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'Come in,' Lucy managed, and they both stood awkwardly in the small, cream-painted hallway, then edged gradually into the living room. 'The girls are still playing out the back,' she went on, waving vaguely towards the windows that overlooked the garden. 'They've had a great time.'

'Yes, I could hear them from the driveway as I got out of the car,' Malcolm said.

He'd aged a little. Of course he had! Lucy could see it in the deepened etching of lines around his smoke-grey eyes and sensitively moulded mouth. At twenty-eight, and a mother for five years, she knew that she no longer looked as young and fresh as she once had either. And was her blouse still clean after cooking? Was it a crumpled mess? She smoothed it automatically, then forced her hands to be still. The convulsive movement betrayed far too much.

Malcolm went on, 'We'll give them a few minutes longer, shall we?'

'They're probably quite tired...'

'Oh, I expect so,' he agreed. 'They'll crash after dinner. Ellie has a tendency to subside in a sobbing heap after a long day, and school is wearing her out. But it's the weekend tomorrow after all.'

'True,' Lucy nodded. 'I've planned a quiet one for that same reason. I've learned the hard way that she's a horror if she doesn't get some time to unwind.'

'I expect it'll take a month or two before they get used to the pace. Fortunately, Ellie's babysitter seems well attuned to her needs.'

'You're lucky to have found her. She seems very
good. We got chatting the very first day, waiting to pick the girls up.'

Lord, we're both rambling! Lucy realised. They had moved as far as the windows that overlooked the back garden now, and could see that the two girls were still playing happily on the freshly mown grass.

It was a pretty sight. She'd had the sprinklers on last night and the lawn was green against the surrounding beds of summer flowers. Light shade from two tall birch trees saved the flowers from the worst stresses of the summer heat. Two blonde heads and two busy bodies, both in purple dresses, completed the picture. It seemed a shame to break it up...

Lucy wondered about offering Malcolm a drink, but decided that would only make things worse. What did you say in this situation? What did you
do?
She must be one of the last people in the world he'd ever have wanted to meet up with again, and as for how she felt about him... She couldn't even begin to think through the implications yet.

She felt sheer relief when he took control and brought things out into the open, speaking quietly and seriously. 'I'm sorry. We're both thinking of Bronwyn's death, aren't we? While trying very hard to pretend that we're not...'

'Yes.' She nodded, although it wasn't all she was thinking about. But Bronwyn's death was...well...the epicentre of the earthquake, if she wanted to be dramatic about it. 'It...wasn't an easy time,' she said inadequately. 'I—I'm sorry we had to meet again like this. I'm sure...that you don't want the memories made vivid again.'

It wasn't the first time she'd felt the need to spare him from torment.

'It was six years ago,' he answered. 'Just this time of year. February. The summer heat over Canberra brings it all back, no matter what else is going on in my life, but it does get a little easier each year. Please, don't feel you have to take responsibility for reviving my memories, Lucy. I'd hate to put that burden on you if our girls are going to be friends.'

His voice had that little husky note in it again. It had always shown what he'd felt.

'If?' she echoed on a laugh that wasn't quite steady. Who had the power to burden whom here? 'I'm getting the impression they're already joined at the hip!'

They both watched the girls again for a moment. Ellie's purple dress was far too big for her. It had been borrowed from Charlotte for the afternoon, as both girls had rejected the idea of remaining in their uniforms to play. They'd taken ages to choose alternatives, rummaging through Charlotte's entire wardrobe to find the nearest things to a matching pair of outfits.

I really must offer him a drink! Lucy decided. The house wasn't air-conditioned, and it was hot. Iced water was safe and appropriate, surely? He accepted the suggestion, and they both stood there, making their tall glasses tinkle with the movement of the ice as they drank. Somehow, it seemed only natural to stand close together as they watched their daughters. She felt her pale green skirt drag a little against his leg.

'I'm delighted about it, actually,' Malcolm said, picking up the conversation from where it had left off a few minutes previously. 'Their friendship,' he clarified unnecessarily. 'I worried a lot about Ellie starting school. In fact, she could have started last year if I'd wanted her to, being a January baby and already six now, but I kept her back a year in the hope that she'd look a little less small and delicate. I didn't want her to get teased. But even this year, with her classmates a good year or more younger in many cases, she's still quite a bit smaller. Your Charlotte, for example, looks like such a strong, sturdy lass by comparison.'

'Fortunately, I don't think children form friendships on the basis of size,' Lucy said with a laugh.

'No, I guess they don't,' he agreed. 'I do tend to be over-protective. A symptom of single parenthood, perhaps.'

'Perhaps.' She nodded, then added reluctantly, although he'd probably guessed after what she'd said about her last name, 'I'm a single parent, too.'

There was a tiny silence while they watched the girls again. There was an elaborate role-playing game going on, involving dolls and toy animals and a large shrub at the edge of the lawn. Glancing sideways, Lucy could see how closely Malcolm's gaze followed his daughter's movements. Those lashes of his were as long and thick as she remembered. She had to look away quickly when he turned to focus on her instead.

'Fill me in a bit, Lucy,' he said. His interest seemed polite. He was going through the motions. If there was any passion lying below the surface, he was concealing it. And yet there was no way of talking about her life without stripping away the layers and getting personal straight away. 'You were planning to go overseas...' he prompted.

'Didn't happen.' She smiled.

There were no regrets. That was the thing about having a child come into your life. Charlotte's unexpected conception had changed everything about Lucy's plans, and yet there hadn't been a moment of real regret. She loved Charlotte with all her heart.

'After I... Well, after Bronwyn's death,' she went on, 'when I stopped working for you, I went back to my parents' farm. It was meant to be a short stay before my friend was ready to set off on our big trip, but I...' She hesitated. So many people to protect with the shield of some simple words. They had to be well chosen. 'I met someone.'

'The old story, I suppose,' he supplied helpfully.

'Exactly! It didn't last long, though. When he found out that Charlotte was on the way, he ran a mile.'

She was well aware that she was over the facts hugely, to the point of untruth, but it seemed necessary, as it had seemed necessary for years.

'That must have been hard,' he said.

'I don't blame him,' she replied truthfully. 'He was only twenty-one.'

'Not ready for fatherhood,' Malcolm conceded. 'Yet you were about the same age, surely?'

'Twenty-two,' she confirmed. 'But I think girls... young women...can often be more mature. Even if only because they're forced to be! But, anyway, I had my parents.'

Who had been fantastic from the word go. Supportive both emotionally and practically. Never asking too many questions. And best of all, perhaps, resisting any temptation to try and railroad Brett into 'doing the right thing'. Because, even at the time, she'd known without a shadow of a doubt that it wouldn't have been the right thing at all.

'After Charlotte was born, I was able to start nursing in Casualty at the local hospital, with Mum and Dad's help,' she went on quickly. 'So I didn't lose ground professionally.'

'And now you're back in Canberra,' Malcolm finished for her.

'Yes.'

She quickly sketched her reasons for the move, while
wondering
in the back of her mind whether she'd have chosen this city, this hospital—the house was set high up and she could actually glimpse the eight-storey main hospital building in the distance, above the grey-green of its surrounding eucalyptus trees—if she'd had the remotest reason to suspect Malcolm would be here, too.

She hadn't forgotten that he'd been working in emergency
medicine six years ago...

'And what about
you?' she added. It came out abruptly, almost like an accusation. Perhaps it
was
one.
Why
was he here? He'd moved to Brisbane not long after Bronwyn's death, she was sure of it. He'd certainly been planning
to.
Why had he come back?

The explanation turned out to be simple, and contained the news she feared.

'I spent nearly three years in Brisbane,' he said, 'but the climate wasn't great for Ellie. Even with air-conditioning she wilted in the heat and humidity up there, and lost her appetite on hot, sticky days, which she couldn't afford to do. Three years ago, we came back here for a friend's wedding in late March, when it was still stinking hot in Brisbane.

'We took a two-week break here and the difference in Ellie's energy levels on those crisp, sunny Canberra autumn days was just so marked that I couldn't ignore it. I grew up in Canberra. I'd always liked the place, till the shadow of Bronwyn's illness fell over it, and for my daughter's sake the move back seemed right. I took up basically the same position as I'd had before, in the accident and emergency department at Black Mountain Hospital, only at a more senior level.'

'Right.' The news thudded into Lucy's consciousness entirely unaccompanied by surprise, and she informed him as neutrally as she could, 'We'll meet up, then. A lot. I work in emergency medicine now, too. I start at Black Mountain on Monday.'

Before he could react, they both heard the back screen door crash open and two pairs of sneaker-clad feet—surely belonging to an elephant, not two little girls—thundered inside.

'We're
starving!'
Charlotte announced. 'Can we have some more to eat?'

'No, love,' Lucy said. 'It's dinnertime, not snack-time, and Ellie's dad is here to lake her home.'

'Oh...' Charlotte whined in protest, while Ellie gave a graphic sigh.

'Hi, Daddy...' Her tone was one of weary resignation, as if to suggest that parents were
always
turning up to spoil the fun and children were absolute saints to put up with it.

'Glad you missed me, sunshine,' Malcolm drawled, and his grey eyes met Lucy's green ones. The two girls didn't see the shared smile—a smile that shot straight to Lucy's heart.

'I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, Daddy, but—' Ellie began.

'Couldn't they stay to dinner, Mummy?' Charlotte interrupted. Both girls clearly considered the idea inspirational.

Their parents didn't agree. There was another silent meeting of looks, communicating this time a whole, complex and very adult repertoire of attitudes—polite regret, acknowledgement of the immutability of plans and a tentative willingness to consider the idea some other time. But definitely not now.

'No, love,' both Lucy and Malcolm said to their respective daughters in unison. 'Not today.'

'But why
not?'

Why indeed?

'Because you're both tired,' Lucy said truthfully.

Malcolm supplied, with a little more cunning, 'Because Charlotte's mum only has enough dinner for two.'

Negotiations could have gone on for a lot longer. Lucy was rather surprised that they didn't. Clearly, beneath their exuberance, the girls really
were
tired. They contented themselves with extracting a tentative commitment from each adult to make it 'another time' and
didn't even press home their advantage
by insisting on a fixed date.

It took a further five minutes to locate Ellie's discarded shoes, uniform, backpack and school hat and ar
gue
politely
over
whether or not Malcolm would wash the purple dress before giving it back. Then, to Lucy's inexpressible relief, they were gone.

She had her thoughts to herself. She didn't have to pretend—or only to Charlotte, who was too tired and absorbed in her own life to notice her mother's preoccupation. Lucy would have a chance to work out how much this collision with the past really mattered.

Because, of course, she'd been in love with Malcolm Lambert six years ago. So terribly, impossibly in love that even now the memory of it was painful and the sight and sound of him, during those ten minutes they'd just spent together, deeply disturbing. They'd lived under the same roof for nearly four months. She had so many memories of him to relive on seeing him again. He was so familiar.

And after Charlotte was in bed that night, conking out, as expected, on the dot of seven-thirty, Lucy had the whole evening to herself to think about it...

Malcolm himself had spoken this afternoon about the way seasons triggered memories. As he'd said, the last stage of Bronwyn Lambert's long dying had taken place here in Canberra in the hot month of February, when dry, shimmering heat over several days could then build into dramatic evening thunderstorms, signalled by heaps of billowing grey-purple cloud massing over the sprawking, tree-filled city.

Bronwyn had suffered in the heat all through that summer, but she'd insisted on remaining at home. Strong-willed and absorbed by her own illness, she hadn't been an easy patient. But, then, why should she have been? She'd been thirty-one years old, pregnant with her first child, and dying of breast cancer.

There had been many days when Bronwyn's stubbornness and temper might have driven Lucy to abandon her position as the Lamberts private nurse, if it hadn't been for the heart-wrenching poignancy of their situation.

Lucy had never intended to go into private nursing. She and a friend, Angie, had been planning a two-year working holiday overseas, and both had actually resigned from their positions at Canberra Hospital when family commitments had forced Angie to delay her trip by several months. Lucy hadn't wanted to depart alone, so she'd delayed hers, too, deciding to make good use of the time by working as an agency nurse. She'd gone to work for the Lamberts in early November.