It's Never too Late

It was just a dream, after all. She wasn’t dying. She was alive. She’d survived, against all odds. Better yet, she was on the track to a full recovery and resumption of her former life.

Which reminded her...

She left the door open for Mr. Smith before collecting her iPad from where it was charging on the kitchen counter. One click told her that Gordon hadn’t responded to her email. Again.

This was getting ridiculous. Twelve months ago, her boss wouldn’t have ignored an email from her. Then, she’d been a valuable commodity, the only producer in ten years who had managed to improve the ratings for the production company’s longest-running serial drama, Time and Again. Now apparently she was a liability, an employee on long-term sick leave who didn’t even merit the thirty seconds of his time it would take to respond to her email.

He doesn’t think I’m coming back.

The thought made her blood run cold. She had worked hard to land the job of producer on a network drama. She’d kissed ass and gone beyond the call of duty and even trampled on a few people in her rush to climb the ladder. She’d sacrificed her time, her social life, her marriage...and then her car had hit a landslide at sixty kilometers an hour and flipped down the side of a mountain. She’d fractured her skull, broken her pelvis, her hip, her leg, several ribs as well as her arm, torn her liver and lost her spleen.

And it looked as though she was going to lose her job, too, even though she’d been driving to a location shoot when the accident happened. Gordon had promised that they’d keep her job open for her, filling the role with a short-term replacement. He’d given her a year to recover—a year that was almost up. And yet he wasn’t returning her calls.

Lips pressed into a tight line, she opened a blank email and typed a quick message to Gordon’s secretary, Linda. Linda owed her, and Mackenzie knew that if she asked, the other woman would make sure Gordon called her.

At least, she hoped she still had that much influence.

Mr. Smith pressed against her legs, his small body a welcome weight. She bent to run a hand over his salt-and-pepper fur.

“I’m not giving up, Smitty. Not in a million freaking years.”

She wouldn’t let Gordon write her off. She would walk back into her job, and she would claw her way into her old life. There was no other option on the table. She refused for there to be.

She had a hot shower, then dressed in her workout clothes. Together she and Mr. Smith made their way to the large room at the front of the house she’d converted to hold her Pilates reformer and other gym equipment when she left the rehab hospital three months ago. She sat on the recumbent bike and started pedaling. Smitty reacquainted himself with the rawhide bone he’d left there yesterday and settled in for the duration.

After ten minutes on the bike, she lowered herself to the yoga mat and began her stretches. As always, her body protested as she attempted to push it close to a normal range of movement. Her physiotherapist, Alan, had warned her that she might never get full range in her left shoulder and her right hip. She’d told him he was wrong and was determined to prove it.

The usual mantra echoed in her mind as she stretched her bowstring-tight hip flexors.

I want my life back. I want my job back. I want my apartment and my shoes and my clothes. I want to have cocktails with my friends and the challenge of juggling too much in too little time. I want to be me again.

Gritting her teeth, she held the stretch. Sweat broke out along her forehead and upper lip. She started to pant, but she held the stretch. Her hips were burning, her back starting to protest.

She held the stretch.

Only when pain started shooting up her spine did she ease off and collapse onto the mat, sweat running down her temple and into her hair.

Better than yesterday. Definitely better.

The thought was enough to rouse her to another round. Teeth bared in a grimace, she eased into another pose.

* * *

THE MORNING SUN was rising over the treetops as Oliver turned onto the unmarked gravel road that he hoped like hell was Seaswept Avenue. He was tired and sleep deprived after a long drive from Sydney and more than ready for this journey to be over.

Craning forward over the steering wheel, he checked house numbers as he drove slowly up the rutted road. Not that there were many houses to check. The lots were large, the houses either old and charming or new and

sharp edged, and there was plenty of space in between. Aunt Marion’s was number thirty-three, and he drove past half-a-dozen vacant lots thick with bush before spotting a tired-looking clapboard house sitting cheek by jowl with a much tidier, smarter whitewashed cottage. As far as he could tell, they were the only two houses at this end of the street.

He didn’t have enough optimism left to hope the tidy cottage was number thirty-three, and the rusty numbers on the letterbox of the shabbier house confirmed his guess.

It seemed like the perfect ending to a road trip that had featured not one but two flat tires and a motel with fleas in the carpet.

Driving from Sydney to Melbourne had seemed like a great idea four days ago. Four days ago, he’d been so sick of the burning anger that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his gut that he’d been willing to do almost anything to change the record in his mind.

How could she do this to me? How could I be so freakin’ stupid? How could she do this to me?

He pulled into the driveway and let his head drop against the seat for a few seconds. God, he was tired. Strudel made a forlorn sound from the backseat and Oliver shook himself awake and exited the car to let her out. She immediately availed herself of the nearest patch of grass. Would that he could be so lucky, since he’d cleverly tossed the keys to his aunt’s house into the bottom of his duffel bag. But he wasn’t about to start his stay in what was surely a close-knit community by exposing himself to his new neighbor.