Heading Home to Lavender Cottage, page 1
HEADING HOME TO LAVENDER COTTAGE
ALISON SHERLOCK
To Auntie Margaret. With much love x
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Acknowledgments
More from Alison Sherlock
About the Author
About Boldwood Books
1
According to the proverb, with age comes wisdom. Which left Harriet Colgan wondering why, at the age of thirty, she had forgotten to fill her car with petrol and was now sitting on a dark country lane in a broken-down vehicle.
She knew why she’d forgotten, of course. Having spent most of a frantic day packing up her car with nearly everything she owned, desperate to get to her aunt and uncle’s cottage far away in Cranfield before nightfall, she had pushed on all the way from London without stopping. So, there she was, only two miles from her destination and stranded.
Well, not exactly stranded, she reminded herself. She had sent a text to Libby, one of her best friends who lived in Cranfield, asking her to come out and rescue her. The trouble was that the signal in the middle of the English countryside was decidedly hit and miss, and Libby hadn’t replied yet.
Not to worry, thought Harriet, taking a calming breath. She would, as always, remain optimistic. A positive mental attitude meant everything to her. After all, although she was stuck, she was now able to look out at the beautiful starry March sky through her windscreen. She should be thankful that it was so clear and cold that night, thereby giving her a great view.
Actually, it was very cold, she realised with a shiver. She pulled a nearby sweatshirt over her head before checking her reflection in the mirror. She winced at the silhouette in the darkness. As anticipated, her long red hair was as wild and wavy as ever. No matter how many times she had tried to straighten it, her hair always kinked almost immediately afterwards, so she had given up trying. Although, the state of her hair was really the least of her worries right now.
Hoping for some kind of miracle by way of positive thinking, she turned the key in the ignition once more, but the engine merely gave her a pitiful sigh in response and refused to start up.
She rubbed her forehead where a headache threatened to come rushing in. Despite all of her determined positivity, it was a bad end to a spectacularly awful week.
The previous day, the beauty therapy salon in London that she had owned and managed had closed after three years. The exclusive address in Knightsbridge had provided droves of satisfied clientele, but it was the business figures that had let her down. The SW1 postcode came with way too high a rent for Harriet to cope with. She had tried to make the figures work in her favour by taking on even more customers over the past six months, working late into each and every evening, but it had been to no avail.
As the lease had been due to expire in the next few days, she had decided with a heavy heart to give up the business before she was saddled with ever-increasing amounts of debt. As it was, she had nothing but a bank balance in the red to show for all the long days of hard work tending to the whims of the demanding clientele she had catered for.
Harriet knew that her skills as a beauty therapist were good, but she should never have let her parents persuade her to set up a business in such an expensive area. If only she had been brave enough to say no at the very beginning and thus save herself all the current heartache. But, as always, Harriet had put on a brave front and found herself agreeing to run things their way, even though they were currently in the Caribbean setting up yet another law practice, this time in the tax haven of Bermuda. Her older siblings were in Paraguay and Australia, both also specialising in law with their own successful practices.
Harriet, born ten years after her brother and sister, was a red-headed anomaly in a family of high-achieving brunettes. She didn’t excel at any kind of academic profession, even though she had tried many times over, every attempt ending in failure. Even her looks were different from the rest of the family. They all had straight, manageable hair and skin that tanned easily. Harriet had pale skin and freckles with wild, long, wavy hair.
Sent to an extremely expensive all-girls boarding school at the age of ten, she had continued to feel like an outsider, especially when frequently reminded by the teachers how her sister had excelled at most subjects when she had been there a decade previously. It hadn’t helped Harriet’s self-esteem that her dyslexia had been undiagnosed until she had been well into her teenage years, by which time any confidence in her academic abilities had completely disappeared.
However, whenever she had tried to tell her parents just how miserable she was feeling, they had dismissed her unhappiness as teenage grumbles. She always remembered the most brutal conversation of all with her mother, soon after her first term at senior school had begun.
‘You’ll find life very difficult if you’re going to see the negativity in everything,’ her mum had snapped, interrupting her daughter’s moaning. ‘For goodness sake, keep a stiff upper lip and carry on. Remember the family name. We have a reputation to uphold.’
So, Harriet did as she was told. She suppressed her unhappiness and, in turn, most of her emotions, instead putting on a brave face. The trouble was that she had continued to do so ever since, and now she wasn’t sure she could be true even to herself any more.
Only in the tiny village of Cranfield had she ever felt as if she could behave truly like herself. With her parents abroad most of the time for work and her siblings already having left home to start studying for their law degrees, Harriet normally went to stay with her Aunt May and Uncle Fred for the school holidays. In complete contrast to her own parents, her aunt and uncle had never put any pressure on Harriet, merely giving her the love and support which she so desperately craved, having received almost no affection from her parents.
Uncle Fred had continued to encourage his niece to keep following her dreams, even when her business in London seemed doomed from the outset.
‘So, your business might fail,’ he had told Harriet only six months ago when she had confessed how worried she was about it. ‘It happens, love. I know it’s rubbish, but you’ll be just fine. You’ve got a good heart, and that’s all that matters. Just remember how much you’re loved and always will be. That’s the important thing.’
It had been the last conversation that they had ever had.
One day later, her uncle had passed away. The official reason had been listed as a heart attack, but Harriet knew it was a broken heart after the loss of his dear wife one year previously.
Equally broken-hearted six months on from that dreadful day, Harriet was still struggling without her beloved aunt and uncle in her life. But she was still carrying on, putting a brave face on her grief, even when her best friends pushed her to be open and honest with them.
Sitting in the darkness of her car, Harriet shook her head at herself. Why did she always have to put on a show and be so cheerful when really, she just wanted to wail and wallow that life was sometimes just too hard, too unfair? It was ridiculous.
But the positive attitude she had tried to live by since her childhood had saved her from much heartache, and it was a hard habit to break.
Libby and Flora mocked her gently for it. Her best friends had tried over and over to encourage her to be honest and lose the protective shell she had worn for so long. But it had gotten her this far, hadn’t it?
At least their bond of friendship was unbreakable. There, in the tiny village where there weren’t too many other children of a similar age, she had bonded quickly with Flora and Libby during the school holidays, both of whom had grown up in Cranfield.
Twenty years on, they were still as close a group of friends as ever, despite Harriet trying and failing to make her beauty salon business a success far away in London and Libby often absent with her job as a flight attendant. Only Flora, struggling to take care of the family farm, had remained in Cranfield full-time.
Harriet missed her friends terribly, although they tried to meet up as often as possible whenever she returned to Cr
She had yet to work up the courage to tell her parents of her decision to close down the beauty salon. She had last seen them at Uncle Fred’s funeral, a sad, blustery, autumnal day six months ago. They had swiftly returned to the warmth of the Caribbean soon afterwards, leaving her to fend for herself once more.
She glanced over at the passenger seat, piled high with bags of clothes and shoes. On the back seat and in the car boot was everything else. She had kept most of her beauty therapy items but had had to leave all the larger technical equipment behind in a small storage unit, intending to put them up for sale at a later date.
Harriet had told her friends that she was fine about the failure of the business, but she really wasn’t. It had felt like the final straw after the loss of her aunt and uncle, and she was struggling to find any positivity at all these days.
Suddenly overcome with grief, she felt the tears begin to roll down her cheeks. She had managed to keep them mostly at bay for six months, but now she couldn’t stop crying. Returning to Cranfield to sell up her aunt and uncle’s cottage was hard enough. After all, if she hadn’t been saddled with the business debts, she wouldn’t have to sell Lavender Cottage but could live there permanently, as had been her dream for so long. But she had no savings to pay off the debts, so the cottage would have to be sold.
The worst part was knowing that her aunt and uncle wouldn’t both be waiting for her on the doorstep when she arrived.
She shook her head and willed them to go away, but the tears continued to fall.
She grabbed her mobile from the passenger seat, turned it over, and stared at the back cover. There, pressed inside the clear case, was a sprig of lavender. She instantly felt a little calmer and began to feel comforted. Lavender had always had that effect on her.
During her many stays in Cranfield, the view out of her bedroom window had always been the same. At the end of the back garden was the old railway line, which hadn’t been in use for many years. Across from the line, there was a long path that led to the nearby village of Cranbridge.
On either side of the path were fields. The ones to the right belonged to her best friend Flora’s family farm. But on the other side, there were two fields full of the lavender plants that Uncle Fred had planted many years ago. The fields had long been left to run wild by the owner, but Uncle Fred had been a keen conservationist and had wanted to draw more bees and butterflies into the area. So, each summer, Harriet’s days had been spent amongst the gloriously vivid purple flowers, enjoying the incredible display. They were her happiest memories of her times in Cranfield.
She could still remember her aunt giving her a sprig of lavender to place underneath her pillow when she returned to the dreaded boarding school each term. The sweet smell, as she lay there at night in the darkness, had been the only thing she had held onto when it had all gotten too much. The lavender reminded her of her aunt and uncle and that she was loved.
She looked down at the phone in her hand and brushed her thumb across the lavender imprinted on the case, lost in bittersweet memories. Suddenly, the phone lit up in the darkness with a text. It was from Libby.
No petrol? What are you like?! On my way! x
Harriet’s mood immediately lifted. There it was, that spark of hope that had supported her through her unhappy childhood. It all came from the love and help she had always received from her friends and family in Cranfield.
She checked her face on her phone and wiped away the streaked mascara that her tears had caused. Libby mustn’t know that she had been upset; she didn’t want to worry her friend.
Harriet suddenly remembered a conversation she had had years ago when she had come home from boarding school upset and deflated after yet more failed exams. ‘Keep fighting, love,’ Uncle Fred had told her. ‘Life is short, so you’ve got to make the best of it.’
‘He’s right,’ Aunt May had added, drawing her into a warm hug. ‘You need to dance in the rain as often as you can because the sun will always come out again the next day anyway.’
Harriet smiled to herself as she sat in the darkness and tapped the Music app on her phone. Scrolling through the songs, she spotted the Abba song ‘Dancing Queen’.
‘I couldn’t agree more, Aunt May,’ announced Harriet out loud with a grin to herself as she glanced at the starry heavens above.
So, she switched up the volume on her phone and held onto it as she climbed out of the car and began to dance in the middle of the lane.
The hazard lights flicking on and off almost matched the beat of the song blaring out, she realised with a laugh as she carried on dancing. Her woes lifted, she felt ready to face anything once more.
Headlights appeared in the distance, and she felt even more cheered up. Libby would understand about her needing to dance in the road. Or rather, Libby would laugh and shake that long pale blonde hair of hers in ironic despair over her friend’s constant positivity that she always moaned about. Harriet would shrug her shoulders in response and might even persuade her friend to dance for a while with her. At least it was a way of keeping them both warm on that chilly night.
The car drew nearer, and in the glare of the bright headlights, Harriet gave the driver a cheerful wave and turned around to wiggle her bottom in an exaggerated manner, all the while laughing.
But as she turned back, she realised that it wasn’t Libby’s face behind the driver’s wheel after all. Instead, it was a man, a complete stranger, who was staring in stunned amazement at her.
2
Joe Randall was lost and also somewhat bewildered.
Was there a rave nearby that he didn’t know about? Because the woman dancing in front of his car was either high or a bit crazy. Why else would she be dancing in the middle of a country lane on a cold, dark night?
He hesitated before finally deciding to roll down the window. How did you approach someone of dubious mental health? Gently and politely, he decided.
‘Good evening. Nice, er, night for it,’ he said with a smile, raising his voice to be heard over the loud music coming from the woman’s phone.
‘Isn’t it?’ said the redhead, crashing to a halt right next to his car door. ‘The stars are so beautiful tonight.’
Joe nodded in agreement, even though he’d been so busy thinking about work on the long journey that he hadn’t noticed them.
The music blared on from the phone in the woman’s hand. Realising that it was Abba, he had a sudden recollection of his younger sister dancing in the lounge to the soundtrack to her favourite movie, Mamma Mia. How old would Charlotte have been then? Twelve? Thirteen?
Joe’s throat instantly felt thick with emotion, his mind taken back to much happier days in the past. Happiness that he hadn’t known for such a long time, it felt at that moment.
Thankfully, the woman fiddled with her phone, and the music suddenly switched off, leaving the silence of the countryside around them.
She sighed in what appeared to be contentment and shook out her long hair, which had got caught in the collar of her sweatshirt. Wild was his first thought as he stared at the lustrous red waves swinging around her shoulders. Free was his second. Something he knew nothing about.
