First Time in Forever

Praise for

Sarah Morgan

‘Full of romance and sparkle’

—Lovereading

‘I’ve found an author I adore—must hunt down everything she’s published.’

—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

‘Morgan is a magician with words.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Dear Ms Morgan, I’m always on the lookout for a new book by you …’

—Dear Author blog

SARAH MORGAN is the bestselling author of Sleigh Bells in the Snow. As a child Sarah dreamed of being a writer and, although she took a few interesting detours on the way, she is now living that dream. With her writing career she has successfully combined business with pleasure and she firmly believes that reading romance is one of the most satisfying and fat-free escapist pleasures available. Her stories are unashamedly optimistic and she is always pleased when she receives letters from readers saying that her books have helped them through hard times.

Sarah lives near London with her husband and two children, who innocently provide an endless supply of authentic dialogue. When she isn’t writing or reading, Sarah enjoys music, movies and any activity that takes her outdoors.

Readers can find out more about Sarah and her books from her website: www.sarahmorgan.com. She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Dear Reader,

Friendships have always been important to me. Good friends enhance the happy times and cushion the bad ones, which is why, when it came to planning my new contemporary romance series, I decided to write about three friends.

Emily, Brittany and Skylar have been best friends for more than ten years and made a vow to help each other if they were ever in trouble. Their sanctuary when life gets tough? Castaway Cottage on beautiful Puffin Island, Maine.

I first saw puffins in the north of England many years ago and they are the most amazing and beautiful seabirds. One detail that fascinated me was that they usually return to breed on the same island where they hatched. Although they are not an endangered species, they are rare now in Maine and there are projects to reintroduce them to some of the islands.

The theme of returning home was one that I used as a thread throughout the stories. In this case the home is Castaway Cottage, a beachside retreat left to Brittany by her grandmother.

When Emily’s circumstances change dramatically and she finds herself guardian to her sister’s child, she turns to the sanctuary of Puffin Island. But life by the sea brings its own challenges for Emily, whose life choices were shaped by an incident in her past. She’s hiding secrets, but it isn’t easy keeping secrets in a close-knit community, especially when sexy yacht club owner Ryan Cooper makes it his personal mission to break down every barrier she’s ever built. Soon she isn’t just protecting her niece, she’s protecting her heart.

These stories are about love, friendship and community. I hope you fall in love with the characters and also with the windswept beauty of Puffin Island. Head over to my website, www.sarahmorgan.com, to see some of my photographs of Maine and puffins, and sign up to my newsletter to be informed of future book releases. If you enjoy First Time in Forever, look out for Brittany’s story, Some Kind of Wonderful, coming in the summer.

Thank you for reading.

Love,

Sarah

xxx

For Laura Reeth,

make-up expert, style guru and dear friend

“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.”

Aristotle Onassis

Table of Contents

Cover

Praise for Sarah Morgan

About the Author

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

Epigraph

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Preview

Endpage

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS THE perfect place for someone who didn’t want to be found. A dream destination for people who loved the sea.

Emily Donovan hated the sea.

She stopped the car at the top of the hill and turned off the headlights. Darkness wrapped itself around her, smothering her like a heavy blanket. She was used to the city, with its shimmering skyline and the dazzle of lights that turned night into day. Here, on this craggy island in coastal Maine, there was only the moon and the stars. No crowds, no car horns, no high-rise buildings. Nothing but wave-pounded cliffs, the shriek of gulls and the smell of the ocean.

She would have drugged herself on the short ferry crossing if it hadn’t been for the child strapped into the seat in the back of the car.

The little girl’s eyes were still closed, her head tilted to one side and her arms locked in a stranglehold around a battered teddy bear. Emily retrieved her phone and opened the car door quietly.

Please don’t wake up.

She walked a few steps away from the car and dialed. The call went to voice mail.

“Brittany? Hope you’re having a good time in Greece. Just wanted to let you know I’ve arrived. Thanks again for letting me use the cottage. I’m really … I’m—” Grateful. That was the word she was looking for. Grateful. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I’m panicking. What the hell am I doing here? There’s water everywhere and I hate water. This is— Well, it’s hard.” She glanced toward the sleeping child and lowered her voice. “She wanted to get out of the car on the ferry, but I kept her strapped in because there was no way I was doing that. That scary harbor guy with the big eyebrows probably thinks I’m insane, by the way, so you’d better pretend you don’t know me next time you’re home. I’ll stay until tomorrow because there’s no choice, but then I’m taking the first ferry out of here. I’m going somewhere else. Somewhere landlocked like … like … Wyoming or Nebraska.”

As she ended the call the breeze lifted her hair, and she could smell salt and sea in the air.

She dialed again, a different number this time, and felt a rush of relief as the call was answered and she heard Skylar’s breathy voice.

“Skylar Tempest.”

“Sky? It’s me.”

“Em? What’s happening? This isn’t your number.”

“I changed my cell phone.”

“You’re worried someone might trace the call? Holy crap, this is exciting.”

“It’s not exciting. It’s a nightmare.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I want to throw up, but I know I won’t because I haven’t eaten for two days. The only thing in my stomach is a knot of nervous tension.”

“Have the press tracked you down?”

“I don’t think so. I paid cash for everything and drove from New York.” She glanced back at the road, but there was only darkness. “How do people live like this? I feel like a criminal. I’ve never hidden from anyone in my life before.”

“Have you been switching cars to confuse them? Did you dye your hair purple and buy a pair of glasses?”

“No. Have you been drinking?”

“I watch a lot of movies. You can’t trust anyone. You need a disguise. Something that will help you blend in.”

“I will never blend in anywhere with a coastline. I’ll be the one wearing a life jacket in the middle of Main Street.”

“You’re going to be fine.” Skylar’s extrafirm tone suggested she wasn’t at all convinced by what she was saying.

“I’m leaving first thing tomorrow.”

“You can’t do that! We agreed the cottage would be the safest place to hide. No one is going to notice you on an island crowded with tourists. It’s a dream place for a vacation.”

“It’s not a dream place when the sight of water makes you hyperventilate.”

“You’re not going to do that. You’re going to breathe in the sea air and relax.”

“I don’t need to be here. This whole thing is an overreaction. No one is looking for me.”

“You’re the half sister of one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood, and you’re guardian to her child. If that little fact gets out, the whole press pack will be hunting you. You need somewhere to hide, and Puffin Island is perfect.”

Emily shivered under a cold drench of panic. “Why would they know about me? Lana spent her entire life pretending I don’t exist.” And that had suited her perfectly. At no point had she aspired to be caught in the beam of Lana’s spotlight. Emily was fiercely private. Lana, on the other hand, had demanded attention from the day she was born.

It occurred to Emily that her half sister would have enjoyed the fact she was still making headlines even though it had been over a month since the plane crash that had killed her and the man reputed to have been her lover.

“Journalists can find out anything. This is like a plot for a movie.”

“No, it isn’t! It’s my life. I don’t want it ripped open and exposed for the world to see and I don’t—” Emily broke off and then said the words aloud for the first time. “I don’t want to be responsible for a child.” Memories from the past drifted from the dark corners of her brain like smoke under a closed door. “I can’t be.”

It wasn’t fair to the girl.

And it wasn’t fair to her.

Why had Lana done this to her? Was it malice? Lack of thought? Some twisted desire to seek revenge for a childhood where they’d shared nothing except living space?

“I know you think that, and I understand your reasons, but you can do this. You have to. Right now you’re all she has.”

“I shouldn’t be all anyone has. That’s a raw deal. I shouldn’t be looking after a child for five minutes, let alone the whole summer.”

No matter that in her old life people deferred to her, recognized her expertise and valued her judgment; in this she was incompetent. She had no qualifications that equipped her for this role. Her childhood had been about surviving. About learning to nurture herself and protect herself while she lived with a mother who was mostly absent—sometimes physically, always emotionally. And after she’d left home, her life had been about studying and working long, punishing hours to silence men determined to prove she was less than they were.

And now here she was, thrown into a life where what she’d learned counted for nothing. A life that required the one set of skills she knew she didn’t possess. She didn’t know how to be this. She didn’t know how to do this. And she’d never had ambitions to do it. It felt like an injustice to find herself in a situation she’d worked hard to avoid all her life.

Beads of sweat formed on her forehead, and she heard Skylar’s voice through a mist of anxiety.

“If having her stops you thinking that, this will turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you. You weren’t to blame for what happened when you were a child, Em.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Doesn’t change the fact you weren’t to blame. And you don’t need to talk about it because the way you feel is evident in the way you’ve chosen to live your life.”

Emily glanced back at the child sleeping in the car. “I can’t take care of her. I can’t be what she needs.”

“You mean you don’t want to be.”

“My life is adult-focused. I work sixteen-hour days and have business lunches.”

“Your life sucks. I’ve been telling you that for a long time.”

“I liked my life! I want it back.”

“That was the life where you were working like a machine and living with a man with the emotional compass of a rock?”

“I liked my job. I knew what I was doing. I was competent. And Neil and I may not have had a grand passion, but we shared a lot of interests.”

“Name one.”

“I— We liked eating out.”

“That’s not an interest. That’s an indication that you were both too tired to cook.”

“We both enjoyed reading.”

“Wow, that must have made the bedroom an exciting place.”

Emily struggled to come up with something else and failed. “Why are we talking about Neil? That’s over. My whole life now revolves around a six-year-old girl. There is a pair of fairy wings in her bag. I don’t know anything about fairy wings.”

Her childhood had been a barren desert, an exercise in endurance rather than growth, with no room for anything as fragile and destructible as gossamer-thin fairy wings.

“I have a vivid memory of being six. I wanted to be a ballerina.”

Emily stared straight ahead, remembering how she’d felt at the age of six. Broken. Even after she’d eventually stuck herself back together, she’d known she wasn’t the same.

“I’m mad at Lana. I’m mad at her for dying and for putting me in this position. How screwed up is that?”

“It’s not screwed up. It’s human. What do you expect, Em? You haven’t spoken to Lana in over a decade—” Skylar broke off, and Emily heard voices in the background.

“Do you have company? Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Richard and I are off to a fund-raiser at The Plaza, but he can wait.”

From what she knew of Richard’s ruthless political ambitions and impatient nature, Emily doubted he’d be prepared to wait. She could imagine Skylar, her blond hair secured in an elegant twist on top of her head, her narrow body sheathed in a breathtaking designer creation. She suspected Richard’s attraction to Sky lay in her family’s powerful connections rather than her sunny optimism or her beauty. “I shouldn’t have called you. I tried Brittany, but she’s not answering. She’s still on that archaeological dig in Crete. I guess it’s the middle of the night over there.”

“She seems to be having a good time. Did you see her Facebook update? She’s up to her elbows in dirt and hot Greek men. She’s working with that lovely ceramics expert, Lily, who gave me all those ideas for my latest collection. And if you hadn’t called me I would have called you. I’ve been so worried. First Neil dumped you, then you had to leave your job, and now this! They say trouble comes in threes.”

Emily eyed the child, still sleeping in the car. “I wish the third thing had been a broken toaster.”

“You’re going through a bad time, but you have to remember that everything happens for a reason. For a start, it has stopped you wallowing in bed eating cereal from the box. You needed a focus and now you have one.”

“I didn’t need a dependent six-year-old who dresses in pink and wears fairy wings.”

“Wait a minute—” There was a pause and then the sound of a door clicking. “Richard is talking to his campaign manager, and I don’t want them listening. I’m hiding in the bathroom. The things I do in the name of friendship. You still there, Em?”

“Where would I go? I’m surrounded by water.” She shuddered. “I’m trapped.”

“Honey, people pay good money to be ‘trapped’ on Puffin Island.”

“I’m not one of them. What if I can’t keep her safe, Sky?”

There was a brief silence. “Are we talking about safe from the press or safe from other stuff?”

Her mouth felt dry. “All of it. I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t want children.”

“Because you’re afraid to give anything of yourself.”

There was no point in arguing with the truth.

“That’s why Neil ended it. He said he was tired of living with a robot.”

“I guess he used his own antennae to work that out. Bastard. Are you brokenhearted?”

“No. I’m not as emotional as you and Brittany. I don’t feel deeply.” But she should feel something, shouldn’t she? The truth was that after two years of living with a man, she’d felt no closer to him than she had the day she’d moved in. Love wrecked people, and she didn’t want to be wrecked. And now she had a child. “Why do you think Lana did it?”

“Made you guardian? God knows. But knowing Lana, it was because there wasn’t anyone else. She’d pissed off half of Hollywood and slept with the other half, so I guess she didn’t have any friends who would help. Just you.”

“But she and I—”

“I know. Look, if you want my honest opinion, it was probably because she knew you would put your life on hold and do the best for her child despite the way she treated you. Whatever you think about yourself, you have a deep sense of responsibility. She took advantage of the fact you’re a good, decent person. Em, I am so sorry, but I have to go. The car is outside and Richard is pacing. Patience isn’t one of his good qualities and he has to watch his blood pressure.”

“Of course.” Privately Emily thought if Richard worked harder at controlling his temper, his blood pressure might follow, but she didn’t say anything. She wasn’t in a position to give relationship advice to anyone. “Thanks for listening. Have fun tonight.”

“I’ll call you later. No, wait—I have a better idea. Richard is busy this weekend, and I was going to escape to my studio, but why don’t I come to you instead?”

“Here? To Puffin Island?”

“Why not? We can have some serious girl time. Hang out in our pajamas and watch movies like we did when Kathleen was alive. We can talk through everything and make a plan. I’ll bring everything I can find that is pink. Get through to the weekend. Take this a day at a time.”

“I am not qualified to take care of a child for five minutes, let alone five days.” But the thought of getting back on that ferry in the morning made her feel almost as sick as the thought of being responsible for another human being.

“Listen to me.” Skylar lowered her voice. “I feel bad speaking ill of the dead, but you know a lot more than Lana did. She left the kid alone in a house the size of France and hardly ever saw her. Just be there. Seeing the same person for two consecutive days will be a novelty. How is she, anyway? Does she understand what has happened? Is she traumatized?”

Emily thought about the child, silent and solemn-eyed. Trauma, she knew, wore different faces. “She’s quiet. Scared of anyone with a camera.”

“Probably overwhelmed by the crowds of paparazzi outside the house.”

“The psychologist said the most important thing is to show her she’s secure.”

“You need to cut off her hair and change her name or something. A six-year-old girl with long blond hair called Juliet is a giveaway. You might as well hang a sign on her saying ‘Made in Hollywood’”

“You think so?” Panic sank sharp claws into her flesh. “I thought coming out here to the middle of nowhere would be enough. The name isn’t that unusual.”

“Maybe not in isolation, but attached to a six-year-old everyone is talking about? Trust me, you need to change it. Puffin Island may be remote geographically, but it has the internet. Now go and hide out and I’ll see you Friday night. Do you still have your key to the cottage?”

“Yes.” She’d felt the weight of it in her pocket all the way from New York. Brittany had presented them both with a key on their last day of college. “And thanks.”

“Hey.” Sky’s voice softened. “We made a promise, remember? We are always here for each other. Speak to you later!”

In the moment before she hung up, Emily heard a hard male voice in the background and wondered again what free-spirited Skylar saw in Richard Everson.

As she slid back into the car the child stirred. “Are we there yet?”

Emily turned to look at her. She had Lana’s eyes, that beautiful rain-washed green that had captivated movie audiences everywhere. “Almost there.” She tightened her grip on the wheel and felt the past rush at her like a rogue wave threatening to swamp a vulnerable boat.

She wasn’t the right person for this. The right person would be soothing the girl and producing endless supplies of age-appropriate entertainment, healthy drinks and nutritious food. Emily wanted to open the car door and bolt into that soupy darkness, but she could feel those eyes fixed on her.

Wounded. Lost. Trusting.

And she knew she wasn’t worthy of that trust.

And Lana had known it, too. So why had she done this?

“Have you always been my aunt?” The sleepy voice dragged her back into the present, and she remembered that this was her future. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t equipped for it, that she didn’t have a clue—she had to do it. There was no one else.

“Always.”

“So why didn’t I know?”

“I— Your mom probably forgot to mention it. And we lived on opposite sides of the country. You lived in LA and I lived in New York.” Somehow she formed the words, although she knew the tone wasn’t right. Adults used different voices when they talked to children, didn’t they? Soft, soothing voices. Emily didn’t know how to soothe. She knew numbers. Shapes. Patterns. Numbers were controllable and logical, unlike emotions. “We’ll be able to see the cottage soon. Just one more bend in the road.”

There was always one more bend in the road. Just when you thought life had hit a safe, straight section and you could hit “cruise,” you ended up steering around a hairpin with a lethal tumble into a dark void as your reward for complacency.

The little girl shifted in her seat, craning her neck to see in the dark. “I don’t see the sea. You said we’d be living in a cottage on a beach. You promised.” The sleepy voice wobbled, and Emily felt her head throb.

Please, don’t cry.

Tears hadn’t featured in her life for twenty years. She’d made sure she didn’t care about anything enough to cry about it. “You can’t see it, but it’s there. The sea is everywhere.” Hands shaking, she fumbled with the buttons, and the windows slid down with a soft purr. “Close your eyes and listen. Tell me what you hear.”

The child screwed up her face and held her breath as the cool night air seeped into the car. “I hear crashing.”

“The crashing is the sound of the waves on the rocks.” She managed to subdue the urge to put her hands over her ears. “The sea has been pounding away at those rocks for centuries.”

“Is the beach sandy?”

“I don’t remember. It’s a beach.” And she couldn’t imagine herself going there. She hadn’t set foot on a beach since that day when her life had changed.

Nothing short of deep friendship would have brought her to this island in the first place, and even when she’d come she’d stayed indoors, curled up on Brittany’s colorful patchwork bedcover with her friends, keeping her back to the ocean.

Kathleen, Brittany’s grandmother, had known something was wrong, and when her friends had sprinted down the sandy path to the beach to swim, she’d invited Emily to help her in the sunny country kitchen that overlooked the tumbling color of the garden. There, with the gentle hiss of the kettle drowning out the sound of waves, it had been possible to pretend the sea wasn’t almost lapping at the porch.