She needed a little breathing space, and retreating to the riverside cottage would provide exactly that. As exciting as the possibilities were—the country placement; her commitment to Hamish; her realisation about Tien—everything was snowballing. The terrifying part wasn’t the events themselves, but the fact that none of it had been planned. She was losing control of her life … and without control, she didn’t just risk chaos. She risked humiliation. She’d learned that with Kain.
She clenched the steering wheel tighter, willing herself to focus on the precarious descent down the cliff face. Why was it that when she was with Hamish, everything seemed so perfect, so logical, sodoable, yet the moment she moved away, her commonsense flooded back in, and she was second-guessing every decision?
Sam was in the kitchen of the cottage, dimpling pans of herbed focaccia dough with her fingertips. She glanced up. ‘Hiya—oh! What’s wrong?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Jemma snapped. What had happened to her coveted inscrutability?
‘Not another threat?’ Sam’s face paled, and she glanced at the back door.
‘No, that’s pretty much sorted.’ Jemma frowned. Sorted, yet she still had to deal with Tien. Knowing she had unfairly encouraged his seemingly low-key infatuation, she could make a plausible excuse for his behaviour. But Hamish was right: the brick through the trattoria window didn’t seem like anything Tien would be capable of. Which meant that, just as she was starting to feel secure, the rug was pulled from beneath her once again.
So it had to be Tien.Hadto, because she couldn’t continue to cope with the uncertainty. Not when there was a chance that fear might influence her decision to relocate to Settlers Bridge: she couldn’t risk that. She needed to know that her decisions were rooted in fact, not driven by trepidation.
‘Sorted?’ Sam said, her voice high with sudden hope.
‘Yep.’ She pushed away her niggling doubt. ‘My current issue is bloody Hamish.’ He’d done nothing wrong, yet her life was tip-tilted and someone had to be to blame.
Sam gave an amused snort. ‘If I had a dollar for every sentence that included “bloody Hamish”.’
‘He’s got a reputation?’
Sam slid a brimming mug of tea toward Jemma. ‘Of course. You know—everyoneknows—his reputation.’
Jemma wrapped her hands around the hot drink as Dad entered the kitchen and took a mug from the pine dresser. The antidote to any confusion in her life was to throw herself into work. ‘What do you know about this Ethan guy and Charlee Brennan? I’m trying to make sense of the dynamic between them, Hamish and Tara.’ Druggies were insidious, working their way into every facet of life. Destroying everything.
‘Ethan is Charlee’s mentor,’ Dad said, kissing Sam’s cheek as he reached around her for the kettle. ‘He helped her get clean.’
‘Interesting choice for mentor,’ Jemma muttered. Druggies were all the same, trying to recast their addiction as manageable, elevate their position as though they had everything under control.
‘He seems nice enough,’ Sam said mildly. ‘He’s invested in Settlers Bridge and fits in well despite … well, you know, despite how he looks. And Hamish, well, he kind of just took Ethan under his wing. He’s a bit of a lad, our Hamish, but until that car incident last year, he’s never been in any real trouble.’ She slid the tray of olive-studded bread into the oven and dusted off her hands. ‘As for Tara and Charlee, they’ve been thick as thieves since Charlee moved here. It’s nice for Tara to be able to buddy up with someone she’s not known forever. I guess the same goes for Hamish, really.’ She shot Jemma a coy look.
‘Yet no one thought to mention that Charlee’s a drug addict when we were discussing the possibility of Tara using?’ Jemma said.
‘Wasan addict,’ her father said quietly.
‘Pierce, you know how that goes.’
‘No, Jem. I knowyourexperience of how that goes.Myexperience. It doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone.’
‘Addicts,’ she snorted dismissively, pushing away the unsettling sense of connection she’d felt with the small group in Hamish’s kitchen. She’d had no reservations in offering her professional services to them—but that was because she liked a challenge, she assured herself. Plus it would help illustrate to Gerard the diversity of cases in the region, even if she was taking this one on for free.
‘What does that have to do with Hamish, though?’ Sam asked shrewdly.
‘We were talking about some … personal stuff—’
‘Personal stuff?’ Dad interrupted sharply.
Jemma’s anger flared. ‘Seriously? Yeah. Personal. As in between me and him, Pierce.’
Dad frowned. ‘I like Hamish but, like Sam said, he has a reputation.’
‘He’s also got a reputation as a darn nice guy,’ Sam retorted, rounding on him. ‘Yeah, so he got around when he was younger. But he’s calmed down the last couple of years.’
‘Jemma’s issue isn’t with that reputation; it’s with the drug association, right, Jem?’
She nodded. As always, Dad knew what she was thinking.
‘Can’t tar everyone with the same brush, Jemma,’ he said. ‘Your mum’s an addict and she’s never going to pull herself out of that hole. But that didn’t make me an addict. Didn’t make you an addict, did it?’
