Free Short and Sweet by Anna Jacobs

as long as possible. It was the only thing she ever gambled on. She was definitely not the sort of person to take chances. But one dream a week wasn’t much to ask. She picked up a pencil and a minute later it dropped from her trembling hand.
    ‘It can’t be true!’ she whispered. She checked the numbers again. A whole line of them. She’d won the first division! She was – she might be – rich.
    The day passed in a blur after that. She lived alone and didn’t want to ring her elder sister Rosemary, who would come over and start telling her what to do with the money. Of course, it might not be a lot of money. You didn’t find out until the next day whether it was shared among several people.
    She didn’t tell anyone at work, but when she phoned the Lotto office and discovered that she’d won just over a million dollars, she pleaded a headache and left work quickly.
    Two days later, she walked into her boss’s office. ‘I’d like to hand in my resignation.’
    He gaped at her. ‘But Louise, you’ve been with us for ten years! What’s wrong?’
    ‘There’s nothing wrong. I just need a change.’
    Her whole life needed changing because time was running out and her biological clock was ticking. Now she had the money to do something different, get away from her sister and her sensible ways, take a chance or two. Even, perhaps, meet someone who . . . no, that would be wishing for too much.
    Although if you could win Lotto, maybe you could win the other things that gave you the chance of a happy life . . . like a husband and a family. And if that made her old-fashioned, so be it.
    She was going to have a go.
    In the end Louise told her family she was taking a holiday because she felt rundown. She ended up in the south-west, in the wine country. She’d always loved that part of Western Australia: the forests and beaches, the clean tangy air, the vineyards, the winding tree-lined country roads.
    She had enough money now to manage without working, if she was careful, but she couldn’t imagine sitting around all day. She needed to do something that would let her meet people.
    With the help of a friendly real-estate agent she investigated several businesses, and ended up buying a run-down café just outside the holiday town of Margaret River.
    She still hadn’t told her sister about her win and didn’t intend to do so until after she’d signed the contract to buy the café.
    She took the coward’s way out and rang Rosemary. ‘I’m back in Perth, but only temporarily.’
    ‘Oh? Have you found a job somewhere else? I think you were very foolish giving up your job like that.’
    ‘No. I’ve bought myself a business near Margaret River.’
    Silence. Then, ‘What sort of business? You surely haven’t cashed in your superannuation?’
    ‘It’s a café with the chance of putting a B and B behind it.’
    ‘How can you afford that?’
    Here it came. ‘I won Lotto.’
    ‘Ha! Ha! Very funny.’
    ‘I really did.’
    Dead silence. ‘When?’
    ‘A few weeks ago.’ She listened to a tirade from Rosemary, and when her sister ran out of words, said simply, ‘It’s what I want to do, and it’s too late to change, even if I wanted to, and I don’t.’
    To her relief, Rosemary and her husband were about to go away on a trip to Europe, and once Louise moved down to Margaret River, she was three hours’ drive away. And, actually, there was nothing Rosemary could do to interfere.
    Her sister knew that too. So she sulked.
    Louise sometimes wondered what she would have been like without Rosemary. Would she have been quite so sensible? Or would she have let her sense of humour loose occasionally and had a bit more fun?
    The day after Louise moved into the run-down café, there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find a man clutching a bloodstained hand.
    ‘I’m your neighbour. I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’ve cut myself pretty badly.’
    She drew him inside and examined it. ‘It needs