‘Secondly, you couldn’t know he’d be killed. You didn’t know you’d never see him again. That’s a tragedy. Horrible. But that’s life. It’s capricious and doesn’t do what you expect, and we have to grow with it. We have to learn from it because that’s our journey.’

‘Like Amelia,’ her mum said sadly.

‘Yes, like Amelia. And like me taking risks with Zac if we want to go that far. But we’ll see what happens.’

Her mother reached up and dropped a kiss on her cheek. ‘How did you get so wise?’

Ava hugged her. ‘I picked it up from my mother and grandmother.’

‘Really?’ Her mother’s voice was uncertain and buried in the hug.

Ava gave her an extra squeeze. ‘Yes, really. Let it go, because your daughter thinks you’re amazing, and that you deserve happiness, and I hope you find it.’ They stepped back and eyed each other mistily.

Her mother looked at her for a moment and opened her mouth to say something, but Mim walked in chuckling. Ava watched her mother’s mouth shut with a snap. Now what? she wondered. Was there another secret her mother had been holding on to?

To fill the sudden gap in conversation, Ava said, ‘Just so you know, I intend to remain my own woman and I always will be.’

‘I can see that,’ her mum said.

Ava couldn’t suppress the smile. ‘And I have to acknowledge that no matter how things could pan out with Zac in the long run, having him here is wonderful. But we have a week at least, maybe two if we don’t drive him away, to see if there’s a chance we can find what we lost.’

She studied her mother, blonde and upright, a determined frown on her face as she tried not to tell her daughter what to do. She’d inherited a lot of her mother’s need to control and she understood what she was going through.

‘It’s okay, Mum. I know what I’m doing.’

Her mother smiled at that, very dryly. ‘Excellent’ was all she said.

Granny Mim, observer of these last statements, looked at them both and cackled like a madwoman. The two younger women shook their heads at her.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Zac

Zac stepped out at three o’clock and quietly closed the door of his room. He’d slept, as instructed by Stella in no uncertain terms, which he had to smile at, but he’d had enough rest today. She epitomised the bossy nurse, so unlike her daughter’s gentle, midwife-like suggestions to listen to his own body. If he stayed more than a few days, he could see a time when moving to one of the tiny chalet-style cottages overlooking the desert could be more relaxing than following Stella’s orders. Then he could invite Ava to come visit. Now that was a fantastic idea.