A Vintage Summer

by Cathy Bramley

Genres: Friendship; Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Random House presents the audiobook edition of A Vintage Summer, written by Cathy Bramley and read by Colleen Prendergast.

A sparkling summer story that's FULL of surprises!

London has not been kind to Lottie Allbright. Realising it's time to cut and run, she packs up and moves back home — but finds her family in disarray. In need of a new place to stay, Lottie takes up the offer of a live-in job managing a local vineyard. There's a lot to learn — she didn't even know grapes could grow so far north!

Butterworth Wines in the rolling Derbyshire hills has always been run on love and passion but a tragic death has left everyone at a loss. Widowed Betsy is trying to keep the place afloat but is harbouring a debilitating secret. Meanwhile her handsome but interfering grandson, Jensen, is trying to convince her to sell up and move into a home.

Lottie's determined to save Butterworth Wines, but with all this and an unpredictable English summer to deal with, it'll be a challenge.

And that's before she discovers something that will turn her summer — and her world — upside down . . .

Release date: March 21, 2019

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 365

Sample

‘There you go, Gladys, all nice and neat again.’ I brushed the specks of loose soil from Mrs Wheatley’s slate plaque and dropped a handful of faded pink azalea petals into my wheelbarrow. ‘Weed free and blooming beautifully. Ready for your husband’s visit tomorrow.’

I stood up and circled my shoulders. Only nine o’clock in the morning and the June heat was already beginning to build within the walls of the Garden of Remembrance. It would be a sunhat and sunscreen sort of day, a bit hot and sticky for me, working outside all day, but nice for our visitors to be able to say their farewells in the sunshine.

We had a full schedule today in the chapel of rest and on days like this, people would often linger for a while in the garden. It was the prettiest part of the North London Crematorium, in my opinion. The rest of the grounds around the chapel and the car park were laid to lawn and it always reminded me of the Teletubbies set: perfectly landscaped, beautifully green but with their man-made undulations and newly planted trees it was all a bit artificial. Nothing like the countryside where I grew up in the Derbyshire village of Fernfield, all woods and hills, streams and farmland. I suppressed a sigh and swallowed a pang of homesickness. I needed to stop thinking like this; home was here now, in London. With Harvey. I was lucky to have a job at all, not to mention one that allowed to be me outside in the fresh air.

Next stop the lovely yellow climbing rose. The ashes of a man called Shaun were scattered here. Killed in a motorbike accident, so his twin brother had told me.

Every part of this garden was special to someone: each plant, bench, wooden archway and stone ornament held treasured memories for people, the place where a loved one’s ashes had been sprinkled. And it was my privilege to care for them all. My working day was calm, ordered and, most of the time, entirely predictable. In fact, this garden was the only place in the world where I felt in control at the moment.

I picked up my watering can and made my way to Shaun’s rose bush. I got all sorts of odd requests from relatives; I was used to it by now. In this case, Shaun’s brother had asked if I would mind singing a particular song to him every now and then. I looked over my shoulder to make sure my colleague Alan wasn’t in earshot. I spotted him a little way off, going around the lavender bed with the edging shears. Mind you, even if he did hear me serenading the rose bush he would just shake his head fondly. Unlike my boss, Paula, who was very keen on remits and rotas and being discreet in public areas. She was all right, really, just a bit of a stickler for the rules. Singing and dancing were definitely not part of my job description.

But if it gave some comfort to Mr Wheatley to know that I had a chat with Gladys when I weeded the azalea he’d planted in her memory, where was the harm? And I’m sure Shaun’s rose bush had been perkier since I’d been singing his favourite Queen song to him. I began watering and cleared my throat before breaking into song.

‘Bom, bom, bom, another one bites the—’

‘Lottie? Can I have a word?’ came a voice from behind me.

I whirled around, sending a plume of water into the air that landed with a splash on my boots. Paula was picking her way across the soft green turf towards me in her court shoes. My heart sank as swiftly as her heels in the grass.

‘Sure.’ I put down the watering can. As long as the word isn’t ‘P45’. Thank goodness I’d only been singing quietly. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Can you spare me five minutes?’ she said with a jerk of her head. ‘My office.’

And without waiting for an answer she spun on her heels and marched back towards the main building so fast that her flesh-coloured tights made a zipping noise where her thighs rubbed together.

‘I’ll just tidy my tools away,’ I called after her.

‘Now you’re for it.’ Alan looked up from his clipping, knocked his cap back off his forehead and winked. ‘Another one bites the dust, eh?’

‘Don’t joke.’ My stomach swooped. ‘I really need this job.’

I’d worked for my dad as a tree surgeon before moving to London, but there’d been nothing like that on offer locally when we’d come south last December so that Harvey could set up his own personal training business in the capital. ‘Let’s follow the money and move to London,’ he’d said, grabbing my hands, his eyes gleaming with pound signs. ‘I’ve got a mate with a flat we could rent.’

Everyone in London could afford personal trainers, he’d reckoned. Punters were cash-rich and time-poor and would be falling over themselves to hand over said cash to be put through their paces. It would be a piece of low-fat, low-sugar cake to set up his own fitness consultancy down south. In fact, he’d said with a swagger, he’d probably have to take on staff within the first year. And it would do me good, he’d added in a tone laced with mock rebuke, to finally cut the apron strings and stand on my own two feet.

I’d been so proud of his ambitions and his self-assurance that I’d been swept along with it, not really thinking through what I’d do when I got to London. As it turned out, the streets hadn’t been as richly paved with gold as he’d assumed and it had been impossible to find enough wealthy clients to make ends meet so when the gym he’d joined advertised for staff, he took the job to tide him over. He was still there. And the tiny flat that his friend had rented to him as a stopgap was scarcely more than a bedsit and, although Harvey insisted on paying for it himself, I suspected the rent was triple what my sister Evie and her husband Darren’s mortgage cost for their three-bedroomed house in Fernfield. Needless to say, we were still there.

But Harvey had been right about one thing: it had been time for me to leave home. Dad and I had become too reliant on each other. He took on a business partner when I left; a man who could do the aerial cutting that I’d always done. And although I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was deliriously happy right now, I’d managed to survive six months in the capital, living and working with someone other than a family member. Not bad for a confirmed home bird like me.

I stowed my garden tools safely where they couldn’t cause injury to the public and scurried after Paula. I caught up with her just as she reached the ‘authorized personnel only’ door in the side of the building and pulled it open for her.

‘Good weekend?’ I asked, using my question as an opportunity to scan her face for clues as to what sort of mood she was in.

She stopped and leaned on the door frame to flick clumps of mud from her shoes. I took the hint and wiped my wet boots on the mat.

Paula sighed. ‘The weekends are never long enough, are they? No sooner do we finish on a Friday afternoon than …’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Snap. Monday morning rolls back round and we’re off again. Noses to the grindstone.’

‘Too true.’ I tried to smile rather than grimace. I daren’t tell her that just lately my weekends had stretched to an interminable length as Harvey had become increasingly bad-tempered and – yes, I was going to admit it to myself – erratic. One minute he’d be squeezing the living daylights out of me, declaring that I was his soulmate and he couldn’t live without me, the next he’d fly into a huge sulk after I made an innocuous comment about a work colleague. It was a relief to come back to work every Monday, knowing that because of my early starts and his late finishes at the gym, it would be Saturday before I had to spend many waking hours with him. And if I was lucky, he’d be doing the weekend shift and I could have a few hours to myself.

After I’d helped him design leaflets and deliver them to several hundred houses in the neighbourhood, I’d run out of things to do and had wanted to look for a job. Harvey said he felt humiliated that he couldn’t afford for me to stay at home, and I remember kissing him and saying with a laugh that it was no longer the nineteen fifties and I didn’t expect him to bankroll me. I think that was the day of our first row.

A temporary job as grounds maintenance at the crematorium had been the only thing I could find that came close to my skills and experience. I knew I was on borrowed time until the person whose job I was doing came back, but now I hoped my time wasn’t up yet. Without something to get me out of our poky little flat every day, I’d go bonkers.

Paula ushered me into her office and shut the door behind me. My spirits sank a little lower; shutting the door was never a good sign. She removed her navy blue suit jacket to reveal a short-sleeved white nylon shirt which crackled with static and hung it on the back of her chair.

‘Sit down, Lottie.’ She waved me to her visitor’s chair and plonked herself down behind her desk.

‘Thank you.’ I sat on the plastic chair, tucking my hands underneath my thighs to stop me waving them about nervously.

‘How long have you been with us now?’

‘Four months.’

‘And what would you say is our primary function, here at the North London Crematorium ?’ She leaned forward on her desk, head cocked to one side.

‘Our primary function is funerals,’ I said, wondering if this was a trick question. ‘And making the loss of a loved one as painless as possible.’

‘Funerals,’ said Paula, glossing over my second point. ‘Specifically what type of funerals?’

‘Well, cremations. Obviously.’ I shrugged.

‘Exactly. Not burials.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Cremations for … ?’

Oh God. A tremor of dread flooded through me. Suddenly I knew exactly where this was heading.

‘People?’ I muttered weakly.

Her gaze held mine as she reached for a glass of water on her desk. ‘People, Lottie. Humans.’

‘Okay, I can explain.’ I untucked my hands and pressed them on to her desk. ‘I know I shouldn’t have dug a grave for that hamster in the south corner by the hedge. Nor made a little cross from two lollipop sticks. But the little boy had travelled such a long way on his own on the bus with a shoebox containing what was left of Biscuit. It was the least I could do and it only took a few minutes. He’d written a eulogy and everything. Biscuit was his best friend. And he’d tried burying it in his garden but the dog had dug it up twice. The poor thing had already lost three of its limbs. I didn’t have the heart to send the poor boy packing.’

Paula choked on her water and closed her eyes for a second.

‘You acted out of kindness, I understand that.’ She let out a long breath. ‘But it’s against the rules, Lottie. The Health and Safety Executive would crucify us.’

‘It won’t happen again,’ I promised. ‘And what about the singing?’ ‘You heard that?’ I cringed, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. ‘I never was very good at Queen songs.’

‘Queen?’ She stared at me. ‘I’m talking about your rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” with an old lady, complete with high kicks.’

I gulped. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘CCTV,’ she said, pointing to a small screen on a bracket high up on the wall of her office.

Oh no.

‘I thought that was just for at night, when the security team is here,’ I said in a small voice.

‘Nope. We see everything.’ Her nostrils flared but I thought – hoped – I could see a glimmer of amusement in her eye.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I pleaded. ‘I know I’m supposed to be just gardening, but my motto is to always be kind. And I find it hard to say no when people ask me to do stuff. Always have. My sister Evie says I’m a pleaser.’

I once admitted to Evie that I took my inspiration from Paddington Bear who always did the kind thing. When she’d finally got her breath back from a fit of laughter, she said the fact I’d chosen a cuddly, duffel-coat-wearing, marmalade-sandwich-eating teddy bear as a role model explained a lot about the scrapes I got myself into.

‘I can see that.’ Paula cocked her head to one side. ‘And while it does mean that you bend the rules to the point of snapping, kindness is something from which we can all benefit, from time to time.’

I let out a breath. ‘I’m so relieved. I thought you were giving me a warning.’

‘I am. Unofficially. But you’ve brought a zest for life to this crematorium, Lottie; not just to the gardens, but to the team too. We’ve never had a member of staff who’s had so much interaction with our visitors before. I’m not, however, condoning the pet burial, or you joining in with ceremonies to sprinkle ashes, or sitting on the bench under the cherry tree going through that old lady’s wedding albums.’

I winced; she really had paid attention to that CCTV.

‘Now. Next week …’ Paula sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers. ‘There is good news and bad news.’

My heart sank again. ‘Please can we start with the bad?’

‘Lisa, whose post you’ve been filling, has been declared fit for work from Monday. Great for her, but it would mean that your last day should be this Friday.’

‘Should be?’ I held my breath.

Paula beamed. ‘I’m delighted to say that another opening has cropped up …’

Ten minutes later I stumbled from her office and back outside to the car park hardly daring to believe what I’d just heard. A promotion. Me. To grounds maintenance supervisor. More money, longer hours, paid holiday, a pension even – I’d never had a pension! Dad would be pleased for me; he worried, I knew, that we were hardly making ends meet at the moment.

But Harvey: what would he have to say about it?

My stomach churned at the prospect of broaching the subject without him taking it as a personal affront, without him accusing me of prioritizing my job over our relationship, and making him jealous that my career was taking off when coming to London had been his idea, his dream. A few months ago it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to worry about his reaction, but since he’d been at that gym he’d changed. I knew if I failed to pick the right moment there was every chance he’d fly into one of his rages followed by days of seething silence. By the time I’d reached the Garden of Remembrance to pick up where I’d left off, I was in a cold sweat. Hot acid rushed from my stomach to my throat. I was going to be sick. I dashed behind a row of conifers and coughed into shrubbery.

What a mess.

Harvey Nesbitt was the most handsome, charismatic and devoted boyfriend I’d ever had. Not only that, his enthusiasm, energy and go-get-’em attitude had captured my imagination and ultimately my heart after we met through a dating app last year. He was a trier, was Harvey, and I’d been bowled over by his optimistic outlook on life. He thought nothing of changing careers, taking up new challenges, moving city … He seemed to take it all in his stride.

Not like me. I’d had grand plans once upon a time. I even left home for a year to take up a place at university to study Media. Then Mum had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and my degree went out of the window. I came home to help Dad look after her and six months later she passed away. Evie tried to persuade me go back to uni. I was only twenty, it wasn’t too late and it would open doors, she’d said, give me independence, a future. Three years older than me, she’d already finished her degree and had got a good job as an accountant in Manchester. But for me the moment had passed. I’d changed. Everything had changed. Spending three years with a load of carefree twenty-somethings whose biggest dilemma was which pub sold the cheapest drinks no longer held any appeal. I’d lost my mum and somewhere during the last few months of her life I’d lost my way too. Mum had been the sunshine in our lives and she and Dad had been blessed with one of those fairy-tale marriages which no one in their company could fail to be touched by. He called her ‘blossom’ and brought her a tea tray complete with her favourite china cup and a fresh flower in bed before he left for work each morning. She tucked paper hearts and love notes in his lunchbox and told him every day that he was her soulmate. If I could have even a fraction of their happiness when I eventually married, I’d vowed long ago, I’d be a happy, happy woman.

Immediately following Mum’s funeral, Dad took early retirement from the fire service and I spent the next year trying to coax him out of the house. In the end, a friend begged him to help him get rid of a tree which had come down blocking his drive. To my relief, Dad found he quite enjoyed being active again. A month later Allbright’s Tree Services was born. Dad took a course and obtained his chainsaw licence and, because I had nothing better to do, I became his assistant. All those years of climbing trees and making dens finally paid off. I became a dab hand with the shiny new shredder too, making bark chippings from the chopped-down branches, which we sold for ten pounds a sack.

Evie moved back to Fernfield, married a lovely man called Darren, successfully set up her own home-based accountancy business and sadly unsuccessfully tried to start a family. One devastating miscarriage and countless tests on both of them had taken their toll on the relationship and last time Evie phoned she admitted that she was beginning to think that they’d fallen out of love with each other. I reassured her that this would be a temporary blip but it tore me apart to see them both suffering; they made such a lovely couple.

It was twelve years since Mum died and Dad had stayed single all this time. He eschewed all advances from members of the opposite sex, though as his tan deepened and his body grew leaner from all his physical work, there were plenty of offers. Now in his early sixties, he decided last month to retire properly, sell the business to his partner, rent his house out and travel around Europe for a year on his own.

I cried when I heard the news. Not because I didn’t want him to go, but because this adventure had always been their plan for retirement: Mum and Dad’s, together. I was both proud of him for going ahead by himself and heartbroken that he had to.

As for me, boyfriends had drifted in and out of my life, mostly out; they were all, without exception, pleasant enough. I even lived with the last one before Harvey for a couple of months. But none of them made my skin tingle or my heart leap when their name flashed up on my phone screen. None of them made my stomach fizz when they turned up at my door to collect me for an evening out. None of them ever called me ‘blossom’. Until I met Harvey.

From the moment our flirting graduated from online chat to meeting in real life, Harvey charmed me. He charmed us all, actually. Dad thought he was just the type of young man to make me push my boundaries, Evie thought he was sexy as hell, and even Darren thought he was a top man and took him for the odd pint at the pub. When Harvey called me ‘blossom’ on our fifth date and brought me flowers, it felt like the sign I’d been looking for; maybe I’d finally met ‘the one’.

A year down the line I still loved him, but the fairy-tale romance I’d signed up for had evaporated somewhere along the M1 between Fernfield and Tottenham. And I wasn’t sure what to do about it.

That evening, when I let myself into our open-plan flat, Paula’s words came back to me: ‘You’ve made me realize that in certain instances, a kind word to a grieving mother or a consoling pat on the arm to a widower is valued far more than our usual policy of discretion and invisibility. Please give serious consideration to this promotion. I’d really like to have you on board permanently.’

Permanently.

I wandered across to the kitchen area, remembering the panicky feeling that Paula’s job offer had given me. Her eyes had been twinkling with confidence after she’d imparted her news; so sure was she that I’d snap her hand off. I felt terrible watching her smile slip when I told her I’d think about it.

I wasn’t even one hundred per cent sure that I’d thanked her. I must have; I’d have done it on autopilot before standing up, shaking her hand and fleeing her office.

Until Paula uttered the ‘permanent’ word, I hadn’t realized how much I cherished the freedom that my temporary job afforded me.

Did I really want to commit to the crematorium, or even to London, I thought as I washed up the dirty crockery Harvey had left on the kitchen breakfast bar. I poured hot water and washing-up liquid into the pan he’d used to make his mountain of scrambled eggs to let it soak for a few minutes while I made myself a cup of tea. He was on a high-protein, low-fat diet these days, which might be having an incredible impact on his body shape, but not using butter made a right mess of the pan.

The even bigger question was, I admitted to myself: did I really want to commit to Harvey?

A quiver of lust darted through me at the thought of his toned abs. He’d had a lovely body when I met him: slim and athletic. His last job before taking his personal training qualification was selling private medical insurance but he’d felt trapped and lethargic working in an office. Now he was well and truly ‘ripped’. Since he’d been working at Muscle Works gym in Tottenham he had virtually doubled in size: his biceps were like boulders and his thighs were rock solid. Even his neck seemed to have grown. I was a bit leaner too. Partly because of my long hours at the crematorium, but mostly because of the healthy diet Harvey insisted was as good for me as it was for him.

Once the kitchen was clean, I chopped a mountain of vegetables and chicken ready for a stir-fry as soon as Harvey got in. Then I tidied the rest of our fourth-floor flat, which, due to the fact that it was barely bigger than my bedroom at home, took me all of five minutes. He’d be home soon and my stomach was already jittery with nerves. I decided to practise announcing my good news on my sister. I perched on the window sill and dialled her number.

‘Supervisor at a crematorium, hey?’ said Evie with a giggle when I told her. ‘Every young girl’s dream. At least it’ll be quiet.’

‘But it’s a green space,’ I said, gazing absentmindedly through the living-room window at the concrete jungle below. There were some lovely parts of Tottenham; unfortunately, our street wasn’t one of them. ‘You don’t know how precious that is around here. Plus, we’d have a bit more money coming in.’

Although me earning more than Harvey would go down about as well as a hog roast at a vegetarian barbeque.

‘Sorry,’ she said, chastened. ‘And well done on being promoted so quickly; they must really value you. Not that I’m in the least bit surprised; why wouldn’t they? Although …’ She tailed off with a sigh.

‘Although what?’

‘Forgive me if I’m overstepping the mark, but it doesn’t seem to me as if Harvey’s personal training business has taken off as planned, has it?’

That was an understatement. So far he’d only managed to recruit one client: an old lady who lived a forty-minute tube ride away and conducted her exercises from her armchair. And even that had fizzled out when her son had found out how much Harvey was charging her. Of course, I wasn’t going to tell Evie that; it seemed disloyal.

‘Give him a chance; it will,’ I said, ‘and now he’s working at the gym, it puts him in a good position to pick up private clients. He certainly looks the part; he’s got muscles on muscles these days.’

‘Hmm,’ she said, sounding unconvinced. ‘I half hoped you wouldn’t like it in London and you’d come home. If you take the promotion it feels more permanent. I miss you, Lottie.’

My throat tightened; she’d inadvertently hit the nail on the head. At the moment I was on a zero hours contract: no commitment on either side. This new role would be harder to walk away from. If I needed to. I gave myself a shake.

‘I miss you too,’ I said with a catch in my throat.

And Dad, although he’d be off on his travels as soon as he’d found a tenant to rent the house. But I missed the village. I missed being part of the community. I missed people smiling at me in recognition in the pub, I missed bumping into my mum’s friends who’d been so kind to us after she died. I even missed people knowing my business. Here I was no one, I had no one. Except Harvey. And although in our first few months, we’d had great fun living together, the honeymoon period seemed to be over.

‘I can’t win, though, can I?’ I continued, forcing humour into my voice. ‘You encouraged me to move out, start a new life away from the village. And now I’ve done it, you want me to chuck in the towel and come back.’

‘Touché,’ said Evie with a bark of laughter. ‘Anyway, I’m being selfish. I bet Harvey’s pleased.’

‘He doesn’t know yet. He’s not back from work.’

‘You didn’t call him when you found out?’

‘No, I …’ I hesitated, feeling heat rise to my cheeks as I concocted a lie. ‘He’s not allowed to take personal calls at the gym.’

Something – maybe pride, or possibly even shame – had prevented me from telling my family how things were going between Harvey and me. As far as they were concerned, he was still the golden boy, the one who’d finally persuaded Lottie to fly the nest. I’d thought they might get suspicious when we didn’t come home for Christmas. I’d really wanted to spend a few days with Dad and Evie, especially as Evie had hinted at problems between her and Darren, but Harvey thought we should celebrate our first Christmas alone. We’d only just moved in together and he sweetly said it felt like we were on honeymoon; going home would just spoil the mood. He didn’t have any family, so perhaps he hadn’t understood what a big sacrifice it was for me not to see mine at Christmas and it had been on the tip of my tongue to point that out. But then he had painted such a romantic picture of our day – champagne breakfast, a frosty walk along Oxford Street to peer in shop windows and see the lights, followed by a movie in front of the fire, curled up together – that I’d been unable to resist him.

There was a pause down the line.

‘O-k ay,’ said Evie eventually.

Oh sod it, why didn’t I just tell her? I’d never kept secrets from her before. And Evie wouldn’t judge; if anything she’d be upset I hadn’t shared my doubts about Harvey before now.

I took a deep breath, my pulse racing as I built up to it. ‘Evie—’

‘Actually, I’ve got some news too,’ she blurted out in a rush. The urgency in her voice made me forget all about my own worries. Please say she was pregnant.

‘Go on, tell me then.’

‘I’m going to apply for us to become foster parents,’ she said, exhaling as she spoke.

I pushed aside my disappointment; it was still brilliant that they were taking positive action as a couple.

‘That’s amazing, I’m thrilled for you both!’ I cried, my face breaking into a huge smile. ‘See, I told you Darren would come round in the end. He just needed time!’

This had been the bone of contention between them for months. Darren had wanted a child but, according to Evie, he wasn’t interested in going down any route other than the biological one. Evie wanted a child any which way she could.

‘I haven’t told him yet.’ I heard my sister swallow hard and my heart plummeted. ‘I thought I’d go ahead and fill in an initial form online. And then I’ll tell him. Ideally I’d like to adopt, but he’s not sure how he feels about that. At least with fostering we can practise looking after children without a long-term commitment and if it goes well … who knows?’

‘Does this mean that things between the two of you have improved?’ I asked hopefully.

I heard her groan softly. ‘Not so as you’d notice. That’s why we need to do something positive, something that moves us forward.’

‘And you definitely can’t consider other options: sperm donors, egg donors, IVF?’

There was a silence down the line.

‘I would but Darren … Well, let’s just say it’s not an option. Which is why I’m ruling out being a biological mother. No,’ I heard her suck in a breath, ‘fostering ticks a lot of boxes.’

I bit my lip, worried that this approach was more likely to push Darren further away. ‘I don’t think you should get too far into it before you talk to him about it.’

‘But I want to go ahead,’ she said with a wobbly voice. ‘I want to be a mum more than anything.’

‘More than being Darren’s wife?’ I asked softly.

I thought about Mum and Dad and the loving role models they’d been for us. If anyone had been shown how to get it right, it was Evie and me. And yet look at us: I was having doubts about the man I’d fallen so madly in love with and she was going behind the back of a man who up until now had done everything in his power to make her happy.

‘How did it come to this?’ I murmured half to myself.

‘That’s simple,’ said Evie sharply. ‘I got pregnant against the odds and lost it and now because of our problem, Darren and I can’t have the family we wanted, but it doesn’t have to stop us completely, does it?’

Our problem. Evie had never revealed which one of them had fertility problems. She and Darren had simply told everyone that the chances of them conceiving were one in a million. No blame on either side. I totally respected their decision not to go into detail, but it did make this sort