The Second Chance Hotel

About the Author

RACHEL LOUISE DOVE is a mum of two from Yorkshire. She has always loved writing and has had previous success as a self-published author. Rachel is the winner of the Mills & Boon & Prima Magazine Flirty Fiction competition and won The Writers Bureau Writer of the Year Award in 2016. She is a qualified adult education tutor specialising in child development and autism. In 2018 she founded the Rachel Dove Bursary, giving one working-class writer each year a fully funded place on the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme.

Also by Rachel Dove

The Chic Boutique on Baker Street

The Flower Shop on Foxley Street

The Long Walk Back

The Wedding Shop on Wexley Street

The Fire House on Honeysuckle Street

The Second Chance Hotel

RACHEL DOVE

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Rachel Dove

Rachel Dove asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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.

E-book Edition © May 2020 ISBN: 9780008375812

Version: 2020-04-20

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Also by Rachel Dove

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgements

Want more?

Author letter

Dear Reader …

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

To all the fellow women out there, PCOS warriors

&

to everyone who makes the world a better place, one kind act at a time and never, ever give up

To You

If I was writing this letter under better circumstances, I could have written a much better opening. I’m sitting here on my bunk trying to think of what to say. I don’t even know what to call you. I know we have to be careful. If I could, I would say your name over and over for the rest of my life. How lucky people who see you every day are, for they get to say it willy-nilly.

For you, nothing seems appropriate, or enough, so I decided that You will have to do. My You. My one and only You.

I have the shell you pressed into my hand that night, and I haven’t stopped looking at it. It smells of you, of home, and it makes me feel like my recurring nightmare was just that, and that my real life is still there, at Shady Pines with you.

How long do we have left, till the letters have to stop? I fear the day, yet I know it must come. You must live your life, and I should at least try to start mine. Even with the huge You-shaped hole in my soul. Don’t tell me, not till you have to. While you’re free, let’s pretend, just you and Me.

G

Chapter 1

April Statham sat as close to the steering wheel as she could get, nudging herself and her clapped-out brown Ford Escort along the road, turning slowly into the entrance to the chalet park. Unfortunately, a few seconds earlier, a horse rider had passed, and now his steed was going to the toilet in the middle of the road, leaving a huge steaming pile of horse plop right in the entranceway. April wasn’t really one to believe in signs, but this was kind of hard to miss.

‘Er …’ She wound her window down. ‘Excuse me?’ The horse, and the rider, a thin man whose long features mirrored that of his thoroughbred, dipped their heads to look at her. ‘Could you possibly move your horse? I need to pass.’

The horse snorted loudly. Or was it the rider? Both parties looked equally nonplussed, but the man nodded once and the horse trotted away, leaving his … offerings. April turned the car into the lane, avoiding the pile, and headed for the large wooden hut marked ‘Reception’.

‘Bloody great pile of steaming poo in the entrance, great advert for the place,’ she muttered under her breath, her eyes flicking down to her petrol gauge, which was pointed straight at zero. Past zero, truth be told. She could feel the change in the engine, the car chugging along on petrol fumes. She pulled into the space marked ‘Management’ in between the reception hut and a small chalet. She yanked up the handbrake and turned the key in the ignition to off. She could swear that her car breathed a sigh of relief as the engine cut out. They had made it, her and her little car, all the way from Yorkshire to the tip of the Cornish coast. She sat back in her seat, her limbs and back stiff and wizened, as though she had been tied in a knot somewhere along the A38 and had driven bunched up like a pretzel ever since.

She was just easing the knots out of her neck when a sharp tap on her window made her jump. A woman stood there, her face pinched up tight, her dark hair tied into curling rollers on her head. She was wearing a pink dressing gown and dark green wellies, and looked more than a little crazy, even at 8 a.m. on a Monday morning. April wound her window down wearily, plastering a patient smile on her face.

‘Are you lost?’ the woman said pointedly, looking from inside the car to the boxes and suitcases strapped to a roof rack that April had nabbed from a Freecycle site. Her suitcases came from there too, with her not wanting to take the monogrammed luggage set she had been given as a wedding present. His and hers. She’d left it next to Duncan’s in the detached garage. Camped out in her late mother’s house. They’d looked so pathetic sitting there together, never to be used again, as they once were on honeymoon, and on their exotic holidays and horrifying business trips he’d dragged her along on.

‘No,’ said April. Yes, I am a bit. I think I’ve made a big mistake. ‘I’m not lost.’

The woman looked again at the worldly belongings strapped to the roof and sighed, a small unsympathetic sigh that made April feel about an inch tall.

‘Well—’ the woman raised her eyebrows again ‘—you look lost. Can I call someone for you? We’re expecting the hotshot new owner at some point today.’

‘I’m the new owner,’ April tried, her voice a faint whisper. ‘I own this place.’

The woman, having caught the gist now, looked at her with wide eyes.

‘You?’ She leaned into the car window, her head floating there like a balloon. ‘You—’ punctuated by a jab of the finger in her direction ‘—actually bought this place?’

April nodded slowly. The woman began to laugh.

‘Pull the other one, love, it’s got bells on.’ She guffawed, her face looming in April’s window like an animal in a safari park now. A camel sprang to mind. Something that could spit at you from ten paces if it saw fit. Yanking her head back out, the woman tapped twice on the top of April’s car and carried on her way, disappearing as quickly as she had appeared.

April was suddenly alone again, wondering what the hell she had gotten herself into. Hotshot new owner? What had the camel … er … the woman heard? April didn’t want to ruffle any feathers here before she had even unpacked so much as a solitary toilet roll. Why did she think April was a hotshot? Oh God. She’d said ‘we’. ‘We have been waiting for the new owner.’ Who were ‘we’? The woman had obviously found her lacking, and once more, April’s eyes turned to her phone, sitting there innocently in her handbag. It looked so normal, but April felt as though the damn thing was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode on her frazzled brain with an influx of messages. Posts on social media of ‘you okay, hon?’ People commenting on her life, strangers and people who didn’t know her well at all. Not the real her, and nothing like the post-divorce her. Emails from old acquaintances. Purchase reminders for occasions she didn’t need to be reminded of at all. Ever. It would all be in there, lurking.

It had been bad enough already, without her sudden departure from everything and everyone. Divorce was a great vehicle for gossip, her mum had told her. Boy, was she right, as ever. April had turned all her notifications off. If she didn’t need to use the damn thing to navigate, she would probably have pitched it into the nearest and deepest river she could find.

Soon, news of her escape would spread around her hometown, and the gossip would start again. She couldn’t have kids, you know. Tried for years, they did. Broke them apart. Still, his new girlfriend seems lovely. Child-bearing hips, that one. Shame about April, though. She never did quite fit in. They chatted on social media as if they were in the hairdresser’s or in the Post Office queue. What was it that Gran used to tell me? Oh yeah. Loose lips sink ships. No wonder I feel like a crap second-hand dinghy with a Hello Kitty plaster holding in my deflated soul.

They’d be feasting soon, beaks sharply stuck in everyone else’s business. Just like the buzzards to return to a carcass in the hope they’d missed a piece of flesh, a strip of soft underbelly to rip from the bones of her failed life. She had failed as a wife, as a—

April stopped that train of thought by grabbing her phone and jabbing the off button hard, till the screen powered down. She didn’t need her map app now, so why would she leave it on to tick away like a telltale heart? She felt instantly better. She was gone, out of their reach. She’d rather thought that being ‘off grid’ would make her feel a tad edgy or a bit hippyish, but instead, she just felt relief. Bone-deep relief. Un-contactable. Freeeeeee! Relief that she wouldn’t have to endure their pitying stares and sympathetic nods, complete with the ‘little rub’. People thought that rubbing your arm or your shoulder was comforting, but it was just a bit too condescending for April. She hated it more than anything. She felt like a simpleton half the time after they had descended on her. What a joy life could be After Duncan. AD. Life after husband.

Zipping up her oversized handbag, she looked once more out of the window at the corner of the world she would now call home. It looked a little like how she felt: neglected, empty, peeling at the corners. Muted against the blue of the sky above. She pulled herself out of the car, her bones popping and cracking as her body unfurled itself. She could feel the shale beneath her feet, her black and white sneakers crunching as she looked around her. The Shady Pines Chalet Park was perched on a beautiful strip of land near Lizard Point, Kynance Cove a short distance away. From the park, April knew from memory that there was a direct walkway to the beach area, for the use of her guests. It had been there for many years and was one of the biggest selling points to her, the thought of waking up and having her toes in the water to start her day right.

Stretching her legs, she walked slowly to the reception hut, brand-new keys in hand. She’d picked them up from a key safe at the estate agent’s that morning, and now here she was, about to start her new life. Taking a gulp of the sharp sea air deep into her lungs, she unlocked the door. The key slotted into the metal housing like a glove. There was a slight resistance, salt in the old locks making the mechanisms stick, but then she felt it turn, and the lock click open. It was times like this, right now, that April felt like she had done something right, for once. She’d done this; she was here. It was all hers, a new life for the taking. If she hadn’t sworn off social media, she would have snapped a photo of the moment for Instagram with a witty hashtag like #divorcerules or #suckonthatduncanyouutterwan—

Maybe not. Not like she threw herself a divorce party, was it? She’d spent half the day crying, the rest feeling completely out of her depth. She obviously wasn’t feeling #blessed quite yet, but she could fake it for now. This was her new life; it was time to get cracking. Pushing open the door, she took a step forward … and hit the deck with a very loud and dusty bang.

‘Ouch! Broken boobs!’ April shouted, or tried to shout. Since her face was smushed into the now broken wooden door, it came out as a muffled humming sound. Prising her lips off the peeling paint, she pushed herself up on her arms and inspected the damage. The whole door had collapsed, the hinges still attached to the door beneath her. Standing, she inspected the wooden frames and saw that the wood was old, brittle to the touch. It crumbled to dust and fell through her fingers.

‘Great,’ she grumbled under her breath. ‘Better find a carpenter pretty sharpish, before the rest of my life turns into the bottom of a rabbit hutch.’ She heaved up the door, resting it on her face at one point to get a better handle on the heavy wood. Placing it to one side of the room with a loud bang, she looked at the dust on her plain black T-shirt and old blue jeans and sighed. She brushed herself down, gingerly around the already bruising chest area.

‘Well,’ she said to the room, looking around. ‘Cheers for the excellent welcome, new home. Be careful, or I will use the last of my money to have a wood chipper party, right here.’ She pointed her finger to the centre of the floor and braced herself, but the ceiling didn’t fall in. Phew.

The reception hut was deceptively large, a square room with a desk off to the left-hand side, complete with a counter in the same faded white-painted wood as the rest of the place. Off to the right, against the wall, were rows of shelving, all empty and filled with dust. The floor was the same white wood, giving the whole room a cube-like effect, and making April feel a bit hemmed in for a second.

There were windows behind the desk on the left, and on the back wall opposite the door was a large set of glass-panelled doors, leading out to a grassed area out of the back. The chalet park ran on the green grass like a horseshoe, twenty blue-and-white trimmed identical chalets, all with their own porches and back patio areas for dining out and sunbathing. Where the ends of the horseshoe met, on the left was the sign indicating the park, with a rack that must have once been used for bicycles alongside it. It was metal and had been painted cream at one point, with pretty shell details around the lettering. Currently, it looked a little worse for wear, the paint peeling and rust-coloured. There was a lone rubber tyre and a dented shopping basket using the facilities, and the sign was tilted to one side, looking as though it was hanging on with the one rusty protruding nail that was still attached. To the right of this was the reception, and on the other side of this, her chalet. It matched the others and looked just as dilapidated. Through the dusty doors, she could see the blue sky and the grass expanse beneath, leading off to the track to the beach. The beach where her mother had taken her, that first night here all that time ago.

It had nearly been dark, the sun setting slowly on their first long day in Cornwall. April had been tired. She remembered how cloudy her head had felt, how she’d moaned when her mother wanted them to see the sunset together.

‘When are we going home?’ She could hear her little voice now, remembered how her mother ignored her at first. Her back to her, facing the fading sun, head tilted up like a flower head. Her mother’s fists clenched when she asked again, her voice whinier, higher. It sounded at odds to the crashing of the waves, the laugh-like call of the birds ahead.

The clenched fists were only there a second, but April thought of her father and shrank back. Her mother turned, but her face was kind.

‘April, come here, petal.’ April went to her mother, and she turned them back to face the chalet park. Other families were in the chalets, or out on their patios. Playing cards, having a glass of wine. Laughing as the kids played. They passed them on the way to the shore, and the happy noises of life filtered down to the beach.

Hands on her daughter’s shoulders behind her, her mother spoke. Her voice sounded different. Louder, somehow.

‘You hear that?’ she asked, gentler now.

‘The sea?’

‘The people, April. You hear the people up there?’

April looked past the dunes, where the lights from the park could be seen. She could hear the sounds of people talking, laughing, kids screeching with joy as they played and ran about.

‘Yes,’ she said, her mouth curving into a smile.

‘That’s what life is supposed to be like, April. I want you to look around you, my girl, soak it in. I want this for you, all of this. We’re not going home, April. It’s just going to be me and you from now on, and we’ll be just fine.’ Her mother squeezed her shoulders, a loving gesture that warmed April through as the words washed over her like the waves behind her. ‘This is our second chance hotel, sweetheart. New life starts right here.’

***

April’s feet were moving, heading for the glass doors, key in hand, before she even registered the urge overtaking her body. This was what had been keeping her going, thinking of seeing that beach. Feeling the wind whip her shoulder-length brunette hair around her face, walking barefoot along the sand. She loved the beach, and always had – she thought back to the long summers she had enjoyed growing up. Crabbing off the docks, swimming in the clear blue waters, curling up with a fire and a hot chocolate on a dark night. After that summer at Shady Pines, the two of them had visited every beach they could find. She envied the child she had been, all innocent and full of hope. What did she have now? Besides wood rot, of course?

This, that’s what.

As she pushed on the doors, they resisted at first, stuck fast with dirt and grime, but then she gave them a shove and she was outside, half running across the grass as she shoved her keys into her bra and picked up the pace. Walking out of those doors felt like stepping out onto the moon’s surface. The grass led to a path cut out of the rocks and wild tufts, the thick carpet of green blades giving way to sandy dunes the closer she got. She kicked her shoes off, not giving a toss where they landed, and once her bare feet hit the wet sandy beach, she whooped with delight.

‘I’m here, Shady Pines!’ she yelled, her jean bottoms getting flicked with the sand she was casting off in her run to the sea. ‘I’m really here!’

The sharp shock of the cold water took her breath away momentarily, and she squealed to herself. After a few gentle steps, she felt her whole body sigh with the pleasure of the sensations. This was her favourite place, by the sea. She loved it, had always loved it, and once more she found herself marvelling at the journey she had just undertaken. A year ago, she would have laughed in the face of anyone who told her the story. It would have seemed so unbelievable, so daring. Like a lifestyle piece in the magazines she used to read, once upon a time. Before they seemed to mock her, show her what she was missing. When your life didn’t follow the usual expected path, where did that leave a modern woman? The knackers yard? Spinsterhood? She wasn’t ready to start knitting a straitjacket just yet, thank you very much. She still felt twenty-one most days.

Not today though. Today she felt about eight years old, holding her mother’s hand while she paddled in the sea, tiny toes wrinkling in the water. She felt brilliant. Right now, standing there in the sea, her old life miles away and out of reach, she felt amazing. This was day one of her new life. Peeling paint and broken doors be damned. Duncan seemed like a bad dream right now. Hoping the feeling would last once reality set in, she smiled to herself, turning to walk further along the shoreline, to leave her footprints in the sand, and make her own mark.

Chapter 2

Cillian O’Leary followed the sticky blobs of raspberry jam as they led a trail from the worn lino of the kitchen to the scuffed wooden floor of the lounge. He was spraying and wiping away the globules as he went, moving from the floor to the doorframe, where red seeded fingerprints were stuck to the white-painted wood. A cartoon pig was jumping into a puddle on the television in the corner, and a pair of bush baby green eyes followed the movements on screen.

‘Orla,’ he said softly, causing her brown wispy head to turn into his direction. ‘Daddy can make your toast, poppet. I told you, I’m here to look after you.’ His daughter regarded him as she often did these days, with a blank, open expression that made his heart break. He looked at the slice of toast, half eaten on the plate, buttered better than any girl her age should be able to achieve.

Orla’s eyes were already back on the screen, watching the pink, animated animals live their perfect, happy lives. What a crock we teach our children growing up. White picket fence, smiling parents, happy children, perfect homes. Baddies wear black, and the good guys wear white and always win, no matter what. White hat or black hat. Right or wrong. Good or bad. In Cillian’s world, the grey areas had overlapped, encircling him in a storm that he couldn’t see through, let alone get out of. Except, he did get out of it. They just needed that next step now, that little lifeline. Something to break them out of this rut and get them moving again.

He put the dirty cloth straight into the washing machine and flicked on the kettle, flicking it off a second later once he realised that the coffee jar was empty. He didn’t get paid till Friday, and he was staring down the barrel of a full five days with the tenner and change he had in his wallet. Thank God he had diesel at least for his van. He could still take Orla to school nursery and pick her up after. At least there she would get snacks of fresh fruit, and a hot lunch. By the weekend, he would have money to feed and clothe her, at least until Monday rolled around again.

He only got paid from the agency, and with the benefits taking time to transfer to him, he was struggling more than he ever had without the sole care of a child to consider. The sting of having to ask for help wasn’t nice either. He’d always been lucky enough to be in work before, well and able to provide for himself. Once more, he thought of Tina and silently cursed her for not being there. Judging by her social media update, she was doing just fine. Back in her old job, picking up her old pre-family life. Erasing it completely for the most part. Hard to believe they’d lived in the same place, but were strangers now. Bully for you, Tina. Hope you are enjoying yourself there, without a care in the world.