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Back The Cottage at Rosella Cove Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Book
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four
  38. Thirty-five
  39. Thirty-six
  40. Thirty-seven
  41. Thirty-eight
  42. Thirty-nine
  43. Acknowledgements
  44. About the Author
  45. Also by Sandie Docker
  46. Book Club Questions
  47. Welcome to the Kookaburra Creek Café
  48. Prologue
  49. One
  50. Sign up to Read More and discover new favourites

She pulled out her phone and made an appointment with the therapist.

After three sessions of therapy, it was obvious the doctor wasn’t going to be able help much without Mark’s involvement. Nicky tried to get him to come along. She tried to make him understand she needed his help.

‘You don’t have to understand why I’m feeling like this,’ she pleaded with him in the dining room after dinner one night. ‘But can’t you understand that I am, and that I need your support?’

‘No.’ He got up from the table opening and closing his hands, pacing in front of the bookcase. ‘There is nothing to understand. We can’t have children. We can’t change it. End of story. Move on with life.’ He reached to the bookcase, sweeping his arm across the shelves, knocking a pile of books to the floor. He picked up her beloved copy of Anne of Green Gables, tore pages from their binding and threw the book across the room in frustration. ‘Can’t you understand how I feel? How much pressure are you going to keep putting on me to be someone I’m not?’

Mark stormed out of the apartment and Nicky picked up her book and sobbed into the ruined pages.

Eighteen

Nicole sifted through the church bulletins in the library collection searching for anything that might mention Ivy. Or Joan, or Lucy – any connection to Ivy at all. Like the CWA records, so much of it was hard to read. There was scant detail – a mention here, a reference there. Still, it was fun trawling through the past, even if it wasn’t turning up much. She’d been chipping away at her renovation lists all morning and the change in pace was most welcome.

Going through the church records, Nicole’s focus had been on any marriage notifications. She’d got up to 1953 with no luck. Ivy’s letter that morning perhaps was a foretelling of what was further to come. Though she hoped not.

23rd July, 1952

My Dearest Tom,

Angus Lewis is a man of great perseverance. I have not once given him any encouragement, yet he persists in his futile pursuit of me. I have been subtle and gentle in my rejection of his advances, and blunt and forthright also. Nothing works.