Read Online Mountain Ash by Margareta Osborn - Free Book Online Page A

Catholic mothers of the bachelor boys drawing their precious sons back under their skirts. ‘Careful. She’s a single mother or, worse still, a loose woman.’ Geez. It was almost like she’d had a choice in her marital status. Which of course she hadn’t.
    Rhys had been all cowboy. Slim hips, square shoulders, a bum that made a pair of Wranglers look like they’d been made for him alone. He’d had crinkly hazel eyes that danced with mischief like Milly’s did when she was treading the fine line between spiritedness and flat-out cheek. His battered Akubra looked like it’d been glued to his head and when he tipped his face in Jodie’s direction, and smiled that sexy grin which made her insides turn upside down, well, it all spelled disaster for the heart. She couldn’t really blame the pretty blonde barrel-racer for driving away with Rhys in his battered F100 ute. She probably would have done the same at twenty-one. Whoops. That’s right. She had. That’s what had got her into all this mess. What an idiot. She, Jodie Ashton, had been a life-long sucker for a cowboy. But that was over now. Never again. At thirty-two years of age she had well and truly learned her lesson. Grand passion did not equate to a love that lasted.
    When she was twenty-six, and doing the late-afternoon shift bar work in Charleville to provide an income for herself and the baby, Jodie had realised that to support them better she needed a qualification, something she hadn’t thought that important straight out of school. (She wished she’d listened to her parents on that one.) But three years’ study on a tiny student pension and whatever cash work she could scramble together in the holidays, while a family day-care woman got to watch Milly take her first steps, put paid to that hurdle. She’d become a qualified nurse. A profession chosen purely because it was reasonably paid and meant she could be at home with her daughter at least some days of the week.
    â€˜Mum! I’ve done it! I’ve got my prayer!’
    Jodie looked down at Alex’s message once more, before folding and shoving it into her pocket. She’d deal with thatlater. Milly came first. ‘Hit me with it, Milly Molly Dooks,’ she called as she walked back into the kitchen. This was going to be good. She could see it in the way her daughter was wriggling in the chair as though she’d laid an egg. Jodie’s father, Robert, had been the same when he’d solved problems for his secondary students.
    â€˜ Dear God …’
    Yep, thought Jodie, it was a good start because dear God, what was going to come next?
    â€˜ I pray for all my grandparents in Heaven …’
    Rhys was now in the States on the rodeo circuit. He’d married a woman out there and had kids with her. Neither Jodie nor Milly had ever met his folks so there was only one grandparent in heaven that Jodie knew of, but that was beside the point …
    â€˜ I feel sorry for them …’
    So did Jodie. Except anything was better than the pain her father had endured in the last few months of his life. It had taken its toll on all of them, but at least Alex had been there for her. Well, when he wasn’t running his property, his investment portfolio properties, his directorships, his Rotary commitments and so on and so forth.
    â€˜ I loved you very much, Grandpa Rob …’
    Jodie loved and missed her father terribly too, and tomorrow was going to be really hard. She should probably grab Alex’s invitation with both hands. Milly would love to spend a few hours with Mue.
    â€˜ I hope you are getting some great games of chess up there …’
    Robert had loved chess, especially his games with friends like Alex and Mue. She was so grateful to Alex when he suggested that Muriel, his housekeeper (and Mue to everyone else), couldsit with her father three times a week while Jodie worked. She wouldn’t