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A quick press of his lips to hers, and he was gone.

Another phone call woke her again, but the darkness had a shimmer in it this time, and the ringtone was her own. Dawn wasn’t far away.

Josh, she thought sleepily as she rolled for her phone. Maybe she could whip up a batch of pancakes before her shift started. Lashings of lemon syrup. A naughty dollop of vanilla bean ice-cream on the si—

‘Vera De Rossi?’

She sat up. Josh didn’t sound like a bossy middle-aged woman. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s Dr Brown from Connolly House.’

Oh no. She pressed her hand to her mouth to keep a sob at bay. There was no good reason for them to be calling her in the cold hour before sunrise.

‘My aunt. Has she …?’

‘I’m sorry, Vera. Jill passed away in her sleep a little while ago. Would you like to come over now and say goodbye?’

Josh slid his ute into the staff car park of the pub. He needed a shower. Maybe an hour’s sleep. If Cricket’s colic didn’t settle, he’d have another long night ahead after a busy day of Saturday home visits, and the constant driving was wearing him down. He was so not a fan of the mobile vet concept.

And somewhere in all of that he needed to find time to pick a bunch of flowers and deliver them to The Billy Button Café. Perhaps sneak in a slow burn kiss in the kitchen to tide him over until the day’s patients were seen to.

The smell of coffee caught him and he ducked his head into the kitchen.

‘Gracie?’

The pub’s elderly caretaker sat at a scrubbed wooden table, toast, coffee and a newspaper before her. ‘Josh, my love. You’ve had a long night.’

‘Unhappy horse. You seen Jane Doe? She’s fond of a piece of toast in the morning. I’m surprised she’s not sitting at your feet practising her pathetic look.’

‘If you think I’m having dogs in my kitchen, you can think again, young man.’

He clinked his coffee cup to hers. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

Gracie patted his hand. ‘She’s in the laundry with her pups. Those rascals will be climbing out of that whelping box soon, Josh; maybe it’s time they had some space to run about in before they get sold on to their new homes.’

‘Yeah. I know. I’ve had offers aplenty, but I want to hang on to them a while yet. Poppy’s promised to come up one weekend, and she’d be sad not to say goodbye. Plus, some kid rang me a while back, reckoned he was Jane’s owner. I’m still waiting for him to call back.’

‘Mmm.’ Gracie’s voice was distracted. ‘I didn’t know there was a new ski lift going in up past Crackenback, did you, pet?’

He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. Graeme really had turned him into a snob. ‘I haven’t been up to the ski fields in years.’

‘Might be the spur to the sides old Bruno needs to set this old pub to rights. Be a treat to see it open again. There’s a lot of development going on and not all of it is what this town needs. Modern rubbish that looks like it wouldn’t last a decent snowstorm.’

‘I think Bruno Krauss has enough on his plate at the moment.’

‘True. Poor man, he was skinny as a stick insect last time I saw him in town.’

The pages rustled as Gracie turned the page. ‘Hello … De Rossi. Isn’t that the name of the new owner of the café on the corner?’

Josh put down his cup. ‘Vera De Rossi. That’s right, why?’

The caretaker spun the paper so he could see the page she was reading. The Hanrahan Chatter … his least favourite section of the paper, useful only for lining animal cages and recycling. He braced himself and started reading Maureen Plover’s latest article.

STORM IN A COFFEE CUP:Hanrahan’s newest business owner Vera De Rossi of The Billy Button Café appeared in court in Queanbeyan earlier this week to plead not guilty to a charge of illegally using a surveillancedevice. The Chatter hears recently returned local veterinarian Josh Cody has been ordering more than a few cupcakes from Ms De Rossi in recent weeks. … read the full story on Page 6.

Holy shit. He toyed with the idea of turning to page six but quashed it. His days of being influenced by gossip were so over. ‘Gracie?’

‘Yes, love?’