Bilgarra Springs Read Free

them.
    Russell possessed a very active sense of humour and had found the whole situation incredibly funny. Of course, he didn’t know that it was a condition of her grandmother’s will. She had told him exactly what she had told everybody else. Even after his help, Aurora didn’t give him any further details as to the true nature of the trip. They weren’t that close and she figured that it was nobody’s business but her own and quite frankly this situation that her grandmother had created had become more than a little embarrassing.
    She tidied the piles on the bed and turned to check the time on the clock on the bedside table — 11:22 a.m. Her plane was due to take off at 2:30 p.m. which meant that she had to be out of here in the next hour in order to be at the airport the required hour before. She’d already booked the taxi for 12:30, so she definitely had to be out of the house in the next hour.
    She had to admit that she was finding it very hard to muster the momentum to organise the clothes inside the suitcase and get herself out the door and over to Mascot. It hadn’t seemed such a scary prospect during the week when she had organised it all. Now she was wondering whether she had lost her marbles completely to be even contemplating going.
    The relevant university bigwigs had not taken her request particularly well, especially as she wouldn’t disclose the exact nature of the situation that required the emergency leave. She understood their need for clarification, but bloody hell, she had been working for the University of Sydney for eight years and not once had she ever asked for anything. Aurora had always made sure that she stayed out of the usual political back-stabbing and back-biting that went on and did her own thing. She minded her own business and taught her students to the best of her ability. She couldn’t help chuckling at the irony that she, of all people, taught family law. After her ridiculous farce of a marriage that had ended so dramatically, fate certainly had a sense of humour in landing her teaching that subject. She plonked her backside down in an empty spot on the bed and mentally pulled her thoughts up.
    Don’t go there.
    Focus on today.
    Today — the whole estate scenario remained grossly unreal. She still couldn’t believe that she was going. In the week since she had visited Clive’s office she had, of course, tackled the university to get her emergency leave, booked airfares from Sydney to Townsville return, organised a four wheel drive rental car, not to mention all the small jobs that need to be taken care of to be able to leave the unit for a month — mail, pets, plants, food. And all this accomplished in that disjointed fog that seemed to have descended over her life with the death of her grandmother.
    Noticing that Aurora was now sitting on the bed, Orinoco made her way down from her spot curled on the pillows. Ever the opportunist, she had seen the empty lap and was making the most of it. Aurora ruffled the cat’s fur as she settled in her lap. It just didn’t seem fair. Her grandmother and grandfather had been all she’d had since the age of seven. Losing both of her parents in a train derailment had meant that they had of necessity stepped in and seen to her upbringing and what a fantastic job they’d done. Pop hadn’t been around too much. His law practice had kept him incredibly busy, but Gran… A small smile tilted the corners of her mouth. Gran had done a better than fantastic job. Maybe everyone did it better when they got a second chance at it — get all the big mistakes out of the way the first time round — who knew?
    Aurora scooped the cat up tucking it under her chin and dropped her head on to her now loudly purring Siamese. At 32 years old, Aurora’s life had seemed satisfying and full until the death of her grandmother had rocked the foundations. Isabella had been 88 years old when she died. She wasn’t a young woman and her death wasn’t a surprise