He looked at her expectantly and she glanced down at her fingers. They were red from being twisted and rubbed. She had come in planning to say no, but his frankness had overwhelmed her. One more week in Margaret River wouldn’t be terrible and it would help her bank balance. If these students had elected to do art they shouldn’t give her too much trouble. Eventually, there would come a time when she had to face a class again. At least none of these students knew her.

“I guess I don’t have a set schedule…”

“You’d be doing us a big favour.”

Keely sighed. “Perhaps I could stay one more week…”

“Thanks, Keely.” Ken beamed at her from across the desk. “I’ll get Claire on to the paperwork straight away so we don’t have any hiccups and you get paid promptly. Now, how about you come and check our facilities and see what you’d like to do.”

* * *

“Flynn has taken Keely to help put the labels on his bottles.” Maggie stood behind Euan in the office doorway. “She’s settled in well.”

Euan was rummaging through the papers on the desk. Flynn must have been tidying up again. He couldn’t find the order that he was looking for. They’d just had a pile of extra cartons delivered from their usual supplier and there were way too many.

“Yes.” He didn’t look up.

“There’s something about her, though, isn’t there?”

“What do you mean?” Euan rifled through the ‘pending’ file.

“She’s a lovely girl, a bit on the shy side, and she appears to be happy but…”

Damn! He still couldn’t find the order he was looking for. Then he realised Maggie had stopped talking. He looked up. She had that enquiring expression that past experience told him could mean trouble.

“But what?”

“Something’s not quite right.”

“Now, Maggie, Keely’s a great girl. You said so yourself. Don’t go stirring things up.”

“You’ve noticed it too, haven’t you?”

Euan pulled open the filing cabinet. The packaging order had to be there somewhere. Where would Flynn have filed it? He would have done it online. Perhaps he’d forgotten to print a copy.

“Euan?”

“What?” He gave up looking, pushed the drawer shut and glanced at the computer. Flynn was all about saving files there, said they didn’t need paper copies, but Euan still liked to be able to hold a piece of paper in his hand.

“Keely has been living here for nearly two weeks. Surely you’ve had a chance to discover what it is that’s troubling her.”

He looked at his sister. “Probably people interfering in her life.” She cocked her head to one side and raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, alright. I’m not really sure but I think it might have something to do with her teaching.”

“What exactly? Has she said something about it?”