Cautiously, she stretched out her hand, and then pulled it back again.
This was not her property yet! She couldn’t simply go inside without asking permission. Could she?
The wind howled around her ankles and blew old leaves up in the air. She had come a long way to stand on this very special piece of earth. It was now or never.
Head up, Mari slowly and gently turned the key in the lock and felt the mechanism engage. The door itself had swollen in the winter rain and it took a little persuasion to open but, a few moments later, Mari Chance stepped inside the lobby and closed the door behind her.
She was back inside her home again.
This was the moment that had sustained her in the endless airport lounges and interminable meetings in boardrooms without windows. This should have been her great achievement.
She had come home. She was back.
And she felt sick at what she was looking at.
Her home was a shell of a building, dark, dank and gloomy and, in a moment of horror and barely suppressed claustrophobia, Mari stepped across the broken and filthy floor tiles they used to polish every Sunday evening to the window above the sink, and tugged hard at the plastic sheeting and cardboard which covered the window.
The flimsy sheets came away easily in her hands and pale February sunshine flooded into the dark kitchen, creating a spotlight around where she stood in the otherwise dark place. This window was north-facing and her mother had created stained glass panels in the top half of the window to add colour to the otherwise dull, flat light.
Mari blinked hard as the light flooded into the room through the large window that dominated the wall above the old ceramic sink.
Elsewhere in the stripped-out shell of a kitchen, there were dim shadows and corners of dark purple and grey above exposed electric wires and gas pipes, but Mari’s attention was totally focused on the stained glass which, amazingly, wondrously, had survived intact and as bright and colourful as ever.
As she stepped closer, mesmerised, it was obvious that the glass in the window was not made from one continuous sheet of glass, but composed of separate smaller panels of varying thicknesses and slight colour differences which her mother had collected from old glass windows and painted by hand.
It was a garden with flowers and leaves of every colour in the spectrum.
Each piece was unique to itself but an essential component of the piece as they fitted together seamlessly to create the whole. Light hitting the thicker bevelled edges was deflected through multiple prisms to create rainbow spectra of colour which danced on the tiled floor at Mari’s feet in a chaos of reds and pinks, pale violets and blues through to greens.
It was as though the light itself had taken on the colour of the glass, creating layers of different luminosity as it was diffracted and refracted and deflected through the uneven panels to produce a barrier between this space and the world outside.
Each panel was unique, creating a different illusion of the world beyond the glass.
On the other side of the glass, bare skeletons of trees bent towards the town in the howling wind from the sea, above the browns and russets of autumn colours. But here and there she could just make out the first signs of yellow daffodils and white snowdrops. Spring was on the way and in a few short weeks there would be new life and energy on the other side of the glass.
Mari sucked in a breath of cold, damp and dusty air, coughed and exhaled slowly as she glanced around this empty, echoing and frigid room.
Her life was in that window.
The past was captured in her reflection on the glass for a few fleeting seconds until she moved away and the moment was lost. On this side of the glass was the present, and a girl whose reflection was looking back at her. And on the other side of the glass? That was where the future lay. Still hazy but with the promise of sunny days ahead.
But not here. Not in this room and not in this building. There was nothing for her here any more.
Mari closed her eyes and let the tears finally fall down her cheeks unchecked as she mourned the loss of everything she’d thought that she wanted.
What a fool she had been.
She pushed the heel of her hand tight against her forehead.
This was not the home she remembered and it never could be. Her mother was gone, and Rosa was moving away to create a new life for herself.
Almost blinded by tears and with a burning throat, Mari forced herself to look around the bare walls and in an instant saw it for what it truly was. A shell of a house which had been cared for at one time when a family lived here, but that time was long gone.
Selfish, stupid girl. She had told herself that she wanted this house for Rosa, but that had been a pathetic delusion. This was all about what she wanted—for herself. Rosa was simply an excuse for justifying the years of hard work and sacrifice she had spent building up the finances to buy back this … what? This shell of a house filled with the echoes of ghosts and sadness? A tired and wrecked version of the home she had once known?
Mari leant back against the dirty painted kitchen wall, suddenly exhausted and bereft of ideas and energy.
She had to face the truth. It had never been the house she wanted. It had always been about the feeling of security and love. That was what she had hoped to bring back into her life through buying this building. As if a physical place could give her back her shattered self-confidence and make her open her heart to being loved.
Mari choked on the cold, dirty air she gulped into her lungs.
But there it was.
Ethan was right. She should be outside the window, looking at the new spring flowers, instead of inside her past, looking out in fear. But the idea was so hard to take.
Somehow she had to build up the strength to walk out of this room and this house, find Ethan and thank him again for loaning her the money and tell him it would not be needed after all.
It would be tough, embarrassing and humiliating, but that was what she had to do before she could move forward.
She had to accept the fact that she was not going to live here. The family who had wanted this house could buy it. And love it. And be happy here. This house needed a real family to transform it back into a loving home again, not a lonely single girl with delusions of bringing back the past.
Mari sniffled away the tears of grief at what she had lost and sacrificed, and she slid off her warm glove to dive into the pocket of Ethan’s coat. Hopeful that he kept tissues somewhere down inside those extra-deep pockets.
Only instead of paper tissues her fingers closed around a package.
She pulled out a long oblong which had been gift-wrapped in bright red foil. A white adhesive label with Christmas holly leaves around the edges said: A bit late for a Christmas present but I hope you like it. Thinking of you, Ethan.
Mari swallowed down a lump in her throat the size of Dorset as she pressed her fingertip against the blue ink. She would have recognised his spidery-thin writing anywhere. Ethan had given her a present and not told her. Simply left it in his pocket for her to find.
She almost pushed it back into the pocket. She would be seeing him soon enough—he could present it to her properly then.
And yet … Her fingers smoothed the paper for a second before ripping open the tape to find a slim black photo album.
Should she open it? Now? Here? In this cold, echoing place, so remote from the cosy, sunny bedroom with the stunning sea view in the house Ethan had built with such love for his parents?
Maybe there was something in here which would take her back there to that calm and intimate space where she had almost felt relaxed and open enough to reveal her feelings, in spirit if not in body?
Mari slowly unzipped the case and looked at the first photograph.
It was a bright colour print of the teenage Ethan she remembered from his first summer in Swanhaven, his arm wrapped around the junior sailing regatta trophy while his parents stood on either side of him, their arms draped around his shoulders.
His pretty English mother in a printed summer dress, and his American father, tall and stately in shorts and T-shirt which never had seemed right on him.
All three of them were so happy. Their laughter captured forever in that fraction of a second.
This was his family. This was what he wanted to create for himself.
But it was the second photograph which undid her. It was a perfect shot of Kit and Ethan messing about on Ethan’s boat with her dad at the helm. And there she was, laughing and happy. Standing on the jetty watching the two boys and her dad having fun. The kind of event that was such a commonplace part of her life over those last few summer holidays that she had taken it for granted and not once even thought of capturing it with her camera. And now she was so grateful that someone had. Probably Ethan’s mum.
The tears streamed down her face unchecked. There was no point trying to stop them; it was much too late for that. Because the next photograph, and the one after that, was of Mari and Kit standing next to Ethan with their arms wrapped around one another’s shoulders at the Swanhaven sailing school prize-giving, just smiling at the camera with their whole bright future ahead of them. So happy and content and living in the moment, with not a care in the world.
Oh, Ethan. Thank you for giving me this photograph.
Mari dropped her head down and slowly pulled the paper cover back over the photograph, blinking away her tears as best she could. The other photographs were for later. When she was secure in her own room with the door locked. On her own. Where she could weep in private.
Mari looked around the room. And then looked again—only harder and through eyes that seemed to be seeing it for what it truly was, and not through rose-tinted glasses which only showed what it had been like so long ago.
She had never felt lonelier in her life.
What was she doing here? In this cold house that echoed with the footsteps of ghosts instead of real living people?
There was only one place she needed to be at that moment, and it wasn’t here with the ghosts.
She couldn’t build a secure future for herself here. It was time to reconnect with that earlier version of herself that she had just been looking at. The version that Ethan remembered and the version that somehow, amazingly, he still saw in her.
And that thought dazzled her.
Ethan had offered her a chance to build a home with him. A real home. The kind of home she’d dreamt of creating. And she had been too woolly headed to see the genuine love and affection in that offer.
Mari pressed the heel of her hand hard against her forehead a couple of times.
Idiot. She was the one who did not deserve him. And now she had probably lost him. Which made her the biggest fool in the universe.
All she had to do was run as fast as she could and tell him that she trusted him with her love and her heart and her future. That was all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MARI wiped her eyes and was just about to push away from the wall when the sound of a car engine echoed around the house.
Oh, no. Someone had come to the house. Drat! Mari hurriedly tucked the photo album down inside the coat pocket, wiped her eyes, anxious for a stranger not to see her tears, and strode over to the back door and opened it wide.
‘Hey, darlin’, I’m thinking of moving to California. Do you know if there’s any work for retired sailors down there? Because you know what they say? All the nice girls love a sailor.’
Ethan Chandler stood outside on the stone step; he was smiling, but his body revealed the tension and anxiety he was trying to hide. His eyes flicked across her face, taking in the tears and trauma before he spoke again. ‘Hi. Thought I might find you here.’
She couldn’t speak.
He was here. Just when she needed him most. And he was here. For her.
So she did the most natural thing in the world. A gesture she had wanted to make a thousand times before.
She leant forward and gently, gently pressed her lips onto his in thanks, before wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him for all she was worth, pressing her body hard against the muscles of his chest so that she could feel his heart against hers. Holding him so tight in the hope that all of his strength and courage and trust in her could seep across the few layers of clothing that separated them and she could finally tell him how much he had come to mean to her.
Words were impossible, and his own response came in a husky whisper.
‘Sorry I missed you at the house. I was too busy trying to come up with some cunning plan to entice you back to Florida with me. My parents have agreed to help me set up a trust fund for a sailing school where we can take the teenagers on longer sea voyages lasting a few months each summer. There will be experts on board to help with their problems. And I can show them what sailing really means.’ He paused for a second, and then lowered his hands to cup her face before he went on. ‘I want to call it the Kit Chance Sailing Trust. If that’s okay with you.’
She looked into his eyes in shock. ‘You want to teach sailing in memory of Kit? Oh, Ethan. Of course it’s okay.’
Her eyes pricked with the sharp acid of fresh tears as his fingers wiped them away. He scanned her face. ‘And now you’ve gone quiet on me again. What are you thinking?’
The words tumbled out on a breath. ‘I was standing here feeling sorry for myself. Alone. And pathetic. And at the same time you were working on the best possible way I can think of for Kit to be remembered. Oh, Ethan, I have been such a fool. Thank you. Thank you for letting me go through with the biggest mistake of my life.’
She lifted her head and glanced around. ‘I don’t need this house to give me a false sense of security any longer. I’ve decided to take the initiative and accept redundancy from my company so I can make a fresh start. I’m not afraid of being rejected any longer. I can find work and trust myself to see it through. And I know I must sound totally crazy right now, but that’s what I am going to do.’
Ethan eased back and took both of her hands in his, the gentleness and tenderness of his touch filling her heart with hope that he did not think her a complete idiot.
‘No, it’s not crazy. It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard in my life!’
Ethan pretended to glance around the room; only his thumbs were still stroking the back of her hands and, as he turned back to face her, he lifted her hands to his lips and kissed the knuckles. Kissed them as though they were the most precious things in the world to him, his eyes fixed on hers.
‘Are you sure, Mari? Are you sure about giving up this house?’
All she could manage was a nod. ‘You’ve shown me that it is possible to move on and make your own happiness. And that’s what I want to do. Create my own future from what I want and need. And it’s not this house. Another family can make it their home.’
Their eyes locked. She was hypnotised. Unable to break away.
‘You’re an amazing woman, Mari. I never thought you could surprise me any more, but you have done. Any man would want to have you in his life. Want you in his bed. Make you the last thing he sees at night. The woman he wakes up with every morning.’
She knew he was smiling by the creases in the corners of both eyes.
‘I was a boy who thought that he would never be good enough for someone as beautiful and clever as you. Will you give me a chance to prove that I have become a better man who is finally worthy of you? Because you were right. I have been running from my emotions for far too long. It’s time I faced up to my feelings and told you that the only thing I need is you.’
Mari closed her eyes as his hands moved back to her waist and opened them just as he pressed his forehead onto hers. ‘It broke my heart when you left, Ethan, and I blamed you for everything that had happened, but it wasn’t ever about you. It was about me and how guilty I felt about wanting you to care about me. I was so angry and lonely. Rosa and our mother were relying on me to take care of things when our lives fell apart. I had lost my brother and then my father, and then you we
re gone. I had to protect myself from being rejected all over again. Do you see? I had to keep my feelings inside, just to get through each and every day.’
The Boy is Back in Town Page 16