The Near & Far Series

by Serena Clarke

  “This is incredible. Is it an antique?”

  He nodded. “My mum inherited it from her mother, but she never got to use it.” He held her hand tightly. “I think she’d be happy for you to have it.”

  Okay, here was the crying part.

  Now it was his turn to laugh, and he pulled her close, kissing her with such tender passion that there was no time for crying, only lips and breath and love.

  When they parted, something occurred to her. “Where will we live? Not London, I suppose.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, laying teasing kisses on her mouth between each word. “Probably not, if you marry a wildlife ecologist. Do you mind?”

  “No. I can work anywhere now. The only thing I mind is not being with you.”

  She’d never felt so set free, and so anchored at the same time.

  It was a good feeling.

  In front of them, the bullfinch tipped its wing over the frozen lake where they’d skated under the stars that night, neither of them knowing what was ahead. On her finger, the heirloom ring shone in the light. And behind them, Atli shook his head, setting the harness bells ringing sweet and clear again.

  No matter where they ended up, everything had been made right, here in this north that started out as a lie, and became something so true.

  Thanks for reading A North So True!

  Would you like to know when Serena releases a new book? Join her mailing list at www.serenaclarke.com/newsletter to receive a notification, along with special offers and exclusive extras.

  * * *

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  About the Author

  Serena Clarke grew up in a family of itchy-footed readers and dreamers—not concentrating, reading the atlas and Narnia books, and planning to run away somewhere magical as soon as she could. At sixteen, she packed her bags and went to live in faraway Sweden. It was the beginning of many travels and adventures…with a few mishaps along the way! Seventeen countries later, she’s living her happily ever after near the beach in beautiful New Zealand, where she writes escapist romantic fiction.

  * * *

  Find her online at

  www.serenaclarke.com

  serena@serenaclarke.com

  Acknowledgments

  It was just me at the keyboard writing, but all kinds of people helped to bring this book to life—even if we didn’t know it at the time. Thank you…

  Adam, Nate, and Zach—my own true north. Love you guys.

  Mum, for watching me leave time and again, but always cheering me on.

  Dee Kidd, for Tuesdays in the window seat, and always.

  Johan Sjöberg (a.k.a. Johnny Seamountain), for all things Swedish.

  Vanessa Gulik, for edits, encouragement, and enthusiasm.

  Stephen Pollard, who said exactly what I needed to hear, exactly when I needed to hear it.

  And most of all, Eva, Iwan, Erik, Göran and Maria, the Ehring family, Bo and Elisabet Griwell, Cathrin Damsholt Andersson, Sharon Johanson, Nicki and the Mörrum gang, and everyone in Sweden—then, and now. Tack för allt.

  Copyright © 2016 Serena Clarke

  A North So True

  Free Bird Books

  Cover design by Books Covered

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction.

  ISBN: 978-0-473-38779-2

  Created with Vellum

  The new you could be someone unexpected…

  * * *

  Stunned by a life-changing secret and an unexpected inheritance, Cady Morrow leaves her responsible London life behind and hits the California flash mob trail. With her wild twin sister Shelby in tow, she’s determined to make every day of her new start count. So when they’re invited to travel on the flash mob team’s luxury tour bus—in close company with Reid, a man who sets her dangerously, deliciously off-kilter—Cady grabs the chance to be a different version of herself.

  * * *

  But uncovered secrets soon test her faith in her reinvented self, as well as in those around her. And when a flash mob implodes and Shelby goes missing, Cady has to rely on the enigmatic Reid for help—even as she doubts his motives, and her resistance to his teasing charm.

  * * *

  Torn between two lives, she eventually learns just how different she can really be…and exactly what she’ll do for the sake of a new start.

  What readers are saying about The Same But Different

  “The most gripping book I’ve read for some time, great difficulty putting down…a good hearty romance, full of mystery, suspense and a few good surprises.”

  – Amazon reader

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  “You can’t help but want to keep reading. It’s not just romance literature, but also a story about sisterhood, loss and finding yourself. Extremely glad I found this book and All Over The Place!”

  – Amazon reader

  * * *

  “Plenty of steamy tension...a recommended fun, feel-good story with some unexpected twists and surprises.”

  – WiLoveBooks

  * * *

  “Moving and entertaining at the same time. I really, really loved this book.”

  – Amazon reader

  * * *

  “It was refreshing to read such a well-rounded story, kind of along the lines of a Nora Roberts novel. I’m used to so much straightforward chick lit romance that I forget how satisfying a good, substantial story can be. A big thank you to Serena Clarke for reminding me.”

  – Random Book Muses

  For my sisters.

  (I should tell you why more often.)

  One

  A last wish is not to be argued with. Unless it comes from your mother, who’s been driving you mad for years, and she only thinks she’s dying.

  Cady Morrow sighed, reaching across to adjust the pillows to a more comfortable angle. “You daft thing. You’re not going anywhere.” She smoothed a few stray hairs from her mother’s flushed cheek, but she slapped Cady’s hand away.

  “Just promise me! It’s important.”

  “Mum, don’t be melodramatic. The last test results were pretty good, remember?” She pressed a glass of water into her mother’s fragile hand, and she took a token sip. But she wasn’t going to be diverted.

  “Look, I’m the one in this damn body, and I know how I feel.” She passed the water back. “Cady, just promise.” Her pale blue eyes were vivid with determination in her thin face.

  Cady gave in. “Okay. I promise.”

  Stubborn. That was Anne Morrow’s defining characteristic. Or bloody-minded, more like. Luckily Cady had inherited her father’s patience, or she might have cracked under the pressure of caring for her mum, charming and crabby in equal, unpredictable measure. Just the night before, she’d dreamed again about running away, joining the California flash mob she’d discovered on YouTube and was following on Twitter. A twenty-five-year-old runaway…bit tragic really. No surprise they didn’t follow her back—between working at the bank and looking after her mum, there wasn’t much worth tweeting about in her life.

  Now her mother struggled to sit up. “This isn’t what I wanted for you. I want you to get out and have some fun. Travel. Have some adventures. Find a gorgeous man.”

  Cady shrugged. “I’m okay, rea
lly.” And as for men, her most recent experience hadn’t inspired her to try again any time soon. Gorgeous or otherwise, she was in no hurry.

  “I want you to be more than okay. And you will be, eventually.” Anne sighed and leaned back on her pillows again. “There’s something…important. I’ve been carrying it with me for years. I almost didn’t tell you, but now I’m on my way out—”

  “Mum! You’re not on your way anywhere.”

  “Shh!” She shook her head. “Just listen! Now I’m on my way out, I have to tell you. But you’re not to tell your father, or Shelby. One day she might need to know, of course. But not now. She’s not ready.”

  “Well…okay.” Cady felt her stomach tighten as she realized this must be something big after all. Keeping a secret from her father and sister was no small thing.

  “Cady.” Her mother’s voice was steady now. “This will be a big promise to keep. But you’re the one who can bear the weight. I think you should sit down.”

  She sat. And heard the news that turned her world on end.

  * * *

  Cady watched as her sister re-read the solicitor’s letter, her forehead crinkling as she tried to make sense of the contents. There was a deep, settled kind of quiet in the wood-paneled solicitor’s office. It wouldn’t last. Cady knew what would happen as soon as Shelby had finished reading.

  “What the hell is this?” Shelby stood up and waved the letter in the air, almost knocking over the standard lamp next to her chair. “Where did she get all this money?”

  The solicitor, Mr. Palmer-Hatch, cleared his throat. “Miss Morrow,” he began, looking anxious. “Anne—Mrs. Morrow—asked me, as an executor of her will, to personally advise you both of this endowment. I myself know nothing about the origin of the money, only that it was to go to you in equal shares.” He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and looked at Cady, clearly hoping she would deal with her twin sister.

  They might be twins, but they couldn’t be more different. She could only shrug apologetically. At times like these it was better to stand way back and let Shelby run her course, like a tornado.

  “Can I read yours?” Cady grabbed the paper that Shelby was still waving around, and scanned it. Exactly the same as hers. She’d wondered if her mother might have decided to confess—but no. Cady was still the only one who knew the truth. Shelby snatched the letter back, and resumed questioning poor Mr. Palmer-Hatch, who had retreated behind his wide, leather-topped desk.

  Cady could imagine all too well the hurricane-strength drama that Shelby would turn on when she finally found out that their dad—their sweet, steady, loving dad—was not their dad at all. After years of trying, and none of the babies they so desperately wanted, Anne had taken action. A liaison with a younger man, a visiting American, who would remain none the wiser. A necessary deception, in her mind. On the wrong side of forty for baby-making (though still ten years younger than her husband), she had no idea if it would work. But it had—twice as well as she’d hoped. And amongst the man’s belongings, Anne had seen a photo of him with two young women, their arms flung around him. So Cady and Shelby were named after them—his beautiful sisters.

  Shelby would be gale-force furious, Cady knew. She was still trying to process it herself, all the wrongs and rights. How could her mother have done it, and then kept it a secret? On the other hand, if she hadn’t done it, neither of them would be here to get mad about it.

  Anne had been right about one thing—she’d passed away the day after their talk. Cady had answered the phone at work to the news that blindsided her. She hadn’t for a moment believed that her mother—feisty, determined, maddening—was really about to die, and the two shockwaves in two days left her reeling. She’d lost a father one day, her mother the next. Anne was free of her secret, and mercifully free of the illness that had progressively shrunk her life into a smaller and increasingly painful existence. But now Cady was the one carrying that secret, along with the grief of her losses. And somewhere out there, their biological father was going about his life, unaware that he had twin daughters.

  She looked at the letter, with the astonishingly large figure right there in black and white. Or maybe he did know.

  Maybe there was more to this secret than her mother had confessed.

  * * *

  Shelby had gone straight off from the solicitor’s office in a rage. Cady figured she’d probably calm down a little once it sank in that the money was hers to spend however she wanted—wherever it came from.

  Shelby’s tastes ran to far finer things than she could fund with her admin job at an architectural firm, and her taste in men ran to a correspondingly higher income bracket. High drama was her way of dealing with everything that happened, good or bad. And while Shelby was grieving for their mum too, she was also dealing with the fact that they’d never seen eye to eye—and never properly made peace after Shelby flounced out of home in a teenage fit, and found her own place to live.

  As for Cady, she’d spent years caring for their mum, and increasingly their dad too. Living at home, working in the bank, responsible and careful and…dull. Dull as the navy blue uniform she pulled on every morning to go to work. Dull as the dishwater she plunged her hands into every night, because her parents agreed a dishwasher was a waste of money. Now she squirted too much dishwashing liquid into the sink and watched as the bubbles rose up, each little curve reflecting rainbow colors under the kitchen light. Well, she wouldn’t have done it any differently. And now certainly wasn’t the time to falter.

  Her dad came into the kitchen, struggling to carry a plate and manage his walking stick. She hurried to take the plate from him. “You shouldn’t worry about that!”

  He smiled at her, his face a soft map of smile and worry lines. “And neither should you. Come on, let’s have a talk.”

  She turned off the water and followed him into the living room. He sank carefully into his chair, the new ergonomically correct one that had replaced his beloved easy chair when his arthritis got too bad. Cady sat opposite on the sofa. No one had yet sat in her mother’s favorite chair, even when all the mourners had come back after the funeral, and there weren’t enough seats for everyone.

  She’d gone through the motions, organizing the funeral and doing what needed to be done. Shelby wept, her loss accentuated by regret as she counted all the ways she’d pushed her mother away. But as Cady hugged long-lost family members and old friends, receiving their heartfelt condolences, her own grief stuck in her throat.

  “Poor Cady,” she overheard a neighbor telling her mum’s Aunt Netta in the kitchen. “She’s being so stoic, isn’t she?”

  “She’s strong, like her mother,” Aunt Netta said. “But it’ll hit her eventually.”

  Cady retreated back into the living room before they noticed her. Stoic? Stunned, more like. No one knew the secret she was trying to get to grips with, along with her mother’s death. It felt like she didn’t really know this woman she was mourning after all.

  Now her father regarded her as they sat in the quiet house. “This has been hard for all of us, hasn’t it?”

  She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. Between the two of them, their whole lives had revolved around her mum. Caring for her as she battled against the rare autoimmune illness that had taken too long to diagnose, and too short a time to defeat her. And all the while, her dad struggled against the arthritis that was spreading its gnarly grip through his body. In the second half of his seventies, she knew he was tired, but he’d never have admitted it while Anne needed looking after. His patience—the patience she’d thought she inherited from him—and his love had kept him going. Her heart ached every time she remembered what he didn’t know.

  “I’ve thought a lot about what I’d do, when this time came,” he said. “And I’ve decided. I’m going to go into a retirement community.”

  “A home? Dad, you don’t have to do that.”

  “I know I don’t have to. But I’m going to. Remember my friend Bill, f
rom Rotary? He seems very well set up in his apartment at Ingleside Heights. There’s a swimming pool, and a library, and clubs to join and all sorts.” He looked around the small living room. “Anne always wanted to stay in the house. But what would I do here without her?”

  “I’ll be here!” There was no way she’d leave the man who’d been her father in every way, if he needed her. The guilt of keeping the secret about her ‘real’ father was killing her, but how could she tell him? Even if she hadn’t promised her mother, he’d had enough heartbreak.

  “You’re very welcome to stay in the house if you want to. If that’s the case, we won’t sell it. But…don’t you think it’s time you had that adventure? Take that bit of money Anne left you. Do it for her.”

  The money. She could only guess that it had come from their biological father. How else would their mother, who’d only ever done volunteer work, have independently come up with such a sum for each of them? One day, there would be money from Aunt Netta, but she’d outlived her niece. Shelby was trying to guess too, of course, and driving Cady mad with questions. Neither of them had told their dad how much it was—they both felt too uncomfortable about it. And he hadn’t asked, just said that Anne had had a savings account for each of them, right from when they were born. As far as he knew, she’d been putting some of the housekeeping money away every week. Nothing too unusual there, on the surface—except for the amount. Even the magic of compound interest surely couldn’t explain that.