Outback Dreams Read Online Free Page B

returned to his breakfast. ‘This is fabulous.’
    â€˜My pleasure’.
    Faith finished cooking her own omelette as the Montgomerys continued digging into theirs. Just as she switched off the gas hot plate, Will strolled into the kitchen. He was wearing neat jeans and a National Geographic t-shirt with a massive red-back spider on the front. Faith cringed at the image but smiled for Will nonetheless. His ash blonde hair—a shade closer to his mother’s than to his father’s—was combed back perfectly. He looked a lot like Monty—except Monty never combed his hair. Luckily, the mussed-up look suited him just fine.
    â€˜Hey, Will.’ She crossed the kitchen to give him a hug. His response was stiff, but just the fact he now let her hug him made her smile. It had taken a long time and a lot of support to get Will to the functioning adult he was today, but still only those closest to him could get away with something as personally invasive as this.
    â€˜Hello, Faith.’ Will extricated himself and crossed to the cupboard.
    Even though she stayed here only a few times a year, she knew his routine by heart. He’d had the same microwave porridge—the type that comes in a one-serve sachet—for as long as she could remember. He made it himself, waited exactly one minute after it was cooked before eating it then stood immediately to clean away all evidence of his breakfast. In many ways, he was the perfect child. Except that he was twenty-five.
    Giving Will space to make his porridge, Faith took her plate to the table and sighed as she took her first bite. This house was her favourite place in Perth. The Montgomerys were the only people in the city she always made the time to visit. Like Monty, they made her feel special just as she was.
    When Jenni finished eating, she put her cutlery down and said, ‘So, Faith, you haven’t said much about the dinner?’
    â€˜There’s not a whole load to tell,’ she said, choosing not to mention her pledge to enter the contest just yet. She wanted to give it more thought—work out a charity and game plan first. ‘Mostly it was catching up on who’d married who in the last decade and how many babies had been born. You have no idea how many photos I had to look at. I lost count of the number of times I said, “Ooh, isn’t she just divine”.’
    Jenni and Stuart laughed, and Faith continued her breakfast, answering a few more questions between mouthfuls before the conversation waned. ‘What’s new in your world?’ she asked her hosts.
    â€˜I have a job,’ Will announced as he stood to clean his plate.
    â€˜That’s brilliant,’ she said, genuinely pleased. ‘What do you do?’
    â€˜I work in the library at the university.’ He positively grinned.
    â€˜That’s awesome.’ Faith grinned back, fighting happy tears. ‘You’ll be fabulous at that.’ Not only did Will know the English alphabet back to front, but he could write and speak seven other languages and tell you the history of each.
    She’d been seven or eight when Will was diagnosed with autism. He was three years old and rattled off his alphabet constantly, but wouldn’t—or rather couldn’t—communicate with his family, never mind anyone else. As Jenni and Stuart did everything they could to learn about Will’s condition and enhance his development, they’d travelled back and forth to Perth for treatments and to seek advice from specialists. There wasn’t much funding or government assistance available back then, but that didn’t stop the Montgomerys doing the best they could.
    Not wanting to disrupt Monty’s schooling too much, they’d left him with the Forresters on many of their city visits. Faith loved having Monty around, but could tell he missed his family more than he let on.
    Eventually, when the trips and treatments had become too