Jess shivered and checked on Leo. Thankfully, he was fast asleep, his cheeks flushed pink. She’d dressed him in a fleecy onesie and tucked him into a sleeping bag, because he was a restless sleeper and she didn’t want him to wake up cold. Maybe she’d overcompensated for the lack of heat? Deciding not to wake him, she returned to the living room and her gaze immediately strayed to the bottle of rum. Three days earlier, born out of the fear of becoming her mother, she’d drawn a line on the label indicating how much she could drink in a week. The level of the tawny brown liquid already matched the line.

“That was before we risked freezing to death.” She poured herself another rum and Coke and wrapped herself in a blanket. Sitting on the couch, she sipped the drink, soaking up the heat of the alcohol streaming through her veins and warming her from the inside out. According to KB Radio, today was the coldest day Kurnai Bay had experienced in a decade. Not the day for the heater to fail. She’d left the house at seven thirty that morning and returned eleven hours later, hungry, tired and with a toddler exhausted from hours in daycare, to find the house was an ice box. The automatic ignition on the heater had never worked so Jess had tried to light the pilot using a taper just like Nick always did—had done—whenever it blew out. It refused to light for her and with the realtor closed for the day, she had little choice but to wait until eight thirty the following morning. Even then, the landlord always dragged his feet.

Meanwhile, she was alone and chilled to the bone in an old clapboard house without insulation. This wasn’t the life she’d envisaged for herself. Or for Leo. Six months earlier, she’d have picked up the phone and called Libby, who’d have sent Nick over with his tool box. He’d have fixed the problem then stayed for conversation and cake. Stayed to see Leo.

The rum in her blood soared high on indignation and for the first time in weeks, Jess gave in to temptation. She tapped out a furious email on her phone.

Dr. Hunter, the heater’s on the fritz and Nick’s son is freezing. If Leo gets sick, you’ll have child abuse on your conscience. Do the right thing and send Nick around to fix it.

The moment the email vanished into the ether, her mood dropped like a stone. The Hunter-Pirellis might have created an email account exclusively for her to contact them, but it didn’t mean they responded instantly. Or even by the end of the day. There was a minimum two-day turnaround and it drove her insane. How dare they treat family like this!