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that.’ Jenny sounded serious now.
    â€˜Okay, so why is a good-looking thirty-something policeman still single? Maybe Clive knows something we don’t,’ Kate said with an impish smile.
    â€˜What? You can’t seriously think John Cafferty is gay?’
    The smile melted from Kate’s lips as she suddenly realised that this was exactly how rumours started in places like this. ‘Of course not. I was just mucking around. There’s probably a very good reason the guy’s not married. I can actually think of a number of arguments against the institution myself.’
    â€˜Oh come on, just because you picked a dud doesn’t mean they’re all like that.’
    â€˜You and Nathan seem to have it worked out. You two make it look easy,’ Kate said wistfully.
    â€˜Don’t believe it,’ Jenny scoffed. ‘It’s bloody hard work. But I have to admit, I got lucky.’ Kate watched as her friend’s eyes softened. ‘The big lug.’
    Kate tried to ignore the little knot in her stomach. She wasn’t entirely sure it was a matter of being lucky. She had a feeling there was more to it than that. Somehow, for some reason that must have been connected to her childhood experiences, she had been unconsciously attracted to a man who turned out to have an extremely destructive addiction. Surely that wasn’t just a coincidence, a matter of bad luck?
    And how had her lovely, gentle gran ended up with Henry? And then there was her mother with her never-ending list of hopeless men, not to mention the addiction to drugs and alcohol that had dogged her all her life.
    This was why she hadn’t exposed her children to Henry and North Star before now. This was why she continued to hide the extent of their father’s addiction and why she continued to let Georgia blame her for the divorce. By denying her past, she’d tried to shield her children from the harsh realities she’d been forced to deal with from an early age.
    The bone-chilling discovery that Georgia had been experimenting with drugs had thrown Kate into an absolute panic, but there was no way in hell she was going to stand by and allow the cycle of addiction to claim another generation.
    Looking across at Jenny, Kate felt angry at herself for not defying her grandfather and returning before now. If only she hadn’t been such a frightened rabbit around the man. Surely in the last few years of his life he wouldn’t have posed any serious threat to her.
    So why, then, she wondered, had she been too terrified to come back and stand up to him?

Over the next two days Jenny and Kate scrubbed the old house from top to bottom, removing years of accumulated dust and grime. It felt rejuvenating, almost as though they were wiping the slate clean, ready for a new start.
    The back rooms which had stored much of the house’s furniture held a bounty of treasures.
    Jenny eyed a faded old sofa that had once graced the living room. ‘You know, I can whip up a new cover for this lounge in no time and it’ll be as good as new. We can go into town later and buy some fabric,’ she said.
    The rest of the furniture was good quality too. Solid timber bookcases, tables, chairs and beds, all stacked and waiting to be returned to their rightful places.
    Kate felt a small pang of regret for her own furniture, the things she’d lovingly picked out over the years to fill her perfect house in her perfect world . . . until reality had taken her by the shoulders and shaken her awake. They’d sold it all to pay off Andy’s debts.
    â€˜I wonder what possesses a person to shut themselves away from the world like your grandfather did,’ Jenny said as she and Kate dragged a heavy headboard up the hall into the bedroom that would be Georgia’s.
    Kate didn’t answer.
    â€˜As a kid I used to get a bad vibe whenever I saw him,’ Jenny said seriously. ‘You never used to let me