Coming Home To You

When one door closes…

Zoë and her fiancé Paul had everything ahead of them. So when Paul dies suddenly, Zoë doesn’t recognise the life she’s left with. Helping a friend by housesitting for a stranger is the last thing she wants to do – but she can’t deny that she needs time away from the memories which crowd her flat. So, collecting the keys, Zoë lets herself into her temporary home.

…another one opens.

Surrounded by a stranger’s belongings – his toothbrush, his favourite records, the pictures on his walls – Zoë begins to build a picture of the flat’s owner, Neil, who is away in the military. Driven by a need to know more, Zoë begins writing to Neil and finds herself feeling an unlikely connection with him. But while some people are destined to share our lives forever, others are sent simply to help us on the way. And for Zoë, a new life is just beginning…

Proof that life can change in the most unexpected of ways, Coming Home to You is the superbly moving debut from Liesel Schmidt, perfect for fans of Cecilia Ahern and Jojo Moyes.

Coming Home to You

Liesel Schmidt

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Liesel Schmidt 2014

Liesel Schmidt 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 © June 2014 ISBN: 9781474007757

Version date: 2018-07-23

LIESEL SCHMIDT lives in Pensacola, Florida, where she spends her time writing, drawing, and reading everything she can get her hands on. She is currently working on her next novel and spends most of her days busily writing freelance for a list of local magazines that sometimes keeps her head spinning in a dizzy attempt to keep all the deadlines straight! When she has a few free moments, Liesel plunks away at her blog, Finding Words (http://fyoword.blogspot.com/), where she posts product reviews and offers her readers a peek at the inner musings of a writer slogging her way through the challenges of living a creative career and early-widowhood.

Having harbored a passionate dread of writing assignments when she was in school, Liesel never imagined that she would ever make a living at putting words on paper, but life sometimes has a funny way of working out… When she’s not writing, reading, or drawing, Liesel likes to indulge her guilty pleasure of watching competition television shows like Top Chef, Chopped, and Project Runway. Follow her on Twitter at @laswrites

To Jim – Thank you for believing in me enough to give my dreams wings. I hope I’ve made you proud.

To my family – Thank you for encouraging me all along the journey and giving me the confidence to never give up. You have all blessed me in more ways than you can ever imagine.

And thank you, most of all, to my faithful, loving God – who kept me going when nothing and no one else could.

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Prologue

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

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

I have a camera I rarely use, simply for the fact that pictures seem too permanent. Some pictures are catalogues of happy times, but too many become reminders of things that have been lost – people and relationships and chances at happiness that seemed to have slipped through our fingers.

I sat on my bed that morning, checking for signs of life in my neglected camera, when there it was. A picture of him. Smiling without knowledge of the camera focused on his luminous grin and sparkling blue eyes. His fist proudly pumped the air, holding up the running medal he’d just been presented with. Frozen in time, in that moment of happiness, in that moment when everything in the world still seemed right.

And now nothing was.

Pictures like that become ghosts to haunt us, a sharp and jagged-edged pain that turns random moments in time into torture.

Torture because he was alive in my camera—bright and beaming and hopeful. In real life, though, in real-time, he would never smile like that again.

***

“You ready?” Paul asked, shielding his eyes and squinting into the blindingly bright Florida sunshine.

“Are you?” I returned, sounding slightly edgy in my nervousness.

As many times as I had done this, I never, ever got over the anxiousness I felt as I waited for the send-off. It always wreaked havoc on my bladder, which only seemed to back up my theory that God had a special place in heaven reserved for the makers of port-a-potties and antibacterial hand gel.

Paul leveled his gaze at me, confident. He nodded and grinned.

“Yup. All set.”

He shook out a kink in his neck, loosening up one last time.

“What kind of time are you gonna do it in?” he shouted at me, fighting to be heard above the din around us, all the other people chattering while we waited for this race to start.

“Why does it matter?” I shot back, feeling a twinge of annoyance at the question.

I always did my best, but I was never sure exactly what my best was going to be. I hated to be pigeon-holed, just in case it was a bad morning. Just in case my feet weren’t as swift as I’d like.

“Why? Because I don’t want to marry a slow woman, that’s why!” An impish grin broke out on his flushed face, his blue eyes glowing with excitement.

“What?”

“I said I won’t marry a slow woman!” he shouted again, catching the attention of everyone within earshot.

“Well, then, I guess I’ll have to run a pretty damn good race!” I shrieked, jumping into his arms.

“We’re going to have a ten-second delay for the walkers,” a voice announced loudly through a megaphone, completely unaware of the way my future had just been changed.

“Am I hearing things, or did you just propose?” I stopped gazing into Paul’s eyes long enough to find the source of the question. His friend Sam was staring at us, wide-eyed with mock surprise.

“Seriously, man, it’s about time and all, but I hate to tell you…you just handed me this race!” Sam grinned wickedly as the air horn went off, releasing all the runners from their frenzied state of suspended animation.

“I sincerely doubt that, Fleming!” Paul tossed back, breaking into a run that would have robbed most people of every ounce of energy after only a short sprint.

Sometimes the man truly amazed me.

Actually, the man always truly amazed me.

And for reasons totally eluding me, Paul Benson was truly, deeply, I’ll-be-yours-forever in love with me.

I broke into my own run, trying like hell to concentrate on my breathing, to get my heart rate under control and wipe my mind of everything except this moment and this race. I was so happy, though, it was hard not to have a cloudy head.

I ran hard and strong, my competitive streak taking possession of my brain and my body, erasing every other thought beyond this race. I barely saw the turns and hills, only vaguely noticed the faces of the other people I passed as I sailed through the course and toward the finish line. The familiar landscape and buildings of downtown Pensacola blurred together in a rush, so focused was all my energy on this last sprint.

Victory was going to be mine.

I could taste it, I could smell it, and I could hear it. I neared the chute and the crowds of waiting watchers, people cheering and the announcer calling out names and race numbers as runners crossed the line.

“Go, Zoë, go! Come on, you can do it!” I heard from somewhere to my left.

I knew so many people at these things that identifying the source was nearly impossible.

There was an excited chaos—clapping, cheering, all the normal sounds of a race. And rising from somewhere above the indistinguishable soup of sounds, a group of voices unified and solidified into one.

“Say yes! Say yes!” Over and over it came, thunderous like a battle cry; and soon the small group of voices became innumerable.

I ran through the chute, past the announcer and the overhead electronic clock that seemed to spill each second. The chanting grew louder and louder, and I finally realized what they were saying and who they were saying it to.

It was for me.

I bent forward, leaning on my thighs as I tried to catch my breath. I closed my eyes against the sweat making a hasty trail down my face and breathed deeply, my heart still racing from the exertion and the excitement. When I straightened and opened my eyes, they were filled by the sight of Paul—down on one knee in front of me.

Sweaty, shirtless, and wind-blown, he looked up at me with eyes that seemed to sparkle brighter than I’d ever seen them. He reached into the tiny front key pocket of his running shorts and pulled out a ring, smiling. Expectantly, nervously, unabashedly smiling—like a little boy at Christmas.

My heart was melting and overflowing and exploding all at the same time.

“Zoë Evangeline Trent,” he said, his voice barely audible above all the noise around us. “Will you marry me?”

Maybe I was still trying to catch my breath.

Maybe it was shock that this was truly happening.

But at that moment, I couldn’t even find words. The salt of the sweat I had tried so hard to keep out of my eyes ran together with the salt of tears, and all I could do was reach out and fall into Paul’s waiting arms.

He rose up and held me long and tight—tight enough to leave me breathless.

Finally, I found my breath and my words, and I pulled back to look at him. Everything else melted into a foggy haze as I looked into those cool blue eyes.

“Yes,” I said, nodding as fresh tears pooled and blinded me. “Yes, yes, yes,” I whispered again. “Yes, I’ll marry you.” The words came louder and stronger, and a raucous whoop rose up from the crowd that had gathered around us.

“Now give the woman a kiss, you idiot!” Sam bellowed, pushing his way to the front of the fray.

I smiled at Paul, and he smiled back—his crinkled eyes and crooked grin the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen. The kiss that followed was full-bodied and passionate, heady and electric and consuming. One that set my heart on fire and seemed to blaze a trail all the way down to my toes. I could taste the salt on his lips, a remnant of race sweat, as he pulled me tighter and tighter to his chest and lifted me off the ground. The rest of the world washed away, the noise around us muted to a barely audible whisper. It was our moment, our feeling—and the fact that other people were around became an insignificant detail.

I could have stayed like that forever, locked in that embrace and in that kiss.

This time was ours to claim.

Our beginning.

Our end.

Chapter 1

The swish swish swish of my windshield wipers against the rain was almost hypnotizing. All of the colors and figures outside the car were softened into an impressionistic painting that moved as I stared at everything, seeing nothing. The traffic light flicked from red to green, but I didn’t register the change, didn’t notice the cars in the lane next to me start to inch forward.

The cars in line behind me honked, snapping me out of my daze.

Daze.

It would have been nice if it had been that simple. I wasn’t quite sure what the word for it at that point would have been. What could you call the total sense of loss, the lack of desire to go on living that accompanies the death of the only person you’ve ever truly loved? The feeling is too overwhelming and complicated to be confined simply to one word.

But that was what I was trying to define.

To my family, to my friends, to my boss.

To myself.

Maybe if I could define it, I could find out how to change it. Maybe if I could define it, I could fix it.

I blinked against the tears that seemed a constant, dormant presence that lay just under the surface and put my foot on the gas.

“Oh, get over it, lady,” I muttered at the woman behind me, registering her aggressive presence in my rearview mirror. She gestured wildly for me to move my beat-up Hyundai, swiftly swerving her sleek Porsche into the other lane as soon as a sliver of space opened up. As she sped past, she made sure she caught a long enough look at me to communicate her displeasure. I smiled mirthlessly at her as she glowered, her sharply-tweezed eyebrows punctuating the sour look she was so intent on giving me.

I’m often amazed at how angry people get at other drivers in traffic. As though they were intentionally being slighted or inconvenienced by the other people occupying the road; as though their destination, their agenda was so much more important than anyone else’s. As though there weren’t so many more important things to worry about, like whether they’d had an argument with someone before they walked out the door.

Or whether they’d kissed anyone good-bye.

Whether they’d remembered to say, “I love you.”

I looked at the engagement ring on my finger, a sparkling reminder of what I’d lost. It was ironic. Something so bright and beautiful, an announcement of togetherness and future, was for me almost as cutting as a knife. I still wore it because it felt wrong not to, like taking it off would be denying the man I had loved so much for so long.

There were times I wanted to forget all of it, forget all the happiness so that maybe I would be able to forget how empty I now felt. There were times I wanted to take the ring off of my finger and never look at it again. Never catch another glimpse of my left hand to be given a fresh reminder that Paul wasn’t there anymore and that there would never be a wedding ring to complete the circle.

It had been nine months.

Nine long, agonizing months that I could barely recall.

They were a blur of tears and paperwork and a million faces I’d never seen before all telling me how sorry they were for my loss. I felt as though I’d been on one of those stupid merry-go-rounds at the playground that’s spun too fast, and looking at anything makes you sick.

Nine months.

I still felt as though it had happened an hour ago, that I’d just picked up the phone to hear that Paul was dead, that he’d ruptured an aneurism in his brain. We’d never even known it was there.

I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel after nine months. Was there a timeline for pain? Was there some magic number of days or months or years that, once reached, won passage into a less agonizing existence?

I couldn’t compare notes—Sam had disappeared in a puff of smoke, walking out of my life without a second look back, a shock that felt like another death. And it was, to some degree. I had considered him a friend, a devoted sidekick to Paul. Out of anyone, I would have expected him to stick by my side and share in my pain.

As I soon learned, there were many people in the rotating doors of life, quick to pass in and out without explanation. Even Paul’s parents had taken that quick spin to the Exit. Not that that would have surprised anyone familiar with Paul’s relationship with them. They were non-entities, barely skirting around the edges of his life—by their choice, not his. Paul had been their trophy child, the checklist item they had successfully crossed off, only to leave him to be the responsibility of a string of nannies and boarding schools. There had been no love lost in life, and it certainly hadn’t been found in his death.

My relationship with my own parents was in direct opposition to that, and it was one that Paul had often envied. Mine was a family large in love, even if it was small in size. We, the Trent Trio, had always been close. When Paul had died, my parents were the first on my doorstep, quickly wrapping me in their arms and their love and hardly letting me go until they’d had to leave to head back to their home in Birmingham. Five hours’ worth of road time had, in the past nine months, become an eternity away.

Nine months that slithered with loneliness and reminders.

I wanted to be able to turn the corner and not feel as though I was going to collapse into a massive heap of tears if I had to walk past our favorite restaurant. I wanted to be able to see a Liberty Blue Dodge Ram without that unconscious flash of hope that Paul might be behind the wheel. I wanted to be able to walk past the shaving aisle in Wal-Mart and not have to face the crushing realization that I would never again hear Paul on the phone asking me to pick up his shaving cream if I was stopping there on my way home.

I still felt ragged, broken. And the fact that I couldn’t pin-point an end to this feeling made it seem even more consuming, more hopeless somehow.

There is no expiration date for grief.

I pulled into my parking spot, finally home after another day at work I barely remembered. Another day of keeping books and punching numbers for clients I never saw. My days seemed to run on auto pilot, in part for self-preservation and in part because I had truly lost interest.

Work was just something I did, something that filled up eight hours of my day so that I wouldn’t have to think about other things. I wasn’t even sure how well I did it anymore.

And, to be perfectly honest, I really didn’t care.

I didn’t have the energy to care. There was too much involved in just keeping it all together during those hours at the office, when I slipped the “normal” mask in place—the one that talked and interacted with my coworkers as though I was fine. As though I was doing a spectacular job of moving past my fiancé’s death and rebuilding a life on my own, just as I should have been. And it was exhausting. The modicum of perfection I was trying so hard to preserve took so much concentration, sometimes I felt as though my head would explode. But better that than admit to the fact that I had failed so miserably at moving on, that I was still flat on my back after being knocked down.

“Get over it,” I muttered again, just as I had to the woman in traffic.

Only this time, I was speaking to myself.

I rested my head on the steering wheel, closing my eyes and listening to the sound of the rain pelting the windshield and the roof of my car, the purring sound of the engine as it idled. I didn’t even listen to the radio anymore. I wasn’t sure I could handle hearing songs that reminded me of him.

My cell phone trilled inside my purse, breaking the spell. I lifted my head and glared at the bag resting beside me on the passenger seat. Who would be calling me? My phone rarely rang anymore; people seemed afraid to talk to me. I wasn’t sure if they thought I was too fragile to carry on a conversation, or if they were absurdly afraid that death was contagious. Whatever the reason, I was too drained to be offended. It was actually almost a relief. There comes a certain point that having to say, “I’m fine,” one more time becomes an agony in itself, when you’d rather avoid the sympathetic looks that everyone gives you when they hear what happened.

The phone continued to ring as I rifled through the contents of my over-stuffed purse. I was curious by now at who it might be, who might dare risk calling the grief-stricken pseudo-widow.

That’s what I was.

Not quite a wife, not quite a widow.

I was without definition.

I found my phone and hastily flipped it open, not even bothering to check the caller ID.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“Zoë? Is that you?”

“Kate?” I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like her.

Kate, who’d been my best friend since the third grade and had been there for every major event in my life.

Every one except this one.

“I’m on my way, Zoë. I’m here,” she said so quietly it was almost a whisper.

Hearing her reminded me of how much I had missed her, and not having her to lean on these past months had left me feeling even more alone. I knew that if she could have been there with me, she would have. She would have dropped everything and come running the minute she heard.

Simpler said than done, though. Kate had spent the last year in Africa doing relief work, living in poor, dangerous conditions that afforded few luxuries and complicated travel. She hadn’t been able to come home for Paul’s memorial, but we’d written to each other constantly. She gave me every bit of support possible, but I still missed her like crazy.

Technically, she wasn’t quite home yet, but she was at least finally back in the country. She’d dialed my number the minute her plane had touched down at LaGuardia, her first domestic stop in the long succession of airports and layovers that was to come over the next hours. Knowing Kate, she probably hadn’t even waited until the stewardess had granted permission for cell phones to be turned back on.