I had just run into Owen. My ex-husband Owen… in the flesh.

Why does he have to be so handsome? Why does he have to smile with that perfectly located dimple? Why did he have to sound so sincere and concerned when he spoke to us?

Why do I even care?

I knew when I arrived in Acacia Falls that I’d most likely run into him, and I had resigned myself to the fact. What I wasn’t prepared for was my intrigue and the yearning that I’d thought was long dead.

And that alone had frustration racing through me—at my own stupidity, at my own weakness.

Owen had chosen someone else and rejected me. True to form, that reminder was a sure way to burn those pesky warm and fuzzy feelings to complete ash—where they belonged. I was just experiencing the final remnants of my past, that was all.

So why does it feel like more than that?

Shaking my head, I led Austin into my dad’s hospital room. I was glad to see him sound asleep after such a traumatic night. The call from my mother had Alicia and me scrambling with total fear as we packed the car and raced for town in the early hours of the morning.

I’d already let work know that I required emergent leave and that I was unsure when I was to return. I wanted to be there for my parents, support them through everything. And sure, maybe I wanted reassurance that my dad was going to be okay too.

It was surreal. Dad was our family rock—strong and unyielding. To see him in such a vulnerable state had us Thorne girls on edge, although we all tried to mask it in our own ways.

Mum fussed with the flowers beside his bed, and my sister lounged in the corner chair, scowling at her phone.

She’d been unusually quiet and guarded the past few days, even before we got the news about our dad. I tried broaching the subject before we left for Acacia Falls. Let’s just say that didn’t go down well.

I had sent Austin her way more than once, if only to give his aunty some well-needed cuddles and kid humour. Which usually shone through with his unguarded toddler logic and spontaneity.

Keeping with that narrative, my wayward son was true to form. When he walked into the room, he thought he’d announce his ecstatic news.

“I just met my daddy,” he said, all sunny and smiling. They didn’t even bat an eyelid, used to his shenanigans. He had been obsessed with that train of thought since they’d held a father’s day lunch at his kindy earlier in the year. After that, those pesky daddy questions began.

How did you tell your son he was conceived through one blissful, passionate night with a stranger? A person you never saw or heard of again?