The Broken Hearts Book Club

by Lynsey James

  Secrets never stay buried for long…

  Lucy Harper has always been good at one thing: running from her past. But when her beloved Nana Lily passes away she has no choice except to return to the one place in the world she most wants to avoid…

  Luna Bay hasn’t changed much in the eight years she has spent in London. The little Yorkshire village is still just as beautiful, but the new pub landlord is a gorgeous addition to the scenery!

  Lucy only intended to stay for a few days, yet when she discovers that Nana Lily has not only left her a cottage but also the ‘Broken Hearts Book Club’, Lucy is intrigued. Her nana never mentioned the club and Lucy can’t wait to get started, but walking into her first meeting she is more aware than ever that her past is finally catching up with her.

  One way or another, Lucy must finally face the secrets she’s kept buried for so long - or spend the rest of her life on the run…

  Also by Lynsey James

  Just the Way You Are

  The Broken Hearts Book Club

  Lynsey James

  www.CarinaUK.com

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Book List

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Acknowledgement

  Dedication

  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

  Excerpt

  Endpages

  Copyright

  LYNSEY JAMES

  I was born in Fife in 1991 and have been telling people how to spell my name ever since. I’m an incurable bookworm who loves nothing more than getting lost in a good story with memorable characters. I started writing when I was really young and credit my lovely Grandad – and possibly a bump on the head from a Mr Frosty machine – with my love of telling stories. I used to write my own episodes of Friends and act them out in front of my family (in fact I’m sure I put Ross and Rachel together first!)

  A careers adviser at school once told me writing wasn’t a “good option” and for a few years, I believed her. I tried a little bit of everything, including make-up artistry, teaching and doing admin for a chocolate fountain company. The free chocolate was brilliant. When I left my job a couple of years ago, I started writing full-time while I looked for another one. As soon as I started working on my story, I fell in love and decided to finally pursue my dream. I haven’t looked back since.

  When I’m not writing, eating cake or drinking tea, I’m daydreaming about the day Dylan O’Brien finally realises we’re meant to be together. It’ll happen one day…

  To the best mum in the world, thank you for my love of books and words and for accepting the fact that like Lucy, even though I can’t sing, I do sing.

  Dad, aka Norman Wisdom, you make me laugh every day. I’ll never forget when you flooded the house (it’s immortalised in print, so there’s no denying it!)

  Kyle, you’re a wonderful brother and a great friend.

  Dixie, my furry baby, my life wouldn’t be the same without you.

  Jenny Marston, you’re my best friend, agony aunt and my all-round favourite person. Without your friendship, support and encouragement, I wouldn’t be writing these acknowledgements now. I’d also like to thank the Marston family – Linda, Dennis and Rory. Thank you for being my Essex family and being incredible.

  Lisa Dickenson, you freaking rock! Don’t ever change!

  Cress McLaughlin, for all your fantastic words of encouragement, THANK YOU.

  Daniel Riding for your incredible friendship and support. You are amazing!

  Danniella, thanks for all your help with Yorkshire dialect.

  Ann Troup, for your wonderful advice, fantastic conversations and being my friend.

  To all my fantastic blogger friends, none of this would happen without your support. You guys are superstars.

  The team at Carina – Victoria, Clio, Sara and everyone else – without you guys, I wouldn’t be able to share my stories. You helped make my dreams come true.

  And as always, none of this would be possible without YOU, the person about to embark on this book. Thank you for reading it, I hope you enjoy it.

  This book is dedicated to everyone who told me I couldn’t or wouldn’t write a book. You were right; I’ve now written two.

  Chapter One

  There are worse things you can do than spontaneously burst into song at your nana’s funeral.

  I can’t think of what those things might be, but I’m sure there must be some.

  At least I’d chosen to belt out a classic – Big Yellow Taxi – although I definitely sounded more like Peggy Mitchell than Joni Mitchell. I’d been up giving a eulogy about my Nana Lily, who’d recently passed away, and had come to the part where I said ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’ The rest of the lyrics followed – with surprising accuracy, I might add – before I had a chance to stop myself.

  I gave the final chorus everything I had (which, admittedly, wasn’t much) then took a bow. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, I bowed. The stunned congregation who’d come to say goodbye to my Nana Lily stared open-mouthed at me, shocked at the assault their eardrums had just taken. A few polite people clapped uncertainly, most just whispered amongst themselves. I guessed they were wondering which loony bin I’d been released from.

  As my cheeks flushed crimson, I scurried to my pew and sat next to my mum and dad, who were desperately trying to suppress smiles.

  ‘What did you think?’ I asked, dreading the answer.

  Dad didn’t reply right away. A noise that sounded like a mouse being strangled escaped from his mouth as he tried to get his giggles under control.

  ‘It was… different, Lucy. I think Nana Lily would’ve loved it anyway!’ Mum said, trying her best to look sombre and serious and failing miserably.

  She shook her head and hid her face behind her hymn book so people wouldn’t see her laughing at her own mother’s funeral. It didn’t matter really, since about half the people in St Luke’s Church were now doing the same thing.

  Well done Lucy, you absolute banana.

  I shuffled down in the pew and screwed my eyes tightly shut. My best friend and flatmate George put his arm round me and gave my shoulder a supportive squeeze.

  ‘Oh Lucy, you’re such a daft little hedgehog,’ he said. His lush accent came straight from the Welsh Valleys and was my favourite sound in the world.

  I shouldn’t even have been here. I’d left this place behind a long time ago and for a very good reason. Now here I was, back in my old hometown of Luna Bay, Yorkshire, and faced with everything I’d spent eight years running from. George had come for moral support and to make sure I actually turned up.

  ‘Don’t want you running off to become a sheep farmer in Scotland, do I? I need to keep you around to stop me from making terrible life choices,’ he’d said.

  Once upon a time, my life had been perfect. OK, so not quite perfect but pretty darn amazin
g nonetheless. Then last week happened. I’d been assigned a wealthy man’s fiftieth birthday party and everything had gone horribly wrong. He’d been having a secret affair with a twenty-five-year-old Australian lady named Cynthia and the whole party learned about it in pretty spectacular style. When I’d been off fetching Mr Marshall to do his birthday speech, she’d switched a montage of his finest moments for a video of them having noisy sex in a grungy motel off the M25.

  Naturally, my boss Helen hadn’t been amused.

  ‘He’s talking about suing us, you know. He isn’t a happy man,’ she’d said as we’d sat in her office the following morning.

  ‘In my defence, I couldn’t have known Cynthia was part of the waiting staff at his birthday party,’ I’d replied. ‘I think he was just as surprised by that as I was; he thought she was a dental hygienist. You know, I was a bit surprised he chose a grotty motel to have an affair in. With the money he makes, he could’ve at least sprung for a Best Western.’

  My fate had been sealed after that. Through gritted teeth, Helen had said that while I was good at aspects of my job – creative, intelligent and good with people – I was also a walking disaster when it came to being organised and seemed to attract chaos wherever I went.

  So here I was, sat in a church filled with people who probably hated me, and desperately wishing I was somewhere, anywhere else. A tragedy had driven me away from this beautiful corner of the world and, ironically, one had brought me back. As soon as I’d heard about Nana Lily passing away, I’d immediately made arrangements to come back. Of course it was nothing more than I deserved: what happened had all been my fault after all. I deserved to be cut off from the place and people I loved so much. Self-imposed exile in London was the least I deserved. Staying in Luna Bay after everything that happened just hadn’t been an option. I’d ruined a whole family’s lives after all. Leaving had been my way of trying to spare them any more pain. What I’d done was bad enough without them having to see me every day, living my life.

  However, after screwing things up in London, I’d had to come right back to where I’d started from: Luna Bay. Eight whole years of building a life for myself had been undone, because I didn’t have a clue what to do next. I’d heard of life throwing curveballs, but this was taking the piss.

  After the service, we decamped to The Purple Partridge – Luna Bay’s most popular pub – for a small wake. As foamy grey waves lapped against the beach directly below the pub’s outdoor terrace, around thirty of us stood inside, drinking and reminiscing about Nana Lily. It was cold and wet for mid-April, but in a couple of weeks or so the village would burst into colour as summer arrived.

  ‘I remember making fairy cakes with her and licking the spoon,’ I said, feeling a tug at my heartstrings. George, as if sensing how much pain I was in, squeezed my hand. ‘She always made the best cakes. I loved her vegetable patch too, and the chickens! They always had daft names, didn’t they? My favourites were Steve and Harold.’

  Mum and a couple of Nana Lily’s friends laughed. I could tell they were all lost in their own private memories of her, sad that they were now all they had left to remember her by. I was sad too, for different reasons. Namely because I’d hardly seen her in the last eight years.

  I felt Mum’s arm around my shoulder and she pulled me close. ‘She was always so proud of you Lucy. She’d tell anyone who’d listen that her granddaughter was living it up in big bad London! Oh talking of which, how did your thing at work go? Did you get the promotion?’

  She looked at me hopefully, her eyes red and puffy from crying at Nana Lily’s service. I froze, open-mouthed as I remembered the stonking great lie I’d told. Instead of coming clean and admitting I’d been sacked, I’d said I was up for promotion instead, so as not to burden my parents with any more things to worry about.

  Classic Lucy Harper.

  ‘Yeah I did!’ I found myself saying. My brain and my mouth had clearly chosen not to communicate with each other and my eyes widened with shock. ‘They’ve given me some time off as a… treat for doing so well. I start as soon as I go back.’

  Oh dear Christ, I thought, you bloody liar.

  Mum looked like she might burst with pride and squeezed my shoulder. I felt awful for lying, but justified it to myself by saying it was for a good cause. I didn’t want her to be any more upset than necessary and I’d tell her the truth when things had settled down.

  ‘That’s my girl!’ She kissed me on my cheek. ‘My little superstar.’

  My insides twisted and squirmed. I was such a terrible person, I thought.

  ‘I’m going to the bar, do any of you want anything?’

  Nana Lily’s friends muttered that they’d like a Scotch and a dry sherry, while Mum was sticking to her orange juice. I slipped away from the awkward conversation and made my way to the bar. I claimed the only free stool left and let my head sink down to the solid wood beneath me. Dad was lucky, I thought. He’d gone home to attend to what he’d called a ‘minor plumbing problem’, so wasn’t here to bear witness to me lying through my teeth. A neighbour of ours had called to say she’d heard running water, so he’d dashed off to see what was going on.

  ‘Bad day?’ a gruff voice in front of me asked. It was a soft Yorkshire accent that made me want to smile and do a happy dance.

  I looked up and saw a young man, around my age, standing before me. He was attractive in a quirky way; he had huge slate-grey eyes, a nose that was slightly crooked as though he’d been in a fight and full bow-like lips. A few stray locks of wavy brown hair skimmed his forehead, while a smattering of stubble was dotted across his creamy skin. He held a pint glass in his strong, veiny hands as he dried it with a towel. I decided to name him Fitty McFitterson until I knew his real name.

  ‘The worst.’ I groaned and tapped my head on the wooden bar a few times. ‘I sang Big Yellow Taxi in front of everyone at my nana’s funeral and everyone laughed!’

  ‘That’s nothing; I was up at four a.m. to accept a delivery from the brewery, a tap burst in the gents’ toilets then when I cleaned that up, the lights went! I thought we were going to have to cancel the wake, but luckily we got them fixed.’

  This guy was starting to remind me of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. He sounded so beaten down and sad.

  ‘I embarrassed myself in front of a church full of people who aren’t going to forget in a hurry. I think I win.’ I glanced up at him, hoping he wouldn’t contradict me. Being right was about the only thing I had just now.

  ‘All right, you win. This time. Do you sing at other occasions or is it just funerals?’

  I blushed and shoved my head into my hands so Fitty McFitterson didn’t see. ‘Oh no, I do the whole lot: weddings, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs. Need someone to awkwardly burst into song on special occasions? I’m your woman.’

  He leaned on the bar, bringing his face level with mine and rolling the sleeves of his white shirt up to reveal more of his muscly arms.

  Oh, mama!

  I gave myself a shake. A guy this good-looking wasn’t likely to be available and I was heading back to London as soon as humanly possible. Though what I was going to do when I got there was anyone’s guess…

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind. Have you got any more party pieces, like juggling or doing impressions? I’ve got a mate who can burp the whole of Hot in Herre by Nelly.’

  I let out a small chuckle that sounded like a chipmunk being tortured. Today really wasn’t my day.

  ‘Very impressive! Nah, making a fool of myself is my speciality. I’m a one-trick pony,’ I laughed. ‘Actually no, I’m pretty good at getting fired too. But that’s it, no more party pieces.’

  Fitty McFitterson managed a smile and looked at me. ‘I’m sure that’s not true. You look like a woman who has loads of tricks up her sleeve. What did you do?’

  My stomach started doing an acrobatics routine so accomplished it could’ve taken gold at the Olympics. Surely Fitty McFitterson wasn’t flirting with me?

  I looked
at him with what I hoped were come-get-me eyes. In reality, I probably looked like I had a squint.

  ‘I worked in events; planned parties, corporate retreats, that sort of thing. I wasn’t as good at it as I thought apparently; my boss fired me last week. She said I attract chaos wherever I go.’

  Under normal circumstances, I’d be delivering sparkling conversation and found out his name, life story and inside leg measurement by now. However, I didn’t quite feel it was appropriate to flirt at my nana’s wake. I’d already caused a scene once without adding more drama to proceedings.

  ‘So not a miracle worker then? I could do with one of those right now; even a good accountant would be a start.’ He stopped for a second and laughed. ‘Listen to me banging on when it’s you who’s at a bloody funeral! I’m not like this all the time, I promise. Let me get you a drink and you can tell me about singing Big Yellow Taxi to the whole village. It sounds like a great story.’

  ‘How can I say no to that? A vodka and Coke for me please; you can tell me why you need a miracle worker.’

  ‘Coming right up, it’s a long story mind.’

  ‘I’ve got time to listen.’

  Fitty McFitterson turned his back to fix my drink and I sneaked a peek at his bottom. Perky and round, I thought, and very squeezable.

  He went to the back of the pub to fetch something. Just after he left, I felt the atmosphere of the pub darken. There was a presence of someone behind me and I just knew I wouldn’t like it. If I closed my eyes and wished myself away, perhaps I’d wind up back at my flat in London, safe from the world with a giant tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream…

  No.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here today, Lucy.’

  I turned round and saw the last person I wanted to see. My body instantly went into panic mode as I came face to face with her. Every inch of me began to shake and although my brain was screaming at me to run, I stayed rooted to the spot.

  ‘Hello Mrs Cunningham,’ I said in as calm a voice as I could muster. ‘H-how have you been?’