Where There's a Will

by Virginia Hale

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Synopsis

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Other Books by Virginia Hale

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Bella Books

  Synopsis

  Jobless and approaching forty, Dr. Elizabeth Hordern returns to Jembala Lakes to meet the co-inheritor of Australia’s most infamous murder house, The Blaxland Homestead. With a mountain of debt behind her, Beth is hoping beyond hope that the live-in tour guide, twenty-seven-year-old Dylan, is open to a discussion of selling.

  The Blaxland Homestead is Dylan O’Connor’s entire life. She’s a Grade A tour guide and the five-star Yelp reviews are there to prove it (she’ll even take the review titled “Eccentric Docent or Mad Scientist?’’). When Beth arrives to take a tour, not admitting who she is should be Dylan’s first clue that her co-inheritor has ulterior motives. She claims to want a position at the homestead and Dylan can certainly work with that. Besides, it might be nice to have a friend in the valley who doesn’t know every crushing detail of her past.

  As their friendship blossoms, Beth’s unspoken desire to sell remains the single wedge keeping them apart. Will asking for what she needs cost Beth a chance at a life with Dylan? Perhaps the richest inheritance of all may be a second chance.

  Copyright © 2018 by Virginia Hale

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  First Bella Books Edition 2018

  eBook released 2018

  Editor: Cath Walker

  Cover Designer: Judith Fellows

  ISBN: 978-1-59493-613-5

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Other Bella Books by Virginia Hale

  Echo Point

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to my editor, Cath Walker, whose support and advice was instrumental in shaping this novel. Jessica S., I am so grateful to you for your generous feedback on the first draft. To the team at Bella Books, thank you for so kindly welcoming me into this family of talented storytellers.

  About the Author

  Virginia Hale lives in Sydney, Australia. Her debut novel, Echo Point, was a recipient of the 2018 Golden Crown Literary Society Award for Best Contemporary Romance (Short). Where There’s a Will is her second novel.

  Chapter One

  Beth pressed the driver’s window down. The crisp winter wind licked at her skin, whipping the ends of her blond hair against her jaw. Fighting a shiver, she reached for the hair clip on the console. She’d almost forgotten how the mercury always plummeted as she approached the Hunter Valley turnoff. Like the events of the past week, the country chill was a shock to the system.

  Pulled from chimneys, smoke permeated the clean country air and melded with the earthy scent of the storm Beth had been chasing all morning. Thankfully, the heavens had opened up while Beth was safe and warm in the McDonald’s rest stop an hour back down the motorway. By the time she’d read The Sydney Morning Herald cover to cover, the rain had all but ceased. The downpour had been quick, torrential…as watery as her cappuccino.

  Beth sighed as she turned off the motorway and took the first roundabout exit to the Hunter. She was going to miss the used bookstores on King Street and the art house cinema at the end of her little lane. Perhaps she’d even miss the hipsters that flocked from nearby Sydney University to scour the flea market in Newtown Square. Mostly, she was going to miss inner-city coffee, civilisation, and the central heating of her beloved Newtown terrace house.

  There would be no luxuries for the next however-long-she-was-away-from-home. She was up to her eyeballs in debt, and with no idea of how long she would be casting away dead money on rent in Jembala Lakes, a single option presented itself. House-sharing. Do not think about that time you travelled to the UK between undergrad and master’s. Do not think about that London backpackers’ hostel, or that bathroom you shared with four twenty-year-old boy-men. And do not, under any circumstances, think of the state of the bathroom. At least this time I’ll be living with another woman, Beth reasoned. And I can definitely get along with women.

  When she’d received the solicitor’s call the week before and was subsequently thrown headfirst into considering where the hell to go from there, she’d rationalised that renting for a few months in a slow-motion country town wouldn’t break the bank, especially when she was letting out her Newtown terrace to her neighbour’s visiting sister. Surely rent would be cheap, Beth had thought.

  Jembala Lakes was a pin drop in the middle of nowhere, an insignificant, key-shaped puzzle piece on a map. Situated in stunning wine region Hunter Valley, Jembala Lakes was a buffer between the tourist village of Pokolbin and Mount Blarney, the one-horse town that had almost lost its postcode when its ambitious water park was abandoned in the early noughties following the aftermath of Cyclone Sally. All that Jembala Lakes offered the rural district were rolling hills and forgettable Finger Lakes—and a gruesome history. If she had managed to keep a roof over her head in Sydney’s inflated housing economy, she could afford Jembala Lakes.

  It had been a decade since she’d lived in Jembala Lakes. Back then, she’d been a twenty-seven-year-old PhD student living with dear old Elma Blaxland in the Blaxland Homestead on the outskirts of town. It was the first time Beth had lived away from home, and what a gentle introduction to the real world it had been.

  Beth’s thesis on the homestead’s history—however grisly—was now getting respectful recognition. At the time, Beth had worried she’d been taking advantage of Elma’s hospitality, her enthusiasm for Beth’s research, her loneliness. Still grieving after the sudden loss of her husband a year prior, Elm
a loved having her there, she said, loved sharing dinners with Beth and going across to Cessnock, the closest town with a cinema, to see a movie together every now and then.

  Beth had more than appreciated Elma’s company, too. Having been a tour guide at the homestead for most of her life, Elma had been a well of information rivalling the national archives. Beth didn’t have enough fingers to count the times she had found herself in a rut and Elma had saved the day—or night. Beth would be scribbling away, pen to paper, case files and autopsy reports spread across the kitchen table when the kettle would start whistling and Elma would drop a titbit about the Blaxlands that Beth had never found in print. They would talk about the history of the homestead for hours, leaving no stone of its violent, haunting past unturned.

  In six short months, they became like family to one another. Following Elma’s tour groups from room to room and listening as Elma answered basic questions about familicide and sisterly jealousy had offered Beth a sense of safety in a house that had once known nothing but darkness. Elma had been the grandmother Beth never had, and when they’d hugged goodbye at the end of Beth’s research stint, she’d told Elma just that. Elma had lowered her sunglasses to hide the tears Beth had already seen welling in her glaucoma-ridden eyes. I’ve come to love you, my smart girl. There was no doubt about that. Especially now.

  Beth turned down Derby Lane. She knew the fibro house was halfway down the block—she’d Google-Earthed it two days prior. The image that had stared back at her from the screen had warned Beth to lower her expectations for her arrival, but the street was much nicer than the Internet had led her to believe. While the houses weren’t anything to write home about—boxy weatherboards with low, paling fencing—the street was tree-lined and incredibly colourful for the middle of May. Tree roots upended the narrow footpaths in that laid-back, country-town way that said, it’ll be right love, watch your step here, no harm done. Olive green lawns were well-kept, and the dozen maples that rose to tease the powerlines were charming with their blood-orange fullness. Across the street, a middle-aged man bringing in his garbage bins paused to wave as Beth pulled alongside the curb. She waved back. Note to self: Friday night is bin night.

  Beth shut her driver’s door and looked up at the coffee-coloured, double-story weatherboard she would now call home. Here we go…

  Rose Plympton must have heard Beth’s car, or the screech of the front gate, or her feet climbing the veranda stairs. Beth didn’t get a chance to ring the doorbell before Rose slipped into the hallway, a distant, shadowy figure beyond the fly screen.

  “Beth?”

  The closer Rose came to the door, the more apparent her beauty. Beth had never seen anybody who suited their name so perfectly. Her hair was dark, her cheekbones high. She didn’t look much older than Beth’s thirty-seven, maybe by a few years, if that. She was slender, almost too slender, Beth thought as she watched Rose wrap her arms about herself to fight off a shiver. The gesture made her seem even smaller, her walk all the more graceful. Rose was not at all what she had been expecting. House-hunting through a Facebook queer-housing group certainly has its upsides, she thought.

  “Gosh,” Beth said cheerfully as Rose flicked the latch of the screen door. “It’s freezing!”

  “I’m used to it.” Rose pulled at the sleeves of her beige cardigan and pushed a finger against the frame of her glasses. “I’m Rose.”

  Beth extended her hand. “Beth.” Rose’s fingers were warm and dainty in her grip. “You have a lovely house.”

  Rose nodded to Beth’s overpacked car behind them. “How was the drive?”

  “Oh, fine. Except I could barely see out of my rear vision mirror.” She laughed. “So that proved…dangerous.”

  The corners of Rose’s mouth quirked minutely. “Moving is a task. So…shall we go upstairs?”

  She followed Rose around the veranda to an external flight of stairs up to the second landing.

  “You’ll have to watch these stairs at night,” Rose said. “I had a friend start working on them but then she became busy and I never got around to hiring anyone to finish the job. They’re a bit rickety and it’s easy to slip in the rain. I’ll be sure to get someone on to it very soon.”

  “There’s no hurry,” Beth said.

  She stood back as Rose fiddled with the lock to the door on the landing. Rose’s brown hair shined copper in the sun, the gentle waves flitting about her face as she focused on the double lock. Beth looked past the way the sunlight caught on the silvery elbows of Rose’s glasses to find concentrated pools of hazel. Rose was stunning in a reserved, buttoned-up way.

  She pushed the door open and gestured for Beth to step inside.

  “Wow.” She couldn’t hide her surprise. “It’s so much larger than the pictures…”

  “You won’t be saying that in a few days’ time,” Rose said softly. It sounded like a joke, but Beth wasn’t so sure. It was obvious that Rose was difficult to read.

  She could feel Rose’s eyes on her as she looked around the fully furnished living space. “So, as you can see, your kitchen”—Rose pointed across the living room to where the kitchen bar protruded, separating the two spaces—“and living room are sort of a two-in-one kind of deal. The bathroom is just off your bedroom.” Beth looked to the fireplace below the wall-mounted TV. “There’s another fireplace in your bedroom, but I’d recommend just using this one in here and letting the heat sweep through, otherwise you’ll be sweltering by mid-morning. The laundry’s downstairs at the back of the house, but don’t feel like you can’t come down to do your washing just because I’m down there—I could sleep through a stampede. I work nine to six Monday to Friday, and the odd Saturday too, so the tubs are all yours, but again, you could do a load at two a.m. and I’d be none the wiser.”

  “That’s a dangerous offer,” Beth joked. “My sleeping is all over the place.”

  Rose quirked an eyebrow.

  “I mean,” Beth laughed, “my sleeping pattern is all over the place.”

  With a curious expression, Rose focused on her. Beth swallowed. It was unnerving to meet somebody shyer than herself, somebody who met her naturally quiet energy. Wind danced around the house, and the structure cracked. Beth started.

  “It’s louder at night when the wind really gets up,” Rose said, so softly that Beth had to strain to hear her from the other side of the room. “Especially up here.”

  “I don’t mind.” She was glad for it. She was so used to falling asleep to the hustle and bustle of inner-city Newtown that she worried the country silence would turn her into an insomniac.

  Beth wandered through the top floor. The kitchen was immaculate and smelled of lemon and vanilla. “This is definitely more spacious than I expected,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d have…” She stopped herself.

  “So much privacy?” Rose tilted her head. “It’s okay, you can say it.”

  “Yes.” Beth laughed breathily. “Not that I mind living with someone else,” she added.

  “I do,” Rose said bluntly. “I prefer to have my own space. Your flat is quite self-contained.” Her gentle smile told Beth there was no ill will, and Beth appreciated her frankness, liking her all the more for it. There was something about Rose’s gaze, the way it tracked and…tested, that made her anxious. Beth didn’t feel like spending the next whatever-amount-of-time hyperaware of everything she did and said in the comfort of her own home.

  “Eric says you just got a job here,” Rose spoke up.

  Eric had helped link them. Initially, Beth had posted a query in a Hunter Valley LGBTQ house-share Facebook group in search of a room near the Lakes. She didn’t think she’d actually be lucky enough to find one in the middle of town, especially on such short notice. Rose hadn’t responded to Beth’s post, but a man named Eric had. He’d private-messaged Beth and asked for permission to forward her contact details on to his friend, Rose, who had a room for rent but didn’t use Facebook. Rose was gay too, he’d assured Beth, but Beth had been past the poi
nt of caring about the sexual orientation of her future housemate. In fact, she’d been so desperate for a place to stay that wouldn’t cost her an arm and a leg that she’d forgotten the housing group was specifically LGBTQ.

  “Oh,” Beth said as she wandered through the living room and into the kitchen, the floorboards crackling beneath her feet. “Yeah, sort of.”

  “Congratulations,” Rose said. “What field are you in?”

  Oh god, here it comes… How do you tell somebody you’ve just inherited one of the country’s most infamous murder homes? “I’m a historian. I got my PhD in history. I haven’t really used it. I’ve worked in Library Services for…about five years, actually. I was working at the State Library in Sydney until recently. My contract expired.”

  Please don’t ask any more, Beth thought, not just yet. Give me a few days to prove I’m in no way related to the Manson Family and then we can go from there…

  “That’s impressive. Where did you get your doctorate?” Rose asked.

  What a relief—they were approaching safer territory. “The University of Sydney.”

  “I studied there, too.”

  “Really?”

  Rose nodded. “I did my bachelor’s there, and then I came up for my master’s at Newcastle.”

  “And what do you do for work?” Beth asked.

  “I’m a social worker.”

  Great. A social worker. That was just perfect. Of all people, Beth had to tell a social worker that she was the proud owner of the bloody Amityville Horror down the road. Why couldn’t Rose have been a crime novelist? A medical examiner? A butcher? Beth cleared her throat. “That must be hard work.”

  “Sometimes. This area has a lot more troubles than you would think,” she murmured. “Where are you working here exactly?”

  “The Blaxland Homestead.”