her eczema was playing up again. The doctor said skin conditions were often stress-related and she was beginning to think he was right. She wanted children but she no longer wanted to have them with George.

When she didn’t reply George lowered his newspaper and peered at her. He had soft brown eyes that she used to think were sensitive but now realized were merely nearsighted. “When are we going to get married?” he said. “It’s time we set a date, especially now that I’ve moved in with you.”

“There’s plenty of time,” she said, fiddling with her ring.

“You’re always living in the future,” he complained. “Why can’t you be like Kathy and inhabit the moment?”

Inhabit the moment? Was this some new psychobabble buzz phrase? “I can’t believe you’re comparing me unfavorably to your secretary, the woman you call Jezebel behind her back. She’d try to seduce the Pope if he came to town.”

“At least she doesn’t dress like a nun in civvies.”

Ally glanced at her white blouse, navy skirt and low comfortable shoes. Good quality, neat and clean. What was wrong with that? She wasn’t like her sister, Melissa, who wore silks and satins from the vintage dress shop where she worked, or her mother, Cheryl, Vogue elegant in all black, all the time. She definitely wasn’t like her father, Tony, who used clothes the way an actor did costumes, with a different getup for every role he played in his various money-making schemes.

Ally was the ordinary one in her family, the sensible one. The only whimsical note in her conservative style was her colorful collection of brooches. “There’s nothing wrong with the way I dress.”

George checked his watch and with an impatient sigh, tossed down the newspaper, which slipped off the breakfast table in separate sheets. “Now I’m going to be late,” he said dabbing ineffectually at the purple jam splotch on his shirt. “I have a lot of work to do before an important meeting this afternoon.”

The implication that this was somehow her fault strengthened the traitorous thoughts that had been tiptoeing through her mind for weeks. She didn’t want to marry George. She’d made a huge mistake. If she needed proof, there was the fact they hadn’t made love in months and she didn’t care. That couldn’t be right.

She worried all through breakfast and getting ready for work. A breakup was inevitable. Working up the guts to say she wanted out was hard but had to be done, and soon. It was only fair to George who, like his predecessors wasn’t a bad man, just not the right one for her.

Who was? And why did she keep making mistakes when it came to men?

As she passed the barometer on her way out the door she stopped and contrary to her usual custom, gave it a second tap. The needle fell another twenty millibars toward Stormy.

George, briefcase in hand, touched his lips to her cheek leaving behind the faint scent of cloves. When was the last time he’d really kissed her? she wondered, and a mocking internal voice replied, when was the last time you wanted him to?

This made her sad. Once upon a time they’d been in love—or at least she’d convinced herself they were. Suddenly she needed to know. “George…” She flung her arms around his neck and planted her mouth on his. Incredibly, he resisted at first. She persisted and finally he opened his lips. His tongue bumped blindly against her teeth like a warm slug. So much for excitement. She felt nothing inside, not even a flicker of tenderness.

Drawing back, she avoided his eyes and handed him a furled black umbrella from the hall closet. “Take this. There’s a storm coming.”

“You and your barometer.” He chucked her under the chin and favored her with a gently patronizing smile. “Look outside—the weather’s perfect.”

Through the lounge-room window she could see the town nestled in the valley below, red tile roofs and church spires sticking up through the gray-green eucalyptus trees and darker pines. On the far side of the valley, clear to the distant rolling hills, the sky was a pale crystalline-blue, not a cloud in sight. For a split second the gap between hard scientific evidence and what she saw with her own eyes gave her a queer feeling in her stomach, as if she’d been turned upside down.

But she knew what she knew. Change was coming.

Taking a deep breath, Ally said, “When I get home tonight, we have to talk.”

“Fine,” George replied, unconcerned. Either he didn’t know the underlying meaning of the expression or he didn’t give a rat’s you-know-what about anything she might say.

Ally retrieved her own umbrella and locked the front door behind them, then waved goodbye to George as he backed his cream-colored Mercedes-Benz out of the driveway and drove off to his office, thirty miles away in Ballarat.

Every day, rain or shine, she walked the seven blocks down the long hill into Tipperary Springs. She had a car, small and nondescript, tucked away in the garage, but Ally liked listening to the birds and seeing the flowers bud and bloom in people’s gardens. This morning the air was heavy and still. The noisy rainbow lorikeets that fed in the flowering gums outside the Convent Gallery were silent, and in the center of town the purple and yellow pansies that filled the planters along Main Street were wilting after days of heat.

Ally passed her mother’s art gallery. Through the open door she saw Cheryl setting out the guest book on the front desk. She lifted her sleek champagne-colored head, saw Ally and smiled. Without breaking stride, Ally waved. A few weeks from now her parents would celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Ally was in charge of ordering the cake, sending out invitations, arranging for food and drink. Her family tended to rely on her for things like that but she didn’t mind; organization was what she did.

Ally headed toward the rental agency where she worked. The agency acted for cottage owners who rented out their properties. Tipperary Springs’s population of four thousand swelled on weekends and holidays when city dwellers and tourists flocked to the resort town, an hour west of Melbourne. Besides taking bookings, Ally made sure there was a bottle of chilled champagne, complimentary chocolates and fresh-cut flowers in every cottage.

Every morning Ally opened the office, which occupied the ground floor of a heritage-listed building. She’d brightened up the stone pillars, marble floors and high ceilings with colorful posters and potted palms. Along the walls, wooden racks displayed pamphlets of local attractions—wineries, lavender farms, glass blowing, ballooning—you name it, Tipperary Springs had it.

Ally was checking her e-mail when Lindy came in and dumped her purse on her desk. “It’s hot!” she said, pulling her damp blouse away from her chest. Perspiration ringed her armpits and her filmy skirt was stuck to her thighs. “When is this weather going to break?”

“Later today. We’re in for some rain.” The phone rang and Ally reached for it. “Tipperary Springs Cottage Rentals. Ally Cummings speaking. How may I help you?”

“Ally, it’s Olivia. How’s everything going?”

“Ticking along nicely,” Ally replied. Olivia owned the Cottage Rentals plus she ran a travel agency in Ballarat. She frequently dropped into the office unexpectedly to ensure Ally was maintaining her exacting standards. “What’s up?”

“I just got word the American tour group is leaving New Zealand a day early and arriving here tonight,” Olivia said, getting right down to business. “Will the cottage they’re booked into be available?”

“Let me check. That was Kingsford Cottage, if I remember correctly.” Ally drew up the page on her computer. “Yes, it’s empty. There’s no problem with them coming tonight.”

“Excellent,” Olivia said. “By the time they get through customs and drive to Tipperary Springs it’ll be at least seven-thirty.”

“No problem,” Ally assured her employer. “I’ll be here until eight o’clock as usual. If they can’t make it before then, tell them to give me a call and I’ll wait.”

“These people are from travel agencies in Los Angeles,” Olivia said. “If we make a good impression, who knows how much extra business will come our way. Put out the twenty-dollar bottle of champagne and the liqueur chocolates instead of the plain ones.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” Ally said. And truly, it was.

She wasn’t finding a cure for cancer or building a rocket to the moon but she liked to think that because of her attention to detail, her experience and her caring, stressed-out couples who picked up their keys on Friday night went back to their ordinary lives on Sunday rested and invigorated, ready to face life again. Rich or poor, important or not, she gave everyone first-class service.

Around noon a few high white clouds were piling up over Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens. Treetops fluttered in the breeze. By midafternoon the blue sky had all but disappeared and at precisely 4:05 the sun dimmed, throwing the office into shadow. Ally rose from her desk and walked to the door to look outside. Black thunderclouds filled the sky and a gust of wind set the gum leaves rustling.

Next door at the recently refurbished restaurant, Mangos, another landmark building of the last century, workmen were pushing dollies loaded with boxes through the propped-open doors. Their hurried movements seemed somehow connected with the impending storm.

“What’s happening at Mangos?” Ally asked Lindy.

Lindy joined her at the window. Short and compact, the top of her pale head barely came to Ally’s shoulder. “The grand opening is tonight. Didn’t you see the flyer that came around?” She went back to her desk and brought over a menu. “It looks fabulous. You and George should go.”

“George doesn’t like to eat out.” Ally glanced at the colorful flyer with its mouthwatering descriptions; she had to admit, the menu sounded appealing. “Are you going?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. Ben Gillard, the head chef, came here from a top Melbourne restaurant.”

“Is he the man with the spiky blond hair I see going in and out?” A couple of times he’d passed her on the street, nodding hello with such friendly confidence that she’d actually turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Once she’d found him staring back and for the rest of that day she hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind.

“That’s him.” Lindy blew back her straight bangs and peered up at the sky. “Would it be okay if I leave early? I don’t want to get caught in the storm.”

“Sure, go ahead,” Ally said, her gaze drawn back to the entrance to Mangos. Ben Gillard had just emerged. He was pacing outside the restaurant, gazing up the street at the crest of the hill as if waiting for something. Or someone.

Sure enough, as she watched, a car came through the roundabout and pulled up to the curb. A woman in a sleeveless dress got out and embraced Ben. A towheaded boy of about eleven or twelve years old, all knobby joints and spindly limbs, scrambled out next. Ben gave him an awkward hug then went to get the luggage out of the trunk. All three disappeared into Mangos.

“What’s so fascinating?” Lindy asked, coming out of the back room with her purse slung over her shoulder.

“Ben Gillard has a girlfriend. Or a wife. And a kid. I suppose she could be a sister.”

“What do you care?” Lindy teased. “You’re engaged.”

Ally’s lips pursed in a smile. “So I am.”

After Lindy left, the office seemed unnaturally quiet, the streets outside all but deserted. Shopkeepers folded up their sandwich boards, pulled their racks of clothes and tables of merchandise in from the footpath and closed their doors. Like birds going to roost before a storm, the town was shutting down and withdrawing inside.

Ally rubbed her arms and shivered, an uneasy feeling skittering through her. The change was on its way.

“THIS IS THE PLACE you rented for our son to live in? It’s a dump. And so hot! There’s no air-conditioning. Do these windows even open or are they painted shut?”

Ben’s ex-wife, Carolyn, strode through the apartment over the restaurant, high heels rapping hollowly on the bare wooden floors, her disgust echoing off the cracked plaster walls as she gazed about her in disbelief. “I’m not sure I want to hand my baby over to your care.”

“Danny’s my son, too. He’s twelve years old, hardly a baby. I’m going to buy a house of my own as soon as I have a chance to look around. Besides,” Ben dropped his voice, mindful of the boy exploring the back bedroom, “you were quite happy for him to come live with me after you and Ted got married.”

“When are you going to buy more furniture?” Carolyn went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “You’ve been here a month and so far you’ve got nothing but a shabby couch, an old dining table and a TV.”

Danny wandered out of the back bedroom. “Where’ll I put my computer? I don’t see a phone jack anywhere. I’m not staying unless I have the Internet.”

“You let him spend too much time playing computer games,” Ben said to Carolyn. “I thought we talked about that.”

“I had to promise he’d have his own computer,” Carolyn countered. “How else can he occupy himself? He doesn’t know a soul and won’t meet anyone until school starts. What is he going to do while you’re at work?”

“He’ll be fine. The restaurant is directly below us, with a stairway from the kitchen to the door.”

“There isn’t even a backyard for him to play in.”

“There’s an Olympic-size swimming pool literally around the corner,” Ben said.

“What about my computer?” Danny persisted.

“I’ll put a jack in,” Ben told him. “Meantime, you can set up on the dining table. What do you say, mate?”

Danny shrugged. “I don’t have any choice, do I? Mum doesn’t want me around now that she’s married again.”

“You know that’s not true—” Carolyn began.

Ben dropped to a crouch so he could look into his son’s eyes. “Your mother loves you, Danny. So do I. She’s had you for five years and now it’s my turn. I’m really glad you’re coming to live with me.”

“Only as long as Danny’s happy and there are no problems,” Carolyn reminded him. Danny went back down the hall to his room again and Carolyn resumed her inspection, craning her neck to study the large crack from one corner of the ceiling to the central plaster rosette. “Does this roof leak? Because I think it’s going to rain.”

“Are you about finished?” Ben said, glancing at his watch. “I hate to rush you but I’m opening tonight and I’ve got a few things to do.”

“Are you going to leave Danny alone on his first night here?” Carolyn demanded.

Ben cracked the knuckles on his right hand. Patience wasn’t his strong suit and he’d always needed bucketloads when dealing with Carolyn. “The restaurant is right below, with a stairway leading to the kitchen. I’m there if he needs me. You chose to bring him this weekend so you and Ted could fly to Bali for your honeymoon. I wanted to wait a few weeks until the restaurant was up and running and I was more settled. But if you’re worried about Danny you’re welcome to stay a few days. There’s a spare bedroom. I’ll need to find an extra bed but—”

“You know we’re flying out tonight. This was the only time Ted could get off work.” Carolyn fished in her purse and pulled out several folded sheets of paper, typewritten, single-spaced. “I’ve set out a schedule for Danny and some instructions. He needs regular meals and adherence to an established bedtime.”

Carolyn and her nine-to-five routine. He’d never been able to fit the mold, which pretty much summed up why they were no longer married. “Kids are more flexible than you give them credit for.”

“If you want to have Danny live with you, you’ve got to stick to the rules,” she said, handing him the papers.

Ben resisted the urge to crumple them into a ball. “All right. Fine.”

“Next, I insist you move out of this dump, and I mean right away.”

“The apartment is convenient.”

“See those dark circles on the ceiling? That’s where the roof has leaked. Promise me you’ll find a more suitable home.”

“Maybe.”

“Promise.”

“Whatever you say, Carolyn,” he said. “Aren’t you going to be late for your plane?”

“I’m not finished. Keep Danny away from the restaurant kitchen. I don’t want to come back to find my son swearing like a chef.” She grimaced. “Gord is a disgrace.”

“He works like a mule and is utterly loyal,” Ben replied. The sous chef also drank like a fish and yelled at the staff. Occasionally, Ben wondered if he’d been insane to hire someone so volatile, then he remembered Gord’s genius with sauces and told himself the man was worth the hassle.

“Speaking of working too much,” Carolyn went on, “you need to spend time with Danny. You can’t work sixteen hours a day, six days a week when you’re a single father.”

“I know that,” Ben assured her. “I discussed it with Steve and made it a condition of my employment that I get time off to spend with my son.”

Ben’s ambitions were simple—he wanted to cook good food and make a life for himself and Danny. Steve, the ex-lawyer and self-proclaimed gastronome who owned Mangos, wanted nothing less than a chef’s hat from the Good Food Guide. He’d hired Ben to get it for him and to that end had made concessions not normally given to a head chef.

Carolyn moved toward the door. “One more thing…”

“What is it?” Ben said with exaggerated patience.

“The parade of women through your life has got to stop. If he sees a different woman in your bed every weekend he’ll get confused.”

“You flatter me,” Ben said dryly. “But there won’t be a parade of women. There won’t even be a woman. Whatever spare time I’ve got I’m going to focus on Danny.”

“I hope you mean that. As much as it pains me to admit it, Danny’s at an age when he needs a father more than he needs me right now. More than anything, I want him in a happy, stable environment. Don’t blow this, Ben.”

“I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to be a full-time dad for years,” Ben said. “Nothing and no one will come between me and my son.”

CHAPTER TWO

ALLY WAS SUFFOCATING in the heat despite the floor and ceiling fans whirring away. She undid her top button, lifted her ponytail off the back of her neck and fanned herself with a brochure for Lavender Farm.

Outside, the sky was nearly black and the shop-fronts across the street glowed with a weird yellow light. Papers blew along the footpath ahead of a little whirlwind of dust that rose from the gutter. It was going to rain—

Oh, no, she’d left laundry on the line. Would George think to bring it in? She glanced at her watch and picked up the phone. Ten past five. He should be home.

No answer. He must have been delayed.

She dropped the receiver back in the cradle. The door opened and on a gust of warm wind, in walked Ben Gillard.

Ally sat up so fast her chair shot forward and her bare toes flattened against the marble floor. “Hi.”

“G’day.” His dark gold hair, tousled from the wind, was lighter at the spiky tips. He had deep-set green eyes under straight thick brows and a jutting jaw that might have looked aggressive if it weren’t for the smile on his face. He reached across her desk to shake her hand. “I’m Ben.”

“Ally.” Her eyes widened at the sight of his forearm scarred with knife cuts and burns. Then her hand was enveloped by a callused palm that sent a jolt of electricity up her arm, and it took all her professional training to stammer, “O-on behalf of Tipperary Springs merchants may I wish you every success on your opening.”

“Thanks.” His smile twitched at her little speech. Casually he picked up a brochure and started to thumb through it. “I’m hoping you can help me. I’m renting the apartment above the restaurant but I need a better place to live.”

“As much as I’d like to assist,” she said primly, “the real estate agent across the road is the person you ought to speak to. We cater to the tourist industry.”

“I realize that but I’m talking short-term, until I buy a house,” Ben explained. “The real estate agents all want a minimum one-year lease.”

“I could make inquiries.” Ally pulled out a pad of paper, thinking one of the cottage owners might welcome a couple of months guaranteed income. “What are your requirements?”

“Two phone jacks,” Ben said. “According to my son life isn’t worth living if he can’t be on the Internet.”

“Two phone jacks,” Ally repeated, writing the words. “What else?”

Ben shrugged. “Just your basic house. Nothing fancy.”

“How many bedrooms?” Ally persisted. “Do you want built-in wardrobes? Gas or electrical kitchen? How big a yard? Do you need it fenced?”

“Hey!” he said. “I just want a roof over my head.”

“Perhaps your wife has some ideas?”

Ben threw her a swift glance. “My ex-wife has a great many ideas but she’s going off on her honeymoon. I’m the one paying the rent.”

“So it’s just for yourself and your son. Two bedrooms.” Ally made a note on her pad of paper. “You’d probably like to be in town so your restaurant is within walking distance for your son.”

“Good idea. I didn’t think of that.” Ignoring the visitor’s chair, Ben perched on the side of her desk and peered at her list.

“Perhaps a yard so he could play outside?” Ally suggested.

“Anything to get him away from the computer.”

Big yard, Ally wrote. “Do you cook at home?”

“Of course.”

“Then a decent kitchen with a gas stove.” She glanced up at him. “Electricity is so slow.”

“I agree.” Ben’s gaze drifted from her notepad to her chest. “Gas is hotter. Faster.”

Ally belatedly recalled her open blouse. With an effort, she resisted glancing down and drawing attention to herself. She was suddenly aware of his tanned arm with its smattering of golden hairs lying across his thigh. She could casually lean back, discreetly button up—

“Interesting brooch,” Ben commented.

“I beg your pardon?” She blinked up at him. He wasn’t looking at her breasts, after all.

“Your brooch. The little person with the pink hair sticking straight up.”

“Oh!” Heat flooded her cheeks as she stroked the long fringe of soft pink atop the silver and blue figure. “It’s called Bad Hair Day.”

“I bet you’ve never had a bad hair day in your life.”

Instinctively, Ally touched her long, smooth ponytail held in rigid obedience by a battery of ties and clips overlaid with hairspray to stop flyaway stragglers. She gave a nervous laugh. “I like to live vicariously.”

“I hope that doesn’t apply to your love life,” Ben said with a wink and a smile. He pushed himself off the desk. “I have to get back to the restaurant. Drop by later.”

Ally got up as he walked out and hurried to the window to watch him until he disappeared inside Mangos. I like to live vicariously. What on earth had possessed her to say that?

She went back to her desk and tried calling George again. Still no answer. Where was he? Ally paced the office, her gaze flicking constantly to the window and the coming storm. She could run home, take the laundry off the line and be back in less than twenty minutes. Plenty of time before the Americans arrived.

Thunder rolled across the leaden sky as she hurried along Main Street before coming to the side road that led up the hill. With her umbrella tucked under her arm she tugged her skirt down and leaned into the buffeting wind. Finally, she turned onto her street. Down the side of her house, between the fence covered in jasmine and the white weatherboards, she glimpsed the backyard and clothes flapping wildly on the line. She pushed through the iron gate and it was whipped out of her hand by the wind to clang shut behind her.

George’s Mercedes was in the driveway. So he was home. He must have just got there. She ran up the steps and across the veranda to turn the front door handle.

Locked. How strange. She and George never locked the door when they were at home during the day. She fumbled in her bag for her key chain and opened the door. The lounge room to her right was dark from the approaching storm but light spilled down the short hallway from the kitchen, along with the sound of voices.

George. And Kathy, his secretary.

Ally set her umbrella by the door and moved through the dim house, her footsteps drowned out by the wind keening through the trees and a branch banging against the corrugated tin roof. Overhead, a loud clap of thunder shook the heavens.

She stopped in the doorway. George and Kathy were seated at the breakfast table over cups of coffee in a scene that was oddly domestic. George looked uncharacteristically relaxed with his shirt untucked and his hair messed up. Kathy’s short brown curls were ruffled, her mascara smudged and her lipstick worn right off.

“Hi,” Ally said. “What’s going on?”

George jumped, his eyes widening. “Ally! What are you doing here?”

“I ran back to bring in the laundry. I called not fifteen minutes ago. You didn’t answer.” She hadn’t meant it to sound like an accusation but it came out that way.

Outside the kitchen window, a streak of jagged lightning split the black clouds, followed immediately by another deafening crack of thunder. A few fat raindrops splatted against the pane. She spared a fleeting thought for the clothes billowing on the line and turned to Kathy. “What are you doing here?”

“I, uh, came by to drop off some papers George forgot at the office. He, er, offered me a cuppa.” Kathy’s fingers crept to her lacy blouse and did up the top button. She could simply be suffering from the heat or…

“Where are your shoes?” Ally asked her. An idea was growing, an evil idea she found difficult to accept and impossible to let go. Before Kathy could answer Ally turned to George. “How was your meeting this afternoon?”

George swallowed and took out a white handkerchief to blot his temple. “I didn’t go. I wasn’t feeling well. I think I have a fever.”

Ally pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. “You feel clammy to me.”

“Really, Ally, I’m not a child.” The irritation in his voice was the first ordinary note in the whole surreal exchange.

“I’m going to get the laundry in.” It was all she could think of to do. Numbly, she walked into the hallway and stopped dead.

High-heeled shoes lay on the floor in front of her bedroom, a hand-painted silk scarf beside them. Ally recognized the scarf as one she’d given to Kathy at Christmas. Well, she’d picked it out; George gave it to her. Forgetting all about the laundry, Ally stepped over the shoes and reached for the doorknob.

“Wait!” George cried out. “Don’t go in there.”

Her hand on the knob, she turned and regarded him with an eerie calm. “Why not?”

George was half out of his chair, his mouth opening and closing like a dying fish. “Because, well, it’s a mess. I went to bed when I got home. Before Kathy dropped over.” He exhaled heavily. “Yes, that’s it. I was sick. I got under the covers. Alone. I haven’t remade the bed.”

For a so-called intelligent man he was really botching this. “You never make the bed, George.”

Feeling strangely detached, Ally contemplated strangling Kathy with her own scarf. “You two are having an affair.”

Kathy walked over to pick up the scrap of silk and wind it around her neck, oblivious to the danger. “George is going to leave you and marry me.”

George made a strangled noise and sat back down on the kitchen chair with a thump. “Let’s not be hasty, Kath.”

Maybe Ally was forgetting to breathe, causing a lack of oxygen to her brain because she blurted, “You could at least have taken the clothes off the line!”

“Who cares about the laundry?” George said. “For God’s sake, Ally!”

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” Kathy said, not sounding sorry at all. “But really, you bring these things on yourself. If you’d come home when you were supposed to, everything would have been tidied up and we could have sat down and talked it out.”

Oh, so this was all her fault, was it? “How long has this been going on?”

“Not long,” George muttered.

“Six months,” Kathy corrected him, and said to Ally, “Remember when your uncle died and you stayed with your aunt for a week to help her with arrangements for the funeral? That’s when it started.”

Ally recalled Kathy’s promise to look in on George while she was away and remembered thinking how kind she was, especially since George never said anything nice about her. All an act. Both of them.

“You stole my fiancé out from under my nose,” Ally said, still calm. “You’re a homewrecker.” And a very convenient excuse to call off the engagement. “We’re through, George. Get out.”

“Now, Ally,” he began in his most soothing couch-side voice. “Let’s talk about this.”

“Do you love her?” Ally was merely curious. His answer, either way, wouldn’t make any difference to how she felt.

“Love is a complicated emotion, meaning different things to different people,” he replied in typical George fashion.

“Do you love me?”

“A part of me will always love you, Ally.”

Which part, she wondered. His earlobes, his liver? It certainly wasn’t his you-know-what. “Why did you ask me to marry you?”

Perplexed, he wrinkled his brow. Then he gave up and shrugged. “You seemed so normal.”

But she wasn’t normal. She was a serial dumper who’d just got dumped herself. Karma was having a field day.

Ally marched back to the bedroom, intending to get out his suitcase and throw his clothes into it, the way she’d seen in the movies. She actually snarled at Kathy and the secretary jumped out of her way. Ha! Now Kathy was afraid of her.

Then she entered the bedroom and was confronted by rumpled sheets and Kathy’s lacy black panties lying on her pillow. In her own bed.

For a moment, Ally thought she might throw up. No doubt George would have a scientific explanation for the sudden onset of nausea, but she didn’t want to know. The room would have to be fumigated before she could sleep here again.

“Never mind, I’m leaving.” Pushing George aside, she strode out the front door. George followed. On the veranda she stopped and while the wind howled around her, she yanked his ring off her finger. She stifled the urge to throw it at him, but instead dropped it in his shirt pocket. “But I’ll be back. And when I am, I want you gone. Do you hear me? Every CD, every dirty sock, every issue of the Australian Journal of Psychiatry. Especially the Journal of Psychiatry.”

“Yes,” George said meekly.

Kathy rolled her eyes, pulled George inside and slammed the door.

Alone in the wide empty street, shock set in and to Ally’s horror and disgust, she began to cry great gulping sobs. It was only shock, she told herself, but that didn’t stop the tears. Tears of anger or anguish, she couldn’t tell, but they were uncontrollable all the same. She started to run, trying to outstrip her emotions.

A small detached segment of her brain insisted she should be happy, that she’d wanted to break up with George. Not like this, she moaned. Not humiliated and betrayed, lied to and cheated on. It wasn’t just George she was crying over, it was her whole life. She wanted love, marriage, children, but she just could not seem to get it right. Why, oh why, did love always end badly for her?

She slipped and slid down the unpaved footpaths in her headlong flight down the hill. Branches reached out to scrape her cheek and tear at her blouse, already soaked by the rain. As she turned the corner onto Main Street the glowing plate glass windows of Mangos spilled light onto the shiny pavement. She was almost at her office….

IN THE RESTAURANT kitchen Ben ripped the order ticket out of the printer and shouted over the hiss and clatter, “Table Seven—prawns, risotto entrée-size, veal times two.”

Opening night was every bit the challenge Ben had anticipated. All forty-five tables were occupied and half a dozen customers waited in the small lounge by the fireplace.

Ben’s long-sleeved white chef jacket was buttoned to the neck and sweat beaded his forehead as he separated the different colored copies: pink to Baz, the pimply-faced apprentice who was working the entrée station, yellow to Beth, the sweet round-faced pastry chef on desserts. The white ticket he hung on the slide above the sauté station for himself and Gord.

On the stovetop half a dozen sauté pans sizzled and small saucepans were situated according to their heat requirements. Ben called, “Fire on twenty-six,” and Gord slammed a couple of seared fillet mignons into a hot oven to go with the tuna Ben placed in the bamboo steamer, heaped with chili and garlic, lemongrass and ginger.

“Someone stole my effing spoon!” Gord roared suddenly. “Baz, was it you? I told you to keep away from my meez!”

“Sorry.” Baz slid Gord’s favorite slotted spoon across to him then looked to Ben. “What’s meez again?”

“Mise-en-place, your station prep, your assembled ingredients, condiments, tools,” Ben explained as he swiftly stacked slices of rare lamb fillet atop a puddle of buttered polenta. “Everything at the ready, the squeeze bottle of sauce placed just so, the metal pans of chopped condiments arranged in a precise order so that you can reach for a specific item without looking.” He wiped the rim of the plate with a clean rolled napkin and sprinkled on chopped parsley. “You don’t mess with another chef’s meez.”

Ben slapped the lamb on the pass-through window next to a veal marsala. “Pick-up on fifteen!”

Across the steamy kitchen Gord, his face as red as his flaming hair, berated Mick, the dishwasher. “Get those effing plates washed or I’ll shove them up your effing arse.”

Ben spotted Danny sitting on a sack of rice in a corner, munching on garlic prawns. While Ben swirled butter into a demi-glace heating in a saucepan he said, “How’s it going, mate? How are the prawns?”

Danny shrugged. “You need kid food on the menu.”

“There’s no such thing as kid food, just uneducated palates,” Ben told him. “Why, I was eating Szechwan and loving it when I was your age.”

“Ben!” Julie was shouting at him through the serving window as she stacked plates of seafood risotto on her arm, ready to whisk away. “Cassie’s way out of her depth and going down for the third time. Where did Steve get her, Hungry Jack’s?”

Not far off. Cassie, the maître d’ Steve had hired because she was his wife’s cousin, had last hosted at a family restaurant in suburban Melbourne. “Cut her some slack, she’s new.”

“We’re all new here,” Julie said bluntly. “Table Six wants to compliment the chef.” She lowered her voice. “It’s the mayor.”

“I’ll be right there.” This was no time to be away from the kitchen but he couldn’t ignore the mayor. She’d been very helpful about Mangos’s liquor license.

He turned back to Danny. “Go on upstairs. Take something from the pastry cart if you want.”

“When are you coming home?” Danny said. “I don’t like it up there by myself.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Tomorrow we’ll go swimming.” Ben gathered his son in a rough one-armed embrace. “Turn on the TV but don’t watch garbage. I’ll be up to check on you as soon as I can.”

He pushed through the swinging wooden doors that led into the dining room and wove his way through the tables, smiling at unfamiliar faces and calling greetings to those he recognized.

Table Six, next to the window, held two women in their late fifties, both blond, well-dressed and well-preserved. To Ben they looked almost identical. A panic-stricken thought swept through his brain—which one was the mayor?

“Evening, ladies,” he breezed, automatically making a mental note that the woman on his right hadn’t touched her kipfler potatoes. He directed his next words to her. “I hope you’re enjoying your meal.”

“The steamed tuna was delicious,” she said.

Above the aromas of food and wine, the scent of White Diamonds tickled his sensitive nose, triggering a memory of their earlier meeting. “Thank you, your Honor. I—”

A movement outside caught Ben’s attention. Through the window he recognized the priggish young woman from the cottage rental agency next door stumbling along the rain-soaked footpath. Her sleek brown hair had fallen out of its tight ponytail and was plastered to her cheeks in wet ropes. Even through the blurred glass he could tell she was crying.

Leave her be, Ben told himself. She wasn’t his problem. God knows, he had enough of his own waiting for him in the kitchen or upstairs. Then she turned her head and he saw her contorted face. Something shifted inside him, and he couldn’t ignore her pain.

“Excuse me,” he said to the mayor and her guest. “There’s something I have to attend to.”

The next instant he was out the door, grabbing Ally, whirling her to a halt. “Whoa! What’s your hurry, sunshine?”

She struggled in his arms, kicking at his shins. “Let me go.”

“Ow! Stop that,” he said, ignoring her request. “Ally, are you hurt? Tell me, so I can help you.”

Hearing her name, she stopped struggling and pushed back her lank hair to peer at him. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Yes, me. You’ve lost a shoe.” For some reason this sparked a torrent of verbal abuse directed at men in general and some poor sap named George specifically. Ben took her by the shoulders. “What is it?”

Ally took a huge gulping breath. “I went home and found my fiancé and his s-s-secretary drinking c-c-coffee together!”

“Sorry, I’m not getting it,” Ben said with what he thought was commendable patience while the rain soaked through his chef whites. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Her underwear was on my p-p-pillow! They’re having an affair.” Ally gave a violent shiver and her teeth began to chatter. She bent over and started retracing her steps, looking for her missing shoe.

He swore under his breath. “You’d better come in out of the rain or you’ll catch your death.”

“I want to die,” she said fiercely.

“Not outside my restaurant, you don’t. People will blame the seafood.” He found her shoe floating in the gutter and plucked it out just before it was sucked down the storm drain. Handing it to her he offered his arm to lean on while she put it on.

“Come inside,” he urged, intending to park her in front of the fireplace with a glass of brandy until she calmed down and dried off.

“I can’t go in there,” she wailed. “I don’t want everyone in town seeing me like this.”

“You’ve got a point. We’ll go in the back way.” He started to tug her around the side of the building. “I’ll take you upstairs to my apartment.”

“I don’t know you,” she said, resisting.

“Trust me, I’m not going to attack you.”

“Why should I believe that? I saw the way you looked down my blouse this morning.” She was shivering and soaked to the skin, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. The rain had rendered her blouse transparent, revealing a plain cotton bra, about as alluring as her pinched white face, although the nicely rounded breasts that filled it had potential.

“In the name of Good Samaritanism I’ll do my best to resist. Anyway, I have to get back to my restaurant.”

“But—” She broke off to sneeze violently.

“Come on, at least you’ll be warm and dry. My son is up there. I’ll send up some food. Are you hungry?”

She’d started to shake her head when her stomach gave a rumble that was audible over the drumming rain.

“When did you last eat?” he persisted.

“A salad at lunch.”

“I thought as much. Do you like pasta?” Reluctantly she nodded. “Creamy chicken and wild mushroom sauce?” She swallowed, as if salivating already. Ben took her arm and tugged gently. “Sundried tomatoes, avocado, parmesan…”

She let him lead her past the Dumpster and the empty produce boxes, past Baz sneaking a smoke outside the back door and up the steep narrow staircase to the apartment.

Ben gave his coded knock, three short, two long. A moment later, the latch turned and Danny opened the door.

“What the—?” Danny’s wide-eyed gaze took in the pair of them.

“This is Ally,” Ben told him. “She got caught in the rain. She’s going to stay here for a bit and dry off.” Beneath his arm he could feel the faint tremor in her shoulders. “You okay?” he said to her.

She nodded, and Ben steered her into the lounge room. On the TV, Sharon Stone was undressing in front of a mirror while a man looked on in the background.

“For crying out loud, Danny,” Ben said, switching it off. “What did I tell you?”

“You told me not to watch garbage. This movie got four stars in the TV guide.”

“Don’t be a smart aleck.” Ben left Ally and rummaged in his dresser for track pants and a T-shirt. He threw them onto the bed and then found a towel and handed it to Ally. “You’d better change before you catch pneumonia.”

He ran downstairs, ordered a meal for her and came back with a bottle of Remy Martin. Ally emerged from his room, dwarfed in his clothes, her hair wrapped in the towel. He poured out half a tumblerful of cognac and handed it to her.

She took a gulp of the thirty-year-old liquor and choked.

“Easy. Pace yourself,” Ben said.

Ally took another sip and with a deep shudder, swallowed the fiery liquid. “I’m going to get blotto.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“On the contrary, it’s the best idea I’ve had in a long time.” She drank again then held out her glass. “More.” Hiccup. “Please.”

CHAPTER THREE

BEN SPLASHED A SOUPÇON more cognac into her glass, only too aware of a still wide-eyed Danny avidly watching the proceedings. He’d better not blab to his mother….

“I’ll call a taxi to take you home,” Ben informed Ally.

She tilted the bottle and gave herself another five or so ounces. “I don’t want to go home. Not until George has had time to pack and leave.”

The alcohol had to be hitting her empty stomach like a ton of bricks. As she took a swig, her eyes began to glaze.

“I need to get back to work,” Ben explained. “Do you have a friend or a relative you can call to come and get you?”

“No, no, don’t want to cause a fuss.” Ally suddenly noticed the glass in her hand and raised it to her lips. “This is good.”

“Are you sure I can’t take you home?” Ben was starting to feel desperate.

“I have no home,” she declared melodramatically.

“You’ve had enough cognac, that’s for sure, at least until the food’s ready.”

Ally twisted away before he could take her glass and moved unsteadily across to the window overlooking Main Street. The storm was directly overhead; wind gusts rattled loose windowpanes and spattered them with rain.

Ben went to the side table that held the phone and the local directory. “What’s George’s last name?”

“No!” She whirled around, arm outstretched as if she was a wizard about to smite Ben with her staff. “I forbid you to call him.”

Oh, boy. What had he gotten himself into? Ben led Danny out of Ally’s earshot and into the cramped kitchen with its old-fashioned appliances. “I’m going to run downstairs, check on the staff and pick up her dinner. Take care of her for a few minutes, okay?”

Danny’s eyes widened. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Don’t let her go back out in the storm.”

“I’m just a kid. How can I stop her?”

“Lock the door after I leave.”

“What if she’s crazy and chops me up into little pieces?”

“She’s not crazy. She’s upset.”

“You can’t leave me alone with her,” Danny said, obviously panicking.

He was probably right. Ben went back to the lounge room. Ally had collapsed on the overstuffed couch and was refilling her glass. Amber liquid slopped over the rim and she licked it off her hand. She raised her glass to him with a giggle. “It’s not the drinking that’ll get you, it’s the steady sip, sip, sip.”

Ben checked his watch. He’d been away from the restaurant for over half an hour. Anything could have happened in the kitchen in that time. Gord was a volcano waiting to erupt, especially when he got into the bottle of vodka he kept hidden in the walk-in freezer.

Ben paced the wide space between the couch and the fireplace, trying to come up with a plan. Who could he call? He didn’t know anyone in town well enough to ask them to babysit a drunk woman.

He felt a tug on his sleeve. “Dad?”

“Shh, Danny, I’m thinking.”

“Dad, never mind.” His son pushed him around to face the couch where Ally lay sprawled, eyes shut, one arm clutching the bottle to her chest, the other dangling above the floor, clinging to the empty glass. “She passed out.”

Ben walked over and with a sigh, removed the glass. “I guess she can stay here tonight.”

WHEN ALLY AWOKE her head felt as though it was gripped inside a vise being screwed tight by some sadistic monster while a dozen tiny hammers pinged on miniature anvils. Scrunching her eyes shut she tried to slip back into oblivion.

“Water?” asked a voice floating above her.

“Go away,” she muttered. Something awful swam just below her consciousness, something too terrible to acknowledge, too enormous to confront.

“You really should take liquid after drinking alcohol,” the annoying voice persisted.

“I don’t drink,” she croaked. Then she became aware her throat was dry, her skin burning hot. She opened one eye. A man loomed over her, holding out a glass.

He had streaked blond hair and was somehow familiar.

Memories of yesterday flooded through her like an injection of poison. George. Kathy. The storm. Cognac.

“Ohhh,” she groaned, and curled into a fetal ball. George had cheated on her. With Kathy.

The bed creaked and sank beneath a weight greater than her own. A hand gently grasped her wrist and pulled her arm away from her face. Ben’s jaw appeared, bristly with golden stubble, his hair tousled from sleep.

“Drink this,” he said, propping up her pillow. “You’ll feel better.”

She pushed back the rumpled chocolate-and-cream-colored duvet and sat up. Then she saw the source of the pinging; leaks from the roof were dripping into pots at various locations around the room. Talk about Chinese water torture. Her right shoulder was damp where she’d been dripped on in bed.

“Is the storm over?” she asked, accepting the glass of water with shaking hands.

“Pretty much. The rain is easing.” Ben placed his cool fingers over her feverishly hot ones to steady them. Ice water slipped down her sore throat, easing the dryness. “You must feel awful,” he added.

She nodded, which made her head hurt so much she decided not to risk speaking.

“A broken heart is just about the worst thing going,” Ben went on, smoothing her hair off her face. “Trust me, anyone who would cheat on you isn’t worth having.”

He thought she was sick over losing George. Ally sipped more water, taking a moment to examine her feelings. Was she heartbroken? No…relieved described it better. Her pride was badly dented but George was out of her life without her having to be the bad guy, or worry that he’d be lonely. In fact, things had turned out pretty well. She was free. Her lips curved in a tremulous smile.

“That’s the spirit,” Ben said, rewarding her with one of his own warm smiles. “But remember, it’s okay to cry. If you want my shoulder, I’m here.”

“Thanks,” she rasped. “I feel better already.”

She glanced around the room. An old-fashioned wardrobe leaned against the wall, the door open to reveal a rack of men’s clothes. A wicker chair in the opposite corner was draped with her skirt and blouse. Apart from her clothes, nothing looked familiar. “Where am I?”

“In my apartment above the restaurant.”

“Whose bed am I in?”

“Mine.”

“We didn’t…” she croaked in alarm. “Did we?”

“No.” He seemed faintly amused. “I spent a rather uncomfortable night on the couch, if it makes you feel better.”

“Much, thank you.” She preferred to be conscious when making love. Then she glanced at the clock on the bedside table and gasped. “Is that the correct time?”

Ben checked his watch. “Yep. Just after eight-thirty.”

“Oh God, oh God, oh God. I’m late for work.” She ran her fingers through her snarled hair and threw aside the covers. Her thighs were bare and she wore nothing but a man’s T-shirt. Quickly she tugged it down. What had happened to the track pants?

“The sky won’t fall in if you’re a few minutes late,” Ben said, getting out of her way.

“I’m not so sure about that.” Her feet hit the floor and she stood up, her stomach lurching. “Lindy doesn’t have a key. She’ll be waiting outside for me to open the door—” She groaned as further recollection of last night hit. The Americans!

“Are you going to be sick? Here’s a bucket.” Ben produced the receptacle from beside the bed and shoved it under her nose.

Swallowing hard, she waved it away. “I’m fine. I just have to get to work.”

“I’ll make you breakfast,” Ben said as he moved to the door. “Nothing like bacon and eggs to cure a hangover.”

“It’s Saturday—” she began “—Muesli Day,” but he’d already left.

She staggered over to the chair and reached for her blouse. It was damp and wrinkled but it would have to do. Shivering, she buttoned it on in front of the mirror. For a moment she didn’t recognize her own reflection. Her puffy bloodshot eyes looked more muddy than hazel, her skin was blotchy and somehow her hair had turned lackluster and stringy overnight.

Outside the door she could hear Ben speaking to his son. “I know I promised to take you swimming but it’s just not going to be possible.”

“You always break your promises,” Danny said matter-of-factly. “Just like Mum says.”

“That’s not fair,” Ben replied. “And please keep your voice down. She can hear you.”

Danny whispered something Ally didn’t catch. She tiptoed to the door to listen.

“Last night while I was out of the restaurant the soufflé situation turned into a complete disaster,” Ben said in a lower voice. “I have to work this morning. It’s not a whim.”

Her escapade had had consequences for both Ben and his son. The sooner she got out of here, the better for everyone.

“I’ll just play on the computer,” Danny said, subdued but apparently indifferent. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay. The pool’s just around the corner,” Ben went on. “Why don’t you check it out?”

“Mum would never let me go by myself,” Danny said. “Don’t you know anything about taking care of kids?”

“This is a small town, not Melbourne.”

“Bad things can happen anywhere,” Danny said, clearly repeating a favorite phrase of his mother’s. “You said you wanted to spend time with me.”

“I do. You just need to be patient.”

“Good morning!” Ally entered the room, a big smile plastered on her face. She found her purse on the floor beside the couch and sailed toward the door. Ben and Danny stopped their bickering as she slipped her feet into shoes that squelched. “I’ll be going now. Thank you so much for having me.”

“You haven’t had breakfast,” Ben said.

“I don’t need anything, thanks. Except…” She glanced around the room. “Do you have a barometer?”

“Barometer?” He laughed. “I barely have furniture.”

“Then how do you know what the weather will be?”

Ben walked to the window overlooking the street and glanced out. “The rain has stopped. I reckon the clouds will burn off before long.”

In other words, he had no idea. She pursed her lips and smiled tightly. “Thank you. Goodbye.”

“Where are you going?” Ben said. “What are you going to do?”

“I told you,” she explained patiently, “I’m going to work.”

He came closer. “I mean about your fiancé.”

“Oh, that. I’m sure it’s all for the best.”

He just looked at her, frowning.

“Something wrong?” she said, a touch defensively. She knew she looked a wreck.

“Take it from me, you shouldn’t ignore your feelings about your breakup. You’ll get over him faster if you allow yourself to be angry.”

“Oh, I’m angry. He lied to me and cheated on me.” Mostly she was angry at herself for getting engaged to a man who it turned out she didn’t love. But how could she explain that to Ben when she didn’t understand it herself? “Thanks for everything. I’ll be fine. And I’ll check into that cottage for you. You really can’t stay here with this leaky roof.”

Clutching the banister for support she hurried down the stairs and slipped past the kitchen—where a gangly teenager with acne was chopping mushrooms at the stainless steel bench—and out the back door.

The side street was empty, desolate as the morning after. Sporadic raindrops rippled the puddles lying in the gutter. The paperbark tree next to the footpath had been torn in the wind; a broken branch hung forlornly, tattered layers of bark fluttering in the cool breeze.

Ally turned the corner onto Main Street and her heart dropped to her feet. Olivia’s cherry-red Mazda was out front of the agency. For her to have driven from Ballarat this early on a Saturday morning was not a good sign. Then Ally noticed something worse. A minibus was parked in front of the Mazda and emerging from it was a group of groggy, disheveled men and women in wrinkled clothes.

She hurried past them and went inside. Olivia was seated behind Ally’s desk, her black hair pulled back severely, her narrow features set in icy disapproval. Ally caught a fleeting glimpse of Lindy’s anxious expression before her assistant swiveled to face her computer.

Ally’s stomach started to churn and she wished she’d taken Ben up on breakfast. Her shoes made squishy noises as she crossed the marble tiles to stand before her employer. “I’m terribly sorry—” Ally began.

“Did you see those people on the street?” Olivia demanded. “They arrived last night under the impression they would be warmly welcomed to an idyllic weekend getaway. What did they find? The office shut and locked. Unable to obtain other accommodation, they spent the night in the minibus. In a thunderstorm.”

“It’s entirely my fault—”

“Were you ill?”

“No, I—”

“Were you struck by lightning?”

“No, but—”

“Were you kidnapped and held against your will?”

“Olivia!”

“What possible excuse could you have for not being here during stated business hours to hand over the keys to guests you knew were arriving?”

Ally heaved a large sigh. “I broke up with George last night, got drunk and stayed in a strange man’s apartment.”

“If you think a recap of your sordid love affairs is going to get you off the hook, you’re wrong,” Olivia said, tapping her pen against the desk in a jackhammer beat that bored into Ally’s splitting head. “I have no choice but to let you go.”

“What!” Ally felt her jaw drop. “You can’t do that.”

“I’m sorry. I simply can’t afford to have someone in charge who isn’t responsible.”

“But I’ve worked here for three years and there’s never been a problem before.”

“That’s not strictly true, you know.” Olivia’s gaze was accusing. “Six months ago you left the office unattended for a whole afternoon. Your sister had some crisis, I believe.”

Melissa had called Ally in hysterics after she’d singed both her eyebrows off while trying to light a cigarette at the gas burner on her stove. Ally had applied aloe vera and told her sister to quit smoking. It was one of the few times Melissa had acted on her advice.

“Then there was the time you had to bail your father out of jail,” Olivia said.

“His arrest was a complete misunderstanding.” At least that’s what Tony claimed. Generally speaking her father squeaked in on the right side of the law in his business endeavors.

“Excuse me, ladies.” One of the men from the minibus poked his head through the door. “Is there a washroom?”

“On the next block,” Ally said. “Right beside the Tourist Information office.”

When he’d gone, Olivia went on. “The first two incidents I let pass. I even hired Lindy to assist you so there was always someone here in the event of an emergency.”

“It won’t happen again,” Ally promised.

“You’re correct, it won’t. Three strikes, you’re out. This is the height of the tourist season. I need someone I can count on. And just look at your appearance….”

Olivia’s voice rolled over her, a steady stream of criticism and chastisement. Suddenly, Ally couldn’t take any more. She turned and walked out of the office with Olivia still talking. All she wanted to do was go home. To crawl under the covers and sleep for a million years. And when she woke her life would be back to normal.

Except that George would be gone.

Well, they said every cloud had a silver lining.

The hill had never seemed so steep as that morning. Evidence of the storm littered the road—fallen tree limbs, knocked-down fences, overturned rubbish bins. Luckily, her own property was intact, barring a cracked window.

The first thing Ally did was bring in the laundry. Most of it had been torn off the line by the wind and flung in the mud. She carefully separated out George’s socks, underwear and shirts and placed them, still filthy, in a black plastic garbage bag. Upon reflection she decided to add a poor dead mouse that had drowned in the water barrel. A treat for Siggy. Then she tied the bag up tight and left it in a patch of sun on the veranda for George to collect. Just because he’d brought another woman to her bed didn’t mean she couldn’t act civilized.

Her own clothes she put back in the washing machine and waited until it filled. Then she had a long hot shower, washed her hair, put on a clean skirt and blouse and sat down at the breakfast table with a bowl of muesli. Getting back to her routine made her feel a little better. Food helped, too, although she couldn’t help but think wistfully of the hot breakfast Ben had offered.

Doggedly, she chewed and contemplated her situation. Losing her job left her feeling adrift in a way that losing George could never do. Worse, the loss of income caused a big financial problem. With no salary and no George to contribute a share of the mortgage, how was she going to make payments on her house?

She loved her home and didn’t want to give it up. It represented both stability and independence. Besides, she really, really hated moving.

The phone rang.

“Ally, it’s me, Mel.” Her sister sounded agitated. “I called your office and Lindy said you were fired and that you’d broken up with George. Sorry to hear that but thank God you’re home. You’ve got to come quick.”

“Slow down. What’s up?”

“Tony and Mother had a big fight. Mother left him and she’s over here. With her luggage. That’s suitcases, plural. Her entire set of faux Louis Vuitton. The last time she did that she stayed a whole month.”

“Calm down, Melissa,” Ally said. “She can’t leave him. Their wedding anniversary is in three weeks and I’ve got it all organized.”

“What she can’t do is stay with me.” Melissa lowered her voice, but her tone was increasingly urgent. “I only have one bedroom and I met this cool guy from the Cirque du Soleil. You know how men always get that nudge, nudge, wink, wink, smile about women gymnasts? Well, now I know why. You’ve got to convince her to go home.”

“Can’t you stay at your boyfriend’s place?”

“It’s not just that, it’s…you know what she’s like.”

Ally couldn’t blame her for not wanting Cheryl moving in. As much as they both adored their mother, she was the roommate from artist hell. Painting, pottering, fixing, fussing, arranging, changing, moving, improving—she engaged in an endless quest for visual perfection, right down to repositioning the kitchen utensils in a jar.

Fifteen minutes later Ally walked into Melissa’s renovated miner’s cottage and picked her way through the tiny lounge room crowded with brown-and-cream-patterned luggage. In the kitchen, Melissa, in a burgundy lace top over a black satin slip dress, was making tea. Black filigree earrings dangled from beneath impossibly red hair and, even at ten in the morning, her deep blue eyes were lined in black with dark silver shadow.

Cheryl, slim and attractive in a black linen sheath and fine gold jewelry, was standing on a chair to reach a leadlight suncatcher hanging in a window charmingly framed with ivy.

“Leave it there, Mother. I like it,” Melissa said.

“Red and blue doesn’t go with the teal on your walls, darling. While I’m here I’ll help you redecorate.”

Melissa turned her desperate gaze in Ally’s direction. “Tell her, Ally.”

“Well, it does kind of clash—”

“No, I mean how she loves Tony no matter what he does. And she should go back to him now and save me, I mean them, a lot of heartache.”

Cheryl succeeded in unhooking the suncatcher and climbed off the chair. “Never mind that. How are you coping, Ally, darling? Mel says you and George have split up and you’ve lost your job.”

“Yes, but I’m fine, honestly.”

“You can always get another job,” Melissa said. “But quick, change the locks before George changes his mind.”

“He can’t,” Ally said flatly. “I kicked him out.”

Cheryl patted Ally’s hand. “Good for you.”

Was her mother being supportive or had she always disliked George? Ally decided there was no point in knowing. “What has Tony done this time?”

“He refinanced the art gallery to take out a loan. I knew I should have had it in my name but he needed the tax write-off so on paper, it’s his.” Cheryl set the suncatcher on the table and gazed around the room as if looking for further insults to her sensibilities. “I’d just knocked the mortgage down to a reasonable level and now suddenly I owe twice as much as I did five years ago.” Her nostrils flared in a refined quiver of rage. “I could kill him. Boil him in his own olive oil.”

“Olive oil?” Ally took a sip from the teacup Melissa handed her. She was starting to feel vaguely human.

“He bought a majority stake in an olive grove along the Murray River,” Cheryl explained. “Turns out there’s no water lease for irrigation. The company is struggling to survive.”

“Fancy Tony getting into farming,” Melissa said as she rehung the suncatcher. “I can see him now in a flannel shirt and Akubra hat with his faithful dog at his heels.”

“You’re thinking of sheep farming.” Ally turned back to her mother. “At least the deal sounds legitimate.”

“No irrigation means a poor harvest,” Cheryl informed her gloomily. “I could lose the gallery.”

“I’ve got mortgage problems, too, now that George is gone,” Ally commiserated.

Melissa looked from her sister to her mother. “Hello! Obvious solution here. Mother, if you want to make Tony sweat awhile longer, and frankly, it would do him a world of good, move in with Ally. You two can split costs.”

“What a great idea!” Cheryl said, taking up the suggestion enthusiastically. “I’ve been dying to do something with that house of yours, Ally. I know you think you’ve got it the way you want it but you haven’t heard my ideas yet. Now that stick-in-the-mud George is out of the way I can really let loose. Oh, I can’t wait. We’ll have a ball, won’t we, Ally?”

If there was any justice in the universe the look Ally threw her sister would have been fatal. For years she’d been collecting furniture and artwork for the time when she had a place of her own to decorate. Since she’d moved into her house she’d worked her way through each room, painting walls, polishing floorboards, sewing drapes and cushions. She’d scrimped and saved so she could have the kitchen and the bathroom renovated. Now her mother was proposing moving in and changing everything. Over Ally’s dead body!

“There’s just one problem. I, uh…” She racked her brains for inspiration. “I have a roommate already.”

“Oh.” Cheryl looked disappointed. “Who?”

Ally crossed her fingers in her lap. “Ben Gillard, the new chef at Mangos.”

“Wow,” Melissa said. “Fast work. I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, well.” Ally tried to look modest.

Now all she had to do was convince Ben to move in with her. It shouldn’t be too hard; her house easily fulfilled his requirements. Plus, she had something he didn’t even realize he needed—a barometer.

CHAPTER FOUR

“TIPPERARY SPRINGS Restaurant thinks it’s the only fine dining establishment in town. We’ll show them.” Steve stroked his trim silver goatee and paced the kitchen floor in front of the serving window. He wore a navy cashmere jacket and designer blue jeans pressed with a knife-edge crease. Upper crust effing nerd, Gord called him. “I must have that chef’s hat,” Steve went on. “Ben, you will create a new dish using…scallops.” He stroked his goatee some more. “Yes, scallops are good. I like scallops.”

Ben just nodded and took out his frustrations on a batch of sourdough, pummeling it beneath the heel of his hand. There was no more demanding employer than a frustrated amateur cook. “Scallops it is.”

Over by the sink, Baz was hulling strawberries destined to be made into a coulis for Beth’s panna cotta dessert special. Gord was throwing roasted chicken bones and roughly chopped vegetables into the enormous stockpot simmering on the stove. The yeasty scent of the sourdough, the chicken stock, the aniseed aroma of tarragon clinging to the cutting board, created a pleasing melange of smells. The radio was tuned to popular music, loud enough for everyone to hear over the clang of pots and slam of oven doors.

Out in the restaurant, the phone rang. Steve roused himself from his reverie about scallops and went to answer it.

What had happened to Ally? After breakfast, Ben had wandered past the Cottage Rentals and poked his head through the glass door, but she hadn’t been at her desk. Instead, an evil-looking crow of a woman had glared at him over the top of narrow glasses. He was pretty sure he’d interrupted her in the middle of putting a hex on the other girl, the stocky blond one. By now, she’d probably been turned into a toad.

“We have a problem, gentlemen,” Steve announced on his return to the kitchen, adding belatedly, “er, and Beth.”

“What is it?” Ben rubbed at his nose with the back of a floury hand.

“Cassie,” Steve said. “I did her a favor hiring her and already she’s quit.”

Gord threw double handfuls of fresh thyme, parsley and rosemary into the stockpot. “Good riddance. Did she give a reason?”

Steve turned to the sous chef. “As a matter of fact, she did. She didn’t like your attitude, Gord.”

“What the hell does she mean my attitude?” Gord growled.

“Maybe she means you telling her to get her fat arse out of the kitchen and to the front of the house where she belonged.” Baz’s fingertips were red and a telltale dribble of crimson juice stained his chin.

Gord turned on him. “You keep your effing mouth shut. And stop eating them berries or they’ll come out of your effing pay.”

“Stow it, you two,” Ben said. “Steve, can you hire someone else in time for tonight?”

“Julie will have to cover for her,” Steve replied. “I’ve given Cassie until the end of the week to change her mind, otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it from my wife.” He sighed. “If anyone needs me I’ll be in my office nursing a migraine.”

A busy waitress doubling as maître d’. Ben shook his head and folded over the wad of dough, slamming the heel of his hand into the yielding softness till the compressed gas bubbles squeaked. This was a surefire recipe for disaster.

ALLY PUSHED THROUGH the front door of Mangos into the dining room. The twelve-foot ceiling and padded high-backed wooden bench that ran along two walls gave the bistro a European flavor, while the marble fireplace, crisp white linen and mismatched wooden chairs lent the room a funky elegance. A huge vase of fresh flowers sat at one end of the polished mahogany bar. The only jarring note was the expanse of bare gray walls devoid of decoration.

A woman with shoulder-length auburn hair and a lean swarthy man with a shaved head were setting the tables with cloth napkins, cutlery and wineglasses. They must be the waitstaff. Ally recognized the woman as Julie Marsden, a school friend of Melissa’s. “Hi, Julie,” she called out. “Is Ben here?”

“Hi, Ally. He’s in the kitchen.” Julie gestured to a short hallway to the left and behind the bar. “Go through.”

“Thanks.” Ally went in the direction Julie had indicated and found herself in the serving area of the kitchen. Heat radiated from the bank of ovens in the center of the room. A short man with wiry red hair was cursing at a spotty-faced youth, and a young woman with wispy blond hair was mixing what looked like cake batter in an enormous stainless steel bowl.

Ben was shaping dough into mini cob loaves, cutting off even-sized lumps with a pastry knife and rolling them into smooth balls between his palms. Ally found herself mesmerized by the sensual movements of his scarred hands. Her gaze followed his fingers up forearms taut with muscle and sinew to broad shoulders, to his full mouth, strong nose and forehead frowning in concentration.

No one had heard her come in over the sound of the music. She cleared her throat. “Ahem.”

Ben glanced up and his expression lightened. “I was just thinking about you.”

Ally looked at the mound of creamy dough in his hand and couldn’t help but blush. “Can we talk?”

“Sure. Just give me a minute to finish this.” With speed and dexterity he shaped the remaining loaves and placed them on flat pans to proof. Moving to the sink, Ben washed his hands with soap and hot water and dried them on the towel tucked into the waistband of his apron. “Let’s go into the dining room.”

Ally followed him out to the bar and hoisted herself onto a stool.

“Brandy?” Ben asked innocently.

Ally shuddered. “No, thanks—” she began, then noticed his grin. Her lips tightened in disapproval and she drew herself upright. “I have a place for you and Danny to live. It’s a house, not a cottage, but there’s no fixed-term lease.”

“When can we move in?” Ben picked up a swizzle stick from a glass container and twirled it between his fingers.

“Right away, but there’s a catch,” she added. “You’d have to share. You see, it’s my house. I live there, too.”

“I don’t know…”

“There are three bedrooms,” she added hurriedly. “We don’t have to share in that sense.”

The swizzle stick snapped between his fingers.

Shut up, Ally. Shutupshutupshutup—

“This is the first time Danny’s lived with me since my divorce five years ago,” Ben explained. “I was planning on it being just me and him.”

“I understand.” She’d scared him off with her crazy talk about sharing. Gathering up her purse she prepared to leave. “I’ll see what else I can find for you.”

“On the other hand.” Ben flashed her an easy grin, “I’m flexible.”

Ally gave him a strained smile. “Have a look and then decide. I can take you there now.”

“Great. I’ll just let Gord know I’m going.” Ben slid off the stool and headed for the kitchen, untying his apron as he went.

Ally picked up the broken pieces of the swizzle stick and found a rubbish bin on the other side of the bar to dispose of them. Behind the counter little metal containers of green olives, cocktail onions and maraschino cherries were neatly lined up in the drink mixing area. The olives were just a touch out of alignment so she nudged the container into place.

Hearing footsteps behind her she turned. Ben was back with Danny in tow. The boy regarded her warily. She guessed she couldn’t blame him. “Hi, Danny.”

Danny said nothing until Ben nudged him. “Hi.”

She wanted to tell him she wasn’t really a dipsomaniac but felt it beneath her dignity to explain herself to a twelve-year-old. Besides, if they moved in with her the boy would soon see how upright and responsible she was.

Ben followed her in his battered blue utility truck and parked behind her in the driveway. He got out and turned slowly, taking in the view of the town and the distant hills. “This is fantastic.”

Ally was used to it but she knew what he meant. His prediction about the clouds burning off had come true. The rain had washed the air clean and every leaf and blade of grass was etched against the brilliant blue. The air was fragrant with jasmine growing over the back fence.

She hurried him inside before the wind changed and he got a whiff of the farm on the other side of the hill. She didn’t mind the smell of cows and horses but Ben was from Melbourne and if she’d learned anything from renting out cottages, it was that most city people could only handle the country in small, sanitized doses.

“Nice house,” Ben said, gazing around at the saffron walls with the triptych of moody clouds-at-sunset photos, the overstuffed maroon sofa covered in pink and persimmon silk cushions and the orange tulips in a glass vase on the walnut coffee table. Ally especially loved this room at the end of the day when it glowed with the sinking sun.

“The bedrooms are this way,” she said, leading them down the hall. Every room had a different theme color, tied together by glossy white trim. Ben’s room, painted a warm cobalt-blue, contained a double bed and not much else besides a chest of drawers and a chair. Ally threw the curtains back on the north-facing window and the room was flooded with natural light.

“I like this,” Ben said, nodding.

“Danny can sleep in here,” she said, leading them across the hall to the study. It was the most utilitarian room in the house because she’d shared it with George. She was annoyed to see that although her ex was gone his things weren’t. “There’s a single bed under all those binders and the rest of this will go,” she said waving at the filing cabinets and bookshelves. “Well, the computer is mine but I can put it in my room.”

“I don’t mind if you leave it here,” Danny piped up.

“Why would you want it?” Ben said. “You’ve got one.”

“I can network the two and play games against myself.” Danny’s bright blue eyes glazed over at the thought. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“We’re not talking chess, are we?” Ben asked.

“Search and Destroy,” Danny said enthusiastically. “Command and Conquer. Gory and Gorier.”

“I’ll move the computer into my room,” Ally said, settling the matter. “Excuse me a moment. I need to make a phone call.”

While Ben and Danny moved on to the bathroom Ally called George’s mobile and got his message bank. “I’m renting the spare bedrooms so you need to move your things out,” she said. “Today.”

She snapped the phone shut with a smile. That felt good. Draconian but good. Exhilarating, even.

When she got back to the others she found Ben inspecting the plastic trays in which she stored her bits and pieces, each neatly labeled; first aid, hair accessories, makeup, etceteras.

“Very organized,” Ben observed.

“I have more of these trays,” Ally told him. “You and Danny can have your own.”

Ben exchanged a glance with his son then smiled at Ally. “That won’t be necessary.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” she assured him.

“Can we see the backyard?” Ben asked.

She’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask that but she headed down the hall to the kitchen and the sliding doors that led onto the back deck. “Right this way.”

Put mildly, the yard was a shambles. Oh, it was big enough, huge, in fact. There was a large grassy area, some shade trees, an old veggie garden she’d never gotten around to cultivating and a tumbled-down shed. The lawn hadn’t been mowed in weeks—okay, months. The weeds were waist-high and just thinking about what might be lurking in the heap of rusted metal and wood scraps tossed in one of the back corners made her shudder.

Ben was entranced. He didn’t even seem to mind the barnyard odors now wafting their way. He strode over every inch of turf making excited noises. Ally followed, treading heavily to frighten away snakes.

“You could grow anything in this soil—herbs, veggies, anything.” He dug into the dirt and watched it sift through his long fingers like gold dust. Shaking off the remaining particles he strode over to the derelict shed. Ally had stored gardening tools there until she’d encountered a redback spider. After that she’d erected a new prefab shed.

Ben seemed to think the old shed was still good for something. “With a little work we could convert this to a chicken coop.”

“Chickens?” Ally said dubiously.

“Fresh free-range eggs,” Ben said, already in chef nirvana. “What do you think, Danny? Shall we live here?”

Danny shrugged. “It beats the apartment.”

“We’ll move in today,” Ben said to Ally. “If you’re sure you want us, that is. Maybe you’ll reconcile with your fiancé.”

“No chance,” she said firmly. “Today, it is.”

Ben and Danny went away and returned that afternoon, the back of the ute loaded with suitcases and boxes. The furniture belonged to the apartment, which was just as well since Ally didn’t have room for it. What Ben did have a lot of was kitchen gadgets.

There was a pasta maker, espresso machine, commercial juicer, industrial-strength electric mixer and what looked like a nuclear-powered food processor. Then there were copper-bottom saucepans, heavy-gauge roasting pans, Italian casserole dishes, French cast-iron grill pans, stainless-steel mixing bowls—the largest of which Ally swore she could have taken a bath in.

While they were unloading the ute George showed up. He didn’t look happy when he saw Ben and Danny. Ally wasn’t happy that George hadn’t brought a truck. She met him on the veranda. “You’re supposed to be moving your stuff out.”

Ignoring her, George jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Who are they?”

“My new tenants, Ben and Danny.” Ally shifted impatiently. “I need you to move those filing cabinets.”

“I’m not moving the cabinets,” George said, his jaw jutting forward.

She used to think his stubbornness showed strength of character but now she saw he was merely inflexible. “Then why are you here?”

“Excuse me.” Ben edged past them up the steps, carrying two heavy suitcases in each hand. Ally’s gaze followed him. All that whipping and beating certainly put muscles on a man.

“Yesterday morning you wanted to talk,” George said, forcing her attention back to him. “I’m here to talk.”

Ally stared. He was serious. “It’s an expression, George. It means, I’m breaking up with you.”

“Why?” He saw her gaze stray back to Ben and a knowing expression lit his nearsighted eyes. “Oh, I get it. I’ve been feeling guilty about having an affair and here you’ve been having it off with the cook all along.”

“Shh,” she hissed as Danny, carrying a huge cardboard box that blocked his vision, felt his way up the steps.

Danny paused and rested his box on his bent knee to say to George, “Don’t let him hear you call him a cook. He’ll go after you with his cleaver.”

“You’re having sex with a maniac!” George grated under his breath.

“He’s not a maniac!” Ally said. “You call yourself a psychiatrist? You can’t even tell when a boy is making a joke. I am not having sex with Ben. I only met him yesterday.”

At the top of the stairs Danny turned. “I wasn’t joking. He’s a chef, not a cook.”

“Yesterday!” George dragged her to the other side of the veranda, out of Ben and Danny’s earshot. “Yesterday you were going to marry me. I know you still love me,” he said. “You’re upset over Kathy and now you’re acting out. I don’t blame you. But I’m telling you, she’s nothing to me. I’ll stop seeing her. In fact, I’ll fire her.”

Ally couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was this what he imagined would appease her? If possible, George sank even lower in her estimation. “Don’t you dare fire her. Not even Kathy deserves that kind of treatment. Look, George, I don’t want to fight. I just want you to get your things and get out of my life.”

“Where do you expect me to go?”

“If Kathy won’t have you, the apartment over Mangos restaurant has recently been vacated.”

“Can’t we talk this over?” he pleaded. “Things are happening too fast.”

Events were unfolding quickly. After living in slow motion for the past year the current pace of her life was a bit unnerving. But now that she’d involved Ben and Danny she couldn’t turn back. “There’s nothing to discuss,” she said. “You’re moving out.”