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She slid back the flaps of the last box and found a jumble of small, wrapped parcels. A cardboard postal tube contained knitting needles of all thicknesses. Crochet hooks filled a mason jar, pale blue tissue paper peeled open to reveal metres of batik cotton, calico, some sort of fluffy wadding. Cotton reels clinked together when she opened a tiny wicker box, and mouse-shaped pin-cushions bristling with rusty pins stared up at her from down the bottom of the carton.

‘Grey cat?’ she called.

No answer. Not that the cat ever answered when she called. The only sound the cat regularly responded to was the whirr of her electric tin opener.

She started plucking pins from a mouse and discarding them in the rubbish pile. Surely all cats loved toys? There was bound to be a set of needles in amongst all this craft booty—even she should be able to stitch a length of elastic to a mouse.

She tipped the rest of the carton out over the floor and started gathering the bits and pieces into piles. Perhaps the craft group could find a use for all this stuff. She wouldn’t need it now. Hell, she didn’t even need to finish the blasted quilt she’d been working on at a snail’s pace for the last few months. Her aunt’s knees wouldn’t be needing to be kept warm this or any other winter.

Her eye fell on the half-finished rag quilt in its calico tote under the coffee table. She pulled it out, unfolded it, and lay it across the rug. The patchwork looked back at her as though it were alive. The blue plain material in one corner she recognised from one of Jill’s shirts. In the middle, a patch from a skirt. The new pieces had come from the odds-and-ends box at Marigold’s craft night. Remnants from children’s clothes and cushion projects and impulse buys, all lovingly stored in someone’s craft cupboard before being donated so they could be given a new life.

The cat materialised through the open window and stalked over to her. She ignored the mouse Vera dangled before her nose, to settle in the middle of the quilt.

‘That’s going in the toss pile, cat. Budge.’

The cat blinked at her, yawned, then stretched out full length on the quilt and began to purr.

She sighed. Maybe the cat was right. An afternoon snooze did seem like the perfect way to escape thinking about the funeral, her court case, the mess she’d made of things with Josh. She rose to her feet and looked down on the sleeping cat surrounded by a jumble of fabric.

A thought struck her.

Quilts began with a mess. Scraps of unwanted timeworn fabrics, bundled away for a rainy day. But with time and effort and patience, something beautiful emerged. A patchwork quilt that a wandering cat, or its sad, two-legged owner, could rest upon.

She’d come here to Hanrahan with one goal, to stay clear of involvement, to stay clear of opening herself up to being hurt, but Jill’s passing had left a hole where her goals had been.

She thought back to the warmth she’d found within the snug walls of The Billy Button Café. Involvement had given her that. People. Community. She needed to involve herself more, not less. Starting with this quilt.

She’d finish it, she decided. She’d gather more scraps from as many sources as she could, and she would finish Jill’s quilt then donate it to Marigold to raffle it off at one of those community hall functions she was always organising.

Order out of chaos.

If that wasn’t a metaphor for what she needed to do with her own life, she didn’t know what was.

A surge of energy cut through her apathy. Finishing the quilt was only the first part of her new plan.

The second part kind of sucked, but she was on a roll now. Picking up the phone, she scrolled through her short list of contacts until she landed on Marigold’s name.Send message,she selected, then paused, her thumbs raised over the onscreen keyboard.

Now or never.Okay,she texted.I’m giving in. I’m coming to dawn yoga next week. Don’t let me chicken out.

The answer flashed up on the screen a millisecond later.

FINALLY!!!

Josh was the third and final matter on her agenda, and the most important matter of all. No-one had been kinder to her than him.

That handsome devil had snuck right in under her defences and wrapped himself around her heart six ways from Sunday. And how had she repaid him? By being snarky. By letting him think she agreed with his understanding of their relationship and then shoving him away.

He was hurt, and he had a right to be. He’d been nothing but honest with her, nothing but kind, and she’d been so caught up in her own need for space that she had let him down.

Her shame at being charged with a crime was only one of the reasons she’d pushed him aside. Ironically, it was Aaron showing up at the funeral that had opened her eyes to what was really going on.

What had he said?I think you’re a wonderful person, Vera. This from the same guy who’d told Acacia View about the camera she’d placed in her aunt’s room.

Aaron Finch was a master manipulator, and it had taken her this long to figure it out. Self-absorbed, too, because he seemed to truly not understand that she had no interest in seeing him again.

She poured herself a second cup of green tea from the pot squatting on the table under one of her aunt’s technicolour cosies.

There was only one way she could think of to make up for her behaviour, and if that meant letting go of the vow she’d made to herself when she moved up to Hanrahan, then so be it.