So if she’d ditched the dating plan for now, maybe she should bite the bullet and put this house on the market.
‘Looks like you’ve got a lot of thinking to do, blossom.’ Meredith tipped the port glass up and drained the lot. ‘I might get going and leave you to it.’
‘Please don’t leave.’ She gave a little shake of her head to clear it. ‘But you’re right. I do need to think about what I want to do. But for now …’ She picked up the port bottle from the coffee table. ‘Top up?’
‘Don’t mind if I do.’
As Heidi poured a generous slosh of port into the glass Meredith proffered, she knew she didn’t have to think too hard. It was time to shed her past once and for all, and that meant moving out of this house.
CHAPTER
6
Karly’s weekend had been a non-event. After that disastrous online meeting with Hudson Grenville, all the jogging in the world hadn’t eased her frustration and even when Sunday dawned she’d been too wound up to enjoy her one day off a week. She’d cancelled brunch with Nev in Inverloch and holed up in her cottage to binge-watch a true crime series, envisaging all the ways she could insert Hudson into the starring role of gruesomely tortured victim.
Pop had spent the weekend in Mallacoota with an old mate, and not being able to talk to him about the Grenville situation hadn’t helped either. She needed clarity on how to proceed if Hudson made good on his threat and lobbed in town with the sole intention of taking over their agency, so after another sleepless night and as the first fingers of a Monday dawn stole over the horizon, she made two mugs of milky coffee and headed next door.
Pop had been an early riser for as long as she could remember, something she’d hated in her teens but valued later when she’d moved into the cottage next door and liked looking out her kitchen window first thing in the morning and seeing his light on. It comforted her, knowing Pop was her neighbour. He’d been her one constant since she was a kid and while she tried to prove to all and sundry how strong-willed she was, she loved knowing she could always depend on him.
She crossed the back lawn and slipped through the gap in the fence, a makeshift door that usually stood open. She couldn’t remember the last time either of them used the front door to enter each other’s places. Pop’s house, a sixty-year-old double-storey brick veneer, had been her home forever and it never failed to invoke a feeling of security. The monstrous backyard had a granny flat behind the inground pool, where she’d once lived with her parents apparently. Pop had the thing constructed when he’d first moved to town to give them privacy, but Karly could only remember living in the big house.
As a child, the granny flat had fascinated her, like a giant cubby house that beckoned to be explored. But whenever she asked Pop if she could play in it, he’d shake his head and get tight-lipped. He waited until she’d turned six to tell her the truth that her parents were dead and the flat had been their home, so she stopped asking because she saw it upset him.
The granny flat had stood empty for years now. Pop occasionally rented it out to holiday-makers in summer if all the properties on their books were full, but that hadn’t happened for a while. She cleaned it every few months, a quick dust, vacuum and mop, but didn’t like spending too much time in the flat as it made her maudlin. Not because she lamented the loss of her parents but because she couldn’t remember much about living there with them.
Pop wasn’t the sentimental type. He didn’t dwell on the past. Instead, he lived for the moment, and she’d never seen a sixty-nine-year-old who behaved like he was thirty. His zest for life was contagious and she could do with a little of his enthusiasm today, especially with the memory of her meeting with Hudson and his threats front and centre in her mind.
As she stepped up onto the veranda, the back door swung open and Pop reached for the coffee she held out to him.
‘That’s my girl.’ He lifted the mug to his mouth and took a big sip. ‘Mmm … just the right amount of milk. How are things, sweetheart? Miss me over the weekend?’
He had no idea how much, but more for his business acumen in dealing with corporate vultures.
‘I always miss you when you’re not around. How was Mallacoota?’ He grimaced. ‘The fish weren’t biting and we ran out of beer.’ ‘Sounds dire.’ She hid her smile behind her mug but he spotted it.
‘You mock but imagine you’re on a girls’ weekend with Summer and Nevaeh and running out of champagne.’
‘Point taken.’ She took a seat in an old wicker armchair that had been her favourite as a kid. Back then, her feet couldn’t touch the floor and she loved swinging her legs, which explained the hole in the rattan.
‘What’s wrong?’
Trust Pop to know something was bothering her. He’d always been astute when it came to her moods, despite the many times she’d done her best to pretend nothing was wrong.
‘It’s work related. It can wait if you’d rather discuss it in the office.’
‘Sweetheart, you’re pale, and those bags under your eyes are morphing into suitcases as we speak, so something’s been keeping you up nights.’
‘Wow, thanks for the compliment, Pop.’
While he smiled, concern rather than amusement glinted in his eyes. ‘Hope it’s nothing serious?’
Considering all she’d been able to think about the entire weekend since that call was Hudson Grenville buying out their agency and her being kicked out on her butt, yeah, serious just about covered it.
‘Have you had any dealings with Hudson Grenville?’
Pop’s eyes screwed up in the corners any time he tried to remember stuff. ‘I know he’s well-respected in the industry and he’s innovative with proptech, and we may have crossed paths while networking in Melbourne, but I can’t say I’ve dealt with him personally. Didn’t you get to hear him speak at that conference about six months ago?’
She’d done more than hear him and would never forgive herself for putting their agency on Grenville’s radar during their run-in later.