Even as she asked the question Natalie already knew the answer. Her father had always been attracted to get-rich-quick schemes. He wasn’t a gambler in the ordinary sense of the word. He didn’t waste money at casinos or on the racetrack, but he was a sucker for the kind of investment or business idea that sounded too good to be true, and usually was.

Natalie hadn’t realised what a poor businessman he’d been when she’d been growing up. She’d never lacked for anything. As an only child, she’d actually been rather spoilt.

It wasn’t till Natalie had grown up that she’d realised her parents lived mainly on credit.

She’d been helping her mother out with her housekeeping budget for quite some time—slipping her a hundred dollars or so every time they saw each other. But now, it seemed that things had really hit rock-bottom. Her father could no longer continue with his latest venture—a lawn-mowing franchise he’d foolishly borrowed money on top of his already hefty mortgage to buy, and which required a fit young man to run.

Natalie’s dad was reasonably fit. But he was fifty-seven.

Last month, he’d fallen and broken his ankle.

Naturally, he hadn’t taken out any income-protection insurance. What sane insurance company would have given it to him, anyway?

The bank was threatening to repossess their house if they didn’t meet their mortgage, which was already running months in arrears. Natalie could cover a couple of months’ payments, but not the many thousands of dollars they were behind.

Which meant her parents would shortly have no money and no place to live.

Natalie shuddered at the thought of having them live with her. She was thirty-four years of age, long past the time when you enjoyed living with your parents.

On top of that, she ran her business from home, using one of the two bedrooms in her terraced house as an office-cum-computer room, and her downstairs living room as her reception and interviewing area.

Things would get very difficult with two more adults in the place. Especially two miserable ones.

‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ her mother said. ‘I’m going to get a job.’

Natalie rolled her eyes. Her mother was as big a dreamer as her father. She hadn’t been properly employed for over twenty years. She’d been busy helping her silly husband with all his crazy schemes. On top of that, she was even older than Natalie’s dad.

No one was going to employ a fifty-nine-year-old woman with no certifiable qualifications.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mum,’ Natalie said more sharply than she intended. ‘It’s not that easy to get a job at your age.’

‘I’m going to do cleaning. Your father ran off some fliers on that old computer and printer you gave him and I put them in every postbox in the neighbourhood.’