PROLOGUE

      AT SIX A.M. on a Thursday, Lighthouse Bay’s maternity ward held its breath. Midwife Catrina Thomas leaned forward and rubbed the newborn firmly with a warmed towel. The limp infant flexed and wriggled his purple limbs and finally took a gasping indignant lungful.

      The baby curled his hands into fists as his now tense body suffused with pink. ‘Yours now, Craig. Take him.’ She gestured to the nervous dad beside her and mimed what to do as she encouraged Craig’s big callused hands to gently lift the precious bundle. One huge splashing silver tear dropped to the sheet from his stubbled cheek as he placed his new son on his wife’s warm bare stomach.

      Craig released a strangled sob and his wife, leaning back on the bed in relief, half laughed in triumph, then closed her hands over her child and her husband’s hands and pulled both upwards to lie between her breasts.

      For Catrina, it was this moment. This snapshot in time she identified as her driver, the reason she felt she could be a midwife for ever—this and every other birth moment that had come before. It gave her piercing joy when she’d thought she’d lost all gladness, and it gave her bittersweet regret for the dreams she’d lost. But mostly, definitely, it gave her joy.

      An hour later Catrina hugged her boss awkwardly, because Ellie’s big pregnant belly bulged in the way as they came together, but no less enthusiastically because she would miss seeing her friend in the morning before she finished her shift. ‘I can’t believe it’s your last day.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Or my last night shift tomorrow.’

      ‘Neither can I.’ Ellie’s brilliant smile lit the room even more than the sunlight streaming in through the maternity ward windows.

      Trina marvelled at the pure happiness that radiated from a woman who had blossomed, and not just in belly size but in every way in just one year of marriage. Another reason Trina needed to change her life and move on. She wanted what Ellie had.

      A family and a life outside work. She would have the latter next week when she took on Ellie’s job as Midwifery Unit Manager for Ellie’s year of maternity leave.

      She’d have daylight hours to see the world and evenings to think about going out for dinner with the not infrequent men who had asked her. The excuse of night shift would be taken out of her grasp. Which was a good thing. She’d hidden for two years and the time to be brave had arrived.

      She stepped back from Ellie, picked up her bag and blew her a kiss. ‘Happy last day. I’ll see you at your lunch tomorrow.’ Then she lifted her chin and stepped out of the door into the cool morning.

      The tangy morning breeze promised a shower later, and pattering rain on the roof on a cool day made diving into bed in the daylight hours oh, so much more attractive than the usual sunny weather of Lighthouse Bay. Summer turning to autumn was her favourite time of year. Trina turned her face into the salty spray from the sea as she walked down towards the beach.

      She slept better if she walked before going up the hill to her croft cottage, even if just a quick dash along the breakwall path that ran at right angles to the beach.

      Especially after a birth. Her teeth clenched as she sucked in the salty air and tried not to dwell on the resting mother lying snug and content in the ward with her brand-new pink-faced baby.

      Trina looked ahead to the curved crescent of the beach as she swung down the path from the hospital. The sapphire blue of the ocean stretching out to the horizon where the water met the sky, her favourite contemplation, and, closer, the rolling waves crashing and turning into fur-like foam edges that raced across the footprint-free sand to sink in and disappear.

      Every day the small creek flowing into the ocean changed, the sandbars shifting and melding with the tides. The granite boulders like big seals set into the creek bed, lying lazily and oblivious to the shifting sand around them. Like life, Trina thought whimsically. You could fight against life until you realised that the past was gone and you needed to wait to see what the next tide brought. If only you could let go.

      Ahead she saw that solitary dad. The one with his little girl in the backpack, striding along the beach with those long powerful strides as he covered the distance from headland to headland. Just like he had every morning she’d walked for the last four weeks. A tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man with a swift stride.

      Sometimes the two were draped in raincoats, sometimes his daughter wore a cheery little hat with pom-poms. Sometimes, like today, they both wore beanies and a scarf.

      Trina shivered. She could have done with a scarf. When she was tired it was easy to feel the cold. It would be good to move to day shifts after almost two bleak years on nights, but falling into bed exhausted in the daytime had been preferable to the dread of lying lonely and alone in the small dark hours.

      She focused on the couple coming towards her. The little girl must have been around twelve months old, and seemed to be always gurgling with laughter, her crinkled eyes, waving fists and gap-toothed smile a delight to start the day with. The father, on the other hand, smiled with his mouth only when he barely lifted his hand but his storm-blue eyes glittered distant and broken beneath the dark brows. Trina didn’t need to soak in anyone else’s grief.

      They all guessed about his story because, for once, nobody had gleaned any information and shared it with the inhabitants of Lighthouse Bay.

      They drew closer and passed. ‘Morning.’ Trina inclined her head and waved at the little girl who, delightfully, waved back with a toothy chuckle.

      ‘Morning,’ the father said and lifted the corner of his lips before he passed.

      And that was that for another day. Trina guessed she knew exactly how he felt. But she was changing.