No Place Like You
Page 1
No Place Like You
Marnie St Clair
www.escapepublishing.com.au
No Place Like You
Marnie St Clair
She went from having everything to having nothing—except what she really needed.
Heiress Lily Schofield never had to think about money, until suddenly she no longer has any. Left destitute by her father’s shady dealings, Lily has only one place to go: Mirabook, her mother’s country estate and the place she spent every childhood summer running wild with the station manager’s son, Josh. Until that last time, ten years ago, when everything went horribly wrong.
Strong, reliable and definitely country, Josh Farrell may have worshipped and adored his summer friend, but that was before he found out what she and her family were really like. Mirabook has stood empty for a decade, and Josh has been waiting a long time for the chance to turn the tables and make Mirabook his own.
But now Lily is back in town, looking to make the move permanent, and all Josh can see is the truckload of unfinished business she brought with her…
About the Author
Marnie grew up in country NSW but now lives in a lovely leafy suburb of Melbourne with her husband and two gorgeous daughters. Apart from a deep and abiding love of all things romance, she has a wide array of embarrassing and/or unusual passions including playing Bridge, growing succulents, visiting deserts and getting down on the Zumba floor. No points for guessing which passion is the embarrassing one.
Acknowledgements
Super-talented authors Leisl Leighton, Frana and Helena—aka the Dreamwrights, writing group par excellence—thank you. Ladies who lunch, and write! Leisl’s chicken sandwiches, Helena’s ‘homemade’ quiches and cakes, Frana’s stunningly generous hospitality … Your friendship and support over copious cups of tea and occasional glasses of bubbles for the past five (yikes!) crazy years have kept me moving forward. I wouldn’t be even close to where I am without you all.
Another talented writing buddy, the lovely Michelle Conder, for all her positive energy.
My husband Adam. Look what I did with my forty hours!
For Madeleine, who read it first. Who reads everything first. And tells me she likes it. And also tells me when she doesn’t like it. And offers a constant stream of love and support. I’m the luckiest sister in the world.
Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgements
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
Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…
Chapter 1
Josh jerked awake, drenched in sweat, heart beating so hard it was a drum pounding in his head.
He’d been back in the stables. The Schofield family stables.
Lily’s stables.
Just like that last time, she’d turned at the door, smiled at him, all long hair and long limbs, and beckoned him to follow. He would have followed her anywhere. Through hell and back …
Falling back against the pillow, he rubbed his hands across his face then rested one against his chest, as if that might slow his heart.
It’d been a while since he’d had that dream, and he knew what had prompted this one—the Schofield family’s misfortunes were all over yesterday’s paper. There’d even been a picture of Lily, emerging from court, huge dark eyes staring out at him.
Turning his head to the side, he almost started when he registered the brunette next to him. Slumbering peacefully, thank God. He might be tortured but at least he’d been spared the indignity of a witness. Then the dream-haze cleared and reality hit. Shit. That dark head belonged to Katie Duvall. Had he really just debauched the town kindergarten teacher? Yeah, he really had. After years of ignoring her not-so-subtle hints.
Damn. That was a mistake that was going to take some fixing.
He shifted restlessly for a few minutes before acknowledging there was no way he was getting back to sleep tonight. He never did when Lily forced her way into his dreams.
Easing out of bed, he headed downstairs to his office. While the computer booted, he mulled over the possibilities—for what felt like the thousandth time—for how the next few weeks might play out. Obsessed? Maybe. But this was his time, his chance to achieve the goal he’d spent years working towards.
Mirabook Estate.
Lily’s estate now, but not for long. Not if he had his way.
He spent the hours between three and dawn checking on the overseas markets. He was alone, but she was with him. A ghost he could never seem to shake.
He sold some cotton futures, and felt the whisper-soft tease of her hair against his bare chest.
Bought some greenbacks, while her slender body pressed against his.
Headed to the derivatives exchange—leaned forward, close enough to see her freckles, and kissed her.
Ten years, and still she haunted him.
***
Lily stood beside her father’s lawyer Hamish on the sidewalk and watched as the sheriff unlocked and entered her Point Piper mansion. Actually, scratch that, because it wasn’t her mansion. Not anymore. And she should feel … what, exactly? Angry she’d lost the house along with everything else? Depressed that all the time spent fighting was for nothing? Worried about what her very shaky future might hold? Any of those things would be considered appropriate, but too much had happened this year, and she was too tired to feel much of anything beyond numb.
‘Well, that’s that then,’ Hamish said, somewhat unnecessarily.
Yes, that was that. At last, it was over. And though she’d come out very much the loser, she was beyond grateful it was done. She closed her eyes and lifted her face, attempting to soak up a little warmth from the late-winter sun.
‘Go lay low for a while, and we’ll see how things turn out,’ Hamish continued. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
She turned to thank him, because if nothing else, he’d fought hard for her father, but all she saw was the back of his domed bald head, already half-way to his Maserati. Not much of a commiseration or farewell from the person she’d spent countless hours with over the past few months, but what more could she expect? Hamish was her father’s lawyer, nothing more.
He sped off without a backwards glance, apparently unfazed that the courts had ruled against the Schofields. The entirety of her late father’s estate—house and contents included—was to be dispersed to repay wronged investors, leaving her with a grand total of … nothing. Nothing but her car and a suitcase of clothes in the boot.
Lay low.
It’d been a tough couple of months—a tough year—and the idea of laying low, hiding away, was appealing. The only problem was, she didn’t have anywhere to go.
No family now that her parents were gone. Her former colleagues wouldn’t want to hear from her. And friends? Everyone she knew had subtly started dropping out of contact when the scandal first hit, and then fled as the whole sordid mess unravelled.
Fine with her. Good riddance.
Saxon was the only person in the world she’d consider calling, but he’d found his dream job in Paris and was working around the clock. The time zone thing made it difficult, but apart from that … He had enough on his plate, she didn’t want to drag him into her mess.
So, what to do? Where
to go? She dropped into the driver’s seat of her beloved Lexus, and waited for inspiration to hit.
Funny, despite doing little more than waiting for months, she hadn’t thought about what came next. It was all coping and zero planning. Burying two parents within a year would do that, she supposed.
Her hands rose and landed in a heavy slump on the wheel. She hadn’t even had a chance to mourn them. Not really. And though she hadn’t known either of them well, now she never would. That was a sadness and a regret of its own.
She squeezed the wheel and tried to focus. She needed some kind of plan, for the immediate future at least. A hotel? Could she afford it? Grimacing, she pulled her phone from the handbag on the passenger seat, and logged into her bank account. Given that she hadn’t worked in months, she wasn’t expecting miracles.
Five hundred and twenty-three dollars and seventeen cents. Not too bad, right?
Debatable. No hotel for her.
She didn’t want to stay in Sydney. She should go.
The thought came swiftly, but struck her with its rightness even as she turned it over further in her mind. She could leave. There was nothing tying her here. No job since she’d been sacked, no friends or family, no other commitments … She could just leave.
Mirabook. An insistent whisper in her head.
Mirabook. Of course. She hadn’t been thinking straight. Her car and her clothes weren’t her only possessions. She owned a house in the country. A place she hadn’t visited in years. A place all the lawyers and disgruntled former clients of her father’s hadn’t been able to touch because it had passed to her via her mother.
Lily winced. Honestly, who forgot they had a house in the country? It was everything poor-little-rich-girl she tried not to be. It was just … it had only passed to her when her mother died in a bus crash in the mountains of Turkey late last year, and she’d been too busy dealing with that, and then with all the hoo-hah surrounding the court case, then her father’s illness and death … It had slipped her mind.
She squeezed the wheel again.
Things couldn’t be too bad if she owned a house in the country. Memories of long, lazy summers flooded her mind.
Fishing in the river.
Swimming in the dam.
Josh.
She’d been so happy there, running wild for six glorious weeks every summer. Until … Frowning, she shut down the thought before it could take hold.
Mirabook wasn’t much more than a three-hour drive. If she left now, she’d be there by nightfall. The ground beneath her felt a bit more solid now that she had a plan. It’d be okay. She wasn’t sure how yet, but it’d be okay. She’d go to Mirabook. She’d lie low. She’d try to sort out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
Lily drove along the congested city roads, through the western suburbs, and headed southwest once she hit the motor way. As the houses gave way to trees and fields, she started to relax, and when she passed a certain service station, one that had always marked the halfway point between Sydney and Mirabook, she started smiling.
She remembered this drive, taken at the start of every summer. As soon as school was finished for the year, she and her mother would hightail it out of the city. Her dad never came then—he would join them on and off throughout the summer as his schedule allowed. Which hadn’t been all that often, but to be honest, it had been for the best—her parents would only fight when he was there.
She’d sit—in the back seat when she was younger, in the front seat as she grew older—and stare out the window at the setting sun, smiling the whole time. Radiantly happy, because she was going back to Mirabook. And Josh.
For the first couple of days, it’d be just her and her mum, preparing, and then the house would fill with its colourful rotation of guests. Christmas parties, New Year’s parties, parties for no occasion at all. People coming, people going. Too many people. And she was just one small girl no one paid attention to, least of all her mother, caught up as she was in playing hostess.
But that was okay. She had Josh.
God. Josh. She hadn’t thought of him in years.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
She smiled wryly. The truth was, every time he landed in her mind, she pushed him out again. Would he still be there, in Yarrow? Would she see him? Did she want to?
Maybe some things were best left in the past.
The Yarrow town sign!
She slowed as she passed through the town, down the long main street, lined on both sides with shops. So typical of country towns, but this one was different. This one was hers.
Oh, she remembered this town.
The Lemon Tree café where her mother had taken her for milkshakes. Or more often than not, got someone else to take her for milkshakes.
The Norma J clothing store. Her mother and her friends would laugh themselves stupid at the clothes in there, only visiting when they needed dress ups for seventies and eighties parties.
The police station, where inevitably, every summer at least one, most often several, Mirabook guests would spend the night locked up for misbehaving.
Lily left the town behind. Back on open road, she sped up again, rushing towards Mirabook, a sudden yearning pulling her, dragging her forward. She was so close now, she could feel it, anticipation tingling in the soles of her feet, in her stomach …
Harry’s Corner.
She was in such a hurry she’d forgotten how sharp it was.
Shit. Too much speed.
She jammed her foot on the brake, then jerked it off when she remembered that was supposed to make things worse. What was she supposed to do then?
Too fast. She was taking the curve too fast.
Her wheels spun out of control beneath her, and she fought hard to bring them back. But as she hauled around the corner, skidding onto the wrong side of the road, she saw to her horror a car heading straight towards her. A big black ute, bearing down. Impossibly big, impossibly fast.
She wrestled with the steering wheel, tried to wrench the car back onto her own side of the road.
It wasn’t working.
Oh God. She was going to die.
Chapter 2
Josh saw the red car careening towards him and swerved hard, veering off the road, jumping and skidding over and around the rocks, shrubs and fallen branches that littered the roadside.
He had a short-lived moment of relief as the cars passed each other without incident before it hit that he was heading straight for a tree.
Fuck.
He pulled hard back to the right, and slammed his foot on the brake.
Time slowed. Everyone said it did in moments like these, and they were right. An eternity in every millisecond and all he could do was wait while fate decided if his time was up.
He should be scared. Even in this strange half-space, he was aware enough to know that he should be shit-scared. But he wasn’t. He felt oddly calm. Peaceful. Warmth and light flooded him. He thought of his dad. He thought of his mum. He thought of Lily.
And then, time was up. The left rear of his truck scraped along the tree. He felt every single millimetre of it, as if it were his skin being shred to pieces. The sound it made, the screech, as if the truck were screaming in pain.
Slowly, so slowly he felt like he was trapped in a surreal slow motion movie, his speed slackened, and finally, his vehicle ground to a halt.
One second. Two seconds. Then his mind kicked into gear. He flexed his toes. Squeezed the steering wheel. Slowly rotated his head.
Somehow he’d come out unharmed. Not his time to go. Not today. Not him.
The other driver.
He jumped out and ran the fifty or so metres to where the sports car was parked off the road. He had enough wits to note he didn’t know the car. Josh knew everyone who lived in Yarrow and the surrounds, and knew the cars they drove—this little beauty wasn’t one of them. Besides, the driver had taken that curve way too fast. Locals knew this curve, treated it with respect. Add in the sun, which would
have been right in the driver’s eyes … Recipe for disaster.
Don’t let it be disaster.
Slowing to a jog as he neared, he gave the car a quick critical once-over. Undamaged, as far as he could tell. He peered through the driver’s window to see a head, covered in long honey-coloured hair, collapsed on the steering wheel, slim arms stretched up beside it. Head injury?
He opened the door and crouched down beside her. ‘Excuse me, miss, are you all right?’
Slowly, her head came up.
Lily.
No. It couldn’t be. He was confused, seeing things. She’d been in his head almost constantly since his dream a few weeks ago, and what with the deadline on the debt coming up … The accident was obviously worse than he’d thought. He must be suffering some kind of concussion.
He stared, waiting for her face to change, to reveal its true owner, but nothing changed. It was Lily. It couldn’t possibly be anyone else, not with those wide, dark eyes. Memories from that last afternoon slammed through his mind, causing him to jerk back a little.
Lily, leaping in front of her mess of a mother, terror blanching her face bone-white.
The lie that had tumbled so easily from her lips—the lie that had ended up costing his family everything.
Those soulful eyes he never could resist, holding his as she’d allowed her mother to lead her from the room.
She’d had a choice to make in that moment, and she hadn’t chosen right. She hadn’t chosen him. That had been the last time he’d seen her. Until now.
‘Josh?’ She offered him a tentative smile. Smiling at him, as if she hadn’t just almost caused a head-on collision. As if she hadn’t ruined his life.
He glanced along the body of the flashy car. Fool of a driver rocketing along a country road she didn’t know near well-enough. Of course it was Lily Schofield.
‘Lily.’
He stood, moved back a step, and she undid her seatbelt and stepped out of the car. He didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to notice anything about her, but he couldn’t help it. Moth to a flame, like he’d always been, and he noticed everything. The years had been good to her, no denying that. The same slim build, the same dreamy, languid way of moving. In soft floral-print pants and a red-and-white striped top she looked bohemian and expensive, full of that understated elegance only people born to wealth could truly pull off.