And it turned out that not only had he left Milly but he’d forced her to sell her home. Nicole knew how much Milly had loved that cottage, and not for the first time in her life she felt a surge of fury toward Richard. She already had plenty of reasons to be angry with him, and now she had another one.

She hadn’t intended to ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “You couldn’t have found a way to keep the cottage?”

“No. I couldn’t afford it by myself, and we needed somewhere to live.”

Guilt niggled. If she’d known, she would have given Milly the money. She would have found a way to make sure she could stay in her home. But it was too late for regrets.

It was too late for a lot of things. Her therapist had told her to remember that the past was gone, and that the future was ahead, and what she really needed to focus on was the present. Unfortunately, she’d had no advice on what to do if your present was crap and you didn’t want to focus on that either.

“So where are you living now?”

Milly adjusted her grip on the wheel. “Remember the old boathouse? Our den?”

Their den. Scraped knees. Hide-and-seek. A buried time capsule. Childish promises.

Happy times.

“Of course. I also remember having to rush to the emergency department because you stood on a rotten plank and fell through the floor. So much blood.” She remembered it as if it had happened yesterday. “Are you about to tell me you’re living there?”

“Zoe and I moved in three months ago.”

“I assume you swept the floor and did something about the spiders?” She was relieved to see Milly smile. It gave her hope that something might still be salvaged from the wreck of their friendship.

“We tried to make it a bit more comfortable, yes.”

Nicole stared into the darkness, absorbing the changes in her friend’s life. “So now you live by the lake. You always loved the place.”

“I still do.”

“Is it hard living where you work? Do people bother you?”

“No. We have a good team of staff. And the boathouse is a little way away from the rest of the cabins, so that helps. If guests have a problem, they contact the team at Reception. I don’t advertise that this is my home.”

Milly drove over the cattle grid and into a densely forested area that Nicole remembered well from their childhood. A carved wooden sign stood at the side of the narrow road.

Forest Nest.