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‘Huh,’ she said. ‘I don’t like to boast, but I’ve watched three online tiling tutorials. I’m pretty much an expert now.’

Graeme grinned. ‘I think we’re gonna make a great team, boss. You got an apron hiding in that pyramid of stuff?’

Aprons she had. They were works of art, chocolate brown and piped with cream edging. There was no way in hell she was letting one of her new aprons anywhere near a DIY tiling project.

‘I can offer you a plastic garbage bag or a grease-stained old tea towel?’

‘Ew. Why don’t I pop home and get into my overalls. I’ll be back in an hour.’

She reached out and touched her new café manager on the arm. ‘Are you sure you want this, Graeme? Building something from the ground up like this? It’s going to be a lot of work.’

Graeme rested his hand over hers and turned to give the interior of her café one long look. ‘Girlfriend,’ he said, ‘this place is going to be a sensation.’

She hoped so. She really hoped so. She looked through the smudged glass windows, to where The Billy Button Café sign swung in a breeze curling up from the narrow northern arm of Lake Bogong, and squared her shoulders.

She couldn’t afford to letanythingget in the way of this café being a hit.

CHAPTER

2

Josh Cody slid a loop of gut into his hooked needle and carefully knotted the last suture.

‘How many?’

He looked up at his sister, who’d popped her head in round the door of the surgical room. ‘Eight. Three black, one chocolate, four yellow. You owe me ten bucks.’

Hannah flashed him a grin. ‘You’ve got mad diagnostic skills, Dr Cody.’

He ran his hand over the chest and stomach of the plump labrador on his stainless steel table. She’d been exhausted when the man who’d found her in his shearing shed had brought her in—luckily, he’d performed more than one emergency caesarean by now. The operation had gone smoothly, which made being called Dr Cody, Veterinarian, feel less like the dream of a moron who’d screwed up his chances and more like the hard-earned truth.

‘Did you find a microchip? I can run it through the database.’

‘Nothing. Her fur’s in a poor state, nails are brittle and torn up, and she’s a little long in the tooth to be having a litter. She’s not underweight though. Hard to say if she’s a stray, or just has owners who haven’t got a clue how to look after a pregnant dog.’

He glanced down into the plastic tub on the bench, where eight furry lumps the size of vegemite scrolls snoozed atop a pink fluffy heat pack. The cause of this morning’s drama, the chocolate pup who’d tried to enter the world sideways, lay on his back, a tiny pink tongue poking from his snout.

Hannah moved in next to him and reached a hand into the bucket of pups. ‘Poppy’s going to go nuts when she sees them.’

He sighed. ‘I hope so.’

He’d not seen his daughter for weeks. And her absence from his life had chiselled a hole in his heart that even the excitement of his new vet career couldn’t fill. She was mad with him for moving from Sydney to ‘the boonies’, as she called it, and kept finding new ways to make him suffer. The first time he’d brought up the idea of relocating to Hanrahan she’d flounced off back to her mother’s, returning a week later with a second set of ear piercings. Dragging her feet about visiting was Pop’s latest brand of torture.

Sure, he got it, school and assignments and Year Ten exams mattered … but didn’t he matter too?

‘Give me a hand with getting her off the table, will you, Han?’ he said, turning his attention back to a problem hecoulddo something about.

‘Sure.’

They lifted the sedated dog and carried her through to a pen. ‘You written up the chart yet?’ said Hannah.

‘No time. She looked ready to pop when Trev carried her in.’

‘Trev? The old bloke from out near Stony Creek? Wow, I haven’t seen him in yonks. I thought he hated the hustle and bustle of town.’

He snorted. ‘Hannah, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Dandaloo Street in Hanrahan can in no way be described as hustle and bustle.’

‘That is so not true. You haven’t seen the fuss and bother going on in the old bank building. Some fancy new café is opening up. Hanrahan is cosmopolitan these days, big brother.’