Cover

Praise

Praise for the novels of Sarah Morgan

“Packed full of love, loss, heartbreak, and hope, this may just be Morgan’s best book yet.”

—Booklist on One Summer in Paris

“Fans of Karen White and Susan Wiggs will savor Morgan’s pairing of a second-chance romance with an intense family drama.”

—Booklist, starred review, on How to Keep a Secret

“Morgan expertly avoids cliché and easy fixes, resulting in a deeply believable portrait of a family relearning how to love each other. Readers will be delighted.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on One More for Christmas

“Sarah Morgan’s writing always hits me right in the feels.”

—Harlequin Junkie on Family for Beginners

“Morgan’s gently humorous aesthetic will leave readers feeling optimistic and satisfied.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Wedding in December

“The perfect gift for readers who relish heartwarming tales of sisters and love.”

—Booklist on The Christmas Sisters

“The Scottish Highland setting adds special moments in this tender family drama.”

—Library Journal on The Christmas Sisters

“Her lovingly created characters come to life, the dialog rings true, and readers will fly through the pages and then wish for more.”

—Library Journal, starred review, on How to Keep a Secret

About the Author

Sarah Morgan is a USA TODAY and Sunday Times bestselling author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She has sold more than eighteen million copies of her books and her trademark humor and warmth have gained her fans across the globe. Sarah lives with her family near London, England, where the rain frequently keeps her trapped in her office. Visit her at www.sarahmorgan.com.

Booklist

Also by Sarah Morgan

One More for Christmas
Family for Beginners
A Wedding in December
One Summer in Paris
The Christmas Sisters
How to Keep a Secret

From Manhattan with Love

Moonlight Over Manhattan
Holiday in the Hamptons
New York, Actually
Miracle on 5th Avenue
Sunset in Central Park
Sleepless in Manhattan

Puffin Island

One Enchanted Moment
Some Kind of Wonderful
First Time in Forever

The O’Neil Brothers

Suddenly Last Summer
Maybe This Christmas
Sleigh Bells in the Snow

Look for Sarah Morgan’s next novel
The Christmas Escape
available soon from HQN.

Dedication

For Susan Ginsburg, the best of the best, with thanks for the support, guidance and friendship

Epigraph

it’s never too late for adventure.

1

KATHLEEN

It was the cup of milk that saved her. That and the salty bacon she’d fried for her supper many hours earlier, which had left her mouth dry.

If she hadn’t been thirsty—if she’d still been upstairs, sleeping on the ridiculously expensive mattress that had been her eightieth birthday gift to herself—she wouldn’t have been alerted to danger.

As it was, she’d been standing in front of the fridge, the milk carton in one hand and the cup in the other, when she’d heard a loud thump. The noise was out of place here in the leafy darkness of the English countryside, where the only sounds should have been the hoot of an owl and the occasional bleat of a sheep.

She put the glass down and turned her head, trying to locate the sound. The back door. Had she forgotten to lock it again?

The moon sent a ghostly gleam across the kitchen and she was grateful she hadn’t felt the need to turn the light on. That gave her some advantage, surely?

She put the milk back and closed the fridge door quietly, sure now that she was not alone in the house.

Moments earlier she’d been asleep. Not deeply asleep—that rarely happened these days—but drifting along on a tide of dreams. If someone had told her younger self that she’d still be dreaming and enjoying her adventures when she was eighty she would have been less afraid of aging. And it was impossible to forget that she was aging.

People said she was wonderful for her age, but most of the time she didn’t feel wonderful. The answers to her beloved crosswords floated just out of range. Names and faces refused to align at the right moment. She struggled to remember what she’d done the day before, although if she took herself back twenty years or more her mind was clear. And then there were the physical changes—her eyesight and hearing were still good, thankfully, but her joints hurt and her bones ached. Bending to feed the cat was a challenge. Climbing the stairs required more effort than she would have liked and was always undertaken with one hand on the rail just in case.

She’d never been the sort to live in a just in case sort of way.

Her daughter, Liza, wanted her to wear an alarm. One of those medical alert systems, with a button you could press in an emergency, but Kathleen refused. In her youth she’d traveled the world, before it was remotely fashionable to do so. She’d sacrificed safety for adventure without a second thought. Most days now she felt like a different person.

Losing friends didn’t help. One by one they fell by the wayside, taking with them shared memories of the past. A small part of her vanished with each loss. It had taken decades for her to understand that loneliness wasn’t a lack of people in your life, but a lack of people who knew and understood you.

She fought fiercely to retain some version of her old self—which was why she’d resisted Liza’s pleas that she remove the rug from the living room floor, stop using a step ladder to retrieve books from the highest shelves and leave a light on at night. Each compromise was another layer shaved from her independence, and losing her independence was her biggest fear.

Kathleen had always been the rebel in the family, and she was still the rebel—although she wasn’t sure that rebels were supposed to have shaking hands and a pounding heart.

She heard the sound of heavy footsteps. Someone was searching the house. For what, exactly? What treasures did they hope to find? And why weren’t they trying to at least disguise their presence?

Having resolutely ignored all suggestions that she might be vulnerable, she was now forced to acknowledge the possibility. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so stubborn. How long would it have taken from pressing the alert button to the cavalry arriving?

In reality, the cavalry was Finn Cool, who lived three fields away. Finn was a musician, and he’d bought the property precisely because there were no immediate neighbors. His antics caused mutterings in the village. He had rowdy parties late into the night, attended by glamorous people from London who terrorized the locals by driving their flashy sports cars too fast down the narrow lanes. Someone had started a petition in the post office to ban the parties. There had been talk of drugs, and half-naked women, and it had all sounded like so much fun that Kathleen had been tempted to invite herself over. Rather that than a dull women’s group, where you were expected to bake and knit and swap recipes for banana bread.

Finn would be of no use to her in this moment of crisis. In all probability he’d either be in his studio, wearing headphones, or he’d be drunk. Either way, he wasn’t going to hear a cry for help.

Calling the police would mean walking through the kitchen and across the hall to the living room, where the phone was kept and she didn’t want to reveal her presence. Her family had bought her a mobile phone, but it was still in its box, unused. Her adventurous spirit didn’t extend to technology. She didn’t like the idea of a nameless faceless person tracking her every move.

There was another thump, louder this time, and Kathleen pressed her hand to her chest. She could feel the rapid pounding of her heart. At least it was still working. She should probably be grateful for that.

When she’d complained about wanting a little more adventure, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. What could she do? She had no button to press, no phone with which to call for help, so she was going to have to handle this herself.

She could already hear Liza’s voice in her head: Mum, I warned you!

If she survived, she’d never hear the last of it.

Fear was replaced by anger. Because of this intruder she’d be branded Old and Vulnerable and forced to spend the rest of her days in a single room with minders who would cut up her food, speak in overly loud voices and help her to the bathroom. Life as she knew it would be over.

That was not going to happen.

She’d rather die at the hands of an intruder. At least her obituary would be interesting.

Better still, she would stay alive and prove herself capable of independent living.

She glanced quickly around the kitchen for a suitable weapon and spied the heavy black skillet she’d used to fry the bacon earlier.

She lifted it silently, gripping the handle tightly as she walked to the door that led from the kitchen to the hall. The tiles were cool under her feet—which, fortunately, were bare. No sound. Nothing to give her away. She had the advantage.

She could do this. Hadn’t she once fought off a mugger in the backstreets of Paris? True, she’d been a great deal younger then, but this time she had the advantage of surprise.

How many of them were there?

More than one would give her trouble.

Was it a professional job? Surely no professional would be this loud and clumsy. If it was kids hoping to steal her TV, they were in for a disappointment. Her grandchildren had been trying to persuade her to buy a “smart” TV, but why would she need such a thing? She was perfectly happy with the IQ of her current machine, thank you very much. Technology already made her feel foolish most of the time. She didn’t need it to be any smarter than it already was.

Perhaps they wouldn’t come into the kitchen. She could stay hidden away until they’d taken what they wanted and left.

They’d never know she was here.

They’d—

A floorboard squeaked close by. There wasn’t a crack or a creak in this house that she didn’t know. Someone was right outside the door.

Her knees turned liquid.

Oh Kathleen, Kathleen.

She closed both hands tightly round the handle of the skillet.

Why hadn’t she gone to self-defense classes instead of senior yoga? What use was the downward dog when what you needed was a guard dog?

A shadow moved into the room, and without allowing herself to think about what she was about to do she lifted the skillet and brought it down hard, the force of the blow driven by the weight of the object as much as her own strength. There was a thud and a vibration as it connected with his head.

“I’m so sorry—I mean—” Why was she apologizing? Ridiculous!

The man threw up an arm as he fell, a reflex action, and the movement sent the skillet back into Kathleen’s own head. Pain almost blinded her and she prepared herself to end her days right here, thus giving her daughter the opportunity to be right, when there was a loud thump and the man crumpled to the floor. There was a crack as his head hit the tiles.

Kathleen froze. Was that it, or was he suddenly going to spring to his feet and murder her?

No. Against all odds, she was still standing while her prowler lay inert at her feet. The smell of alcohol rose, and Kathleen wrinkled her nose.

Drunk.

Her heart was racing so fast she was worried that any moment now it might trip over itself and give up.

She held tightly to the skillet.

Did he have an accomplice?

She held her breath, braced for someone else to come racing through the door to investigate the noise, but there was only silence.

Gingerly she stepped toward the door and poked her head into the hall. It was empty.

It seemed the man had been alone.

Finally she risked a look at him.

He was lying still at her feet, big, bulky and dressed all in black. The mud on the edges of his trousers suggested he’d come across the fields at the back of the house. She couldn’t make out his features because he’d landed face-first, but blood oozed from a wound on his head and darkened her kitchen floor.

Feeling a little dizzy, Kathleen pressed her hand to her throbbing head.

What now? Was one supposed to administer first aid when one was the cause of the injury? Was that helpful or hypocritical? Or was he past first aid and every other type of aid?

She nudged his body with her bare foot, but there was no movement.

Had she killed him?

The enormity of it shook her.

If he was dead, then she was a murderer.

When Liza had expressed a desire to see her mother safely housed somewhere she could easily visit, presumably she hadn’t been thinking of prison.

Who was he? Did he have family? What had been his intention when he’d forcibly entered her home?

Kathleen put the skillet down and forced her shaky limbs to carry her to the living room. Something tickled her cheek. Blood. Hers.

She picked up the phone and for the first time in her life dialed the emergency services.

Underneath the panic and the shock there was something that felt a lot like pride. It was a relief to discover she wasn’t as weak and defenseless as everyone seemed to think.

When a woman answered, Kathleen spoke clearly and without hesitation.

“There’s a body in my kitchen,” she said. “I assume you’ll want to come and remove it.”

2

LIZA

“I told you! Didn’t I tell you? I knew this was going to happen.”

Liza slung her bag into the back of the car and slid into the driver’s seat. Her stomach churned. She’d missed lunch, too busy to eat. The school where she taught was approaching summer exam season and she’d been halfway through helping two students complete their art coursework when a nurse had called her from the hospital.

It was the call she’d dreaded.

She’d found someone to cover the rest of her classes and driven the short distance home with a racing heart and clammy hands. Her mother had been attacked in the early hours of the morning, and she was only hearing about it now? She was part frantic, part furious.

Her mother was so cavalier. According to the police she’d left the back door open. It wouldn’t have surprised Liza to learn she’d invited the man in and made him tea.

Knock me over the head, why don’t you?

Sean leaned in through the window. He’d come straight from a meeting and was wearing a blue shirt the same color as his eyes. “Is there time for me to change?”

“I packed a bag for you.”

“Thanks.” He undid another button. “Why don’t you let me drive?”

“I’ve got this.” Tension rose up inside her and mingled with the worry about her mother. “I’m anxious, that’s all. And frustrated. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told her the house is too big, too isolated, that she should move into some sort of sheltered accommodation or residential care. But did she listen?”

Sean threw his jacket onto the back seat. “She’s independent. That’s a good thing, Liza.”

Was it? When did independence morph into irresponsibility?

“She left the back door open.”

“For the cat?”

“Who knows. I should have tried harder to persuade her to move.”

The truth was, she hadn’t really wanted her mother to move. Oakwood Cottage had played a central part in her life. The house was gorgeous, surrounded by acres of fields and farmland that stretched down to the sea. In the spring you could hear the bleating of new lambs, and in the summer the air was filled with blossom, birdsong and the faint sounds of the ocean.

It was hard to imagine her mother living anywhere else, even though the house was too large for one person and thoroughly impractical—particularly for someone who tended to believe that a leaking roof was a delightful feature of owning an older property and not something that needed fixing.

“You are not responsible for everything that happens to people, Liza.”

“I love her, Sean!”

“I know.” Sean settled himself in the passenger seat as if he had all the time in the world. Liza, who raced through life as if she was being chased by the police for a serious crime, found his relaxed demeanor and unshakeable calm occasionally maddening.

She thought about the magazine article folded into the bottom of her bag. “Eight Signs That Your Marriage Might Be in Trouble.”

She’d been flicking through the magazine in the dentist’s waiting room the week before and that feature had jumped out at her. She’d started to read it, searching for reassurance.

It wasn’t as if she and Sean argued. There was nothing specifically wrong. Just a vague discomfort inside her that reminded her constantly that the settled life she valued so much might not be as settled as she thought. That just as a million tiny things could pull a couple together, so a million tiny things could nudge them apart.

She’d read through the article, feeling sicker and sicker. By the time she’d reached the sixth sign she’d been so freaked out that she’d torn the pages from the magazine, coughing violently to cover the sound. It wasn’t done to steal magazines from waiting rooms.

And now those torn pages lay in her bag, a constant reminder that she was ignoring something deep and important. She knew it needed to be addressed, but she was afraid to touch the fabric of her marriage in case the whole thing fell apart—like her mother’s house.

Sean fastened his seat belt. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

She felt a moment of panic, and then realized he was talking about her mother. What sort of person was she that she could forget her injured mother so easily?

A person who was worried about her marriage.

“I should have tried harder to make her see sense,” she said.

They would have to sell the house—there was no doubt about that. Liza hoped it could wait until later in the summer. It was only a few weeks until school ended, and then the girls had various commitments until they all went on their annual family holiday to the South of France.

France.

A wave of calm flowed over her.

France would give her the time to take a closer look at her marriage. They’d both be relaxed, and away from the endless demands of daily life. She and Sean would be able to spend some time together that didn’t involve handling issues and problems. Until then, she was going to give herself permission to forget about the whole thing and focus on the immediate problem.

Her mother.

Oakwood Cottage.

Sadness ripped through her. Ridiculous though it was, the place still felt like home. She’d clung to that last remaining piece of her childhood, unable to imagine a time when she would no longer sit in the garden or stroll across the fields to the sea.

“Dad made me promise not to put her in a home,” she said.

“Which was unfair. No one can make promises about a future they can’t foresee. And you’re not ‘putting’ her anywhere.” Sean was ever reasonable. “She’s a human being—not a garden gnome. Also, there are plenty of good residential homes.”

“I know. I have a folder bulging with glossy brochures in the back seat of the car. They make them look so good I want to check in myself. Unfortunately, I doubt my mother will feel the same way.”

Sean was scrolling through emails on his phone. “In the end it’s her choice. It has nothing to do with us.”

“It has a lot to do with us. It’s not practical to go there every weekend, and even if they weren’t in the middle of exams the twins wouldn’t come with us without complaining. It’s in the middle of nowhere, Mum.”

“Which is why we’re leaving them this weekend.”

“And that terrifies me too. What if they have a party or something?”

“Why must you always imagine the worst? Treat them like responsible humans and they’ll behave like responsible humans.”

Was it really that simple? Or was Sean’s confidence based on misplaced optimism?

“I don’t like the friends Caitlin is mixing with right now. They’re not interested in studying and they spend their weekends hanging out in the shopping mall.”

He didn’t look up. “Isn’t that normal for teenage girls?”

“She’s changed since she met Jane. She answers back and she used to be so good-natured.”

“Hormones. She’ll grow out of it.”

Sean’s parenting style was “hands off”. He thought of it as being relaxed. Liza considered it abdication.

When the twins were little they’d played with each other. Then they’d started school and invited friends round to play. Liza had found them delightful. That had all changed when they’d moved to senior school and Alice and Caitlin had made friends with a different group of girls. They were a year older. Most of them were already driving and also, Liza was sure, drinking.

The fact that she might not like her daughters’ friends was a problem that hadn’t occurred to her until the past year.

She forced her attention back to the problem of her mother. “If you could fix the roof in the garden room this weekend, that would be great. We should have spent more time maintaining the place. I feel guilty that I haven’t done enough.”

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