The Summer of Second Chances: The laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

The Summer of Second Chances

MADDIE PLEASE

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Published by AVON

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www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by AVON 2017

Copyright © Maddie Please 2017

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017

Cover illustration © Head Design

Maddie Please asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008257293

Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780008257125

Version: 2018-03-15

For my husband Brian, who never doubted me.

With all my love.

Thank you.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1: Snowdrops – a friend in adversity, consolation, hope

Chapter 2: Daffodils – uncertainty, unrequited love, deceit

Chapter 3: Aquilegia – resolution, determination, anxiety

Chapter 4: Rhododendron – deceit, danger

Chapter 5: Primrose – modest worth and silent admiration

Chapter 6: Hyacinth – jealousy

Chapter 7: Foxglove – insincerity, deceit

Chapter 8: Purple iris – faith, hope, inspiration, friendship

Chapter 9: Daisies – loyalty

Chapter 10: Wallflowers – courage in adversity

Chapter 11: Cherry blossom – kindness

Chapter 12: Honeysuckle – devotion, fidelity

Chapter 13: Forget-me-not – remember me, friendship

Chapter 14: Azaleas – passion

Chapter 15: French marigold – sorrow, deceit

Chapter 16: Geranium – determination

Chapter 17: Anemone – have you forsaken me?

Chapter 18: Yellow carnations – disappointment, rejection

Chapter 19: Morning glory – love in vain

Chapter 20: Lily-of-the-valley – returning happiness

Chapter 21: Gladiolus – courage and strength

Chapter 22: Purple lilac – first emotion of love

Chapter 23: Chrysanthemum – cheerfulness and truth

Chapter 24: Holly and ivy – domestic bliss and faithfulness

Acknowledgement

About the Author

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

It was quite incredible really, when I considered what a long time things took to do as a rule. Meeting Ian and moving in, supporting him as he built up his business, entertaining people who drove me nearly mad with boredom, getting contracts, the crazy nit-picking of flaky homeowners. These things took months, sometimes years. To lose it all took no time at all.

I lost my partner, my home, a lot of my friends and my peace of mind – not necessarily in that order – and yet, only a few days had passed.

We had shared the usual formulaic Christmas with Susan picking at her food as though I was trying to poison her. And then Ian had started on about the bloody New Year’s Eve party we were having.

He’d rolled his eyes at his mother who was sitting opposite me.

‘I had to persuade her, you know, Mum. Lottie hates New Year’s Eve,’ he said. Quietly, as though I was simple and couldn’t hear him.

‘I don’t!’ I said. ‘That’s so not true.’

I would have said it more emphatically with words like bollocks or crap attached, but Susan has been known to leave the room when I swear so I didn’t. It was Christmas after all.

‘She says it’s just one more day,’ Ian continued. He sent me a mischievous grin to show he was teasing me. I pulled a face at him and tried to kick him under the table.

Susan put down her knife and fork and peered over her glasses at me.

‘You’re very young, Charlotte. Perhaps you think there will always be one more day.’

Oh God, I knew what was coming.

Susan sighed and shook her head.

Yes, here it was.

‘I would give anything to have one more hour with Trevor. One more day.’ She bit her lip, shook her head and struggled on bravely. ‘If I had known he would be taken from me so soon.’

And after the party, wallop! One bloody shock after another, everything getting worse and worse until I came to dread waking up each day because I knew something else horrible was bound to happen.

And then the day came when I packed my clothes, my jewellery box, my grandmother’s clock and as many of my belongings as I could fit into my car – the only thing I now owned – and handed back the keys to the house to an anxious solicitor who looked like Rodney Trotter’s younger brother doing work experience. I could almost imagine Susan’s glee as she closed one claw-like hand over them with an evil cackle. I’d always known she had never really liked me, but now she could make her feelings more than clear. She blamed me for what happened, and this was the perfect revenge.

CHAPTER 1

Snowdrops – a friend in adversity, consolation, hope

I reached Holly Cottage – my sanctuary – just before the late January sunshine faded into the grey-green hills of Devon. I had lost just about everything familiar to me; my partner, most of my friends, my job, the home I had loved. I pulled into the gravelled drive, turned off the car engine and opened the window. The silence was deafening. I took my seatbelt off and listened for a while; I realised it was the first peace I had encountered for a very long time. Hardly anyone knew where I was, that was the marvellous thing. And that was the way I wanted to keep it.

The road, if you could call it that, meandered up past the house and then tapered off as though it had lost interest into an unmetalled track with grass growing down the middle. Holly Cottage looked as though it had been dumped on the grass verge on the brow of the hill with views over the rolling countryside. It was like a child’s drawing of a house; stone walls, a slate roof, three upstairs windows and two downstairs, either side of a black front door. I had only travelled about forty miles, perhaps it was just my state of mind, but as I got out of my car, the air seemed livelier, different. I took a deep lungful of freedom and felt a bit shaky.

This was it, then, all pretence was gone. For the last few years I had lived in happy ignorance in Ian’s five-bedroom house surrounded by a half-acre of garden. I’d been anticipating a summer holiday in the Dordogne in a customer’s gîte. I hadn’t even known, much less cared, who my electricity supplier was. In hindsight, I had been beyond naïve; I’d thought nothing would ever change. Now I was going to live in a borrowed two-bedroom cottage with nothing much to recommend it but the view. How the hell did this happen?

But of course, if I was honest, I knew exactly how I’d ended up here. I’d trusted Ian, trusted him completely. And then everything had come crashing down. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of Jess I don’t know what on earth I would have done. I parked in front of the black door and remembered the conversation that had changed my life.

Jess had pouted for a moment, running a hand through her blonde hair.

‘Of course, Holly Cottage!’

‘Oh, I don’t think…’ Greg said, his brow furrowed in thought.

‘Please, don’t, I’m not a charity case just yet, you’ve been so great these last few days. A lot of my friends…’

I didn’t finish the sentence. I stood up and wandered around their conservatory, clearing my throat, pretending to look at their garden. Really I was trying to control my easy tears. A lot of my so-called friends had silently disappeared from the scene, as though Ian’s sudden death and my destitution might be infectious. To be honest, I didn’t want to talk to anyone any more, I couldn’t bear explaining everything over and over again. So I had got used to ignoring my mobile. I didn’t log on to my laptop to look at my emails.

Jess turned in her chair, the wicker creaking.

‘Lottie, you’d be doing us a favour, honestly you would.’

Her enthusiasm grew the more she considered it.

‘It’s only a little place. I bought it just before I married Greg. I used to work in a club in London. Greg calls them my wild years but they weren’t really. I lived on Uncle Ben’s Rice in a ghastly place in Peckham. I saved all my tips for two years. Very generous some of them were.’ Jess widened her blue eyes at me. ‘Oh nothing dodgy, so don’t worry.’

I looked at Jess with astonishment and new respect. She might look like a complete airhead but obviously she wasn’t. I was the nitwit here, with no financial sense at all, no career, finding myself at thirty-four broke and without prospects.

‘It’s all furnished; you wouldn’t need to take anything. Just your clothes and your bits and pieces. We could help you with that, couldn’t we, Gregsy? The van, you know.’

Her husband grunted and shifted in his chair, evidently not thrilled with the way things were turning out. Jess didn’t seem to notice; either that or she was ignoring him.

‘It has been rented out for three years but the tenants have just gone, owing money of course.’ She gulped as she realised the tactlessness of her words. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to say it like that. I’m not sure if I want to rent it out again or sell it. But either way it needs an upgrade. It’s right out in the country, the other side of Exeter, but less than an hour away. It’s a bit out of the way but really pretty. Ideal for you, in fact.’

I didn’t look at her. I tried to gather my thoughts.

‘How much would it be?’

Greg opened his mouth to speak but Jess interrupted him.

‘Nothing. All you need to do is give it a clean up, do the clever stuff you do with curtains and wallpaper and have a good flick around with a paintbrush. You’re ever so good with the interior décor sort of thing. Much better than me, that’s for sure. I know I need to spend a bit of money on the place. You’d be doing me a huge favour.’

‘Oh, Jess!’

‘No really, you would, wouldn’t she, Greg?’

Greg made some non-committal noises and looked back at his phone. I could tell he wasn’t very happy about this.

‘That’s settled then,’ she said, pleased.

‘It’s not settled at all,’ I said. ‘I can’t just use your house for nothing. I can’t accept, it’s too much.’

‘It’s not too much. You really would be helping me out. We’ve been friends for ages, and you were so lovely to us when we moved here. I know you can do this sort of thing in your sleep. Picking out colours and stuff. You could do it for a living, you know.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I said, trying to look modest.

I’d spent such a long time doing Ian’s house, picking fabrics, sourcing furniture, choosing colours, and I’d loved every minute.

‘Yes, you could, like that programme on TV where people have to upgrade rooms and paint crappy old furniture to make it look nice again. You could do that. We both said you should apply, remember?’

‘Yes, I know—’

‘Then stop arguing with me. Look, it can’t be rented out as it is.’ For the first time she looked serious. ‘Greg’s brother lives down there. We don’t have an awful lot of contact with him but he does have a key in case of emergencies and he sent me an email last week. About the Websters. They did a moonlight flit and left the cottage in a bit of a state. I was going to pay someone to get it cleaned up and put some of Greg’s men in there to decorate it but if you do it, it’s a win-win situation, isn’t it? This is just so “meant to be”.’

Jess gave me an artless smile, one that I bet never failed to succeed. I gave her a hug.

‘Well – thank you, Jess.’

I felt quite tearful and we stood and looked at each other for a moment, both of us a bit emotional.

Greg glanced up from his iPhone. He looked less jovial than usual.

‘I’ll tell Bryn to expect you any time this week, shall I?’ Jess continued. ‘And if he’s not in I’ll leave a message on his answerphone. He always picks those up.’

I began to panic. I was being either helped or pushed, I wasn’t sure which.

‘Who’s Bryn?’

‘My little brother, God help me,’ Greg muttered. ‘I’ve got to go and check my emails.’

‘Don’t be like that, Gregsy,’ Jess said, twirling her blonde hair between slender fingers. She watched as Greg went off to his office and turned back to me. ‘They fell out a few years ago but Bryn’s really nice once you get to know him. Just big, tall and a bit scary. Like a bear. But I know he’s not half as bad as he seems.’

This was far from reassuring.

‘Maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all…’ I said.

Jess patted my hand. ‘Course it is. Think about it. It’s an adventure. A change of scenery. A bit of excitement. Just what you need.’

‘Don’t tell anyone where I am,’ I blurted out. ‘I don’t want anyone to know.’

My head was aching. So was my heart. I had loved the house I had shared with Ian so much. I had been proud, but we all know pride comes before a fall. And what a fall.

I had decorated and planned every room in the years I had lived there. I had chosen things. The colour of the walls, the flooring, the towels, the lighting. Everything was perfect. Or it had been. It wasn’t now, was it? And it wasn’t mine either.

I stood outside Holly Cottage, lost in thought. Just about everything I had taken for granted had gone wrong. Now I had to take this chance and focus on the future because I certainly couldn’t change the past.

I got out, locking the car behind me although, to be honest, it didn’t feel as though there was a living soul for miles. I wandered around to the back of the house, my heels catching between the broken paving slabs. I wondered if the ‘huge and bear-like’ Bryn was around to watch the homeless idiot arriving. Might he be lurking in the shadows under the trees down the lane? For some reason I pictured him standing, shoulders hunched like Lurch from The Addams Family, knuckles dragging on the ground. Fortunately there was no sign of him. But he had left the back door key under an upturned bucket in the porch as Jess had assured me he would. The key stuck for a heart-stopping few moments and then turned in the lock with an unwilling squeak. I let myself in to the hall.

The stale scent of wet dog, mingled with something even more unpleasant, hit me. The smell of damp carpet, neglect and, unmistakably, fish.

I left the door open and made my way into the sitting room, one hand over my nose. The room was flagstoned with a large rug over the top, which was soaking. Someone had flung a plastic bucket plus water into the middle and my shoes squelched as I took a hesitant step into the room. They had also enhanced the décor by chucking around a few shovelfuls of ash from the fire. The walls were pale and marked with squares of grime where pictures had been removed. Underneath one windowsill the paper had been pulled off altogether and someone had drawn stars in pink and purple felt tip pen on the wall.

The smell was stronger here, pungent and eye watering. Trying not to gag, I pushed back the curtains and opened both the sash windows. The crispness of the evening air was welcome. I hurried back outside for a moment to refresh my lungs and then went upstairs to explore further, finding a small bathroom and two bedrooms.

There was evidence in the expensive wallpaper and the sisal carpet that this place had once been very pretty, but now it was neglected and extremely dirty. There were stains on the floor and muddy fingerprints around the china light switches, and someone had been free with wax crayons on the walls of the landing.

In the corner of the bathroom was a huge web, the spider still busy in the middle with a struggling bluebottle. I shuddered. On the mirror, in coral lipstick, was scrawled Bitch. It neatly crossed over the reflection of my cold, pale, frightened face.

Jess had wanted me to clean and decorate, that was the deal, but it was obvious this place wasn’t just in need of a flick round with the antiseptic wipes and a lick of paint; it needed pressure washing. The stink from downstairs was curling up the stairs so I opened all the windows and re-buttoned my coat.

In the larger of the two bedrooms was a mahogany wardrobe that had once been highly polished and beautiful, but was now scratched, covered with globs of Blu-Tack and propped up with a brick at one corner where one of the feet had been lost. There was a sink in the corner filled with scummy water and dead flies.

‘Bloody hell!’ I said.

My words echoed around the room.

‘What on earth’s been going on here?’ asked a voice from behind me.

I spun round, squeaking with shock. There was a silhouette of a man in the doorway, his shoulders almost filling the space. I yelped again.

‘Well, if you don’t want people to walk in you shouldn’t leave all the doors open,’ he said, unapologetic.

‘And you shouldn’t just wander in to someone else’s house uninvited,’ I said, my voice shrill with fright. I flapped my hands at him to shoo him back down the stairs.

He turned and went, his movements unhurried and careful in the confined space of the stairwell. I followed him downstairs and into the kitchen, trying to calm the thudding of my heart.

‘What’s happened here?’ he said. ‘It wasn’t like this the other day. And what’s that terrible smell?’

‘How would I know?’ I replied. ‘I’ve only just got here.’

‘Hang on,’ he said and went into the sitting room, ducking his head under the lintel. He searched around for a few minutes and then retrieved a rotting fish wrapped in newspaper from behind a radiator.

‘Jesus!’ I clamped my hand back over my nose and watched him take it outside into the garden.

He reappeared, framed in the kitchen door. ‘I’ve no idea where that came from. I’m assuming it’s nothing to do with you?’

‘Of course it isn’t. Why the hell would I do a thing like that?’

‘OK, calm down. All I know is it didn’t smell like this when I last called in. Nor was there a pond on the sitting-room floor. Perhaps the Websters are responsible?’

‘The Websters?’

Oh yes the Websters. What had Jess said about them? I should have paid more attention.

‘The last tenants. Two years without a problem and then Mr Webster discovered skunk and scratch cards. They left a few days ago. Spent all his money on things other than his priorities. But I know he left his house keys behind when he left. I can’t think how he could have got back in. I’ve been here, Webster had a beaten-up old camper van. Red and white. I’m sure I would have noticed…’

I stood watching him for a moment wondering who he reminded me of.

‘It needs a bit of a sort out,’ he said, his blue eyes flicking from the piles of junk mail behind the door to the chocolate handprints on the wall. At least I hoped they were chocolate.

‘A bit of a sort out?’ I said, incredulous. ‘Never mind the smell, it’s absolutely filthy and disgusting.’

‘Ah well.’ He shrugged his shoulders. They really were very broad. ‘I’m Bryn Palmer, by the way.’ He held out a hand and I shook it.

‘I’m Charlotte Calder. What do you mean “ah well”? Would you want to live here?’

He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. ‘Nope.’

‘Nor do I.’

‘Well don’t then,’ Bryn said. He flicked another look around that conveyed his boredom with the whole conversation. ‘It’s up to you. I thought you needed a place to stay?’

‘You mean beggars can’t be choosers?’

‘Why would I say that? No one is forcing you to live here, are they?’

I struggled with my temper. I was caught between Holly Cottage and a hard place. I had nowhere else to go, at least at the moment. I had considered my Auntie Shirley in Croydon but I couldn’t bring myself to make that call. A one-bedroom maisonette with a view of the library car park seemed the very last resort. At least here I had a bit of privacy. And a bed.

‘Couldn’t someone have at least checked the place to make sure it was at least habitable?’ I said.

His dark brows drew together in a frown. I had overstepped the mark, that was obvious.

‘Someone? You mean me?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t have killed you,’ I muttered.

‘That was up to Jess and Greg to sort out, not me,’ he said, ‘you’re not my responsibility. I’m not here to sort your problems out.’

Bloody cheek, it was as though I was being passed around from one responsible adult to another. Like some sort of delinquent child.

‘But you live down here in this godforsaken spot,’ I said, dismissing the beauty of the hills around me with a wave of my hand.

He refused to be drawn in to any discussion.

‘If you aren’t staying I’ll have the keys back.’ He held out one hand, ready to take them.

I stood, fists clenched, trembling with indecision for a few moments. It was this or sleep in the car. I had no idea about council accommodation for a single woman without children but I guessed I would be low down on a long list. I didn’t want to spend money on a hotel. I couldn’t go back; the locks had been changed. I had no choice.

‘I’ll stay. For now anyway,’ I said.

‘Fine.’ Bryn obviously didn’t care either way. ‘If you’re staying we should get that wet rug out. I could help you do it now, if you like?’ he said.

I closed my eyes and tried to calm down. I needed him to help me; I’d never manage it on my own. Not that I’m scrawny or anything but I’m only five foot four, there’s only so much leverage I could get.

‘Thank you, that would be very kind of you.’

He nodded and I noticed there was a bit of Matthew McConaughey about him, mixed with some other actor whose name I couldn’t remember. Plus evidence of a fair amount of time spent in the gym. It was an attractive mixture. Pity his character wasn’t so appealing.