Close Relations. Lynsey Stevens

He sighed. Strangely, all those years ago it had felt like coming home.

      Home. Where the heart is. Where his heart was broken. His lips twisted self-derisively. He was being rather fanciful, wasn’t he? Yet deep inside him he knew he’d left his heart here. He also told himself that if it hadn’t been for his father’s declining health he wouldn’t be returning. But his father was gravely ill and he owed him this visit, this accepting of the olive branch extended to the prodigal son.

      Home. Yes, for all that it was worth, he was coming home.

      

      Home. Georgia Grayson sighed as her workmate turned her car and pulled up on the gravel verge in front of the weathered old house. Home at last.

      She specially appreciated the lift tonight because she felt so exhausted, as though the weight of the world was resting on her shoulders. Usually when she was at work in the bookshop Georgia could put any troubles on hold, but not at the moment. She had too much on her mind-that was the problem. Everything seemed to have happened at once.

      Until recently her life had been drifting along just the way she liked it to be-well ordered, no highs, no lows. Now all that had changed.

      That change had begun two weeks ago, when her father had gone up the coast, taking on a house-renovation job that would keep him away for anything up to a couple of months. Then her parked car had been extensively damaged by a runaway truck, leaving her without transport.

      On top of that her young sister had announced she was leaving home to share a flat with her boyfriend. Morgan was only seventeen and unemployed and Georgia had tried valiantly to dissuade her, to convince her she was making a mistake.

      But last week the thing she had feared most had occurred. Uncle Peter Maclean had had another massive heart attack and his condition was grave. It was only the old man’s iron will that had kept him alive this long. Now even that strong will was fading.

      So his only son had come home. After four long years. And she knew he’d been back for nearly a week.

      Pain twisted inside Georgia, clutching at her heart. Miraculously she’d managed to be out on the two occasions he had called at their house but she knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid him for much longer. He was, after all, their cousin. Well, their step-cousin.

      ‘Thanks for dropping me home, Jodie,’ she said as she opened the door of her workmate’s car. ‘Saves me the twentyminute train trip and then a taxi ride to the house.’

      ‘No worries.’ Jodie grinned in the dim interior light. ‘It was rotten luck about your car.’

      ‘Could have been worse, I guess. I could have been in it at the time.’ Georgia smiled wryly. ‘But the insurance company assures me it will all be settled in a couple of weeks.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Famous last words. If you can believe them. I didn’t realise how much I depended on the car. Living out here off the bus route has decided disadvantages, that’s for sure.’

      ‘Well, I don’t mind giving you a lift when we’re on the same shift.’ Jodie glanced over at the lighted house. ‘Looks like your brother’s home,’ she said casually, and Georgia suppressed a smile.

      Jodie was a little smitten by Georgia’s brother and had been very disappointed to discover that Lochlan was already engaged.

      ‘Did he tell you we went along to see his band play the other night?’

      ‘Yes. He said he’d seen you.’ Georgia gathered up her bag.

      ‘The band’s really hot. I think they’re going places. Lockie said they’d been asked to return to the venue for another stint in a month or so.’

      ‘Yes. He was pleased.’ Georgia climbed out of the car. ‘See you tomorrow. And thanks again, Jodie.’ She closed the door and Jodie drove away.

      With a sigh Georgia pushed open the gate. What females saw in her brother she didn’t know. It was true that Lockie was quite nice-looking, and he was a fine musician, but-well, they didn’t have to live with him.

      The lights in the house were blazing so her brother must be home. She noticed his van wasn’t standing in its usual spot in the driveway so he’d probably parked it around the back of the house. Unless he’d gone off and forgotten to lock up again.

      Slowly Georgia climbed the steps, the old weathered treads rattling a little loosely on their wooden stringers. The house, a high-set old colonial building with a wide veranda on the front and down one side, badly needed attention, but their father always seemed to be busy working on other people’s houses.

      She pushed open the lattice door at the top of the stairs and crossed the veranda to step into the hall that ran the length of the house.

      ‘That you, Georgie?’ Her brother put his head around the living-room doorway. ‘I thought you were going to be late tonight.’

      Georgia joined him, tossing her bag onto an old but comfortable lounge chair, unbuttoning the short-sleeved navy jacket that matched the skirt she wore. ‘Don’t call me Georgie and I am late. It’s nine-thirty. And I would have been later if Jodie hadn’t been kind enough to give me a lift home. Where’s Mandy?’

      Lockie sighed despondently and Georgia noticed for the first time that her usually exuberant brother was uncharacteristically subdued.

      He was six feet tall and wore his fairish hair over-long, and his thin, artistic features made him look the musician he was. And although Lockie was nearly five years older than Georgia’s twenty-three years, at times she felt as if things were the other way around, that she was the older of the two.

      Amanda Burne, Lockie’s fiancee of six months and the lead singer in his band, Country Blues, lived with the Grayson family and had a part-time job as a waitress in a local restaurant.

      ‘I didn’t think Mandy was working tonight,’ Georgia prompted.

      ‘She wasn’t-and as a matter of fact she won’t be, it seems.’ Lockie grimaced and sank onto the arm of the chair opposite his sister. ‘She’s gone home.’

      Georgia raised her eyebrows. ‘To New Zealand?’

      ‘I put her on a plane a couple of hours ago.’

      ‘Lockie, what happened?’ Georgia asked him quietly.

      ‘No big deal.’ Lockie shrugged. ‘Her sister’s baby arrived early and she’s gone home to help out.’

      ‘Is that all it is?’ Georgia asked him. She knew that Lockie and Mandy had been at odds over what Mandy termed ‘Lockie’s lack of drive’.

      ‘Well, you know how motivated Mandy is.’ Lockie stood up and moved restlessly across the room. ‘She’s sort of used this family event to issue me with a bit of an ultimatum.’

      Georgia frowned. ‘What sort of an ultimatum? You don’t mean she’s called off the engagement, do you?’

      ‘No. Not exactly. You know she hasn’t been happy about—well, about things lately, and she wants some changes made.’

      ‘By “things” I suppose you mean the band?’

      He nodded and Georgia watched him as he continued to prowl about the room.

      ‘Mandy says we’ve been going nowhere and she’s sick and tired of all the two-bit gigs Country Blues has been doing. She wants me to get organised and work out a plan to get the band ahead, otherwise…’ He pursed his lips.

      ‘Otherwise?’ Georgia encouraged gently.

      ‘Otherwise she’s going to leave Country Blues and take up an offer from a group in Sydney. She has a month to decide on the Sydney offer and she’s going to make the decision when she comes back from New Zealand in a few weeks’ time.’

      ‘And if she takes the job in Sydney?’

      ‘Then I guess we’re all washed up. The band because we need a female