Page 2 of The Knitting Club at Wagtail Ridge

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh.’ Bree gently patted Sky’s face. This was not good news. Sky had conceived twins two years before and lost both of them. Twin conceptions were not all that rare for alpacas and sometimes they resulted in a single live cria. But two live births … ‘What did you tell me last time? The odds? One in ten thousand?’

‘It’s far more likely only one of them will develop and she’ll reabsorb the other.’

‘I would be pleased with one healthy offspring.’

‘We will need to keep a close eye on her,’ Ash said.

Bree nodded and stroked Sky’s neck. ‘We’ll look after you, girl,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you worry.’

Bree, however, was worried. Her diary for the next few months was overloaded with cases. She would be working long hours in the city and would have to rely on Mel and Ash to care for Sky. That wasn’t right—they had their own animals to look after. Bree hadn’t invested her heart in these animals to see them occasionally for a couple of hours a week. She had a dream. One put on hold for far too long.

It was time to do something about that.

CHAPTER

2

The day after the victory, Bree approached the etched glass doors of Fuller and Johnston with a degree of nervousness. Her mother would no doubt ask why she hadn’t presented herself at yesterday’s press briefing or the client meeting that had followed. She had an answer for that—but it was a pretty scary one.

Well, scary for her. Nothing scared her mother.

Tensing her shoulders, Bree walked through the doors. As she made her way to her office, a couple of people congratulated her on yesterday’s win. There was no sign of either of her parents as she finally reached her sanctuary, tucked away in a quiet corner of the floor.

Her assistant Ken was already at his desk. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thanks.’ She walked into her office and sat down. The hard part of her day was about to begin.

Ken stuck his head around the door. ‘There’s a message from Ms Fuller.’

‘You can refer to her as my mother,’ she told him for the hundredth time.

‘Yes. Ms Full—Both your parents are out of the office at a meeting this morning. They left a message. Will you join them for lunch at one o’clock? Up top.’ He pointed to the ceiling.

‘I guess I’m free. Tell Mother’s assistant yes.’

Ken nodded. ‘Do you need me this morning?’

‘I do. I need to put together a summary of all the cases I have at the moment. Where they are and what the next steps are.’

Ken raised an eyebrow, but Bree offered nothing else.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Be right there.’

The morning didn’t drag as much as Bree had expected. The work helped with that. But finally it was time. She went into the executive bathroom and, standing in front of the mirror, slipped her feet out of her plain black high-heeled shoes so she could wriggle her toes. How she hated those shoes! They were as comfortable as expensive high-heeled shoes could ever be, but she hated them as much as she hated the pantyhose covering her legs and the smart black pencil skirt she was wearing. She hated the equally smart and costly white silk blouse and the carefully tailored jacket. There were many things she hated about her job, and the clothes she was forced to wear were pretty high on the list. She was happiest in her loose, layered, full skirts, her tie-dyed T-shirts and comfortable overalls. Not the stylish, fashionable overalls that could be found in designer store windows, good old blue denim. Loose. Hard wearing. Worker’s clothes.

Stretching her neck against the restrictions of her carefully caught-back hair, she ran cold water over her hands. She filled her cupped hands with water to splash on her face and wash away the tightness left by a morning of hard work and even harder stress, but then opened her hands and let the water run away. She needed her mask of perfectly applied makeup for the meeting that she was about to have. The most important meeting of her career. One of thelastmeetings of her career.

Her phone began singing to her; the chorus of a hit single from the sixties and her grandmother’s favourite song.

‘Hi, Nan.’

‘Hello, darling. How are you?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Then you haven’t done it.’

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