PRAISE FOR AMANDA PROWSE

‘Amanda Prowse is the queen of family drama’

Daily Mail

‘A deeply emotional, unputdownable read’

Red

‘Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure’

The Lady

‘Amanda Prowse is the queen of heartbreak fiction’

The Mail online

‘Captivating, heartbreaking and superbly written’

Closer

‘Uplifting and positive but you may still need a box of tissues’

Cosmopolitan

‘You’ll fall in love with this’

Cosmopolitan

‘Powerful and emotional drama that packs a real punch’

Heat

‘Warmly accessible but subtle . . . moving and inspiring’

Daily Mail

‘Magical’

Now

ALSO BY AMANDA PROWSE

Novels

Poppy Day

What Have I Done?

Clover’s Child

A Little Love

Will You Remember Me?

Christmas for One

A Mother’s Story

Perfect Daughter

The Second Chance Café

Three and a Half Heartbeats

Another Love

My Husband’s Wife

I Won’t Be Home for Christmas

The Food of Love

The Idea of You

The Art of Hiding

Anna

Theo

How to Fall in Love Again

The Coordinates of Loss

The Girl in the Corner

The Things I Know

The Light in the Hallway

The Day She Came Back

An Ordinary Life

Waiting To Begin

Novellas

The Game

Something Quite Beautiful

A Christmas Wish

Ten Pound Ticket

Imogen’s Baby

Miss Potterton’s Birthday Tea

Mr Portobello’s Morning Paper

Memoir

The Boy Between: A Mother and Son’s Journey From a World Gone Grey (with Josiah Hartley)

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT PAGE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2022 by Lionhead Media Ltd

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781542024785

ISBN-10: 1542024781

Cover design by Ghost Design

CONTENTS

CONTENTS

START READING

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE MERRIN

CHAPTER TWO MERRIN

CHAPTER THREE JARVIS

CHAPTER FOUR MERRIN

CHAPTER FIVE JARVIS

CHAPTER SIX MERRIN

CHAPTER SEVEN MERRIN

CHAPTER EIGHT BEN

CHAPTER NINE MERRIN

CHAPTER TEN MERRIN

CHAPTER ELEVEN JARVIS

CHAPTER TWELVE MERRIN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN MERRIN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN MIGUEL

CHAPTER FIFTEEN MERRIN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN MIGUEL

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN MERRIN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN MIGUEL

CHAPTER NINETEEN MERRIN

CHAPTER TWENTY DIGBY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE MERRIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO MERRIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE MERRIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR JARVIS

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE MERRIN

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX MERRIN

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

START READING

‘I would not wish any companion in the world but you . . .’

William Shakespeare

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

It was an unseasonably warm May night. Still in the cut-offs and t-shirt she had worn all day, nineteen-year-old Merrin ran up the coastal path that led to Reunion Point, a spit of land around the headland where waves crashed below and gulls nested on the steep cliff face. She inhaled the salt-tinged breeze of this little corner of the wild Cornish coast with its caves and rocky shorelines, before coming to a sudden halt.

The sight of him was enough to do that to her: stop her in her tracks. His broad back hunched inside a navy linen shirt and his freckled arms drawn around his knees. He sat on the cliff edge looking out across the water, flanked by gnarled trees and tumbled-down, rough-hewn rocks, rounded pebbles, bottle-green seaweed and scattered shells. The sun, still fierce at dusk, had for the last fortnight lifted its beautiful golden head to warm the bones of the folk who lived here along the higgledy-piggledy harbourside precariously perched on the rocks, and in the fishing village of Port Charles, where the pub, shop, primary school and church sat facing the sea, sitting firm and proud in the same spots for over two hundred years, give or take a few inches.

Slipping off her trainers, Merrin let them dangle from her fingers as she took a moment, pushing her toes into the spongy grass beneath her feet.

‘Hey, you,’ he whispered softly, as she dropped by his side and crossed her legs. The flat of her foot lay comfortingly against his thigh. He took her hand and laced his fingers with hers, and there they sat, letting their breath assume a similar satisfied rhythm and quietly staring out over the wild water, where the broad sails of boats littered the horizon.

‘That’s better.’ He raised her hand and kissed it. It didn’t matter what the day held for her; knowing this moment of reunion was only ever hours away made anything bearable. Even a day of hard work at her cleaning job.

‘I only saw you this morning.’ She leant in with her cheek now resting on his shoulder. He turned so his chin lay on the top of her head. So many perfect ways they fitted together.

‘I know. It’s ridiculous.’ He kissed her scalp. ‘I want to see you every minute of every day. And when I’m not with you, I’m thinking about you.’

‘Really?’ She wrinkled her nose, shamelessly fishing for compliments. ‘Don’t you worry I’ll drive you mad?’

‘“Love is . . . a madness most discreet.” William Shakespeare said that.’

‘Did he?’ She laughed. ‘I’ll have to take your word for it.’

‘So it’s a lost cause, I’m afraid, and far too late to worry about.’

It was not something her family did around the kitchen table: talk about Shakespeare. But that was what he did: he turned her into a different person, a better person. That was the thing about Digby: at twenty-two, he wasn’t only handsome – beautiful in fact, with short, dark-red hair, long eyelashes, perfect teeth and wide, cat-like eyes – but he was also smart. Not country-smart, like the boys she knew, but book-smart, and able to quote Thomas Hardy and Shakespeare. For a girl like her, who had hated every second of school, feeling the confinement of the classroom like a weight and preferring to run and jump in and out of rock pools rather than sit with a book in her hand, his learning was impressive. Sometimes, as she stared at his face, she couldn’t understand why someone as fabulous as him was interested in someone like her.

They sat in the place where they liked to meet at the end of the day, weather permitting, where the ocean was their television, the clifftop their playground and the cawing gulls the only company they needed. As ever, it felt daring to be on the edge of the grass with the waves smashing against the jagged rocks below, watching the last of the sun sink over the brow of the horizon, covering their world in a fiery glaze.

‘I love you, Merrin.’ He ran his fingers over the inside of her arm.

It might have been the thousandth time he had said it to her, yet still she loved to hear it; his words lit sparks within her as well as offering much-needed reassurance.

‘I love you too.’ The acknowledged truth filled her with tiny firecrackers of joy.

‘I meant what I said: I want to be with you all the time.’ He kissed her and then held her in the way that told her he needed her, his grasp tight, his heartbeat steady and his mouth on the skin of her neck, desperate and seeking.

‘Me too.’

‘I’ve been thinking.’ He paused and pulled away. ‘I don’t know how to say it.’

‘You can say anything to me; you know that.’

‘Okay. I want . . .’ he faltered. ‘I want us to get married.’

Merrin laughed, loudly and without restraint, throwing her thick, tawny hair back over her shoulder and giggling until she ran out of breath.

‘You are joking?’

The question leapt from her mouth, his statement catching her completely unawares. Not that she hadn’t lain awake in the wee small hours imagining what life might be like if she permanently hitched her wagon to his. Without any grand career ambition, she dreamt of being married to her soulmate, keeping a house and raising children. But it had felt like no more than daydreaming, aware as she was of her tender years and the fact that she and Digby led very different lives and were from two very different families. But, oh, what a sweet dream it was! To marry this boy and live happily ever after, just like her devoted parents. But to admit to a level of love so deep that it might pave the way towards marriage felt like the most enormous risk.

‘No, I’m not joking.’

Wriggling free of his grip, she sat up straight, only then noticing the hurt in his eyes. He stared at her with an intensity that was new and searing in its honesty. She realised in that moment that the vulnerability and exposure she felt at being asked must only be magnified if you were the one doing the asking. She ran her palm over the side of his face. To receive a proposal was the most incredible feeling. Intoxicating and an aphrodisiac like no other. Someone wanted to spend the rest of their life with her – and not just someone, but Digby Mortimer, a boy who had been no more than a passing acquaintance until all but twelve months ago! All doubt faded from her mind like early morning mist, eased by the sun’s warming rays.

Her life had barely begun, but the simple truth was that eligible men were a little thin on the ground in a small place like Port Charles. She had always thought she’d have to leave the village to find a partner, then drag him back to her beloved Cornwall. The thought of living anywhere other than her home was not something she was prepared to consider, even if it did mean she ended up on the shelf next to the old tea kettle, the family Bible and an old black-and-white photograph of a miserable-looking Granny Ellen and Grandpa Arthur on their wedding day.

‘The truth is, Merrin’ – he sat up and reached for her hand – ‘I’m only happy when I’m with you. Happier than I’ve ever been. I can be myself for the first time ever. It’s like I’ve shaken off a skin. I don’t have to impress you like I do my friends, or pretend everything is hunky-dory when it isn’t. And you don’t give a shit about the stuff my mother bangs on about all the time – money, status, the right thing to do, the right place to be seen, the right clothes to wear.’ He closed his eyes with a sigh, as if even the thought of wearing these masks was exhausting. ‘I’m happier sitting here on a patch of grass with this view than at any other time in my life. Whenever we say goodbye, I count down the minutes until I can be next to you again. You make me happy because you love me no matter what.’

‘I do.’ She crossed her legs and sat forward with her elbows on her knees, her hands inside his. ‘I love you no matter what.’

‘So let’s do it! Why not? Let’s get married!’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Please don’t make me say it again.’ He smiled.

‘One more time would be nice.’ She leant forward and kissed his sweet mouth, feeling a jolt of love deep in her gut for this beautiful man.

‘Merrin, will you marry me? Please.’

‘Oh, my God! Yes! Yes I will! I’d love to marry you, Digby!’ Jumping forward, she lay on top of him, kissing him as he ran his palm over her flat stomach towards her bra so they could celebrate in the only way they knew how.

CHAPTER ONE MERRIN

CHAPTER ONE

MERRIN

Merrin stood outside, barefoot on the uneven cobbles, liking the way they fitted inside the high arch of her instep, anchoring her as she curled her toes around them. No matter the environment, she always felt better without shoes and socks, her feet treading the earth, grass, sea, rocks or shoreline; it seemed to connect her and calm her like nothing else. Especially today and at this early-morning hour when she had woken, climbed from her single bed and trod the narrow wooden stairs, feeling as if a thin cushion of air lay between her and the ground, almost as though she were floating. She was excited mostly, but a little overwhelmed, too. Not that she would show it. It was her knack, keeping herself together when things veered off course – in part because her sister, Ruby, never shied away from high emotion and the chance to display it; her outbursts, mostly unwarranted, were a little draining, no matter how predictable. Merrin’s demeanour provided balance.

‘Grampa Arthur has collapsed; he’s not breathing, Merry! I just seen him in the garden! He’s lying on his front on the path!’

‘Look at me, Rubes! Look at me! Go and fetch Dr Levington and then go and find Dad in the pub and I’ll sit with Gramps. It’s all going to be okay.’

Merrin’s heart had felt like it might explode and yet she had smiled, kept calm and taken control. Not bad for a nine-year-old. It hadn’t all been okay, far from it – Gramps had died – but she knew enough to pretend for as long as she needed to. She missed him still, but it had been a salient lesson that when the shit hit the fan, there might not be anyone else around to take the tiller; sometimes the most responsible person around was you.

She felt a familiar unease at the sight of Lizzie Lick plucking shells from the shoreline and stuffing them into the pockets of her smock, and averted her eyes from the woman most thought of as a weirdo. Merrin glanced back at her surreptitiously with no desire to engage, as Lizzie, who danced to her own tune, mumbled to herself, as per usual.

Breathing long and slow, Merrin closed her eyes briefly, feeling instantly better, calmed. This was the perfect spot with the widest view and she could spend hours here, staring at the waves. Her dad once told her they were the heads of white, foaming horses, cantering up to the break and crashing, before making a sharp turn and petering to nothing on their return. It was now impossible for her to see them in any other way. Looking out over the purple bruise of sky where clouds hung low over the ocean, she offered up a silent prayer.

Please don’t rain! Not on my wedding day . . .

The waves roared against the harbour wall in response. The Kellows lived in one of four solid and compact family cottages on the harbourside, although the end two had been sold off a while since as holiday homes. The hands of Kellow men had built them well over two centuries ago, the stones and rocks gathered from the quarry up the coast, each one hefted down to the harbourside. Her dad and the five generations of Kellows before him made their living fishing. And number one Kellow Cottages was where she’d been born and the only place she had lived.

Digby had listened to her reasoning that even when they were married, there was no question of living anywhere other than Port Charles. To try to carve out a life among the crowded streets and throngs of strangers in a city held no interest for her. This village was her home. The buildings along the shoreline were markers, navigational aids and the pillars around which the cottages had sprung. Homes for fishermen and tin miners alike. Nearly all were small and crooked, whitewashed and pretty. Now, with most of the fishermen and the tin miners long gone, the shutters and doors were painted in ice-cream shades and in the summer, scarlet geraniums, crowded into window boxes, danced in the warm breeze, providing visitors with a photo opportunity at every narrow twist of cobbled street and each glance from the windows of their snaking cars, as they navigated the ever-narrowing lanes. Lanes designed for horses, not cars, and for men on foot with fishing nets, not out-of-towners with heavy suitcases full of finery for which there was no venue suitable and no one who either knew or cared about their value. Yes, this was where she belonged and where they would stay and raise their family.

What was it Digby had said? ‘I’d live anywhere with you – anywhere. Because where you are is home for me.’ Her heart jumped at the thought.

‘Merrin! For the love of God, will you please come in!’ her mum called excitedly from the window of the rectangular room with the sloping ceiling that spanned the depth of the house.

‘I’m coming!’ She let her eyes take one last sweep of the bay before heading inside.

Her mum, Heather, still in her nightclothes, made her way over from the range, which pumped out heat in all weathers, which was why the front and back doors were nearly always open, allowing the odd dog, several neighbourhood cats and sometimes a chicken or two to wander freely from the small backyard into the warm space. The room had its own particular odour, a welcoming combination of woodsmoke, baking and the wheaty tang of animals. The kitchen-cum-parlour was the heart of the house, and whilst by no means spacious, was still the biggest room, where the family gathered to celebrate or commiserate.

‘I’ve put the curling tongs on and I can do your hair while Dad’s in the bathroom, but there’s no time for dawdling. You can’t be late.’

Her mum, it was fair to say, seemed a whole lot more agitated about the day, the timings and the detail than Merrin was herself. Not that she’d say it out loud, but she’d have been just as happy to have eloped, to have stood on a beach or in a register office or even a little plastic chapel with an Elvis lookalike officiating. How they became man and wife didn’t really matter to her, all that mattered was that they be joined in matrimony, in sickness and in health. She loved Digby Mortimer to the point of obsession, fascinated by every aspect of him: the way he looked, the way he sounded, his small unconscious movements, the way he pushed his hair back over his forehead, the flat square of smooth skin at the base of his wrist . . . Just the thought of these jigsaw pieces that made up the whole of him was enough to send a bolt of longing right through to her very core. This feeling was as intoxicating as any liquor.

She reaffirmed her decision to take the day in her stride and not get flustered: confident and unharried in the way that being truly happy had made her. The truth was, no matter the enormous expectation placed on this, her special day, it felt like no more than the final hurdle, and one she and Digby would sail over. After all the calm resistance, questioning, wide-eyed tuts of disapproval and the rationalising of objections raised by both sets of parents –‘You need to live a little first!’ ‘You’re from very different worlds!’ – how hard was it going to be to put on the fanciest frock she had ever worn and waltz up the aisle on the arm of her dad?

‘Don’t you worry. I’ve no intention of being late, Ma.’

She reached for the hot mug of tea nestling on top of the Raeburn. Who it belonged to didn’t matter. Tea, like most things inside the cramped cottage, was communally shared. ‘Lord above! You’re heating all of bloody Cornwall!’ her gran, Ellen Kellow, was fond of yelling every time she nipped in from her home at number two Kellow Cottages next door, tapping on the door frame with her walking stick and hefting the door shut with her ample bottom.

Pulling her towelling dressing gown around her, Merrin gripped the tea in her palm and took her place at the rickety pine table that had also, for as long as she could recall, lived on the rag rug in the middle of the room. The bathroom, from where her dad now whistled, was at the back of the cottage, once ‘outdoors’, now ‘indoors’ by virtue of the lean-to her Grandpa Arthur had put up in the nineteen sixties. The two bedrooms could be found at the top of the steep, wooden stairs.

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