Love Among the Treetops: A feel good holiday read for summer 2018

Catherine Ferguson

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

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.

AVON

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London

SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Catherine Ferguson 2018

Catherine Ferguson 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

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.

Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008215750

Version: 2018-01-08

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

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

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Keep Reading…

Also by Catherine Ferguson

About the Author

About the Publisher

Prologue

T hey’re catching up with me.

I’m trying to run faster but my heart is banging so hard it hurts, and I can’t get my breath. And now Lucy’s shouting at me to stop or else. She always makes her voice go deeper when she wants to really scare me.

Got to run faster!

The back of my leg stings where one of Lucy’s stones just hit me. I can hear her laughing with her big friend, Sophie, that she’s going to trip me up and send me flying, then they’re going to pull my hair and pinch my arms until I beg them to stop.

Joanna should have been at the school gates. She’s my cousin and she’s twelve and goes to big school, and sometimes Mum asks her to bring me home. But I waited and Joanna didn’t come so I started walking home myself. Mum will be cross if I tell her Joanna wasn’t there, so I’m not going to tell her. I don’t want Joanna to get into trouble.

Nearly home now!

If Mum’s at the kitchen window, peeling the potatoes for dinner or doing the dishes, Lucy and Sophie will slow down and act like they haven’t even noticed me. I’ll tell Mum that Joanna left me at the end of our street because she’s going to her friend Amy’s house for tea. Then Mum won’t be cross with her.

But Mum’s not at the window today and I feel sick. What if she’s got the hoover on and doesn’t hear me ringing the doorbell?

If I dodge round the corner and take the short cut to the back of my house, I might get there before they catch me. They’d never dare come after me into the garden. I’ll be safe there. I can see my treehouse now, sitting high above the fence. A few more steps and I’ll be through the garden gate and safe.

But the back gate always sticks. Please let it open for me today.

I close my eyes and push myself against it.

Yes!

I run in and slam the gate shut behind me.

Made it!

The ladder up to my treehouse is a little bit wobbly and scary sometimes but Dad says it’s perfectly safe. He knows because he made the treehouse for me himself and he’s really clever at stuff like that. He does woodwork when he has time off from selling things to farm people in our shop at the bottom of the garden.

I’m so hot. As I climb up into the sky, the whole treehouse seems to sway, the bright green summer leaves sort of shivering as I move.

I’m crouched down on the wooden floorboards now, hidden among the branches, breathing in the lovely cool leafy smells coming in through the slightly open window. I can tell it’s been raining because the woody scent seems much sharper and tickles my nose. Dad built the treehouse for me when I was just six. That’s a whole year ago now. I’ll stay here for a bit so my face isn’t red and sweaty when Mum sees me – otherwise she might guess that something bad has happened.

Slowly, I stand up and peep through the big square window, getting ready to duck down if Lucy and Sophie are there. But they’re not.

They must have gone!

My eyes are suddenly wet with tears. Lucy Slater is in my class at school and she hates me. She told everyone I smelled like a dustbin and all her friends laughed, so now they call me Stinker Wilson instead of Twilight Wilson, which is my real name.

I feel better now, although my heart is still beating fast and my legs feel funny, like they probably won’t work properly if I try to climb back down the ladder. I’ll just stay here a bit longer to make sure they’ve really gone. I could put the kettle on and have a pretend tea party for my dolls. Mum always says a cuppa makes things better.

If Lucy Slater knew I had my dolls up here, she’d think it was really funny and she’d tell everyone in my class. Like the time she told one of her fibs and said I’d had a wee in my pants in the middle of the shopping centre. It wasn’t true, but it made my face really hot when everyone pointed at me and laughed.

I know I’m too old, really, to play with dolls. But I like them. They make me remember the time when I didn’t have to go to school and see Lucy Slater. I could just play in my treehouse instead. I don’t know why Lucy hates me. I gave her sweets once, but she just made a face and said they looked horrible. Then she threw them over the school wall and ran off with Sophie.

I love my dolls because they never laugh at me or say they’re going to get me on the way home from school. We just sit here quietly and I pour tea into their cups (it’s just water, really) and I tell them what I’ve been doing at school that day. I don’t tell them about the nasty things because that would make them very sad.

Today, I tell them Mum wants me to make the cake for Dad’s birthday on Sunday. She’s going to let me mix the icing and decorate it and everything!

I’m so lucky to have my treehouse. I think maybe the reason Lucy Slater is angry with me is because her dad didn’t make her a treehouse like mine …

Chapter 1

I’m about to spread snowy white icing onto the perfect fairy cake, before adorning it with a sugary, melt-in-the-mouth pink rose, when a rail official walks into the carriage.

‘All tickets, please.’

Pulled from my daydream, I sit up and start scrabbling through my belongings, panicking that I might have lost my ticket. If only I could be more practical and less prone to disappearing into my imagination.

As an only child, I tended to escape into a comforting fantasy world in times of stress, and now – at thirty-two – I’m still a bit of a dreamer, although the days of being bullied at school are thankfully long behind me.

Something tells me I’ll have to start being super-practical if I’m going to run a successful café …

I boarded a train four hours ago in Manchester, where I’ve been studying at catering college for the past year, then I switched to this local line that will take me to the village of Hart’s End in Sussex, where I lived all my childhood. I’ve spent the time scribbling away in a notebook, composing a list of cakes, scones and tray bakes that will look good on a café menu. There’s a price beside each one, although I’m finding it hard to work out what customers would be prepared to pay. That’s why the page is full of scorings out and question marks.

Keeping busy like this also means I’m not worrying about Dad all the time.

We’re less than an hour away from Hart’s End now and my stomach churns constantly as I think about the life-changing steps I’m about to take.

I really need this café to be a success.

Honey Cottage, our family home, will have to be sold if I can’t step in and start paying the mortgage on it. With Dad in hospital, undergoing the cancer treatment that Mum and I desperately hope will save his life, the last thing my parents need is to be worrying that they’re going to lose their house. So that’s where I come in.

Twilight Wilson to the rescue!

My insides shift uneasily. I’ve always loved baking, but it’s a massive leap from turning out my favourite cakes in the warmth of my own kitchen to becoming a successful café owner …

Finally, I locate my ticket.

The only other passenger in the carriage – a woman who looks about my age, sitting further along, across the aisle – is having to buy her fare, and the rail official is gently reminding her that she really should have bought her ticket on the platform. He shrugs in a friendly way as he says it, and she pats her glamorous blonde up-do and gives him the benefit of a winsomely apologetic smile.

The instant he’s gone, the smile vanishes, like a light bulb being switched off. She raises her eyes to the ceiling with a look of contempt and gets back to her sporty-looking magazine.

The train slows down, entering a tunnel, and my reflection appears in the window, staring back at me from the darkness beyond. Fine, strawberry-blonde hair brushing my shoulders, wide-set blue eyes and too-plump lips that I’ve hated all my life. The rest of me is probably a little on the plump side, too, mainly because I love baking and you can’t be a baker and not sample the end results, can you? I’m also fairly short, so every calorie-laden mouthful tends to reveal itself elsewhere.

As a kid, I loved making cakes: experimenting with different flavours and textures. After a bad day at school, I could forget Lucy Slater and lose myself in the supremely soothing world of buttery cake mix, glorious home-baking smells and endless icing possibilities.

Baking is still my passion. It never fails to give me that comforting feeling of old. And I’ve been taking refuge in it even more lately, with Dad so very ill in hospital.

I hand over my ticket to be stamped. Then I sit back and close my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to be lulled by the gentle rocking movement of the train.

Minutes later, we pull into a station and people flood onto the train.

‘Is this seat free?’ says a deep voice.

I glance up. A tall man with dark hair and round, Harry Potter glasses is looking down at me quizzically, and I return his smile. ‘No, feel free.’

‘Thanks.’

He pushes the glasses further up his nose then hefts his sports bag onto the overhead rack. After zipping open the side pocket, he starts feeling around inside it. His pale blue T-shirt hitches up, revealing a glimpse of washboard stomach above long, muscular jean-clad legs. Quickly, I look away, out of the window.

But when he draws out a book and drops it on the table, the temptation to be nosy and read the title upside down is too great.

My brow knots in confusion.

Adventures with Crotches?

Crikey. That’s the sort of book to read on a Kindle so no one can actually see the title! He flings himself into the seat opposite me and I’m enveloped in the scent of eau de sporty man. It’s clear he’s been doing an activity of some kind, what with the sports bag and the dark hair that’s still damp from activity and curling on his neck.

The frosty blonde, I notice, is casting interested looks over in our direction – well, specifically his direction. He is quite attractive, I suppose, apart from the geeky glasses. Not that I’m at all interested. At the ripe old age of thirty-two, I’ve grown quite cynical about love. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there are probably lots of men my age who are basically decent, caring human beings. It’s just I’ve never actually met one that I was attracted to. The sad fact is, the guys I’ve been out with invariably end up being more of a disappointment than anything. And it’s not because I’m too picky, either. I suppose I’ve just been unlucky.

I think of Jason, the love of my life. The man who first disappointed me by breaking up with me in order to take up with Lucy (Lucifer) Slater, the horrible bully who tormented me throughout my schooldays. We were just eighteen when we split up, but I truly loved Jason Findlay and I was completely and utterly devastated when it ended. He was the first boy I ever properly kissed. That momentous event happened when I was fifteen, round the back of Hart’s End Youth Club, and after that kiss, we were inseparable for a long time. Until I decided to go away to university and Lucy Slater got her claws into him …

The man opposite shifts in his seat – possibly getting a little over-engrossed in crotches (‘gross’ being the operative word) – and our legs accidentally collide.

‘Sorry,’ he says with a lopsided grin. ‘I’m having trouble getting my muscles to relax.’

I shake my head. ‘Sounds nasty.’

‘It is. I’ve just run a marathon and they ache like crazy.’ He shifts them around.

‘Ah!’

‘I guess I should have started my training earlier.’ He grins and goes back to his book which, looking at the cover the right way up, I suddenly realise isn’t about crotches at all. My upside-down reading clearly needs some work. The book he’s so enthralled by is actually called Adventures with Crochet. (Which, to be fair, sets my mind boggling all over again.) There’s a colourful crocheted doll on the cover and a jolly border made from one long line of crochet, like I used to make when I was a little girl and Gran taught me.

I observe him curiously beneath my eyelashes. He certainly doesn’t look like a crochet enthusiast, with his rugby player’s body and big hands that would surely be way too clumsy to wield a crochet hook. But appearances can be deceptive. For all I know, he might also be a whiz at macramé and enjoy whipping up the odd summer fruit soufflé in his spare time. It was probably very politically incorrect of me to picture a crochet enthusiast as an elderly lady with a cat curled at her feet. Yes, in fact, good for him!

His brow is tense as if he’s concentrating hard. He’s obviously a ‘metrosexual’. The sort of man who’d feel perfectly at home exhibiting his macaroons in a Women’s Institute tent. Although why I should be so curious about someone I don’t even–

‘Excuse me,’ says a slightly breathy voice.

I glance up and so does Mr Needlepoint. The voice belongs to the blonde I spotted earlier.

‘Sorry to interrupt, but did I hear you say you’d just run a marathon?’ She bats her extensive eyelashes at him.

‘Twenty-six miles of hell,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Usually I enjoy them but today’s was tough going for some reason.’

‘So you’ve run marathons before?’

He nods. ‘Dozens.’

Her hazel eyes open wide in admiration, and I find myself fascinated by her make-up. Her eyelids are like two perfectly matching mini canvases, artfully brushed with shades of gold, pink and purple, fringed with dark, curled lashes. Mr Needlepoint seems quite taken with them, too.

‘Sorry, I should explain.’ She sits down next to me in a cloud of flowery perfume, while continuing to completely ignore me. ‘I’m Olivia.’

‘Theo Steel.’ They shake hands and as an afterthought, she turns to me.

‘Twilight.’ I wait for the reaction. Most people smile in surprise at the unusual name, which is exactly what Olivia does. Her hand feels thin and icy cold. She turns back to Theo.

‘So I have a friend who’s spearheading a “Get Hart’s End Fit!” campaign. I assume you live around here?’ She includes me in this query.

I nod. ‘My parents live in Hart’s End.’

‘Lake Heath,’ says Theo, naming a neighbouring village a few miles from Hart’s End, further along the track.

‘Well, my friend wants as many people as possible to take part in a 10k run she’s organising for charity.’ She gives Theo a coy look. ‘And you’re obviously very fit.’

‘Well … I don’t know about that.’

‘Oh, but you must be. Running all those marathons.’

‘I suppose …’

‘And those lovely, hard muscles must be the result of an awful lot of weight training,’ she says, gazing admiringly at his arms.

I want to snicker, she says it so flirtatiously. But Mr Needlepoint seems to be lapping it up.

‘So will you do it?’ she asks.

He smiles. ‘Sure. When is it?’

She gets up. ‘I’ve got some leaflets in my bag.’ Returning, she hands him one, then looks doubtfully at me. ‘Would you be interested?’ Her icy gaze slides over me then lingers on my arms and their distinct lack, in my short-sleeved top, of any obvious muscle definition.

I almost laugh out loud. ‘Er, I don’t think so.’ I mean, I’m all for charity fund-raising, but running when you don’t have to? Isn’t that a bit perverse? No, the only exercise I get these days is transporting tins of cake mix from the bench to the oven, and that’s quite enough for me, thank you very much!

Her eyes are full of disapproval so I lean closer and murmur in a confidential manner: ‘Mind you, I did get on the exercise bike the other day. For a whole forty-five minutes!’ I smile modestly. ‘Next time, though, I’m going to try making the pedals go round.’

There’s an awkward silence as Olivia stares at me in a bemused fashion, not getting the joke at all, and I feel an embarrassed heat washing up my neck. Thankfully Mr Needlepoint lets out a burst of laughter. At which point Olivia, presumably taking her cue from him, makes her mouth smile as if she’s terribly amused, too. Which she quite clearly isn’t.

‘But listen, Dawn, exercise is extremely important to overall fitness,’ she says, eyeballing me urgently, as if I’m in danger of keeling over from ill health at any second.

‘It’s Twilight. And I have got stamina,’ I tell her confidently.

‘Oh?’ She frowns, clearly thrown by this unexpected nugget.

‘Yes, tons of it.’ I once heard my dad telling a neighbour that while my running technique might not be the best, I did at least have great stamina. Admittedly, I was only seven at the time and the race in question was a modest egg and spoon. But for some reason, this idea stuck and has since become part of family folklore. (I imagine my descendants, years from now, being impressed to learn of their great-great-grandmother’s quite astonishing reserves of stamina.)

‘Right. Good.’ Olivia moves swiftly on. ‘And obviously clean eating is also absolutely vital to good health. Do you eat clean food?’

I’m a bit taken aback. What on earth is she suggesting? ‘Well, I always wash my strawberries.’

Theo laughs, obviously thinking I’m cracking another joke.

Olivia shakes her head. ‘No, no, no. I’m talking about a clean diet. No processed junk. Just fresh food and preferably raw, whenever possible. Actually, it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle. I never touch sugar these days. Or gluten. Or dairy. Ugh!’ She gives a little shiver of disgust. ‘Clean eating is absolutely the way forward for a healthy mind, body and soul. Wouldn’t you agree?’ She addresses Mr Needlepoint. Obviously. Because why would a chunky, doughnut-scoffing no-hoper like me have anything interesting to say on the matter?

Theo clears his throat. ‘Well, I’m not convinced cutting out whole food groups is necessarily a good idea, but you can’t go wrong with plenty of exercise and your five-a-day.’ He glances at me for confirmation.

Obligingly, I nod and say the first thing that comes into my head. ‘Five-a-day. Absolutely. Wouldn’t touch cake with a bargepole.’

There’s a flicker of approval in Olivia’s eyes – then she lights on my open notebook. ‘What’s this?’ Picking it up, she reads aloud from my list. ‘Sultana scones with raspberry jam and whipped cream (extra thick).’ She gazes at me in mild alarm then goes back to the list, reading each item in a tone of increasing disbelief. ‘Traditional butter cake, layered with white icing and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. Buttery cherry and coconut cake. Gooey double chocolate fudge cake with a topping of milk chocolate ganache, decorated with chocolate buttons.’ She looks as if she’s about to faint.

Theo is trying not to grin but failing miserably. I wish this Olivia person would just bugger off. I’m feeling about three inches tall and very guilty, which is ridiculous. It’s a café menu, for goodness’ sake. Not what I’m planning to have for my dinner later.

‘Right, well, each to his own, I suppose.’ She drops the notebook as if it’s contaminated and stands up, brushing imaginary fluff from her impossibly neat rear end. ‘Personally, I always carry an emergency salad,’ she confides, reaching into her handbag with a satisfied smile. She draws out a small Tupperware box and snaps it open. ‘Celery anyone?’

It seems only polite to take some. ‘Nice.’ I nod, crunching my bite-sized stick. Actually, I’m not joking. It tastes deliciously fresh.

‘Organic,’ she says, offering the box to Theo, who declines with a polite smile.

As she leaves, she glances over her shoulder (obviously not at me) and purrs, ‘Do phone if you’ve any questions about the 10k. My number’s on the back of the leaflet.’