They would share a packed lunch if they were out working in the paddocks, or she would make their lunch and bring it out if they had been doing yard work in the sheds. They were together every hour of the day and it should have started to feel stifling, but it didn’t. Each day she felt herself falling a little more deeply for Stuart Buchanan.

As they lay together one night, Stuart’s body curled behind hers and his arm securely across her waist, she felt the deep, rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing against her back.

‘Are you happy, Elle?’ he asked quietly.

His question was unexpected, but she found herself smiling in the dark. ‘I am.’

‘Good,’ he said after a while, and she heard his breathing change as he drifted off to sleep.

But Elle stayed awake as she thought over his question. It was true, she was happier here than she had been in a very long time. She loved everything about this place—the farm, the land, the island—and she felt connected to this place in a way she couldn’t explain. But now she understood why Gran had fought so hard to come back. She’d had no choice. She was drawn back here by that same connection. And yet, that previous feeling that warned Elle not to get too settled had begun to stir again.

It’s time, my love. Time to say goodbye. She didn’t hear Gran’s words in her head like she had before. This time she felt them, in her heart.

Elle had been trying not to think about why she had come here. Partly because Stuart was mixed up in it all, but mostly because she just couldn’t face the moment when she would have to say goodbye to Gran. Deep down she knew that warning she kept hearing was her conscience reminding her that she wasn’t here for herself. She was here for Gran, and she needed to make good on her promise.

It was time.

TWENTY-SIX

Twenty-six

As they cooked breakfast side by side, Stuart’s phone rang and he handed Elle the spatula while he took the call.

‘Hello, Mum,’ he said, and Elle glanced up. ‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ he continued, then looked across at Elle with a grimace that told her that he possibly had forgotten whatever it was his mother was calling to remind him about. ‘Yeah, all right. I’ll see you then. Bye.’ He put the phone back down on the bench with a long sigh. ‘I forgot about my parents coming up for the weekend,’ he groaned.

Elle stopped moving the scrambled eggs about in the pan.

‘They’ll be here tomorrow.’

His parents? Here?

‘Elle?’ His question snapped her attention from the pan she’d been staring at.

‘Sorry?’

‘Are you all right?’