All Summer With You

by Beth Good

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

There's no place like home... Nursing a broken heart, Jennifer Bolitho retreats to Pixie Cottage. Her new landlord - a former soldier turned movie heartthrob - has grounds so large, she's sure the little house nestled in the woods will bring her solitude. Alex Delgardo also has reasons to hide away. Seeking refuge after a tragic incident turned his world upside down, he knows that the most important thing now is to care for his ailing family. But when Jennifer enters their lives, that changes. Because, as they both learn, you can't heal others until you learn to heal yourself... See what REAL READERS are saying about Beth's books: 'If you want a quality romance with a difference this is it' 'One of my favourite authors - a warm hug of a book, perfect for those cold winter days, it is heartwarming, funny, with hints of romance ... I would have happily read this in one sitting, and was sorely tempted to' - Rachel's Random Reads 'Charming, poignant and absolutely magical' 'It's a warm and comforting hug of a book and I loved it' 'Filled with all of the magic and sparkle of the festive season. This is a Christmas book not to be missed'

Release date: June 27, 2019

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 285

Sample

Jennifer had been sobbing for hours. She felt ragged, raw, and had lost all sense of time. She was lying face down on her bed, ignoring occasional notification chimes from her mobile, when the bleating of a goat brought her upright.

She knew it was a goat, and not a sheep, because her friend Rekha had once kept three goats at her beachside Cornish home. Three very vocal goats, named after three Hindu gods: Shiva, the Destroyer, whose key skill had turned out to be precisely that; Ganesha, the Elephant God, due to the odd shape of his head; and Durga Devi, the Invincible Goddess, known for knocking over and rummaging among the dustbins, no matter how securely their lids had been fastened. Only Rekha had moved away to Devon years ago, taking her goats with her, so this couldn’t be one of hers.

Jennifer grabbed the box of tissues from her bedside table, blew her nose, dabbed ineffectually at her eyes and swung herself off the bed.

Her reflection mocked her from the mirror on the wardrobe door: long, dark, tangled hair, red-rimmed eyes and a complexion as mottled as a halloumi and beetroot salad. Her oldest, baggiest pair of jeans were speckled with paint from redecorating the living room, and her vest top had ridden up her midriff almost to her chest, making her look decidedly louche. She had lost weight, too. She wasn’t quite as flat-chested as she had been in her teenage years, but boyish would not be an inaccurate description of her figure.

Was it any wonder Raphael Tregar had preferred the curvy, well-endowed Hannah Clitheroe to her? Her chin started to wobble precariously.

‘Forget him,’ she thought out loud, and wagged a cross finger at herself in the mirror. ‘Raphael Tregar is not worth it. He’s just a man. But you’re a woman, and women can do anything they set their minds on. Anything at all. You hear that? You’re a woman.’ Having established this important distinction, she wandered to the window and gazed down curiously into the small front garden. ‘And you, my friend,’ she continued, finding a pair of slanted eyes looking back up at her, ‘are a goat.’

She had moved into Pixie Cottage a week ago, and had been working on her keynote speech for the Pethporro Folklore Festival for most of that time, barely venturing out except to purchase fresh milk and the occasional cheese sandwich.

She was already feeling lonely out here, in the middle of nowhere; she could not deny it. Lonely and a little depressed.

But wasn’t that why she had moved here in the first place? To escape the demands of the outside world, and wallow, and write her book?

It seemed the world was not done with her yet.

This was her first encounter with a local.

‘But whose goat are you? That’s the real question. It’s not like I have many neighbours all the way out here.’

She lifted her gaze to the vast Porro Park estate that bordered the cottage, her neighbour’s house invisible behind thick woodland. Not just her neighbour, in fact, but her landlord. Pixie Cottage belonged to the estate, and was formerly home to a gamekeeper, apparently. Now it was a rental property, and she was its latest tenant. Apart from Porro Park, there was no other human habitation for several miles in any direction. So unless the goat was living wild in the woods . . .

Losing interest in her shocked expression, her visitor lowered its head to graze the herb bed, and Jennifer heard the faint jingle of a bell.

She leant closer to the window, staring. The animal was wearing a collar under its fine grey goatee beard. A thick collar, with a bell attached to it. Perhaps this goat had a reputation for wandering, she thought grimly, watching it chomp a second generous mouthful of flat-leaved parsley. A collar and bell meant it was no wild Cornish goat, to be chased away at will, but a domesticated animal with an owner.

An owner who was almost certainly aware of its absence by now and quite possibly frantic with worry.

‘Okay, you pest. That’s enough of my parsley.’

Jennifer pushed her feet into her sandals and hurried downstairs before the wretched animal could spot the runner bean climbers wreathed lavishly about a bamboo frame just ten feet from the herb bed. She hadn’t sown any of the plants at Pixie Cottage herself, of course, but she hoped to be the one who would reap their harvest later that summer – not this nameless goatee-sporting thief.

The cottage was not difficult to negotiate in a hurry. One-bedroomed, it boasted an open-plan kitchen and living room downstairs, with a tiny bathroom on the first floor, next door to her bedroom. The living room had a glass-fronted log burner for winter months, and thick walls to ensure the place stayed cool on hot summer days, according to the agent who had let her the property. Most of the windows downstairs were narrow and festooned with ivy; daylight had a delicate green tint, as if the cottage were underwater. But Jennifer rather liked that. She had felt for so many months as though she were drowning. The greenish light seemed to confirm it.

The place had been bland magnolia throughout when she moved in, a colour she despised. She had redone it in white downstairs, and the living room smelt bracingly of fresh paint.

The local paper was still lying below the log burner where she had thrown it earlier in a fit of temper. She didn’t so much as glance at it on the way out. But her nerves prickled.

That bloody photograph!

There was still no sign of Ripper, she noticed. Since installing a cat flap, her Siamese cat had been vanishing at regular intervals in search of voles and other hapless prey. At least there didn’t appear to be any corpse trophies lying around this morning.

Meanwhile, the goat was demolishing brightly coloured nasturtiums, both front hooves sunk in the flower bed, head down as it munched busily.

There was an old length of rope in the shed. Jennifer shook off the spiderwebs, looped the rope over her arm and approached the goat in a firm but non-threatening manner. The goat looked up and stopped chewing. Nasturtiums trailing from its mouth, it eyed her warily.

Now, what was it Rekha had said about the best way to catch goats?

‘Come on, goaty-goat. Time to go home.’

The goat bobbed its head, unimpressed by the rope. It bleated and complained all the way along the shady woodland path that lay between her cottage and Porro Park, as they walked in the direction of the house. But Jennifer did not relent, clicking her tongue at the reluctant animal and tugging gently on the rope she had knotted to its collar whenever it showed signs of trying to bolt.

‘Not far now,’ she said in a reassuring tone.

She knew her way through the woods, having explored this path a few times already, curious to see where film star Alex Delgardo lived. Not that he actually lived here, of course. The great house at Porro Park was a second home for the celebrity actor, who spent most of the year in some multimillion-pound London pad, according to the letting agent.

He had strict rules for any tenants of the former gamekeeper’s cottage, too. Her background had been vetted, and on moving-in day, Jennifer had been made to sign an agreement. She was not permitted to pass beyond the woods, or take any photographs of the main house or its occupants, or allow any guests to enter the grounds via her premises, which was inside the grounds of the park. The whole estate, including her little cottage, was concealed behind a huge wall topped with broken glass and razor wire.

For privacy, she had her own side entrance by road to the estate, with a gate operated by a key code: a complete faff to manage in the pouring rain, as she had already discovered, jumping out of her car once to enter the code, then leaping back in, utterly drenched.

Abruptly, the path ended at an eight-foot-high red-brick wall. Beyond it she could see nothing but rhododendron bushes, huge and glossy-leaved.

There was an arched doorway in the wall, and in it an iron-studded wooden door.

The door stood slightly ajar.

‘Your escape route, no doubt,’ she said to the goat in a disapproving voice.

The goat spotted the doorway and abandoned all pretence of not knowing the way. It bleated merrily and trotted ahead of her towards the wall, looking almost eager to get home. Jennifer walked behind, still keeping hold of the rope, just in case. But it was clear the greedy runaway knew where it was going.

She followed the goat through the arched doorway onto a charming rhododendron walk, a gravel path edged with massive bushes that still bore a few red and pink blooms from their spring flowering.

‘This is odd,’ she muttered. ‘Who on earth do you belong to? Not Alex Delgardo, that’s for sure.’

Her new neighbour was known for playing tough military men in blockbuster movies. She and her stepsister Caroline had watched a few of his films together on their occasional girls’ nights in. His most famous role was as Cheetham, an ex-SAS officer on a quest to clear his name, a quest that continued relentlessly from film to film, giving him ample opportunity to blow things up.

She chuckled. ‘Somehow I can’t see a big film star owning a goat.’

The goat replied with a non-committal ‘meh’.

Though Delgardo hadn’t made any new films recently. There’d been some kind of incident during the making of his last one – a terrorist attack, that was it. People had been killed, others wounded.

Alex Delgardo himself had been injured in the attack, though not seriously. She vaguely recalled an interview he’d given a few days later from his hospital bed. He had looked shocked and gaunt on camera, his chest bandaged, his face scratched and burnt. But he’d sounded perfectly calm. The show must go on, et cetera.

However, since the attack, Alex Delgardo hadn’t been much in the public eye. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember if he was even making films any more. Maybe his wounds had been more serious than the reports claimed. Maybe he’d started a hippy commune down here in Cornwall and was working as a goatherd.

Laughing at that mental image, Jennifer found she was almost trotting herself, trying to keep up with the goat. Then the powerful animal gave a sudden jerk and broke free, running off with the rope trailing after it.

‘Damn,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Hey, come back!’

The annoying creature rounded a corner ahead of her and she hurried after it, stopping dead at the sight of a man.

A man she recognised from a thousand internet memes.

A man bending to stroke the goat’s ears as it happily mehed and headbutted his legs. Bare, muscular legs clad in army fatigue shorts.

Alex Delgardo.

On-screen, his designer stubble was always perfect, his short, dark hair impeccably cut and under control even during chase scenes. Today, he had the faint stirrings of a beard where he had not shaved in a while and his hair was messy, standing up in places as though he had been running impatient hands through it. Apart from that, Delgardo looked essentially the same as he did in his films. He was thirty-one, she seemed to recall. Two years older than her and in the prime of life. He certainly looked uber-fit. His broad shoulders were almost bursting out of the sandy camouflage t-shirt he was wearing, his tattooed biceps rippling impressively as he reached down to untie the rope fixed to the goat’s collar.

‘What’s this?’ he was saying in a deep, gravelly voice that was so familiar it made the hairs rise on the back of her neck. ‘Who tied you up, baby?’

Baby?

Maybe he really was into goats.

‘That’s disturbing,’ she said under her breath.

Alex Delgardo looked up and saw her. He straightened to his full height, which had to be well over six foot, and his dark eyes narrowed on her.

Sexy, she thought.

‘Hello.’ Again, that voice stirred all sorts of deep-buried instincts inside her. ‘And who the hell are you?’

Rude, too.

She didn’t reply immediately, recalling the iron-clad tenancy agreement she had signed only a week ago promising never to enter her neighbour’s premises, and wondering if a stray goat could be construed as an emergency.

His gaze moved slowly up and down her body, returning to her face with as much suspicion as the goat had shown earlier.

Like goat, like master.

‘And what were you doing with Baby?’

‘I . . .’

Before Jennifer could come up with a coherent response, an old lady in a long white dress appeared from the shrubbery behind him.

With a shock of voluminous white hair, and a lopsided daisy chain hanging around her neck, the old woman came pushing out from between the gigantic rhododendron bushes as though she lived in them, had always lived there and was now emerging in order to utter some life-changing prophecy.

Jennifer stared, amazed.

Behind the woman came a gaggle of goats: maybe half a dozen skinny, raw-boned goats with mad, staring eyes and bells jingling from collars identical to the one her stray goat wore, closely following their leader as though she were the goat version of the Pied Piper.

This vision in white spotted the goat on a rope and gave a shriek, clapping her hands in delight. ‘Baby!’ she exclaimed, and Jennifer realised this must be the animal’s name and not a term of endearment.

The other goats mehed loudly, crowding round their lost compadre with excitement, some even chewing on its trailing rope.

‘How lovely,’ the elderly woman said in a sing-song Cornish accent, studying the goat first and then Jennifer. ‘Of course, it had to be you. And here you are at last.’ She beamed at her. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

‘I asked who you were,’ Alex Delgardo said curtly, ignoring the old lady.

Jennifer dragged her gaze away from the white-haired woman and looked reluctantly at Delgardo instead.

Instinctively she drew herself up, determined not to be overawed by his celebrity status. She might not be six foot, but she was tall for a woman, and she didn’t like the way the film star was frowning at her.

‘I’m your tenant at Pixie Cottage,’ she said. ‘This goat came into my garden. I thought I’d better bring her back before she strayed onto the main road. You really ought to take better care of your livestock.’

Delgardo’s eyebrows rose at her tone. Clearly he wasn’t used to people talking back to him like that.

‘Name?’ he demanded, sounding tough and terse, rather like his military character, Cheetham.

‘You don’t know your own tenant’s name?’

‘My PA will know. He takes care of all that.’

Of course he does, she thought.

Jennifer put out her hand. ‘In that case, I’m Jennifer Bolitho.’

She waited, but Alex Delgardo didn’t shake her hand or reply. He merely looked her up and down again, plainly indifferent to what he saw.

A mobile phone rang, loud in the peace of the gardens.

‘Mr Delgardo,’ she began, but he stuck his right hand in the air, palm out, as though directing traffic, and she stopped.

Delgardo fished a mobile out of his pocket with his left hand and took a few steps away to take the call. He didn’t say much but listened, head bent, his right hand still stuck in the air.

After a minute or so he muttered, ‘I’ll be right there,’ and ended the call as abruptly as he’d begun it. He turned back. ‘It was good of you to bring Baby back to us, Miss Bolitho,’ he said, finally lowering his hand. ‘But you need to go home now. We’re busy today.’

Jennifer stared at him, astonished.

‘Nana?’ He glanced round at the old lady and her goats, his voice suddenly gruff. ‘That’s enough walking for today. You’d better come back with me to the house.’

‘In a moment, Alex.’ She smiled benignly, playing with the daisy chain around her neck. ‘I need to speak to Miss Bolitho first.’

Alex Delgardo hesitated, looking frustrated.

‘Run along,’ the old lady insisted.

The film star shot Jennifer a quelling glance, said, ‘Five minutes,’ in an ominous tone, and then set off back along the rhododendron path at a near run.

The old lady watched until he was out of sight, then turned back to her. ‘Don’t mind my grandson. He’s had some, um, bad news. That always puts him in an awful mood.’ She did not elaborate on what kind of bad news he’d received. The goat pushed its nose into the old lady’s dress, and she patted the animal on the head. ‘Yes, yes, I know. Poor Baby. Did you wander off again and get yourself lost?’ She tutted. ‘I expect you’re starving.’

‘Not the way she’s been tucking into my flower bed. Especially the nasturtiums.’

‘Greedy little thing, isn’t she? Though I don’t blame her. Nasturtiums are so tasty.’ She beamed at Jennifer. ‘But how marvellous to meet you, finally. I’ve been expecting you for days, my dear. Would you like some cake?’

Her eyes widened even further. I’ve been expecting you for days.

‘Cake?’

‘It’s never a bad time for cake, is it?’

‘I’m not sure Mr Delgardo would like that.’

‘I expect he’ll be livid.’ The old lady laughed. ‘But who cares about that?’ She shook her head. ‘Men. Sometimes you have to put your foot down and just say no.’

Baffled, Jennifer allowed the woman to take her hand. ‘I’m Jennifer Bolitho,’ she said again, thinking maybe the old lady had mistaken her identity, ‘from Pixie Cottage.’

‘And I’m Nelly.’

The old lady patted her hand just as she had patted the goat’s head, then began to croon a song in Cornish, smiling into her face. Jennifer’s Cornish was extremely rusty, so she wasn’t sure what the song was about. But afterwards, Nelly nodded with satisfaction as though she had been casting a spell. Which perhaps she had been.

‘There, there,’ Nelly said soothingly, and released her hand with a sigh. ‘It’ll be all right now. You’ll see.’

If only that could be true, Jennifer thought bitterly. Her memory flashed back to the newspaper she’d hurled violently across the room that morning. The photograph of the smiling, happy couple . . .

But she nodded and said nothing, humouring the old lady.

They walked back along the rhododendron path, the goats frolicking around them, seven in number now that Baby had rejoined them, until they reached a broad green lawn. It was beautifully cared for, as were the impressive flower beds, though she noted a few sad, tattered plants here and there, and the occasional unexpected gap. The goats’ preferred snacks, presumably.

Beyond the lawn stood the main house.

‘Porro Park House. Do you like it?’ Nelly asked, peering intently at Jennifer as though her answer would mean everything.

Jennifer was genuinely taken aback by the house. From the surrounding grounds, she had expected to see a traditional manor house, possibly several centuries old. A few barley-twist chimneys, perhaps. Faded red brick, crumbling outbuildings. But this looked like something from one of those architectural shows on television, the facade all glass and reflective steel, a contemporary design with solar panels across the roof and down the west-facing side of the building.

‘It’s amazing.’

Inside, at ground level, she could see a gym, with a wall of free weights and at least one treadmill overlooking the lawns. Beside the gym room was the glint of blue water, with mosaics decorating the tiled walls above. An indoor pool, she realised. Somebody was in there, swimming lengths at a relentless pace. She could see the splash of water as a tanned arm sliced through it, again and again. Front crawl, and fast too.

‘That’s Brodie,’ Nelly told her, seeing her interest. ‘Alex’s friend. Such a polite young man. He goes everywhere with my grandson,’ she said confidentially. ‘Completely inseparable, those two.’

Jennifer raised her eyebrows, wondering if the film star was gay. ‘Is that so?’

‘Thick as thieves, they are. Brodie was in the army with him, you see. That’s where they met. Basic training.’

That aroused her curiosity. ‘Really? I didn’t know Mr Del—I mean, I didn’t know Alex was in the army.’

‘Before he went into films and became such a success.’ Nelly smiled indulgently. ‘Have you seen any of my grandson’s films?’

Jennifer hesitated, not wanting to seem like a fan. ‘Erm, one or two.’

‘Too noisy for my tastes. And so violent. All those guns and car chases, and bombs constantly going off. Exploding helicopters, too.’ Nelly shook her head. ‘But I suppose someone must enjoy watching them. They’re always asking him to make a new one.’

Jennifer grinned.

‘They came down from London together a few days ago. After ten o’clock at night, without so much as a phone call beforehand.’

‘How thoughtless.’

‘I was in the bath when they arrived, making a racket with that noisy helicopter. Silly boys. I thought they were burglars. Hearing someone in the house nearly gave me a heart attack.’

‘I can imagine.’

Nelly leant towards her, lowering her voice as though afraid they might be overheard. ‘Alex is in some kind of trouble. He thinks I don’t know. But I know men.’ She tapped the side of her nose. ‘It’s a good thing you came over when you did, Jennifer. I was beginning to think I’d have to call you.’

‘Call . . . me?’

‘Who else?’ The old lady obviously had her confused with someone, Jennifer decided, feeling uneasy. But Nelly beamed at her again, more like an old Cornish saint than ever in her white dress and with her mass of hair. ‘Come along, time for cake.’

Nelly led her through a sliding glass door into a beautiful modern kitchen. The floor was laid with shining white tiles, and in the middle stood a wooden island counter. A double-topped red Aga was set into the wall opposite. Through the windows on the other side of the kitchen, Jennifer could see a large formal garden with several statues, stone benches and a number of topiary animals carved out of dark green neatly clipped yew.

The goats tried to follow them inside, but Nelly shooed them out. ‘No, you naughty lot. You’re not allowed in the house. Not while the boys are here. Brodie’s orders. Now go and play,’ she told the animals, adding, ‘I’ll bang the tin when it’s lunchtime.’

The goats turned and skipped away across the lawn in an ungainly, jostling group, as though they had understood every word.

‘You have so many goats,’ Jennifer said faintly, watching them go.

‘Seven, at the last count. Like the seven dwarves. Which Alex says makes me Snow White. And I do dress the part sometimes, don’t I?’ Nelly indicated her ankle-length dress with a laugh. ‘Except they have different names to the seven dwarves, because when I bought each goat I didn’t know I’d end up with seven. Do you see?’

‘Makes perfect sense.’

‘Baby is the youngest, and she’s forever running off. She’s not unhappy here, you understand. She just loves to explore. I should have named her Columbus. Except she’s a girl, so that would be odd.’ She pointed to each of the goats in turn. ‘That’s Bananas. Fruitcake. Calamity, because she’s always having accidents. Hoppy. Whizzer. Oh, and the one with the big ears is Toby. He’s my newest acquisition.’ She shut the sliding door and ushered Jennifer into the kitchen, then halted, saying in a surprised voice, ‘Françoise. I forgot you were working today.’

An angular, dark-haired woman in a severe black dress stood by the sink, arranging rose stems in a tall vase. She looked round at Nelly at once. ‘Am I in your way, madame?’ She had a strong French accent. ‘I can leave these and do the bedrooms now, if you prefer.’

‘No, no.’ Nelly gave the woman an uncertain smile. ‘I’ve just brought my new friend in for some cake. This is Jennifer Bolitho.’ She took a cake tin out of the cupboard and prised the lid off with hands that trembled slightly. The rich smell of chocolate filled the kitchen. ‘Jennifer, this is my grandson’s housekeeper, Françoise.’

‘Hello,’ Jennifer said.

Françoise looked her up and down with disinterest, then turned back to her flower arranging. ‘I can cut the cake for you, madame.’

‘I can manage.’ Nelly reached into the cupboard for some side plates but Jennifer got there first, carrying them to the table for her. ‘Thank you. Do you like chocolate cake? There was some delicious carrot and walnut, but the boys had the last of that last night. Over a mug of cocoa during their council of war.’

Council of war?

‘Chocolate cake would be lovely, thank you.’

Alex is in some kind of trouble.

Jennifer didn’t know what to make of that.

‘Chocolate is my absolute favourite too.’ Nelly cut a thick slice of cake with a handsome silver cake knife and slid it across onto the plate that Jennifer was holding up. ‘The doctor says I shouldn’t have cake. But I don’t care. That’s why Alex brought me here, you know. To keep an eye on me and stop me having cake,’ she added darkly, and then cut herself a skinny slice of the chocolate cake, as though following doctor’s orders all the same.

‘I’m sure he isn’t trying to stop you having cake.’

‘Huh. You’ll soon see what he’s like. Thinks he can tell everyone what to do, even his own grandmother. I’ll be ninety this summer. Ninety years old. Can you believe it? Almost a whole century I’ve been alive. But in here,’ Nelly said, pointing to her heart, ‘I’m still nineteen.’

Jennifer smiled, glanced down at her plate of chocolate cake, and then quite mysteriously dissolved into tears. Teardrops shimmered in her eyes, then spilled down her cheeks and she sobbed, her voice incoherent as she stammered, ‘I’m so sorry, so sorry, I don’t know what . . . what’s come over me.’

The plate was taken away, and Nelly guided her firmly to a kitchen chair.

‘Sit.’

Jennifer sat, still blubbing like a five-year-old with a scraped knee, and buried her face in her hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ she couldn’t stop herself saying.

‘Oh, my dear.’

Nelly drew up a cha. . .