He rolled his eyes. ‘Noted. I’d also like to point out that the only hustle and bustle we need to worry about right now is the fleas on this dog. I’d better find the old girl a flea collar.’ He rested his hand on the brown dog’s head. ‘You’ve got fleas as big as bandicoots, Jane, you know that? Don’t worry, we’ll get rid of them for you.’
‘Jane?’
He shut the pen gate and returned to the bench to collect the pups. ‘Jane Doe. Isn’t that what they call unidentified people in cop shows?’
Hannah put her hands on her hips and gave him the you’re-an-idiot look she’d been sending his way for nearly thirty years. ‘Only the dead ones, moron.’
He pulled her long brown pigtail. ‘My case, so I get naming rights. I say it’s Jane Doe.’
He put the pups into the whelping box next to their mother’s cage. She’d be waking soon enough, and once he was sure she wasn’t so sedated she’d roll on the new arrivals, he’d pop them in with her. One happy family.
Just like he and Poppy could be if she ever condescended to pay him a visit.
‘Before you get into the paperwork, I want to show you something.’ Hannah dug into a pocket of her navy scrubs and pulled out a thin card. ‘A box of these arrived this morning. What do you think?’
He read the card in her hand and flashed his sister a smile. Finally.Finally. ‘I didn’t know you were getting these printed.’
She punched him in the arm. ‘I don’t have to tell my new partner everything.’
He read the words a second time: JOSHCODY, CODYANDCODYVETCLINIC, CNRDANDALOOSTREETANDSALTCREEKFLATSROAD, HANRAHAN.It had been a year since his little sister had invited him to buy into her growing vet practice in the historic mountain town where they’d grown up. He’d still been a student then, Poppy living with him every second week, and working construction on weekends to keep the bills paid. It had taken him three seconds to decide that was the move he wanted to make, but it had taken another three months before he’d told Poppy his move to Hanrahan was no longer a dream but reality.
She’d been so thrilled she’d moved all her belongings out of her bedroom in his apartment and taken up residence permanently at her mother’s.
‘Just getting used to be being abandoned,’ she’d thrown at him.
Happy days.
What Poppy didn’t understand was how much Hanrahan was a part of him … of all the Codys. His grandparents had lived here back when the Snowy River still flowed in all its glory from the mountains to the Southern Ocean, flooding pretty much everything in its path when the snows melted. Despite her current refusal to reside with him, Poppy was as much a Cody as he was, which meant she needed to know that city life wasn’t the only type of life she could have.
And then there was the other thing. The personal thing. Fifteen years in Sydney, scraping and saving and working his arse off to get by had just about done him in. He needed this. He needed respect, and he needed to be valued. And—he rubbed his hand over the Poppy-sized ache in his chest—he needed his daughter to be the one doing the respecting and the valuing.
Maybe then he could finally quit beating himself up for blowing his chances.
As he slipped the card into the back pocket of his jeans, he choked down the lump in his throat. ‘I love it. Thanks, Hannah.’
She grinned. ‘You can thank me by sweet-talking Sandy into opening a pack of the good biscuits. I’ve got surgeries back-to-back this arvo, and if I don’t get some chocolate into these veins, I’ll be too weak to cut the boy bits off Mrs Grundy’s dalmatian.’
Josh winced. Why was it women vets always said that with such relish? ‘Enough said.’
Hannah moved to the workbench and started assembling gear. ‘Before you disappear, there is something else I need to tell you.’
Josh studied his sister’s face. ‘Why do I get the feeling this other thing isn’t as fun as a shiny new business card?’
Hannah pulled a mask off the storage shelf, gloves, a canister of the jerky treats they fed to the furry patients to remind them that their vet visits could be fun, despite the needles and indignities they might suffer. ‘It’s in the mail-in tray. The local newspaper.’
‘Why would the local newspaper put an expression of doom on your face?’
‘Remember the community section? The Hanrahan Chatter?’
‘Sure. Someone hit a birdie at the golf course. So-and-so got married. Garage sale on Brindabella Avenue followed by bingo at the community hall.’
‘Not this week.’
He clamped a hand down on the sterile dressings she was layering on a tray. ‘Just spit it out, Hannah. What are the noisy miners twittering about now?’
She flicked him a look. ‘Maureen Plover took it over some years back. Remember her?’
‘No.’