Cora stared at her. “What?”

“The Scraped Goat.”

“That’s what I thought you said. That’s a bar?”

“Yep, and a great one. You in?”

Cora nodded. “I’m in—as long as no goat is present.”

When Frazer laughed, it was rich and warm, like toffee slowly melting on your tongue. “No goats. It’s on the river, near the belltower. Good beer—do you like lager?”

“Of course. I lived in Fremantle in my uni days.”

With a raise of her takeaway cup, as if to salute her, Frazer nodded. “Excellent. The Scraped Goat, tomorrow. Shall we say seven?”

“Seven it is.”

“Great. I can tell you in more detail about how Alec gave me some hope for our programme.”

Their programme? Inexplicable warmth spread over Cora.

The last thing Cora wanted to do was talk about Alec. But she offered a nod, one she hoped looked enthusiastic.

As Frazer walked off to deliver babies or direct others to do so, Cora wanted to pat herself on the back. Step one of turning her life around—making new friends—was coming along nicely. Now it could be time to start attempting those other steps.

Ones that had been clawing at her for so long, it felt like she’d become a professional at ignoring them.

* * *

“Where have you been?”

The accusatory glare that accompanied that statement could have made a child pee their pants. All it did to Frazer was incite an eye-roll.

“Hi, Jemma.” Swinging her front door open, Frazer reminded herself she loved her sister even as Jemma swanned past, none-too-gently elbowing her in the side.

“Don’t ‘hi’ me. You fell off the face of the earth for weeks. I think Mum was about to call the police.”

By the time Frazer closed the door, Jemma was sprawled on her couch with her shoes kicked off.

“Please, make yourself at home.”

“Oh, I will. Got any beers?”

Resigned to the next few hours, Frazer got two pale ales and shoved her sister’s legs aside to sit down next to her, only to have those legs dumped back over her lap when she did. There were times a sister was more of a burden than a gift. The way her parents told the story, when Frazer was informed she was getting a sister, Frazer had stared at her parents until they had started to become concerned. Then she had simply turned on her heel and stalked off. All Frazer remembered was a heavy feeling of resentment.

“So, who’s the girl?” Waggling her eyebrows, Jemma took a long sip.

“There’s no girl, Jemma.”

“Don’t believe you.”

“Okay.”

Frazer counted down from five in her head, and right on cue, the silence got to Jemma, exactly as Frazer knew it would.

“Frazer! Why have you disappeared?”

When Jemma was young, she’d last three seconds. It was impressive, really, that at twenty-five, her sister now made it an entire two seconds longer. “You know Mum can’t handle more than a day of no contact.”

“She manages when I have a girlfriend she doesn’t want to meet.”