Free Home to Hope Mountain (Harlequin Superromance) by Joan Kilby Page A

get another job. She’d started to protest before realizing he was right.
    She wasn’t even going to mention to Jacinta that her electricity had been cut off, too—a day earlier than threatened. Bastards. Well, she’d lived without power for a month in the immediate aftermath of the fires. She could manage again. Which reminded her: she needed to buy candles.
    “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” Jacinta hugged her again. “I could go for an early lunch if you want to talk.”
    “I’d love to, but I’ve got something I need to do.”
    Jacinta saw the direction of her gaze, to Molly’s shop, and frowned. “You’re not going to move in with Leif’s folks?”
    “No.” She noted the quickly hidden relief on her friend’s face. “Why don’t you like Molly and Rolf? They’re wonderful. I’m closer to them than to my own parents.”
    “They’re great. I have nothing against them. It’s just that...” Jacinta rubbed Hayley’s arm soothingly. “I know you’re still grieving and everything, but I’d like to see you move on at some point.”
    “I am moving on, really. Molly and Rolf are friends, not just my in-laws. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”
    “Sure, but they keep you in the past.”
    “I’m not going to cut them off.” They were practically the only people she saw regularly these days.
    “Hey, I have a date on Friday with Jeremy, a pharmacist from Healesville. Do you want me to see if he has a friend?”
    “Thanks, no. I’m good.”
    “Hayley, you never get out anymore,” Jacinta accused. “You’re in danger of turning into a crazy horse lady, sitting home cleaning your bridles and knitting pullovers.”
    “I’ll call you soon.” Hayley eased away from Jacinta, toward the Gift Shop Café. “We’ll get drunk and dance with cowboys.”
    Grinning, Jacinta pointed a finger. “One of these days we are so going to do that.”
    Dancing with cowboys in bars had been a joke between them since high school. Jacinta was an academic type and would sooner ride a bucking bronco than date a cowboy. And Hayley had been with Leif since graduation. Party girls they were not. But they’d never worried about it, being content with their lives. Now, as they closed in on their mid-thirties and Jacinta was still single and Hayley newly so, the joke seemed a tad less funny.
    Hayley waved goodbye, then braced herself to go inside. She couldn’t dwell on the past. She had to look to the future. She was alive and healthy and determined to write her own story, not give up or blame fate for her misfortune. And how could she complain when she had a job she could just walk into for the asking?
    “Sit, Shane.” The dog sat obediently. “Stay.”
    Hayley took a deep breath and entered, setting the bell over the door jangling. To the right was the café with a meal counter, tables along the window and a small kitchen out the back. On the opposite side was the gift shop selling local handicrafts, paintings and Australiana. The place was empty except for Molly, who was behind the counter putting price stickers on koala key rings.
    Molly glanced up at the bell and her round face brightened. “’Morning, Hayley. So nice of you to stop by.”
    Hayley returned her mother-in-law’s warm smile. Truly, she had more blessings to count than things to complain about. “I’d like to accept your offer of a job, after all.”
    “Oh, that’s wonderful!” Molly leaned over the counter and gave her a hug, scattering the key rings.
    They got coffee and sat in the café and talked about the job. Molly was terrific, telling Hayley she could have as many or as few hours as she wanted, making Hayley wonder if she really needed help or if this was a form of charity. But she couldn’t afford to be proud, so together they worked out a schedule that suited both of them.
    “It’s a darn shame about the Horses for Hope program,” Molly said for the twentieth time, as Hayley prepared to leave.
    “It is what it