‘It’s good to be home.’ But she needed a moment, and needed a long debrief with her sister-in-law. ‘How’s Hana?’ Where’s Hana? Instead of sitting down, she moved across the room to look out the door in the direction in which her brother’s house lay.

‘She’s keeping your brother close to her, though I think it’s more for him than her.’

‘Then she’d have a good reason to. I’ll go have a wash. Be back soon.’ As Ava left the room, she could hear her grandmother muttering to herself, ‘A wedding. Excellent.’

Ava sighed. She’d known Mim would be on to her like an eagle to roadkill about Zac’s prospects as a husband. Since she’d finished her training and started her midwifery agency work, she’d been doing ten-hour shifts with four days on and four days off, then driving back to the station most weeks. With two months of the year dedicated for muster and spending time with her family, Ava’s life had felt very full. Who needed men when the work was there?

Her goals had been to gain the confidence and respect that Zac had seen from her peers, and even harder to achieve, the confidence and acceptance of the women in the many communities she visited as a midwife. Though their homes were simple and their amenities few, the women inspired her with their ingrained sense of family and ability to rise from challenges with such strength.

She believed her being there helped their experience when they came in for birth and recognised the midwife. And she loved the babies. The brown-eyed, round-cheeked, happy babies she saw everywhere she visited. She loved her life.

Mim had scolded her often for being single-minded, telling her that work wasn’t a penance she deserved as a young single mum whose daughter had died. Ava had come to accept, if not rail against, the fact that it had been Amelia’s destiny to visit fleetingly, and there was no one to blame for what had happened, herself included. She also knew her mother and grandmother worried about her lack of male company, but she had plenty of male acquaintances. Just none, until now, who turned her on.

Zac Logan’s face insinuated itself into her mind and she couldn’t help the forlorn smile that tilted up her mouth. Well, she’d certainly been ‘socialising’ lately, and she had to admit the colours in her world had turned brighter before they’d been photoshopped viciously into the monochrome of amnesia.