CHAPTER ONE

      MURPHY’S LAW STATED that if anything could possibly go wrong, then eventually it would.

      Jess did not subscribe to this theory, despite the fact that her surname was Murphy. But her father was a firm believer. Whenever anything annoying or frustrating happened, such as a flat tyre when he was driving a bride to her wedding—Joe owned a hire-car business—then he blamed it on Murphy’s Law: bad weather at the weekends; down-turns in the stock market. Recently, he’d even blamed the defeat of his favourite football team in the grand final on Murphy’s Law.

      Admittedly, her dad was somewhat superstitious by nature.

      Unlike her father, Jess’s view of unfortunate events was way more rational. Things happened, not because a perverse twist of fate was just waiting to spoil things for you without rhyme or reason, but because of something someone had done or not done. Flat tyres and stock-market crashes didn’t just happen. There was always a logical reason.

      Jess didn’t blame Murphy’s Law for her boyfriend suddenly having decided last month that he no longer wanted to drive around Australia with her, having opted instead to go backpacking around the whole, stupid world for the next year! With a mate of his, would you believe? Never mind that she’d just gone into hock to buy a brand-new four-wheel drive for their romantic road trip together. Or that she’d started thinking he might be Mr Right. The truth, once she’d calmed down long enough to face it, was that Colin had caught the travel bug and obviously wasn’t ready to settle down just yet. He still loved her—he claimed—and had asked her to wait for him.

      Naturally, she’d told him what he could do with that idea!

      Neither had Jess blamed Murphy’s Law for recently having lost her much-loved part-time job at a local fashion boutique. She knew exactly why she’d been let go. Some cash-rich American company had bought up the Fab Fashions chain for a bargain price—Fab Fashions was in financial difficulties—and had then sent over some bigwig who had threatened the managers of all the stores that, if they didn’t show a profit by the end of the year, all the retail outlets would be closed down in favour of online shopping. Hence the trimming of staff.

      Actually, Helen hadn’t wanted to let her go.