by Jill Mansell
* * *
Eddie had been in Stanton Langley for twenty-four hours now, and cabin fever was starting to set in. The cottage was very clean, but it was small. The Wi-Fi was slow, there was no satellite or cable TV, and he was going out of his mind with boredom.
Which just went to show that you could dream of going away on vacation and doing absolutely nothing all day, but being on your own and doing nothing within the confines of someone else’s home wasn’t much fun at all.
Then again, it was still better than being endlessly followed and pestered by a heaving mass of paparazzi and journalists.
Eddie tipped his head back against the sofa and heaved a sigh of irritation. It was almost eleven o’clock, and there had been no reply to the text he’d regretted sending the moment it had left his phone.
A few minutes later, he heard female footsteps coming up the path, followed by the scratch of metal against the lock on the front door. Caused by a key this time, rather than a professional picklock. He heard shuffling, muffled whispers, and giggles and smiled despite himself. Patsy was warm and likable, and he already trusted her. As for Lily…well, she was likable too. Quick-witted and quirkily attractive, with those mad blond ringlets and huge, dark eyes. It wasn’t just that, though. Something about her had struck a chord. She intrigued him.
Then the front door swung open and they burst into the living room with a clatter of high heels, Lily first, followed by Patsy waving a bottle of wine and two gigantic bags of potato chips…
Followed by a third woman, presumably the one they’d been out to dinner with. Eddie’s heart sank, and his smile disappeared. Oh great, so much for thinking they were remotely trustworthy. Well done, everyone.
“OK, now listen. Don’t be cross.” Patsy flapped her arms to stop him in his tracks. “I know what we promised, but it’s only Coral. She doesn’t count. She’s one of us, and she definitely won’t say anything.”
“I thought you could keep a secret.” Since she was doing him a favor, Eddie knew he couldn’t actually be too cross, but he could still signal his disappointment.
“I can! I can keep loads of secrets!”
“Just not this one,” said Eddie.
“I know, but it was impossible. I knew, and Lily knew too, and there we were in the restaurant, the three of us… It just felt so unfair to leave Coral out.”
“She did do pretty well,” Lily joined in. “She managed not to mention it for almost two hours.”
“Two whole hours? Oh well, that’s all right then.”
“Please don’t be like that,” Patsy said. “It was a moment of weakness. And it’s still a secret, I promise. Nobody else is going to know you’re here!”
“And you did invite us back.” Lily shrugged. “We were going to go to the pub until you sent that text. We couldn’t just abandon Coral, could we? That would have been cruel.”
“You wanted company,” Patsy reminded him. “You’ve got company. Just a little bit more company than you were expecting.”
She’d called it a moment of weakness. Which was basically what he’d succumbed to when he’d sent the text to Patsy saying that if she wanted to bring Lily back with her later for a nightcap, it would be fine by him.
But it was still annoying. “Do you see where this is going, though?” he asked. “Last night only one person living in this village knew I was here. This afternoon it became two. And now it’s three.”
“You know what?” Lily said suddenly. “I think we should leave.”
“Oh, darling, not you.” Coral, who had been observing the exchange from over by the door, shook her head at Lily. “He isn’t cross with you. I’ll go home.” She turned to address Eddie. “I’m so sorry about this. I really am. I’m going now.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Lily.
“OK, stop.” Eddie shook his head in disbelief. “This is stupid. You’re here, you’ve seen me now, so what’s the point of leaving? It’s not as if it’s going to erase your memory.”
“Look.” Lily was equally blunt. “It’s my birthday. You’re not in the sunniest of moods. We’ve been out and had a fantastic evening, and I really don’t want the rest of it spoiled by some grumpy stranger.”
“Well, if you two are going,” said Patsy, “I’m coming with you. You’re not leaving me here with him.”
“Whoa, this is getting out of hand.” Eddie marveled at the way Patsy had broken her promise to him, yet somehow he’d managed to become the bad guy. “Can you give me a break here? I’m sorry if I was grumpy. How about if none of you leave and we open that bottle of wine?” He turned from Patsy to Lily and from Lily to Coral. “Sorry…sorry…very, very sorry. Please stay.”
And because he was Eddie Tessler, with buckets of charm and a smile capable of melting ice when he chose to use it, they did.
* * *
It was one thirty in the morning when Lily looked across at the chiming clock and said, “You know, we probably should be thinking of going home. It’s not my birthday anymore, and some of us have to get up for work soon.” She made a face. “Those of us who aren’t movie stars, I mean.”
Eddie grinned, because it wasn’t every day you got to watch a girl with blond ringlets do a Michael Jackson moonwalk across a kitchen floor in a pair of stripy socks borrowed for the occasion to facilitate the necessary slidiness. Even more impressively, she was doing it without spilling a drop of her bright-pink drink.
“I can’t believe I have to cut people’s hair in a few hours,” Patsy marveled. She made extravagant scissory gestures with both hands and said, “Imagine!”
Coral nodded in agreement. “We should go; we really should. It’s later than I thought.” She looked around, puzzled. “What did I do with my shoes?”
“You took them off when you did the tango.” Eddie fetched them for her from the windowsill.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, what a silly place to leave them!” Coral shook her head as she took the red stilettos and put the left one onto her right foot. “Who put them there?”
As he helped her keep her balance, Eddie hid a smile, because the last couple of hours had been an experience he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Now that he’d heard the story of their joined-together lives, he understood how the three women had forged such a close bond. Coral was twelve years older than Patsy, who was in turn ten years older than Lily, but the loss of Lily’s mother had pulled them together, and as the years had passed, the ties had only strengthened.
Now, after much laughter and dancing and possibly ill-advised combinations of alcohol, he was very glad he’d managed to persuade them to stay.
Then again, he was even gladder he wouldn’t be having his hair cut by Patsy in the morning.
Chapter 9
Eddie Tessler wanted to kiss her, Lily could tell. She knew by the way he was gazing at her. Worse still, he seemed to know that she wanted it to happen. She heard her own breathing quicken and looked away, stretching out the tape measure in her hands and concentrating hard on the purple velvet curtains.
“What are you doing?” He moved up behind her, and she felt his warm breath on the side of her neck.
“Measuring the curtains.”
“Why?”
Lily couldn’t answer; she had no idea why, and now he was closer still. His mouth brushed her jawline, and he murmured, “That isn’t a tape measure, by the way. It’s a telephone charger. And you should probably answer that phone.”
The phone kept on ringing, and Lily opened her eyes, rushing up to the surface and experiencing a mixture of disappointment and relief that it had been a dream. On the one hand, the prospect of being kissed had been thrilling; on the other, thank goodness she hadn’t really been trying to measure Patsy’s living room curtains with a charger cable.
Oh God, though. Her head.
Wincing, she rolled over in bed and scooped her phone off the
floor, which worsened the headache dramatically. She deserved some kind of medal for fortitude in the face of adversity.
“Urgh…” It wasn’t much, but it was the best she could do.
“Morning! Is that your way of saying hello? Happy Boxing Birthday,” said Dan, who was always disgustingly cheery first thing.
“Hang on.” At least she’d had the foresight to leave a tumbler of water next to the bed, although drinking it last night might have been a wiser move. The glass clanked against her teeth as she gulped the water down in one go.
“Good night, I take it?”
“I wish you had taken it. Then I wouldn’t be feeling like this now.” Flopping back against the pillows, Lily said, “You know Patsy’s liquor cabinet? I think we may have finished the lot.”
“Oh God. Cocktails.”
“That’s one way to describe them.” They’d both experienced Patsy’s adventurous streak. When the normal drinks ran out—and last night’s single bottle of wine hadn’t gone far between the four of them—she liked to make concoctions from whatever was in the cupboard. There had been blue curaçao, Tia Maria, lime-flavored vodka, some weird pomegranate liqueur, Jack Daniel’s…oh, and the raspberry Chambord.
Plenty of Chambord.
How could something so completely delicious make you feel so dreadful the next day?
“What time did you get home?” Dan asked.
“Three o’clock, I think.” Lily massaged her temples. “Your sister’s a shocking influence.”
“Tell me about it. Anyway, did you manage to find those tickets?”
“I did. They’re right here. They were under your bed, like you said.”
And he had no idea who had spent the last two nights in his bed.
“I’m always right. And you were meant to text me to let me know you’d found them. I thought you would.”
“I know, sorry. Got distracted.” By the famous person who’s been sleeping in your bed. “Hey, are you in a rush? Are you at work?”
“Not yet. I’m in Milan. Lying in bed in my hotel room. With no hangover.”
“Lucky you.”
“And no clothes on either.” He was grinning, she could tell.
“Spare me the mental picture. OK now, shush for a minute and listen.” Lily relayed to him the details of her mum’s letter, then explained that she’d almost certainly tracked down Declan Madison. When she’d finished, she said, “So I’m going to write to him!”
“You are? Why?”
“So I can let him know about Mum leaving me the bracelet he gave her. And tell him how much he meant to her…and then he can tell me things about her that I haven’t heard before.”
“Riiight,” Dan said slowly.
“Why are you sounding like that?”
“I just don’t want you to be hurt if he says he can’t remember your mum. It was so long ago. They were eighteen then. I was eighteen nine years ago, and I’m struggling to remember who I went out with back then.”
“You went out with Janice Frayn,” Lily reminded him patiently. “And Tonda Whittington. And that girl with the spiky blond hair… She drove a yellow Fiat and had your name tattooed on her hip… Ooh, what was her name?”
“Oh right, yes, I remember the tattoo,” said Dan. “I didn’t make her do it. She had it done as a surprise. Was her name Ellie or Ally, something like that?”
“Ania,” said Lily as it came back to her. Poor Ania, indelibly tattooed with the name of someone who couldn’t even be bothered to remember hers.
“That’s it. But this is what I’m saying.” Dan’s tone softened. “There’s a chance this Declan chap might have forgotten your mum.”
“OK, I get the message. But they were together for nearly a year,” said Lily, “so hopefully he hasn’t forgotten her. Hopefully,” she added, “he wasn’t as much of a heartless bastard as you.”
* * *
Aspirin. Long shower. Giant mug of tea. Unable to cope with the idea of actual breakfast, Lily let herself out of the house and made her way across the yard to the office, where Coral was already busy opening the mail.
“Morning, darling!” Coral was as bright and cheerful as Dan had been on the phone. She was famed for her ability to knock back dubious cocktails without suffering the subsequent hangover. “Feeling like death warmed over?”
Lily collapsed onto the chair in front of the computer. “I’ll be OK.”
“You look white. Not too ill to work?”
“Never too ill to work.” Mind over matter; if she said it with enough conviction, everything would be fine. She might even live.
Coral’s eyes sparkled. “How about a nice glass of Chambord to perk you up?”
“Don’t be cruel.” The very thought.
“It was fun last night, though, wasn’t it?” Lowering her voice and double-checking that no one was outside the office to overhear them, Coral added, “With Eddie!”
The mention of his name brought the dream rushing back. Measuring curtains and getting kissed by Eddie Tessler. Lifting her still-damp hair from the back of her neck, Lily belatedly realized that was where he’d brushed his mouth against her skin. She nodded and said faintly, “Yes, it was…good.”
“So, are you heading over there on your lunch break?”
“Over where?”
“To see him! You’re going to write that letter, remember? He offered to help you!”
Oh God, he had. It was all coming back to her now. They’d been discussing the letter, and she’d been wondering how best to word it, and Eddie had said, “Well, why don’t I give you a hand?”
Which at the time, what with him being a professional wordsmith and all, had seemed like an excellent idea.
Now, postdream, it just felt embarrassing.
“I don’t know. I should do it myself,” Lily said.
Coral looked dismayed. “Oh, go on. Let him help. He’ll be looking forward to a bit of company, I expect. Anyway, you can’t turn him down now. It’d be rude.”
* * *
At two fifteen, Lily knocked twice at the front door of Patsy’s cottage, then pushed open the mail slot. “Hi, it’s me.”
The door opened, and she slipped inside, deliberately not thinking about the dream.
“You’re late,” said Eddie Tessler.
“We’ve been busy. Some of us have work to do.”
“Touché. How are you feeling after last night?”
“Terrible, thanks.” It was getting easier to look at him, but still weird to think he was famous. This afternoon he was barefoot and wearing a dark-blue polo shirt and board shorts, so she was even getting to see his famous legs. They were nice ones too, lean and tanned and with a pale scar across his left knee.
“And does anyone else know I’m here? Have you mentioned it to the rest of the village yet?”
“Of course I have. Didn’t you hear me bellowing the announcement through my bullhorn?”
His mouth twitched. “I’ll put the kettle on. Fancy some tea and toast?”
“Perfect.”
She watched from the kitchen doorway as he made the tea, sliced the bread, and took the butter out of the fridge. They really were very good legs, not off-puttingly hairy, finely muscled, with well-shaped calves and—
“I can see what you’re doing, by the way.”
“What?” She jumped.
“Checking out my backside.” He pointed to the window to indicate that he’d been watching her reflection in the glass.
“Well, you’re wrong,” said Lily, “because I was looking at your legs.”
“And? Are they OK?”
“Not bad.”
He laughed and began buttering the popped-up toast. “Have you thought about how you want to write this letter?”
“Kind of. I’ve made a few notes. It needs to be right, th
ough. I don’t want to scare him off.”
Eddie placed everything on a tray and carried it through to the living room. They sat down at the table facing each other, and he slid over one of the plates and a mug of tea. “Go on, then. I got the gist of it last night, but tell me properly everything you know about your mum and this chap of hers. Declan.”
Chapter 10
Coral, of course, was the one who’d heard the story about Declan directly from Jo herself. But Lily had learned it over the years following her mum’s death. She’d always loved discovering details of her mother’s life, especially the happier aspects. She could pretty much recite them by heart.
“OK, well, they met in Barcelona. They were both eighteen, taking a year off after high school before heading off to university. Mum was a waitress in a restaurant on Las Ramblas, and Declan worked there behind the bar. They fancied each other from the first moment they met, apparently… Well, Mum was stunning, and she was such fun. Why wouldn’t he fancy her? And he was the prettiest boy she’d ever seen, like really good-looking. So they started seeing each other and arranging their work schedules so they could do the same shifts and have more time off together to have fun and explore Barcelona. They’d go to the beach, swim in the sea, have adventures, and just make the most of every day.”
“Because they knew it was going to come to an end,” said Eddie when she paused to take a bite of toast.
Lily chewed, swallowed, and nodded. “That’s right. Mum had a place at Exeter to study English, and he was due to go to St. Andrews. I mean, they couldn’t have chosen two places farther apart if they’d tried. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of miles apart. And they loved each other to bits, but what could they do? Either try to make a long-distance relationship work, or be practical and break up.” She shrugged; they both already knew the answer. “And when it came to it, they broke up. Mum was devastated at first. It wasn’t easy. But she got over it in time.”
“They were nineteen,” said Eddie. “When you’re that age, it kind of happens. Life goes on.”
“Exactly. Mum didn’t forget him, though. After the first year, she wrote to him, suggesting they could spend the summer break back in Barcelona, but Declan said he couldn’t. He already had some other job lined up. Then, a couple of days later, she got a letter from someone named Theresa saying she was Declan’s girlfriend now, and it wasn’t fair to keep pestering him. She said Mum needed to get on with her own life and let him go.”