Authors: Susan Lewis
“Honest to God, hand on my heart, this isn’t a joke,” Gina assured her. “OK, I know you weren’t thinking of moving out of London, but you’d get so much more for your money if you did, and it’s not an impossible commute for Matt. Plus, you’d be
our neighbors
. That surely has to seal it.”
It was definitely a bonus.
Justine’s eyes went to Matt, who was clearly finding it as hard as she was to take this in.
“You said yourself, when we sneaked a look round it last month,” Gina continued, “that it was your dream place, or would be when the renovation was complete. Well, it’s kind of done now, and I can tell you, you’re going to more than love it. It’s straight out of
Grand Designs
, but homier, more livable. The way you thought it should be.”
“But what happened?” Justine wanted to know, glancing at Matt again and wondering if he was starting to feel the same flutters of excitement that she was. But it was hopeless; this place was so way out of their league that she had to wonder what sort of income Simon and Gina thought they were on to imagine they could afford it. “I thought the owners were fixing it up for themselves,” she said to Gina.
“That was the plan, but apparently the wife’s mother is sick, so they’ve decided to move close to her, which is somewhere up north—Carlyle, I think.”
Justine could hardly believe that a couple would put so much effort into creating a dream home, only to abandon it the minute it was ready.
“It’s a fabulous place,” Matt declared, responding to Abby’s outstretched arms and settling her on his hip, “but we have to get real here. We’d never be able to afford it.”
Justine only wished she could disagree.
“I know, let’s jump in the cars and go take another look,” Gina suggested rashly. “We can stay at our place tonight instead of camping out here, and if you end up deciding to go for it…Well, I’m sure something can be worked out.”
So that was what they did, and a little more than two hours later they were driving in separate cars through the quaintly crooked village of Chippingly Moor, passing its two old-fashioned pubs either side of the high street, the post office–cum–mini mart, Susie the hairdresser’s, and three different types of gift shops. Farther on were a couple of fashion boutiques, a florist, two charity shops, a butcher, a baker, and even an actual candlestick maker, who supplied many of the nation’s major department stores.
Turning off right between an insurance agency and Ruby’s flower shop, they descended sharply around a bend. Passing a kitchen showroom and a dozen or more old stone cottages either side of the street, they wound on round another bend and arrived at the humpback bridge that unofficially marked the start of Chippingly Vale. To the left of the bridge, after Brook Cottage, was the entrance to the walled-in park; to the right was a narrow road that snaked randomly around more cottages before branching off up the hill to where Simon and Gina’s small Victorian villa enjoyed views of the vale.
Straight ahead, at the top of a steep, grassy bank, was the magnificent farmhouse—the dream home—that Justine would kill to own…
Present Day—Culver, Indiana
In spite of the sun, Justine shivered as her mind drew a veil over the past and gently reconnected her with her surroundings. The lake was quiet, so quiet she might have been the only person around. The roaring speedboats and Jet Skis that had chopped up the waters all summer were under awnings now; no fishermen were throwing lines, at least not today; there was barely even the sound of a passing car behind her making its way along Lakeshore Drive.
In the next bay of the lake, hidden from where she was standing, were the imposing Culver Academies, which formed what was arguably one of the nation’s most exclusive boarding schools for boys and girls. She’d learned the other day that the Equestrian Center often provided the sleek black horses and straight-backed riders for presidential inaugurations. It was hard not to be impressed by that, and by the dazzling number of billionaire alumni the place could boast.
There was nothing like this in the world she’d left behind.
Though the Academies wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, affect her life in any way, she often saw the students, smart in their uniforms, easy in their freedoms, milling about downtown, lunching at Café Max, shopping in one of the Main Street boutiques, or heading over to the elementary school to help run the after-hours boys and girls club.
Thinking of children brought her heart to an abrupt halt.
Where was Tallulah?
She glanced around in panic until she remembered that her almost four-year-old daughter wasn’t with her today. Leaving her at day care for the first time since arriving in Culver had been a terrible wrench, so bad that Justine had felt the trauma of separation like a physical tearing inside. Only she had felt it. Lula was sunny and brave, chatty, bursting with the excitement of meeting new friends.
“She’s going to settle in very well,” Felicity Rodnam, director of the Child Care Ministry, had assured her, taking Lula’s hand and smiling playfully into her eager eyes. Justine had melted at the look Lula had given in response. How could anyone not adore her beautiful, impish, enthusiastic little angel of a child, with her fluffy tangle of strawberry-blond curls and pixie face?
Every mother thought her child was irresistible, she understood that, but not every mother had so many complex and conflicting emotions threatening to undermine the love of that child.
Tallulah wasn’t to blame.
Justine knew that in her heart and in her head, but still the thought, the horror, rose up like a demon in unguarded moments to wreck the inner peace she was trying so hard for—the peace that she must attain or she would surely lose her mind.
How could she wish the most precious little person in her life had never been born? Even if she hadn’t, would it really have made a difference?
Inhaling the clear, fresh air, she allowed her gaze to drift to the buoys farther out in the bay, there to warn swimmers to go no farther. She and Lula had swum a lot this past month, not only here at the beach, but at the south shore of the lake, closer to their home.
Enjoying the spectacle of a heron coming to land on the jetty nearby, she waited for it to fly on, deciding she would leave when it did. It seemed to be in no hurry, but neither was she. She was telling herself, gently, that she had no need to feel fear, apprehension, longing, or shame. She could lose herself in the tranquility of this vast, shimmering lake, in the promise of escape, the chance of shedding her old self like a second skin and becoming somebody else.
It was starting to happen.
A new name. A new beginning.
All the same, memories of her previous life kept rolling across the miles, as though to gather her up and return her to that fateful day when she and Matt had made the impulsive drive to Chippingly Vale.
Eighteen Years Earlier—Chippingly Vale
“I’m almost afraid to go in,” Justine whispered as she and Matt approached the old farmhouse. “If we do, we might never leave.”
“I know what you mean,” he murmured, his dark eyes tense with purpose as he took in the rambling old place with its freshly restored limestone window frames, rebuilt chimneys, and gleaming red front door. It looked so stately, yet settled and inviting, on the brow of the vale, so full of promise and cheer, that Justine could almost believe it was calling to them.
Because they’d tramped around the grounds the last time they were there, she knew there were potential grassy gardens either side of the house, a cobbled courtyard and three old barns ripe for conversion at the back, plus an overgrown vegetable patch, a fully stocked orchard in much need of attention, and acres of farmland beyond that dipped and flowed, thrust and tumbled into the hazy distance. Who wouldn’t want to bring their children up in such an idyllic West Country setting that wasn’t much more than an hour by train to London, and tucked in behind the thriving village of Chippingly Moor?
By the time they returned to London on Sunday evening Matt was so convinced the place should be theirs that he’d already left a message on the agent’s answerphone saying he wanted to make an offer.
“Keep visualizing,” he told Justine. “Keep seeing us in it and somehow it’ll happen.”
So that was what she’d done throughout the following two weeks, even while giving birth to their son, Ben. It was where she wanted to bring him up, so somehow they had to make the place theirs. Even if it broke the bank now, which it would, it was definitely their forever home, so they simply didn’t care how hard they might have to struggle for the first few years. Why should they when everything about the house felt right. In the spacious kitchen the original flagstone flooring had been restored and replaced, and a shiny black Aga had been tucked snugly into a niche next to the fireplace. There was a vast center island with a salad sink, extra storage, and built-in wine racks, and still plenty of room for a dining table and even a sofa. At the far end of the ground floor was the perfect study-cum-library for Matt, with walls already full of shelving, a small cast-iron hearth in a corner, and a view from the double French doors down over the steep grassy bank in front of the house to the park at the heart of the vale. At the other end was an ideal space for a children’s playroom that opened onto a side yard that they could easily lay to lawn and cover with trampolines, slides, swings, and seesaws. A large sitting room with arched sash windows at the front and back and a huge inglenook fireplace was between the kitchen and study, while a massive oak staircase rose from the entrance hall to a bedroom each for the children, two more for guests, and a master suite for Justine and Matt that was so spacious and luxurious she hardly knew how she was going to fill it.
They soon learned from the agent that their first offer had been refused. So was the second. Then someone put in a bid that Justine and Matt had no hope of matching.
Their dream was being crushed by a stranger.
Could they really let that happen?
There had to be a way. The house simply had to be theirs, no matter what…
Present Day—Culver, Indiana
Justine’s heart fluttered as the sound of a speedboat starting up farther along the shore brought her back to the lake. Nevertheless, it still took a moment for her to fully remember where she was—and why.
They used to come to Culver for summer vacations as children, she and her younger brother Rob. They’d lived close to New Hope, Pennsylvania, then. Their busy parents, Camilla and Tom, used to hand them over to Camilla’s mother, Grandma May, each June to make the long drive across country to the summer house on Lake Maxinkuckee—or Lake Max, as it was more generally known. Neither Justine nor Rob had any clear memories now of the times they’d spent here; they’d stopped coming around the time Justine was six, Rob four. Their father’s job had taken the family to London, and as far as either Justine or Rob could remember, Grandma May had never come to visit them there, nor had they ever returned to Lake Max.
Justine wished she could remember her grandma. She felt sure there had been a special bond between them—why else would Lake Max have presented itself so clearly when she’d realized she had to leave England and start again somewhere else, to become somebody else? It had felt as though her grandma was calling to her, telling her she’d be safe here; that she wouldn’t have to worry about anything ever again.
Grandma May had passed on some thirty years ago, when Justine was around twelve, but that didn’t mean Justine couldn’t feel her spirit lingering today, watching from somewhere close by, understanding her and caring. Imagined or not, it helped her to feel less alone. She wished she could picture the old lady in her mind’s eye, or hear distant echoes of her voice, but she couldn’t. She was sure there used to be photographs of her around their London home, but she had no idea where they were now. Presumably with her mother, Camilla, at Camilla’s elegant town house in Chelsea, or perhaps at her country pile in Hampshire, though they weren’t on display in either of those places. Camilla never talked about her mother. Then again, Camilla rarely talked about anything other than gardening, her passion and claim to fame.
“Oh, hell, Justine, I don’t know where those pictures are now,” she’d sighed when Justine had asked for them a few months ago. “Why are you even interested?”
“Because I’ve decided to go and live by the lake.”
Her mother’s eyes had widened at that, not so much with surprise as something that had seemed like alarm. “You surely don’t mean Lake Maxinkuckee?” she’d protested.
“Yes, that’s where I mean.”
Camilla’s stare hardened. “I understand your reasons for leaving,” she’d finally managed, “but why on earth would you go to a place you don’t even know?”
“Isn’t that the point? To go where no one knows me?” Justine said, repeating what she’d said to Matt when she’d told him of her decision.
“But why
there
?”
“Give me one good reason why not there.”
Camilla’s fleshy cheeks flushed with confusion. “Because there’s nothing there for you,” she cried. “It’s all gone, years ago, and no good will ever come out of running back to a place you can’t even remember.”
“I’m not expecting a home to be waiting for me. I realize I’ll have to rent a place at first.”
“You’ve got the whole world to choose from…”
“And I’ve made my choice. Exactly why is it a problem, Mother?”
Camilla drew back, as though offended.
Justine waited, her eyes holding the challenge.
Camilla turned away. “I’ve already agreed that you need a fresh start,” she said, “and I’ll support you in any way I can, but please, do yourself a favor and forget about Lake Max.”
Had her father still been alive, Justine would have sought his advice—or his opinion, anyway—but he’d died suddenly when she was in her late teens. By then her parents had been divorced for at least seven years. Justine and Rob had always remained close to their father, even after he’d moved to Seville with his new Spanish wife.