CHAPTER ONE

      ‘AFTER you.’

      Alison Carter gave brief thanks as someone stepped aside and she shuffled onto the bus, coffee in hand, and took a seat in her usual spot, halfway down, to the left of the bus and next to the window.

      Morning was just peeking in and the sky was full of purples and oranges as the doors hissed closed and the bus made its slow way up the hill. Even though she’d bought a newspaper, till the bus turned the corner Alison did as she always did and stared out at the glorious view—to the energetic joggers on the foreshore, the walkers on the beach, the swimmers in the ocean and out beyond, to where the patient surfers bobbed quietly, waiting for the next good wave.

      It was a slice of heaven.

      A view that reminded Alison, because sometimes she needed reminding, that she lived in surely the most beautiful part of the world, that she had absolutely nothing to complain about. It was an internal pep talk that she delivered to herself quite often when the travel bug stung—yes, there were other beaches, other worlds to explore, but here was where she belonged and, if you had to be stuck somewhere, then Coogee was a very nice place to be…

      Stuck.

      Alison closed her eyes for just a second, leant her temple against the window and told herself to stop using that word.

      Having recently read an article on positive thinking and the harm of negative self-talk and thoughts, she was resolutely reframing and rephrasing, but she was finding it to be an almost full-time job.

      It was a very nice place to be, Alison told herself.

      To just be!

      As the bus took on its next load of passengers, then commenced its slow turn into the hilly street that would take them from Coogee to Eastern Beaches Hospital where she worked, Alison turned away to concentrate on her newspaper.

      Then she saw him.