Each time she let herself into the place she was filled with happiness, for the main front door opened straight into the heart of the house. Everything was open plan, with the kitchen and its arched windows to the left, the sitting room and its matching spectacular windows to the right, and doors leading from each end to the east and west wings. Her craft room, bedroom, and bathroom were on the far side of the kitchen, her mother’s study and en suite bedroom was off the sitting room, and Jasmine’s domain was in the tower.

The densely brambled chaos that stretched between the house and the moor was going to become her mother’s project, and Marcy was already talking to a landscaper about which trees, shrubs, and beds could be saved and restored.

What Claudia loved most of all about being there, however, was how welcome and safe the house made her feel. It wasn’t only the solidity of the centuries-old walls, or the shelter of the roof, it was the quiet and soulful character of the place, the intangible yet present sense of it taking care of her, the way she was taking care of it.

It already felt like an old and trusted friend, she told Marcy. “Do you feel it too?” she’d asked that morning when they’d brought more paint samples and cleaning equipment. At the time they’d been standing side by side just inside the front door gazing into the half-finished sitting room and partly installed kitchen and out through the set of double French windows at the rear to a dilapidated terrace and wilderness beyond.

“Yes, I do,” Marcy replied earnestly. “I never imagined I’d feel like this about anywhere again, but it’s very special, and what you’re doing with it seems to honor it in ways I’d never have dreamt of myself.”

Loving the answer, Claudia rested her head on her mother’s shoulder.

“We’ve met some wonderful people here,” Marcy commented softly, “and now you’re creating this beautiful home. I can see us doing quite a bit of entertaining, can’t you?”

Yes, Claudia could, in fact she was already planning a housewarming and a special dinner to say thank you to Andee for all she’d done to make this happen. She wouldn’t admit it to Andee, but more than anything else this house, and her growing business, had helped her to stop obsessing about Marcus, imagining him in his prison cell, furious, vengeful, plotting how to find her. It was always there, lurking beneath the reality of her new existence, his voice finding her in moments of insecurity, his threats combining with the dread of his sister, or someone else, suddenly turning up on her doorstep. However, she was finding it easier to move past the fear now, to clear her thoughts of the darkness that emanated from all memories of him.