She slammed on the brakes and stared at it. Unless she turned her car around to flee back to Sydney, she'd have to drive down the main street and find a place to park.

Her mouth went dry.

Turn the car around… ?

The temptation stretched through her. Her hands clenched on the steering wheel. She'd sworn never to return. She didn't want to live here. She didn't want to deal with the memories that would pound at her day after day.

And she sure as hell didn't want to see Connor Reed again.

Not that she expected to run into him too often. He'd avoid her the way the righteous spurned the wicked, the way a reformed alcoholic shunned whisky… the way mice baulked at cats.

Good.

Turn the car around… ?

She relaxed her hands and pushed her shoulders back. No. Returning to Clara Falls, saving her mother's bookshop—it was the right thing to do. She'd honour her mother's memory; she'd haul the bookshop back from the brink of bankruptcy. She'd do Frieda Harper proud.

Pity you didn't do that a month ago, a year ago, two years ago, when it might have made a difference.

Guilt crawled across her skin. Regret swelled in her stomach until she could taste bile on her tongue. Regret that she hadn't returned when her mother was still alive. Regret that she'd never said all the things she should've said.

Regret that her mother was dead.

Did she honestly think that saving a bookshop and praying for forgiveness would make any difference at all?

Don't think about i