I owe way more than ‘thank you’ to my family—particularly my gorgeous husband, Scott, and my own lovely step-daughters Alicia and Caitlin—for their unflinching support and encouragement and for making many, many cups of coffee. Thank you to awesome writing buddies Erica and Jo for advice, brainstorming and whip-cracking as required: payment will be made in Cheezels and chocolate as usual. Kirsty, thanks so much for reading outside your genre and telling me it worked. Thank you Lilian Darcy for invaluable mentoring. Valerie Parv—your constant belief means more than you know. And thank you to Romance Writers of Australia for professional guidance, Kate Cuthbert for saying yes, Alyson Russell for making this a better story and all at Escape for making it so.