The Summer Getaway
A feel-good romance novel perfect for holiday reading
Tilly Tennant
Also By Tilly Tennant
The Summer Getaway
The Summer of Secrets
* * *
An Unforgettable Christmas series:
A Very Vintage Christmas
A Cosy Candlelit Christmas
* * *
From Italy with Love series:
Rome is Where the Heart is
A Wedding in Italy
* * *
Honeybourne series:
The Little Village Bakery
Christmas at the Little Village Bakery
* * *
Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn
The Man Who Can’t Be Moved
Mishaps and Mistletoe
* * *
Mishaps in Millrise series:
Little Acts of Love
Just Like Rebecca
The Parent Trap
And Baby Makes Four
* * *
Once Upon a Winter series:
The Accidental Guest
I’m Not in Love
Ways to Say Goodbye
One Starry Night
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
The Summer of Secrets
Tilly’s Email Sign-Up
Also By Tilly Tennant
A Letter from Tilly
Rome is Where the Heart is
A Wedding in Italy
The Little Village Bakery
Christmas at the Little Village Bakery
A Very Vintage Christmas
A Cosy Candlelit Christmas
Acknowledgements
For Mrs Jackson, who taught me how a book can be so much more than words on a page.
Chapter 1
‘It’s a hell of a lot of money.’
Ashley frowned at the letter. Addressed to her daughter Molly, there were deep creases where it had been opened out, read and refolded many times, though this was the first time Ashley had seen it. She looked up at Molly, who was perched anxiously on the edge of the sofa.
‘But it’s the best, most amazing music school!’ Molly said. ‘Seriously, Mum, how else am I going to get into a decent orchestra?’
‘You can take music at A level at the sixth-form college. I thought we’d already agreed that.’
Molly folded her arms and pouted. Ashley knew that look well – she’d practised the art of interpreting it for around fifteen years now, ever since her daughter had been old enough to pull it.
‘It’s not as idiotic as it sounds,’ Ashley insisted. ‘Other kids do it, and it’s good enough for them.’
‘The course isn’t the same… the conservatoire has teachers from all over the world. Proper teachers who’ve performed at huge concerts. They know everything.’
‘Your music teacher says the course at the college is very good. The teachers are qualified, otherwise they wouldn’t be there.’
‘It’s OK, but…’
Ashley let out a sigh. God she wanted to give her daughter this – of course she did. She wanted more than anything to give her daughter all the opportunities she herself had been denied. She didn’t want Molly to end up like she had – pregnant at eighteen and going nowhere fast. Ashley had had dreams once, just like everyone else. And here she was, sixteen years later and not a scrap of them left to show they’d ever existed.
‘It’s just… of course you know I’d let you go in a heartbeat if I could find the money but…’
Molly stood up and took the letter from her, screwing it into her palm. ‘I should never have gone to the audition.’
‘You should have talked to me about it first.’
‘But I wanted to surprise you; I thought you’d be so proud if I got in.’
‘And I am! God, I can’t put into words how proud you make me every day, and I would move heaven and earth—’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Molly shook her head, her shoulders slumping. ‘I suppose I can check out the college music department. It’s probably not that bad…’
Ashley turned to the window. She hated saying no so much. It wasn’t like Molly was asking for overpriced clothes or an unnecessary new phone or permission to go to an inappropriate party – she was asking for a chance at an amazing future; Ashley wished that for her with all her heart and would sacrifice anything to give it to her. But they both had to accept that some things were out of her control.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said quietly. God knew what but there had to be a way, didn’t there? For a chance this big she owed it to her daughter to try. ‘Moll…?’
Getting no reply she turned to face the sofa. But Molly had slunk out, taking the letter with her.
* * *
In the end it had seemed sensible to give Molly a bit of space. Ashley had gone to make a coffee and was now sitting at the kitchen table, gripping the mug as it cooled in front of her. Staring at an invisible spot on the wall, she gazed into a past she’d reflected on so many times before, though never with such profound regret as she did today. She’d never wish undone what she’d done that night, because she would never have had Molly, the best and most incredible thing that had ever happened to her. But there were plenty of other things she would have done differently. Maybe she’d have found out the boy’s surname for a start before she’d leapt into bed with him. Slut was what her mother had called her in a fit of temper when Ashley had revealed the news. Stupid, stupid slut. She hadn’t meant it, of course, but it was only what plenty of other people were thinking. How could you not know his name? she’d asked. How could you not know where he lives? How could you not have his phone number? How drunk were you?
Even though not all the things she’d told her mum were entirely true, Ashley had no sensible answers for any of these questions. She’d asked plenty of her own too, long after her mum had stopped, when she’d lain in bed with a hand to her tummy as her baby kicked and wriggled inside her. Would the boy have stuck by her even had Ashley been able to track him down armed with only the scantest information? Perhaps not, but at least she’d have known where to go when her daughter needed exorbitant music-school fees to realise a dream she’d had since she could remember, a moment she’d been working hard towards since she’d first picked up a battered old violin in primary school. Her biggest chance to make the kind of life for herself that Ashley could only dream of was slipping away, and it all boiled down to money.
It would be easy to blame it on circumstances beyond their control – that the one and only scholarship had been snapped up by a girl from Japan who’d been playing practically since birth, that the school would have been beyond the reach of most working-class people, that maybe it was better to start small anyway – but Ashley couldn’t shake the idea that, when all was said and done, her own mistakes were the bottom line. Molly would fail, and it was Ashley’s fault.
She closed her eyes and it was 2001. She was sitting in a bar in Ibiza on her first
and, as it turned out, only foreign holiday without parents. The air was sultry, heavy with a mass of synthetic perfumes and deodorants, of cocktails and hormones, pulsing with the rapid beat of dance music, lights low and hypnotic. Her best friend, Abigail, had gone to the toilet and that’s when he’d come over. He’d seemed shy, sweet… not the sort of boy who’d leave you pregnant and disappear. He’d made her laugh, and he was good-looking – the kind of good-looking that at first was unassuming but got steadily better with every shot of vodka she downed as they chatted.
His friend came over and Abigail returned, and the four of them had a drinking contest. Who’d won? It didn’t matter. They’d danced together, and he’d smelt so good. She recalled lifting his shirt and caressing his back – the skin smooth and taut. Those chocolate eyes that seemed so at odds with his sandy hair, though they’d pulled her in anyway. She’d thought she could see his soul in there, and she’d thought it was good. They’d kissed and it had been like a thousand volts, setting her on fire. They’d staggered back to her apartment and they’d kissed again on the porch. She’d asked him in for more drinks and in minutes they’d been naked in her bed. It had been strangely beautiful, and she’d been in love – of that she was certain. It was crazy to be in love with a man you’d just met, but it had happened. She’d wanted to see him again, and he’d written his phone number on a scrap of paper before rushing out at the crack of dawn for a flight he couldn’t miss. He’d told her she was incredible, that he desperately wanted to see her again when she got back to England, and he’d left her with a fiery kiss.
But she never saw him again. The phone number he’d left led her to a haulage firm. She had only Molly’s chocolate eyes, which showed her moods as plainly as if she’d opened them out as a book, a certain look, the odd turn of the head, to remember him by.
And a name. Haydon.
Chapter 2
Ella tucked a strawberry-blonde lock of hair behind an ear and grinned up at her dad. ‘You want some?’ she asked, offering him a spoonful of her ice-cream sundae.
Haydon leaned forward with his mouth open to swoop in and capture the prize, only for Ella to whip it out of his way, giggling. Haydon grinned. It was a well-rehearsed piece, something they’d done a thousand times before, but it never got boring no matter how much older Ella got. Perhaps they both saw it as a link, a connection back to the times when their family was together, when they were strong and happy and nothing could break them.
‘You’re such a tease,’ he said.
Ella grinned through a mouthful of ice cream.
‘So, what’s the news?’ he asked, lifting his coffee cup to his lips. ‘Still madly in love with Jack in Miss Palmer’s class?’
‘Ugh!’ Ella screwed up her face. ‘Are you serious?’
‘I saw you…’ Haydon laughed. ‘You were all goggly-eyed when I dropped you off at the school disco.’
‘It’s not a disco, and no I wasn’t.’
‘If it’s not a disco, what is it?’
Ella shrugged. ‘A party.’
‘Isn’t that the same thing?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Oh, OK. But you did look as if you liked him a smidgen.’
‘No I didn’t,’ Ella fired back but this time Haydon detected a little blush. His baby was growing up, and it was too fast for his liking, but he couldn’t say so, not unless he wanted the eye-rolling disapproval reserved for his full-on soppy dad moments. He seemed to have a lot of those lately too – at least, Ella kept telling him so. But he was missing so much. Every weekend Ella seemed to have leapt ahead in years; every weekend with her reminded him that soon this little girl would be gone and he’d have only known highlights, never the full picture, of how she became the wonderful adult he was sure she was going to be.
He’d been forced to respect her mother Janine’s decision to divorce him, and he’d had to quietly accept her new partner Kevin’s arrival. He’d even borne the news that Kevin was moving in with them after only six months of dating his ex-wife with a gritty silence that belied his urge to shake her and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing. She hardly knew this man, and yet he was going to be living with her and Ella, and there was nothing Haydon could do about it. He couldn’t be there to protect them if things went wrong, and he wasn’t allowed to offer an opinion unless he wanted to face Janine’s rage. And even if he could have dealt with that, all it would make her do was clam up, so it would hardly be helpful in the end. All he could do was watch helplessly from the sidelines, glean as much information as he could from Ella’s weekend visits and hope that all the reports continued to be good. So far, Ella seemed to get along with Kevin just fine, but somewhere deep inside, though Haydon knew he ought to be glad about this, he was also saddened beyond words.
‘So I don’t need to go round to his house and look intimidating while I give him the dad talk?’
‘No!’ Ella cried, looking mortified. But then she broke into a smile. ‘Very funny, Dad.’
‘So, what do you want to do for your birthday next month? Your mum’s OK’d the weekend and fourteen is a pretty big deal. I thought we might go out to do something. Maybe bring your friends? How about I rent somewhere for a party?’
Ella shrugged. ‘Kevin’s renting out Pizza Express for my friends. We’re going to have a pizza-making party. And then we’re all sleeping over on his houseboat.’
‘He has a houseboat?’
‘Uh huh. He’s just bought it.’
‘He just bought a houseboat. Just like that? No big deal?’
‘I guess. He just saw it and said he liked the look of it.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Somewhere in Norfolk.’
‘Norfolk? Is your mother going to stay on it?’
Ella nodded. ‘Says she can’t wait to see it.’
‘Funny. She always said she hated the idea of sleeping on a boat whenever I mentioned a boating holiday.’
‘I suppose she changed her mind,’ Ella said blithely, licking her spoon. ‘They’re looking at things all the time right now. He wants to buy a house too.’
Haydon swallowed hard. ‘For you guys to live in together?’
‘Yes.’
‘Close to where you are now?’ Haydon asked, dread of the reply bubbling up.
‘In London.’
He paused, staring at Ella as she continued with her ice cream, seemingly unconcerned by the idea of moving to London. The one answer he hadn’t wanted was the one he’d somehow known he’d get.
‘And you’re happy about that?’
‘I don’t know. It’s not really up to me. Mum says I’ll still be able to see my friends because the train journey is only an hour. And I suppose living in London would be cool.’
‘But… how will I see you?’
‘I’m sorry.’ She looked up now, for the first time showing signs of awareness that the news she was relaying wasn’t going down well.
Haydon ground his teeth. ‘It’s not your fault. Your mum should have talked to me about this.’
‘She said she was going to when she knew for sure. I think she’s still trying to decide.’
Haydon pondered this for a moment. Ella was backtracking now, he could tell. It sounded to him like Janine had already decided.
‘On whether to move?’ he asked. ‘Or on other things?’
‘About moving. But Kevin says the commute to London takes too long out of his day, and he wants to spend the extra time with Mum, but he doesn’t want to lose his job in London because it pays a lot. He wants to show her some houses to help her make up her mind, and the photos had her excited, so I think it’s going to happen.’
Ella’s phone bleeped and she unlocked the screen, smiling as she recognised the sender of the text. Probably a schoolfriend, Haydon mused vaguely as he watched her. He sensed that chasm open again, that space between them that took her further and further from his life as she grew up without him. He wasn’t around enough for her as it was, but if she moved t
o London, how much more difficult would it be? But he had never felt so powerless to stop it. What right did he have to ask Janine to live her life according to his own wishes? She was entitled to be happy and, as much as Haydon didn’t like it, she had a right to fall in love again. Maybe Kevin would be able to get right what he’d clearly got so horribly wrong. Maybe Kevin would be the one to put the smile back on Janine’s face, the one Haydon had never noticed was fading until it was too late. He’d thought they’d had a good marriage until the bombshell he’d never even suspected was coming. And then it had all been too late and too hard to fix – at least that was what Janine had kept telling him.
‘You like Kevin?’ he asked.
‘Huh?’ Ella looked up from her phone.
‘You like Kevin? I mean, if you’re going to be living in London with him then you should at least be happy about it.’
‘He’s nice,’ Ella said.
‘He treats you and Mum well?’
‘He brings her a ton of flowers every week. Mum says she hasn’t got the heart to tell him about her hay fever so she just takes an extra tablet. He got me a new iPad too.’
‘But you’re going to be living in his house far away from here… Ella, do you really understand how massive that is?’
Ella frowned. ‘I’m not a baby. Mum says it’s not that far away. She says the train is only an hour.’
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