But the last twenty-four hours had rattled her. She reassured herself that despite Nick’s recent unpredictable behavior, whenever she got him to sit down with her for a drink—tea, coffee, ideally alcohol—he eventually unwound. When that happened, the Nick she loved appeared and they talked and laughed together easily. It made perfect sense that if she lived next door and Nick could see her without the stress of having to create opportunities, then their rare moments of companionship would become an everyday event. Over time, they’d rebuild their closeness.
But life had taught her it wasn’t a perfect world and timing was everything. It was going to take time to show Nick that his two families could coexist in harmony. Time for Nick to relax into that realization and the only way it could happen was with Jess living next door.
She’d mulled over the best way to achieve this and had eventually decided to go through Nick, rather than Libby. Despite Libby owning the medical practice, she preferred being a doctor and deferred to Nick and Jess for business advice. It had taken Jess weeks of reasoning and demanding, along with some pouty pleading, to get Nick to agree to the three of them buying the Sullivan place together. He’d finally conceded that Leo deserved to grow up in a better house and have the security home ownership offered her. She suggested she sow the joint ownership seed with Libby, but for reasons she still couldn’t fathom, Nick had been unusually adamant that he do it. As much as Jess wanted to override him, she wasn’t stupid. She heeded the tension in his warning and waited for the excited phone call from Libby telling her the good news. Or better yet, anticipated arriving at Burrunan for one of their twice-weekly dinners to find her friend greeting her with a bottle of Veuve.
Neither of those things happened so after two weeks of silence on the topic, Jess tested the waters. Libby’s bald statement that Sulli had accepted Nick’s offer and her suggestion Jess rent the place had not only devastated Jess, it had lit a bonfire of fury inside her. In a rare moment of unguarded anger, she’d allowed it to burn Nick. Oh, how she regretted the texts and the phone call. It was why she’d faked a job interview so she could drive to the hospital, apologize and rescue everything with Nick on the drive home.
At first, the overwrought man sitting beside her reminded her of the Nick she’d found when she’d first returned to the bay. On her second day back in town, she’d asked Libby if Nick could bring around a ladder so she could clean the light fixtures. It was the first time they’d been alone together in months and his hands shook so much she’d lifted the ladder and set it up herself.
“You promised me no matter how much Libby begged, you’d stay in Sydney. Why are you back?”
“This is why.” Jess laid Leo into his arms.
He threw her an agitated look. “You living here is too much of a risk!”
“Relax, Nick.” She smiled reassuringly while she stroked Leo’s dark curls, so much like his father’s. “Everything’s going to work out fine.”
And for a year, everything went according to plan until Nick fell apart and landed himself in the hospital. During their precious hour alone in the car, Jess had carefully and calmly reminded him of all the positive reasons why her name needed to be on the title deeds.
“Nick, you’ve made yourself ill for no reason and worried us sick. Libby loves you. She loves me. She’ll love this idea.”
His fingers drummed on the dashboard. “What if she doesn’t?”
“Come on, Nick. You know that’s as likely as the tide not changing.” Jess plucked at the dress she was wearing. “I asked to borrow this and she gave it to me on the spot.”
“Sulli’s place is hardly a dress!”
“This dress cost $350 on sale and she gifted it to me without blinking.” Jess shook her head indulgently. “Think about it, Nick. There’s no way Libby’s going to say no. She already knows I was thinking of buying somewhere. Tell her you’ve crunched the numbers and discussed it with me to check I can afford my share. Tell her it’s a concrete way the two of you can help me get a foot in the market. You know she prides herself on helping. In fact, I bet you a Mars Bar that in a year’s time, she’ll have reinvented history and be telling us it was her idea.”
“Yeah.” Nick’s shoulders fell and he managed a small smile. “You’re probably right.”
“Finally, the man believes me,” she’d joked. “I promise you, this is the perfect solution for everyone.” But after the previous day’s events, she was no longer prepared to let Nick run things. When she dropped him off a street away from the marina, she’d said, “I’ll call Libby this afternoon.”
Now at home in her kitchen, Jess belted out the final chorus to “We Are The Champions” and hugged herself. Not only was she finally entering the property market, she was staking a legal claim in the Hunter-Pirellis’ lives—a partnership. It would give her and Leo one type of security she craved and the rest would follow.
Excited, she grabbed some paper and doodled house plans. Unlike this small 1930’s clapboard with its tiny windows and dark rooms, she sketched a large, light-filled open-plan living space that would face the water. It wasn’t dissimilar in design to Burrunan but Jess planned an outdoor kitchen and a dedicated office. Lucy and Indi would need their own rooms too so they could come and go freely between the two houses like their father and their brother.
Lost in a daydream of creating her utopia in a modern, sprawling home devoid of cockroaches and black mold, Jess startled at the sound of a car braking hard on gravel. She rose to look out the window
