Chapter 16 It Was Tommy

• IT WAS TOMMY, not Nathan, who greeted them at the door and ushered them inside. As they moved towards the lounge room, the usual snippy repartee went on between him and Sam but it floated over Miranda’s head. Every nerve in her body was screwed tight, waiting with an excruciating awareness of her own helpless fever-pitch anticipation, to feel whatever she would feel when she came face-to-face with Nathan King again.
• Then they entered the room where he had to be…and he wasn’t there. The big black leather armchair where he’d been sitting that first night was unoccupied. Elizabeth King was sitting in her chair. A tall young man—the third brother?—had risen from the nearby chesterfield and was holding his arms out in welcome. No one else was in the room!
• Sam rushed forward and into Jared’s offered embrace with all the gusto of an excited puppy, delighted to see a much-missed loved one. While she was being whirled around, admired and kissed, a strange, blank feeling descended on Miranda, stilling all the wild agitation this visit had set in motion.