Amy Andrews - Just One Last Night...

Why her mother was the only person on the planet not to have switched to mugs was a complete mystery .

She looked around at the expectant faces at the table. It had been nice to slip back into the family breakfast ritual but this morning she could have done with a little less companionship.

The kids were inhaling cereal like they’d never eaten before. Her father was reading the paper. Her brother Marshall had called in on his way to work to drop off his two kids and was currently eating his second breakfast of the day.

‘No.’ Grace shook her head and forced down the toast that her mother had insisted on making her.

The food was in imminent danger of regurgitation but at least it gave her something to think about other than Brent.

Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.

Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow.

‘You’ll be fine once you get stuck in,’ Marshall added.

‘I have a five-day hospital orientation first. Boring stuff like fire lectures and workplace health and safety stuff, so I won’t be getting stuck in until next week. But at least its nine to five.’

‘I hate starting a new job.’ Marshall shuddered.

Trish nodded. ‘It’s always hard starting over somewhere new.’ She squeezed her daughter’s hand. ‘I know you’re my oldest and you haven’t been little for a very long time, but I’ll still worry as if it was your first day at kindy. It’s not easy walking into a place where you don’t know a soul.’

Irritated by being babied and by their incessant need to talk about what was making her feel incredibly nervous, she blurted out, ‘Brent works there.’

There was a moment of double-take around the table that would have been quite comical to an outsider. Her mother sucked in a very audible breath. Her father looked up from his paper. Marshall stopped chewing in mid-mouthful.

‘Brent Cartwright?’ her father said.

‘You didn’t mention that before,’ her mother said.

‘Wow. That’s a blast from the past,’ Marshall said.

Tash looked from one adult to the other. ‘Who’s Brent Cartwright?’

‘Grace’s old boyfriend,’ Marshall said, reaching for his fourth slice of toast.

Grace glared at him and turned to Tash. ‘He was someone I knew a long time ago. We went to med school together.’

‘I didn’t think you were still in touch with him?’ Trish said.

‘I’m not.’ She shrugged with as much nonchalance as she could gather. ‘I … bumped into him when I came down for the interview. He works at the Central.’ Grace kept it deliberately vague.

‘Well, how is he? What’s he been doing with his life? Goodness … it’s been, what … twenty years? Is he married? Does he have kids?’

Grace realised she couldn’t answer any of the personal questions about him. She hadn’t asked about his life and he hadn’t volunteered.

Had be been wearing a ring?

The lump of lead sank a little deeper into the lining of her stomach at the prospect. Which was utterly ridiculous. Of course he’d be married by now. With a swag of kids to boot. It was all he’d ever wanted.

A family to call his own.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, we barely talked,’ she said.

‘Well, how’d he look?’ Trish sighed and fluttered her hand against her chest. ‘He was always such a handsome boy.’

Marshall gave a hoot and Grace shot him her very best I-used-to-change-your-nappies look as she stood. ‘I guess he still looks okay,’ she muttered, figuring she was probably about to be struck down dead and that would, at least, cure her horrible bout of nerves.

He’d looked incredible. Just like the old Brent but with a maturity that had taken his sexiness to a whole new level. ‘Anyway, gotta go.’

She bustled around to the other side of the table and dropped a kiss each on Tash and Benji’s heads. Benji gave her one of his sweet smiles but Tash fluffed her hair as if to erase it.

Grace ignored the pointed action. ‘See you both about five-thirty,’ she said, picking up her case and turning to go.

‘You should invite him to dinner one night. It’d be lovely to see him again.’

Grace stopped in mid-stride. She looked at her mother, ever the hostess. ‘Mmm …’ she said noncommittally, ignoring Marshall’s wink in her peripheral vision, and headed towards the front door.

That was so not going to happen.

As it played out it wasn’t until lunch of her third day that she finally met up again with Brent. She was standing in line at the cafeteria when a familiar sense of him surrounded her. She didn’t have to look to know he was near.

It had always been like that between the two of them.

‘Grace.’

She gripped her tray as his quiet greeting brushed her neck and nestled into her bones as familiar to her, even after all these years, as her own marrow.

She didn’t bother to turn and face him. ‘Brent.’

‘What are you having? They do a good Chicken Parmigiana.’

‘The quiche.’

Brent frowned at the continued view of the back of her head. ‘Let me guess. With chips drenched in vinegar?’

Grace smiled. ‘Yes.’

The waitress interrupted them and Brent let her order.

‘That’s twelve dollars fifty, Doc.’

‘Here,’ Brent said, smiling at the middle-aged woman behind the counter, ‘add up mine too and take them both out of this.’

Grace, who was handing over her card, froze and finally faced him. ‘I pay my own way, Brent.’

A man would have to be deaf, blind and stupid not to pay heed to the ice in her tone and the chill in her gaze.

But somehow it just made him more determined.

He shrugged. ‘For old times’ sake.’

A surge of molten rage erupted in her chest so fast it took her breath. Hadn’t he learned anything from the old times ? He’d wanted to take care of her and all she’d wanted had been for him to realise she could take care of herself.

She hadn’t needed a carer. She’d wanted a partner. An equal. Someone who didn’t need the trappings of the traditional to be validated. But Brent, a product of a broken home and an even more broken foster-system, had craved the conventional.

He’d wanted roots. A wife, some kids, the whole white-picket-fence catastrophe. And she’d just wanted a career.

‘No.’

She didn’t mean it to come out as a growl but she suspected from the rounded eyes of the nurse standing behind Brent that it had. ‘Put it away.’

Brent nodded and withdrew his money, cursing his stupidity under his breath. It had been the wrong thing to do and the wrong thing to say.

Why did he suddenly feel like a gangly eighteen-year-old around her? Trying to prove he was a suave urbane gentleman and not some gutter urchin who had been dragged through a system that had been underfunded and overstretched?

She hadn’t treated him as if he’d been unworthy back then—why would she now?

Grace paid for her meal. ‘We need to talk,’ she said, before she stormed off to an unoccupied table as far away from the nearest lunchtime customers as possible.

Grace continued to fume as she watched Brent charm the woman at the register and then his unhurried stride towards her. He’d been in a suit that day of the interview, which had only hinted at the perfection she knew lay beneath. But today he was in trousers and a business shirt that left nothing to the imagination.

Was it possible that he was even broader twenty years on?

‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he placed his tray on the table and sank into a chair. ‘It won’t happen again. In fact, I think you should pay for me next time. I reckon I could set up a tab here and have them bill you at the end of each month. You could also pay for my parking if you like.’