A Heartbeat Away
Eleanor Jones

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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I would like to dedicate this book to my family,

who are my inspiration.

WHERE MY HEART BEATS BEST

by T J Darling

Like the backs of colossal elephants, motionless against the sky; here doth winter flourish, here stay I.

I walk upon these mighty slopes where the hardy fell sheep roam and my heart fills up with joy, for this is my home.

An awesome beauty fills my eyes and soothes my troubled soul; a harsh reality takes me back and helps to make me whole

And when I climb these lonely fells with peace my only goal, their stark tranquillity heals my heart and floods my soul.

A place to bide, a place to breathe

A place to be

CONTENTS

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

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 1

From the moment I awoke I just knew today was…different, although I didn’t yet know why. I climbed out of bed, and my bare feet cringed at the coolness of the gleaming wood floor, before they plunged ecstatically into the warm softness of a thick cream rug. In the bathroom, the sound of tap water filled my head like a waterfall crashing onto rocks, and when I looked at the sky through the bathroom window, it was so clear that I paused, toothbrush aloft, to stare with a kind of awe at the tiny white cloud drifting across the ocean of blue.

Hidden memories rushed in, unbidden. Memories of another, wider sky, a sky that seemed to stretch into eternity. Uncomfortable with my new awareness, unwilling to face the festering pain that the memories provoked, I closed my eyes, concentrating on the feel of the toothbrush against my teeth.

Alex’s deep voice brought me sharply back to the present.

“I’ll be late tonight.”

I glanced around self-consciously to meet his brooding gaze, the same penetrating gaze that had drawn me to him all those months ago.

I didn’t think that there would ever be anyone else after Daniel, but Alex was just so compelling. His fierce dark eyes had locked on me from across the dance floor of the dingy club that Nicola had eventually succeeded in dragging me to. Every time I looked up, he was there, his expression impenetrable from behind those hypnotic eyes. And before the night was over, he had somehow prized my phone number from behind my painstakingly built defenses.

All that felt like a lifetime ago now, but still I stopped sometimes to wonder how he had managed to get past Daniel. For Danny Brown was the love of my life, and Alex was…Alex was just Alex.

He stood behind me now, confident and sure. Navy suit, pale blue shirt, dark blue understated silk tie, immaculate as always.

“Okay,” I murmured.

Nodding briefly, he pivoted on his heel; then his shoes tapped along the hallway and down the wooden staircase. The front door slamming reverberated inside my head, and I clutched my arms around myself, stifling the shiver inside me. For today felt different, although I didn’t yet know why.

Realizing that I was going to be late for work, I dashed into the bedroom and flung open the closet door. Late or not, today I needed something bright and fresh to wear, something that would make a statement.

Black clothes hung in front of me, neatly arranged in utterly straight rows. The scent of expensive perfume floated into my nostrils. I felt as though someone else’s life paraded before me. But it wasn’t someone else’s, was it? It was mine.

Long-contained emotion flooded me, and I shut my eyes tightly, clinging to the image of Alex’s fierce black eyes, fighting off the memories I had forbidden myself for so long. This was my life now. These expensive, elegant garments belonged to me. Yet they didn’t really. Like everything else in this perfect house, they belonged to Alex. Did that include me? Did I belong to Alex, too?

Frantically I began to rummage through the clothes, rebellion swelling as I searched for a glimpse of…And suddenly there it was, a flash of crimson at the end of the rack, resplendent against the ocean of black. Reverently I withdrew the vivid red suit, quivering as I lovingly stroked the material. I threw back my shoulders and held the suit high, reveling in newfound delight. It was perfect for today—I just knew it. Somewhere there were shoes to match. I remembered them vaguely, high-heeled and strappy, totally unsuitable for a day at the office, but totally suitable for me.

When I was ready, I preened in front of the mirror, imagining Alex’s expression were he to see me now. He hated red—or any other bright color for that matter—preferring me to wear nothing but black. “Having class,” he’d called it while shaking his head at my casual jeans and nice big “lazy day” sweater. And eventually, I suppose, he had gotten his way, for I couldn’t recall the last time I’d dressed in anything casual. Today, though…Today was for me.

I ran my fingers through my hair, allowing it to fluff into a cloud around my pale, heart-shaped face and stared critically at the image in front of me. I loved my hair. I hated my wide mouth and I thought my gray eyes were much too far apart, but I loved my long, dark, wavy hair. Alex liked me to have it pinned neatly on top of my head.

I closed my eyes, conjuring his handsome face. I was being disloyal. Alex had taught me to live again when I had felt my life to be over. I owed him for that.

For an instant, a picture of Daniel’s happy-go-lucky, irregular features jumped into my mind. I pushed it away before the pain forced itself back from where it was locked deep in my heart, and turned abruptly from the mirror.

Outside, I walked along the pavement in a daze, taking in the sights and sounds of another busy weekday morning as if they were all new to me, savoring the bustling urgency of lives that never last. It had rained in the night, and the streets were a glistening gray, setting off the figures of people scurrying to work, heads low despite the colorful garments they wore to fend off the rain. Only the children lit up the morning. They wandered by in giggling groups, eyes shining with laughter, expressions mirroring the intensity I felt but could not understand. Some hugged their homework to their chests and chattered excitedly as they ran for the bus. Others threw their bags up into the air, loitering to sneak a cigarette behind the huge sycamore tree near the bus stop.

My bus was already waiting when I arrived at the stop. I hesitated, watching the line diminish as the waiting people poured through the bus door like sheep, knowing no better than to follow one another on the dreary road of routine.

But I had a choice. I lifted my chin, relishing the fresh breeze against my face, and carried on walking.

I took the shortcut across the park, where oak and ash and sycamore reached their branches way up into the graying sky, bringing a hint of the countryside into the city. I paused for a moment, marveling at their huge majestic shapes as a gust of wind brought autumn leaves fluttering down. They twirled around my head before settling gently on the ground to form a carpet of red and gold and glorious flame especially for me. With a smile in my heart I started to run, sliding through the leaves in my silly red shoes. Tripping over a tree stump and almost falling on my face in the thick, wet leaves—

“Are you all right?”

I didn’t notice the man approaching at a jog from along the other pathway until he spoke. He was thirty something, tall and broad, his dark hair short and tousled. His honey-brown eyes sparkled with amusement as he slowed to a walk, then stopped in front of me. He leaned forward, hands pressed against the tanned muscles of his thighs, his pleasant face flushed with effort.

“Are you running away from something?” he asked.

His voice was deep, with the slightest Scottish burr.

I slithered upright and returned to the everyday world, my face as crimson as my suit.

“No…no…thank you. I’m just—”

“Enjoying the morning?” he said for me.

I couldn’t help but smile. “Something like that.”

“Not the best footwear to go for a run in,” he commented.

“They match my suit,” I offered lamely, glancing down at my damp feet.

He laughed, a great bellow that echoed in the treetops.

“And a very nice suit it is, too,” he remarked, his eyebrows raised in appreciation.

“Aren’t you supposed to be running?” I ventured.

He shrugged, pulling a face. “Well, as I’m not actually running anywhere in particular, I don’t suppose it matters.”

“Ah.” I smiled. “I see. You must be one of those sad fitness freaks who get up at the crack of dawn to put in fifteen miles before breakfast.”

For a moment he caught my eyes again, and something stirred inside me, some distant memory of that exact expression.

“Have we met before?”

We said it in unison, then giggled like two old friends.

“Seriously, though…” he began.

“Have we met before?” I finished for him.

He smiled at me and I smiled back, mesmerized by the golden glints in his brown eyes. A peculiar warmth spread through my body, right to the ends of my fingertips.

“We can’t have,” he told me. “Because I would definitely have remembered.”

An awkward moment followed, and then I set off again along the pathway. What was I doing anyway, talking to strangers in the park?

“Decided not to run anymore?” he inquired, falling into step beside me.

I walked sedately toward the busy hum of the city to reenter my life, focusing on the snowy carpet beneath my feet and trying to ignore him.

“You know, you shouldn’t really talk to strangers in parks,” he told me, uncannily echoing my thoughts as we approached the gates.

Ahead of us I could see the traffic flowing by, hear angry horns honking with impatience. I hesitated, taking in the moment, my whole body bursting with awareness.

“Today is special, though,” I said.

“How? How is it special?”

His eyes met mine like those of a friend, and I was acutely reminded yet again of Daniel Brown. After months of keeping his memory at bay, today for some reason he was flooding my soul.

“I just feel…”

There in the gateway to the park, suspended between the glowing autumn beauty of the woodland and the harsh gray concrete of the city, I stared at the familiar stranger, wanting to share my odd, explosive emotions. But there are no words to explain what you don’t understand.

“Special,” I told him. “Today everything feels special.”

“Well, I hope it will always stay special for you,” he murmured, touching my cheek in a gesture of farewell. And then he just turned and walked away from me, back toward the park, while I stood alone and confused in the busy street as the town hall clock began to chime.

Nine times its booming echo shattered the air, uncomfortably reminding me of just how late I was. I perched on the corner of the curb, waiting for a gap in the traffic while frantically searching the crowded pavement for one last glimpse of the familiar stranger. The clock went silent all of a sudden and responsibility clawed, drawing my reluctant gaze toward the tall, austere office building on the other side of the street.

Fawcett and Medley. The gold-and-black sign loomed. The sign I had read almost every weekday morning since Daniel Brown had…Since I gave up my job at the kennels and changed my life.

A gap appeared in the endless traffic. I stepped off the curb to run across the street, and an image flashed into my mind, of honey-brown eyes and a wide, lopsided grin. I hesitated, looking one last time at the undulating river of anonymous faces. And then suddenly there he was, looking back at me.

For an endless moment time seemed to stop. I heard someone shout, and then the stranger was shouting, too. Yelling at me, eyes wide with alarm. My heart contracted as I spotted with horror the big black car that was almost upon me. Confusion overwhelmed my brain. I wanted to run, but which way? My hands reached out toward the safety of the pavement, clawing at the air, and in the instant before the car struck, my eyes found his again—too late.

I heard the thud with a vague sense of astonishment, and my body went limp as it lurched to the side. I knew horror and confusion, but no pain, just a clinical awareness of what was going on and, ridiculously, disappointment. Disappointment at never being able to see those honey-brown eyes again.

Like a broken doll, my body was flung into the street. The sound of tires squealed inside my head—or was it my own screams I heard? Pavement grated against my flesh. Something white filled my fading vision, and with the second impact came such pressure that the air was sucked from my lungs. And yet somehow everything seemed to be happening through a mist, as if to someone else. Pale, terrified faces…the cold gray street rising up to meet me…crimson blood blinding my eyes.

I felt the crack of breaking bones, but still there was no pain, just a roaring inside my head and a swirling fear, as my body crumpled, broken and bleeding, to the hard, wet street.

CHAPTER 2

Ben stood on the pavement, feeling suddenly conspicuous, wishing he had worn his usual long jogging pants instead of the stupid shorts that appeared so out of place on the busy street.

He hadn’t intended to run farther than Fletcher Park. Whenever he came to London, he always stayed at the same select guesthouse, right next to the park. The massive treetops were the first thing he saw when he woke in the morning and he loved to get up and go for a run through the small oasis of countryside in the midst of the sprawling, heaving city, taking delight in the fact that at last he could. Two years ago he would hardly have even been able to walk that distance.

He hated the city, but there was something about the park. Oak and ash and sycamore trees, tall and stately, overlooked the passers-by today, as they must have for well over a century. Nannies pushing large black baby carriages, ladies dressed in rustling silks—he liked to think that the trees had towered majestically over them all, and it gave him a sense of stability somehow to pass beneath their imposing canopy, imagining the changes they had seen, and would still see no doubt.

Ill health had made him conscious of the fragility of his own mortality, and his single-minded fight back to fitness had made him self-aware and independent. A lonely figure in a bustling world, needing no one, asking for nothing, just living day-today in his quest for survival.

Today, for once, he had broken his routine and strayed beyond the peaceful haven of the park, out into the teeming throng of cold-eyed strangers. Gray faces, office suits, a crying toddler dragged along by a pink-faced young woman with tired eyes.

He half turned, back toward the comforting sea of green that beckoned through the park gates. But something made him hesitate, some intangible inner force. Where was the girl in the crimson suit now? She was the reason he had strayed from his normal routine, and still he didn’t know why. He wasn’t one for picking up strange women in parks—or women at all, for that matter—but with her it had seemed inevitable somehow. Something about her had pulled at him—the unexpected vulnerability in her wide gray eyes, those crazy shoes, that vivid crimson suit. Even now he smiled to himself as he imagined her running across the carpet of autumn leaves, high-heeled red sandals sliding, face glowing with something he couldn’t quite place—a kind of joy, he supposed.

He scoured the pavement, frantically searching for a flash of red, and suddenly there she was, face averted from him and long dark hair blowing in the breeze as she waited on the edge of the pavement. A gap appeared in the traffic. She stepped off the curb, and Ben froze in his tracks as she hesitated, looking back. Her eyes, inevitably, met his.

For an endless moment the impatient sounds of the city disappeared into the background. A second, merely one second—that was all it was. One second that lasted a lifetime and changed his world forever.

The big black car appeared from nowhere, driving too fast around the corner, racing the lights. He yelled at her, gesturing madly, struggling to run with wooden legs. And then she saw it, too, her eyes wide with horror, her arms flailing helplessly as she tried to get away…too late.

Her eyes met his again in the moment before the vehicle struck. Before she was tossed aside like a discarded doll onto the cold wet street. And deep inside himself, Ben felt something snap, something irreparable.

Her scream cut through the hum of traffic, shattering the air, and for an endless moment the whole street froze. Horrified faces. Eyes wide with fear and confusion. A deathly hush as the young woman’s slight, crimson-clad body crumpled before the onslaught of the shiny black BMW.

The sickening thud of its impact against her soft, sweet flesh drew a heartrending gasp from a hundred helpless, shocked observers. They watched her limp form hurtle sideways to bounce helplessly into the path of an old white minibus. Its ashen-faced driver stood on his brakes, but the cumbersome vehicle just squealed in protest as it slid relentlessly on. The driver spun the wheel in desperation and the bus slewed to one side, almost, but not quite, missing her fragile body as it slithered to a halt, while the black BMW accelerated down the street into anonymity, leaving its victim broken and bleeding on the ground.

Ben was the first to breach the awesome stillness. He ran on instinct, with no conscious thought other than to get through the gathering crowd to where she lay. A dozen drawn faces glanced around uneasily, wanting to act but unsure of their actions. When he reached her, Ben fell to his knees on the pavement, eyes riveted to her lovely, ashen face. Her eyes were closed as if in sleep, and a trickle of crimson, garishly matching her suit, ran down her cheek from her forehead, like a tear of blood.

Was she alive? Please let her be alive. His fingers fumbled for a pulse, then shook with relief as he felt a feather-like ripple. When it died suddenly, panic flooded his brain and he glanced around desperately. Surely there must be someone better qualified to help her. He met a sea of blank faces, all confident in his ability and relieved to be left as observers.

“Ambulance is on its way,” remarked a small, anxious-eyed woman. She held her arms securely across her ample stomach, withdrawing instantly from his pleading gaze. His trembling fingers moved once again to feel for that tiny flicker of life, but still there was nothing. He put his ear close against the girl’s fragile face, listening, willing her to breathe, a sob rising in his throat as he remembered the vibrancy that had drawn him to her in the park a lifetime ago.

He had to do something, had to help her hang on. His mind whirled, searching for the knowledge that was once at his disposal. Airways, breathing, circulation. A vague recollection of a first-aid course he had attended years ago swam into his mind. Clear the airways—that was it. Breathing. Check the pulse. Administer CPR.

Gently he rolled her onto her back, easing her slight form without moving her spine, wincing at the open wound that ran across her forehead. He carefully lifted her head and made sure that her throat was clear. Then, drawing on the information that clung to the fog inside his brain, he knelt above her with a prayer on his lips and felt for the inverted vee at the center of her rib cage.

One…two…three…How many compressions to breaths was it? Three to two? Or was it five to two? The two was important; he remembered that. Releasing his fists, he placed his fingers below her jaw and tilted back her lovely face. Desperation overtook his soul as he placed his lips over hers and breathed, willing his own life into her lungs.

Time was a vacuum that sucked at his resources as he worked to help her cling to life. One, two, three, against her rib cage, and two gulps of precious air into her lungs, again and again and again, until he felt the sweat begin to drench his face and his muscles ache. In the distance he heard a siren, and as the ambulance’s blue light flashed in his eyes, at last he felt the faintest heartbeat.

“She’s still alive,” he yelled at the green-clad figure with the calm, confident face.

“Well done, mate. We’ll take it from here.”

Firm hands assisted him to his feet. He stood drained and powerless as the ambulance crew moved with quiet efficiency. Cautiously lifting her broken body onto a stretcher. Inserting tubes and needles. Checking monitors. And all the time she stayed the same, pale-faced and silent as if already dead.

For Ben, it seemed like a dream. He had known the vibrant laughing girl for less than a half hour, but now she felt a part of his life, a part he didn’t want to lose. When they carried the stretcher, he walked close beside it, unwilling to leave her. They laid the stretcher carefully into the waiting ambulance and he noticed a blue-uniformed police constable heading toward him, notepad at the ready and eyebrows drawn into a frown of concentration as he paused to talk to the lady with the ample build and the anxious eyes who nodded in Ben’s direction. He turned away for one more glance at the motionless figure in the ambulance. They were closing the doors and he didn’t even know the young woman’s name.

“You coming, mate?”

There was an urgency in the paramedic’s kind brown eyes as he motioned toward the half-closed door, and Ben acted on impulse, jumping up the step into the bright, antiseptic atmosphere. He saw the policeman start to hurry toward him as the door thudded shut, then the engine roared into life and the vehicle edged out into the street.

He sat motionless beside her, staring at her lifeless form, holding her limp fingers as the paramedics fought to sustain the fragile life that he had given her.

The older of the two men, the kind-eyed one, placed a hand sympathetically on his shoulder.

“You did good, mate,” he murmured. “She has chance now, thanks to you.” His partner, a dark-haired man in his early thirties, spoke without looking around.

“Your wife, is she?”

Ben shook his head.

“No, just a friend.”

Was that all she was—just a friend? Was she even that?

The eerie wail of the siren filled the morning air, and as the flashing blue light sped by, people stopped to watch and wonder, relieved that the crisis had nothing to do with them or theirs. Ben settled back to keep vigil over the girl in the crimson suit, willing her to hold on.

At the hospital, the distinctive smell hit him in the solar plexus. After all the hours and endless weeks he had spent in such places, he should be used to it, or maybe that was why the very atmosphere made him shake. But that was all in the distant past, and this wasn’t about him. This was about saving the life of the first girl to attract his interest since…since forever.

He clung to her hand as they raced the trolley along a gleaming corridor. Figures in white gathered around, speaking insistently, yelling out instructions.

“Name! What’s her name?”

At first it didn’t register that the blond nurse was talking to him and he looked at her vacantly.

“Your girlfriend…”

She took his sleeve, twisting him to face her.

“What is her name? I need it for the records, you see.”

He shook his head helplessly. “I—I don’t know her name. I just…”

The nurse smiled, her blue eyes shining warmly. “I heard what you did for her, and it wasn’t just anything. Dennis told me.”

He eyed her vaguely, and she pointed toward the paramedic with the kind eyes.

“Dennis, over there, the one who was first on the scene. He said that you saved her life.”

Ben shrugged.

“Anyone would have,” he started to say.

The nurse grimaced.

“Don’t you be too sure. Anyway, I must find out her name. Do you know where she lived—or worked, maybe?”

He suddenly remembered, “There’s this.” He removed a tiny purse from his pocket. “I picked it up off the road after…when the paramedics were putting her onto the stretcher.”

The nurse smiled and took it from him, already prying it open.

“Thanks,” she said. “Now, why don’t you go and get a coffee. There’s a machine just down the corridor.”

Ben hesitated and she ushered him off.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep you informed.”

Strong black coffee hit the bottom of his stomach with a jolt, scalding his throat on the way down. He raced back along the corridor, needlessly spilling coffee in his wake, burning his fingers. Ward B, the nurse had said. His eyes scoured the signs above his head. That was it over there.

The door was closed, but he saw movement behind the glass panel. He peered through a gap. A white-coated doctor blocked his view, and impatiently he moved along. And then all of a sudden, there she was. His heart flipped over. She lay as still as death itself, her face as white as alabaster and her softly closed eyelids a pale translucent blue, but the heart monitor danced and bleeped to prove that she really was alive. He sank onto a chair to wait, sipping the scalding coffee without noticing it burning his lips.

For half an hour he sat motionless, listening to the bleeping machine, hope rising with every minute that passed. When a staccato sound filtered into his head, he glanced up, alarm bells already ringing

A man was approaching, a tall, broad-shouldered man in his early thirties, with a sharply chiseled, handsome face and swarthy suntanned skin. He wore an obviously expensive well-cut navy suit, pale blue shirt, dark blue, unobtrusive silk tie. His shiny black leather shoes clipped along the corridor with purposeful strides.

“I am looking for Lucy McTavish,” he announced in a voice used to commanding attention. “I believe she was admitted this morning after an accident.”

Ben felt his whole world abruptly tilt out of focus. Lucy—the name that haunted his dreams. A familiar surge of guilt stabbed before common sense kicked in, bringing everything back on track again. There must be hundreds of girls named Lucy living in the city. He spoke her name soundlessly, rolling it comfortably around his mouth as he had done so many times before. He liked the fact that this girl was called Lucy, too.

The man stopped beside him, waiting impatiently. His jaw was set, his expression blank and he kept glancing at his cell phone as if expecting it to ring at any moment. Ben stared, mesmerized. If this man really was with the girl in the crimson suit, then how could he remain so impassive? Why wasn’t he running down the corridor, searching for her…screaming out her name?

“Mr. Lyall?” cried the blond nurse, who hurried toward him. “This way, sir. She’s in this ward just here.”

As the man turned to follow her neat, petite figure, Ben saw his dark eyes flicker over her well-proportioned backside. He felt like punching him in his arrogant face. How could he be with the girl from the park? There must be some mistake.

The door into the ward swished shut behind them, and Ben clutched the sides of his chair, fighting off a rush of jealous anger. What was he doing here, anyway, sitting in a hospital corridor in his stupid jogging shorts, watching over a girl who didn’t even know his name—a girl who obviously went for successful businessmen with smart suits and shallow eyes. He stood to leave. It was over. He had done his part, and now it was time to go.

But the glass-paneled wall drew him, making him hesitate. Before he walked out of her life, he needed one more glance at her lovely face just to reassure himself that she really was alive.

The man was half turned from the window, standing quite still, staring at the girl’s motionless figure as a doctor with a worried frown spoke to him in a low, urgent tone. The doctor lifted his stethoscope, making a point, but the man’s expression remained impenetrable and he pivoted to say something to the nurse. She smiled nervously, touching her hair, eyes flickering toward the dials beside the bed.

Ben could see the young woman’s face now…Lucy’s face. He murmured her name, recalling the laughter in her wide-spaced gray eyes, wondering what the hospital staff had done with her silly red shoes. A vivid image of them lying discarded on the cold gray pavement flashed into his mind’s eye, and all of a sudden his stupid jogging shorts didn’t really matter anymore. He would wait just a little while longer, long enough to be sure that she really was going to be okay.

The man walked to the other side of the bed and sat down heavily on a shiny black chair, his face expressionless at the sight of the slight form beneath the cream blanket. The nurse spoke to him, nodding, her eyes bright as she gestured toward the door with her clipboard. Ben stepped back from the window. Ahead of him, the endless, antiseptic corridor stretched toward an exit sign and sweet fresh air. He headed toward it, his heart in his boots.

“I believe I owe you.”

The man’s voice rang out behind him along the quiet of the corridor, deep and faintly mocking. Ben clenched his hands and slowed his steps, but he didn’t look back until the voice came again.

“They tell me you saved Lucy’s life.”

Ben took a breath, composing his face, self-consciously aware of his bare suntanned legs and tousled hair.

“I just happened to be there,” he said, meeting the hooded eyes and recognizing the ferocity that lurked beneath their outward calm.

“Well…thanks.”

The man, Lucy’s man, held out a broad tanned hand with perfectly manicured nails, and for one brief moment Ben gripped it, smiling awkwardly.

“Let’s just pray that she pulls through,” he whispered.

The man’s thin lips twisted into the semblance of a smile. “I don’t do praying,” he said. “Anyway, don’t feel you have to hang around. I’ll manage things from here.”

A prickle lifted the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck as he watched the man walk away, shoulders squared, head raised, shiny black shoes clipping on the gleaming utility floor.

“I’ll wait awhile longer,” Ben said loudly. “Just to see how she goes.”

There was a moment’s hesitation in the tapping of the man’s shoes and he glanced back. Ben ignored him, concentrating on his now-empty polystyrene coffee cup. The door to Lucy’s ward swished shut and he sank onto the hard plastic chair again, listening to the regular bleeping of the monitor…the sound of Lucy’s heart. Perhaps if he waited just a little while longer she would open her eyes.

Half an hour crept by. Nurses hurried past him, giggling, following doctors with white coats and important faces. Orderlies in green pushed gurneys with elderly people, their expressions strained, their eyes frightened, oblivious to Ben in his jogging shorts, squeezing his cup into a hundred pieces.

He stood and dropped the remains of the cup it into the trash bin. Easing his cramped muscles, he moved across to peer through the glass panel once more. The man was sitting quite still, seeming to read a newspaper yet studying the blond nurse, who was adjusting tubes and making notes on a clipboard. Oblivious to his attention, she hung the board over the end of the bed, walked across toward the swing doors and out into the corridor, a preoccupied expression in her pale blue eyes.

Ben tried to get her attention, but she just shot him a half smile before hurrying by. On sudden instinct he stepped forward to take hold of her arm. When she looked around in surprise, he gave her what he hoped was an apologetic smile.

“How is she?”

A shadow passed over her attractive English-rose features. “She has a long way to go,” she told him quietly. “Apart from being badly battered and bruised, she has some cracked ribs and a broken leg. Our real worry, though, is her head injury. If she doesn’t stabilize soon, we may have to operate.”

Ben felt as though someone had hit him hard in the pit of his stomach, and his arm dropped to his side.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, edging away from him. “Now, I have to go and get the doctor.”

Just behind them, the door swished open again and the man appeared. He dismissed her with a glance, and as she scurried away, he turned to Ben, jaw clenched, eyes half closed.

“There really is no reason for you to hang around here,” he remarked in a cold, flat voice. “They say that she’ll…”

Behind him, the bleep of the monitor faltered. He hesitated, glancing back. When its regular bleeping became a single high-pitched tone, Ben pushed past him and burst through the swinging doors.

Her face was deathly pale against the pillow, blue-lidded eyes closed against her cheeks, thick dark lashes lying upon her translucent skin like two small, perfect fans. And beside the bed, a single green line across the monitor and that awful, final, single tone as her life ebbed.

Ben stood frozen for a moment as the whole ward came alive with the urgent buzz of controlled panic. Firm hands bustled him out into the corridor. He heard the thumping sounds as the doctors struggled to shock her failing heart back to life again, then a desperate voice.

“It’s no good. She’s gone.”

And he started to run, down the endless, faceless corridors, anywhere away from this place that already haunted his dreams.

CHAPTER 3

They say that your life flashes in front of your eyes in the moments before you die. Mine didn’t. And as the hard gray pavement rose up to meet me, I clung to that one stupid thought, knowing that I didn’t want to die like this, here among strangers on the cold, wet street.

I was beyond feeling, beyond anything but an acute and horrified awareness of the violent events that had overtaken my body, hurling it onto the road like a helpless doll. I knew I was broken before I felt the crack—the pressure was just too strong for flesh and blood to bear. And in the instant that I felt my bones give way, there even came a kind of relief that the terrible pressure was released, that my life wasn’t flashing in front of my eyes. So I couldn’t be dead…could I?

Far, far away I could hear the squeal of brakes. Someone was calling, but I knew I had to go. I wasn’t dead, was I? I just needed some time out, needed to let myself slip away from the violent events that had overtaken me…needed to find Daniel. Was he out there somewhere, searching for me?

I felt a hand, soft against my cheek, stroking the hair back from my brow. He was here. Daniel was here. I tried to open my eyes, but my body refused to obey the distant commands from my brain, and as I felt myself beginning to slip away, a deep, trembling voice rang out inside my head, begging me to stay. I wanted to stay so much, but the darkness clawed at me with comforting fingers. Then the voice began to fade and a glorious blaze of light exploded inside my head, bursting out again in myriad colors to hover way above me, beckoning with the promise of peace. And when the dark fingers wrapped themselves more closely around me, I let myself go.

They say that your life flashes in front of your eyes in the moments before you die. Mine just flowed, on and on and on in an endless river of memories, long forgotten and eagerly relived. And they all began and ended with Daniel Brown.

CHAPTER 4

My feet felt cold in my scuffed red shoes and my hand, in the tight clasp of my mother’s, was gradually going numb, yet still I refused to put one foot in front of the other.

“Lucy!”

My mother’s voice was loud and angry, but I just made my legs very straight when she attempted to drag me forward, frowning up at her with the stubbornness that she said I got from my dad.

“I want to go home.”

I started to cry with great big sobs, just like the ladies in the films that my mom was always watching on TV. All it seemed to do was make her even crosser than she already was, and she began to yank so hard on my arm that it felt as though it was going to come right off.

“Well, I have to go to work, and you, young lady, are going to school whether you like it or not.”

For a second she stopped and gazed down at me. I scowled back with all the selfishness of a six-year-old, not noticing the harsh grooves that ran prematurely down either side of her mouth, or the tired lines that made a delicate network around her faded gray eyes. As far as I was concerned, my mother was as old as Methuselah. Thirty-five on her last birthday. How could she ever remember what it was like to go to school? If only my dad had been here. It would have been different. He would have understood my fears. He would have done something about Mollie Flynn. He would have understood about her. He would have known that I couldn’t go to school because she laughed at me and pinched my arms and stole my books so that I got into trouble with Mrs. Meeks. I hated Mollie Flynn and I wasn’t going to school. But my dad was long gone—“Up to no good as usual,” my mother said. I knew, though, that he would return one day, for wasn’t I the apple of his eye? I was. I know I was. He had told me often enough.

My feet hurt in the scuffed red shoes. They were a bit too tight, but I refused to wear anything else because my dad had bought them for me and I loved them with all my heart. The day he’d brought them home, my mother had gone mad, ranting on and on about having no money, but I thought it was just so special for my father to buy me such beautiful shoes when he had hardly any money at all. Well, at least he had had some that morning. But my mother said it had gone on a horse, so I supposed he must have bought a horse as well as my lovely red shoes. He was such fun, my dad, tall and good-looking, with sparkling blue eyes and a really wide laugh. He was always doing exciting things. But all my mom ever did was to get angry with him, and that made him sad, so it made me sad, too.

He went away that night and I haven’t seen him since, but I know he will come home soon because I am the apple of his eye. I hope his horse is okay.

Two bright spots of red popped up on my mum’s pale cheeks. That was how I knew that she was really mad, because her face did that on the day my dad gave me the red shoes and bought that horse. But I wasn’t frightened; at least, I was, but I was more afraid of Mollie Flynn.

We were nearly at the school gate when a blue car drove up. We didn’t have a car, but I didn’t mind about that anymore because we had a horse now, even though I hadn’t seen it yet.

My mom stopped and looked at me. Her face was all shiny and she wiped her forehead with her hanky, but she didn’t let go of my hand. I would have run away if she had.

I knew the big lady who got out of the car. She always wore nice clothes and her face was smiley. She had a boy who went to our school. He was older than me, but I sometimes saw him in the playground; I think he was in the eight-and-nine-year-old class like Mollie Flynn. I wondered if she nipped his arms. Yet I didn’t think so, because he was taller than her. He was even taller than some of the boys in the top class.

“Are you all right, my dear?”

The lady’s voice was soft and kind, and it made my mom cry. I don’t know why, but she rubbed her eyes and they were wet, so she must have been crying.

“I’m sorry,” my mother said, and her voice was a bit quivery, as well. “Everything seems to have gotten on top of me this morning. Lucy’s playing up and I’ve missed the bus for work.”

I stared at my shoes and pulled the worst face I could, but the lady just patted me on my head.

“Come on now, Lucy McTavish,” she said. “Be a good girl for your poor mother.”

I looked up at her and lifted my chin as high as I could. “My dad has gotten a horse,” I told her, and she didn’t laugh.

“It’s true,” I repeated defiantly. “My mom says all his money has gone on a horse, and she’s mad because he hasn’t got any left, but I’m glad, because I really like horses. And…” My voice sank to a wobbly whisper and I glared at my mother. “And now he won’t come home, and it’s her fault.”

There was a funny silence then. I felt my mom’s hand get even tighter on mine. She gazed at the lady, and did so with such sad eyes that I felt bad inside.

“It’ll be all right soon, though,” I told her, wanting everything to be okay again. “Because he’s gone away to try to get some more.”

The silence deepened and the lady reached for my other hand.

“Don’t you worry,” she said to my mother. “I’ll handle this. You get yourself off to work now.”

“Are you sure?”

My mom was all happy and her eyes were wet again. I wanted to shout at her to stay, but I didn’t dare, so I stared down at my red shoes once more and thought about my dad.

“You be a good girl for Mrs. Brown,” she told me, and then she kissed me on the top of my head and walked away.

The lady, Mrs. Brown, lifted me to sit on the wall, and then she lifted her boy to sit beside me. I hadn’t seen him until then because he must have been behind me.

“Daniel,” she said in a very serious voice. “This is Lucy McTavish and she needs some help.”

The boy turned to me and I liked his face. It reminded me of Timmy Brocklebank’s puppy—happy and kind, with warm brown eyes—so I smiled at him and he smiled back.

“I don’t like Mollie Flynn,” I told him. “She pinches my arms and she steals my books so that Mrs. Meeks will tell me off.”

Daniel Brown frowned and his eyes went dark and cross.

“Well, I’ll tell her not to,” he said, running his hand through his curly blond hair so that it stuck right up on the top.

“And I’ll tell Mrs. Meeks about it,” promised his mom.

That was the first time I’d spoken to Daniel, the first of lots of times. He was my hero, always there for me, always quick to help me when I had a problem. After he spoke to Mollie Flynn, she didn’t nip me anymore and, sometimes, she even smiled at me when we met in the canteen.

He lived in a rambling farmhouse, just down the lane from our gray-stone, terraced cottage. I used to go there sometimes on the school holidays when my mom was at work.

His house was very old, with lots of corridors and windows that resembled a face if you stood right before the front door on the smooth green lawn. We weren’t allowed to play on Mr. Brown’s lawn, but around the back was a huge overgrown area with bushes and trees and a swing and a slide. Daniel and I spent hours there, tunneling dens and building tree houses that always fell down. Daniel was good at making things.

The farm was called Homewood, and I thought that it was the best place in the whole world. I used to dream that one day we would all live there together, when my dad came home.

It was on the day that I found my mom sitting on the bottom stair in the hallway, a letter in her hand, that my dreams began to fade. Her thin face was all crumpled and tears ran in tiny rivers down the lines at the sides of her mouth.

She waved the letter at me, then threw it across the dark hall. It fluttered onto the floor and her head dropped forward into her hands.

I watched the tears run through her fingers and drip onto the floor, making small pools on the worn carpet, and I knew that something very bad must have happened. Fear washed over me in great big waves and I clasped my arms around myself, moving from foot to foot, wondering if I should go get Mrs. Brown—she always knew what to do. Then suddenly my mom looked up at me and her eyes were all glassy and red.

“Now see what your precious father has done,” she yelled, pointing at the letter.

I just stood and stared at her, my mouth wide-open and a lump inside my chest. She picked the letter up and screwed the paper into a tiny ball, twisting and twisting and twisting her fingers.

“They’re going to take our house away,” she shrieked. “And it’s all your stupid, useless father’s fault.”

“Is he coming home, then?” I cried. “Will we see him?”

“Lucy.”

My mother stood very tall, and her face was so white that it shone in the murky light of the hallway.

“I think it’s time you faced up to the fact that your father is never going to come back. He has deserted us, and now he’s lost our home.”

I felt a tide of disappointment well up inside me and overflow into a flood of emotion that took over my small body, emotion just too great for a six-year-old to bear. So I threw myself on the floor, rolling and screaming and hurling abuse at my poor sad mother, who had all of a sudden gone so quiet. She looked down at me, arms crossed over her chest.

“Well, you’d better get used to it,” she eventually said in a dull, flat voice. “I’ve had to.” Then her arms dropped to her sides, and she turned her back on me and started to leave. I felt a really bad pain deep inside my heart, and I sat up and stretched my hands out toward her.

“Mom,” I called. “Mom.”

She hesitated, and I scrambled to my feet, pleading with her not to go. She glanced at me with sad eyes.

“Mom,” I whispered.

The gloomy hallway felt as though it was closing in all around me. She held out her arms, and suddenly I was being squeezed so tightly that I couldn’t breathe and we were crying together.

We sat like that for ages, my mom and me, on the bottom step in the murky hallway, until I had my good idea.

“I know,” I said, feeling happy and sad at the same time. “My dad can sell his horse and then we’ll have some money.”

My mom sucked in a great gasping breath, and she began to laugh louder than I’d ever heard her before, even when my dad was here and they used to be happy. She laughed so loudly that it started to frighten me because her eyes were wild. When her laughter turned to sobs again and her arms fell away from me, I went out of the front door and began to walk toward Homewood Farm. Daniel would know what to do.

The farm seemed a long way down the lane. I stopped to watch a big fat bumblebee inside a purple flower, buzzing and buzzing so that the flower shook and wobbled. After the bee flew off, I picked the flower and tried to stick it into my hair, but it kept falling out, and in the end I just left it lying on the ground and carried on walking along the hot, dusty lane.

The farm was a lot farther than I had thought it would be, and after a while I sat on the grass beside a wooden gate because my legs felt very tired. I wasn’t frightened, though—at least, only for my mom. And then I remembered the wild scary look in her tired eyes—the look that had made her appear like someone else—and I clambered to my feet. I had to get Daniel and Mrs. Brown. My aching muscles brought fat tears to my eyes, but I forced my feet into a jog and set off again along the lane, sobbing quietly in rhythm with my shambling strides, until at last I saw the high gray roofs of Homewood Farm, nestling between two softly rolling green hills.

Relief overwhelmed me, and I stopped to stare at the familiar sign above the gate—as I always did when I visited with my mom. From below an arc of ornate writing, the painted black-and-white cow gazed down at me with big kind eyes. Sometimes the sign swung and creaked so much in the wind that I thought it might make the poor cow feel sick, but today it stayed motionless, as still as the air itself. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be moving anywhere at all today was the red tractor in the field they called the far meadow, just in front of the square stone farmhouse. The tractor was going up and down, up and down, and every time it drove across the field, green grass turned to brown. I watched for a while, just until my legs ceased to ache, and then the red tractor pulled up and Mr. Brown climbed out. I knew it was Mr. Brown because he was the only person with hair so red that it shone like flame in the sunshine, a bit like his tractor.

He strode toward me with a worried smile on his big, kind face.

“Whatever are you doing out on your own, Miss Lucy?” he asked.

I liked the way he always called me Miss Lucy, and I rolled the word around inside my mouth, feeling special.

“Where’s your mom, lass?”

I remembered, and my bottom lip started to tremble.

“She’s…she’s…”

He took my small plump hand in his large, calloused palm and lifted me high into the air.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go and find Mother Brown.”

I felt so safe riding high on Mr. Brown’s shoulders that I began to feel better. I clung to his forehead as he marched us across the lane and through the orchard toward the house.

“My mom’s very sad,” I told him, and I felt him nod.

“She said that my dad has des—des…Has lost our house,” I added.

He halted and swung me down onto the ground. “And where is she now?” he asked me in a low voice.

I gazed into his kind face and I thought it was just like Daniel’s—except that his eyes were a pale blue and Daniel’s were brown—so I smiled at him and answered his question.

“She was crying and crying and crying, and I was frightened, so I’ve come to see Daniel.”

A funny expression passed over Mr. Brown’s face then and he put his rough hands around my face and looked me in the eye.

“Well, don’t you be worrying yourself, little miss,” he told me. “Mrs. Brown will go make sure that your mom is alright, and you can stay here and play with Daniel. In fact…” He lifted his head and pretended to sniff the air. “I think I can smell biscuits fresh from the oven, so we’d better hurry before they’re all gone.”

That was the start of some of the best weeks of my life. The Browns didn’t tell me much about my mom except that she was ill and the doctor said she had to go to the hospital for a while to get better. I was sad at first, until Mrs. Brown said that I could stay with them and have my own room and everything. Then I felt as though I had come home.

“Can I stay here forever?” I asked her.

She laughed.

“Just until your mom gets well again, then you’ll have a new house to live in.”

My heart started to beat rapidly and I clutched at her sleeve.

“Will my dad be there?”

A frown darkened her plump, homely features, and when she leaned over to give me a quick hug, I could smell violets on her skin.

“I don’t know, love,” she told me.

That summer passed in a haze. I had to work, as did Daniel, feeding hens, sweeping up, helping Mrs. Brown in the huge, warm, lovely smelling kitchen. At night I fell into bed with aching legs and eyes so tired that they were shut before my head hit the soft feather pillow. But there was still time for play. On occasion Mrs. Brown would stop what she was doing and say, “Off you go now, lass. Find Daniel and get yourselves away to play.” And off we would go to spend hours trying to catch fish in the beck at the bottom of the far meadow, or grooming Daniel’s fat bay pony, Chocolate. We didn’t ride him much because he had something that Mr. Brown said was laminitis and his feet kept getting sore, but Daniel told me what to do and we used to put the saddle on a big log at the bottom of the orchard and pretend to trot and canter. I was determined that one day I really was going to ride.

Now and then I would wake in the night and lie in the darkness, thinking of my merry bright-eyed dad and my poor sad mom, and then a kind of guilt would creep over me as I imagined her, all alone somewhere, trying to get well while I hardly spared her a thought my life was so full. In the morning I would go straightaway to find Mrs. Brown and ask her when my mom was coming home, and deep inside, almost hidden even from myself, a part of me would dread her answer, knowing that it might spell the end of my days at Homewood.

My thoughts on my father were worrying. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss because his larger-than-life personality had ruled my world for so long—had been my world. Yet there was also anger—anger that he had let me down and betrayed my trust. And then the image of his handsome face would flash into my mind, and as the memory of his laughter echoed around the room, I would climb down from my high bed by the window to reach for my scuffed red shoes, remembering the day he gave them to me—the day he went away. And when I awoke in the morning thereafter, my pillow would always be damp beneath my cheek, soaked with the tears I had shed in my sleep.

Mrs. Brown never made a comment, but when I would go back to my room the following evening, my pillow would always have been changed for a clean dry one, and sometimes she would look at me with a worried expression in her deep brown eyes.

Summer was over on the morning that she inquired about a visit to my mom. The apples in Mr. Brown’s orchard had all been picked, the trees had turned from green to golden-brown and Chocolate’s coat had thickened so much in readiness for winter that I needed all my strength to brush out the mud when he came in from the paddock. His feet were much better, so Mr. Brown said we could ride him, and Daniel gave me lessons in the orchard. Around and around and around we would go, up and down, up and down in the trot until my legs began to ache. Then Daniel would get on, and suddenly Chocolate could do all the things he wouldn’t do for me, and I would groan and laugh and try again.

Mrs. Brown was leaning over the breakfast table, pouring tea from the big brown pot, and she asked it almost casually.

“Would you like to go to see your mother today, Lucy?”

The almost hidden feeling of dread began to churn inside my stomach, and I stared hard at the clear amber liquid gushing from the spout in a perfect arc to fall noisily into Mr. Brown’s flowered cup.

“To see your mother,” she repeated in a matter-of-fact voice. “She’s so much better now, and she’d love to see you.”

The teapot clunked back down onto the table with a thud that reverberated around the sunny kitchen and she looked at me pointedly.

“Can Daniel come?” I asked.

For just a moment her neat white teeth took hold of her bottom lip, and a frown flitted across her face, then her usual soft smile slipped back into place.

“I don’t think that is a good idea this time,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be nice for it to be, you know, just you and your mom?”

I nodded halfheartedly, and the almost hidden feeling of dread spread from my stomach to my heart.

“But you’ll be there?”

Mrs. Brown exchanged a glance with her husband and he gave a slight nod.

“Of course,” she answered quickly. “We’ll set off after lunch, shall we?”

I wanted to say no—I wanted to shout no—I wanted to scream no. But I nodded politely and tried to remember my mother’s sad gray face.

Daniel was sitting on the other side of the table from me, and I glanced across at him, knowing that he would understand, for he didn’t want me to leave Homewood any more than I wanted to go.

He was staring into his bowl of coco pops, stirring the chocolate-colored milk so fast that it spilled onto the brightly checkered tablecloth.

“Daniel!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown.

He put down his spoon and gazed at me. I could see my own fears reflected in his deep-brown eyes, fears that our idyllic summer was about to end. The same disappointment that clouded my thoughts was mirrored on his face. He eyed at me fiercely for a moment, then he jumped up and walked out the back door into the crisp autumn air, leaving his jacket on the peg.

“Daniel!” called Mrs. Brown again. but her husband took hold of her arm and shook his head.

“Let him be,” he told her. “He’ll be back when he’s cold enough.”

And in that moment I closed my eyes and wished with all my heart that Mr. Brown could be my dad. The guilt that washed over me at the disloyal thought made me feel really bad, though, so when I went to get ready to go visit my mom, I pulled the red shoes from underneath my high, wooden-legged bed and looked at them. They didn’t fit me at all anymore, but I knew that I would keep them forever, or at least until my dad returned.

My mom arrived home just after my seventh birthday, and my birthday was about the last day I spent at Homewood. Mr. and Mrs. Brown bought me a lovely red bike, so that I could visit them often, they said, which made me feel just a tiny bit better. Then Daniel handed me a card with a pony on the front. Inside it, he had written, “Happy Birthday and I promise to give you 100 riding lessons on Chocolate.” That was my best present of all because it meant that I could come to Homewood Farm a hundred times more and maybe even learn to ride as well as he did, or almost as well.

On my very last night, Mrs. Brown came to my room to tuck me in. She hugged me and made loud sniffing noises into her hanky.

“Everything will be all right, lovey, you’ll see,” she told me. I hugged her back and breathed in the scent of violets as hard as I could, right down into my lungs so that her fragrance would become a part of me forever.

When her gentle footsteps faded down the stairs, I curled up into a tight little ball, wrapping my arms around my pillow and trying to remember about my mom and my dad, and how things used to be before he went away. But I couldn’t get past the memory of my mom’s wild eyes, blazing like coals amid the dead pallor of her face. All I could recall were the bad times, and I quaked in fear of the tomorrows. And then I heard a knock, just the gentlest tap, and a shadow fell across the beam of light from the half-open doorway, Daniel’s shadow.

“You okay?” he whispered. I uncurled myself and smiled through my tears.

“I am now,” I told him.

For a moment he hesitated in the doorway, then he tiptoed over and perched on the side of my bed, saying nothing, not needing words. And when I awoke next morning, he was gone. But it didn’t matter, because I knew that he had been there, and always would be there when I needed him. It made me feel safe again, I suppose.

CHAPTER 5

Christmas. It figured higher on my undulating tide of memories than any other time. It was almost Christmas when my mom arrived home, a poor sad shadow of the person who’d gone away, and it was Christmas when my dad returned to haunt her.

We lived just down the lane from the Browns now, at Box Tree Cottage. My mom had said that we had to move because my dad lost our other house, but that can’t have been true because it was still there; I saw it every morning on my way to school. I liked Box Tree Cottage, though. You could see the fells from my bedroom window.

I had only one present on our first Christmas there. It was from my mom, and it lay beneath the tree that Mr. Brown had brought us. Mrs. Brown and Daniel had helped decorate it on Christmas Eve. While we two children hung baubles on its spiky branches and breathed in the scent of fresh pine, the excitement that only Christmas can kindle bubbled up inside us, turning the sparkling decorations into something truly magical.

Mrs. Brown stood on a wooden chair to put tinsel right at the top of the tree, then she jumped down, rummaged in the big box of decorations and withdrew a small figure all dressed in silvery white, with gossamer wings and golden hair.

“Come on, Mary,” she insisted, holding the decoration out toward my mom. “Why don’t you put the fairy on the top.”

My mom was sitting in her high-backed chair, staring into the crackling flames of the fire with a distant expression in her eyes. It was nothing, though, compared with the pinched anger they had used to show, and anything was better than the wild desperation that had been so frightening just before she went away. So I didn’t mind a bit—at least she didn’t shout at me anymore—and sometimes I almost felt sorry for her she looked so sad and gray.

Mrs. Brown had arrived with Daniel shortly after the lunchtime program on TV finished, to find my mom sitting in the cold dark living room while I galloped around the house in my bare feet, on a broom that I pretended was Chocolate. Her voice was quiet and calm, but I could see the dismay in her eyes as she took in the clutter of our living room. She ordered me upstairs to get dressed and sent Daniel outside to fetch coal for the fire.

By the time I came back down the steep narrow staircase, flames were roaring up the chimney and my mom was settled in front of their cozy glow with a mug of tea. I smiled gratefully at Mrs. Brown when she handed me a piece of thickly buttered toast with strawberry jam. As I nibbled it contentedly, she and Daniel unpacked the box of goodies they had brought us.

Sparkling tinsel, gaudy baubles, a present for me that Mrs. Brown said she had collected for my mom and a beautiful Christmas cake with an angel on it, just like the one she was trying to get her to place on the tree.

“Come on, Mary,” she pleaded with her lovely voice.

I felt angry when my mom just sat with that vacant look in her eyes, staring into the fire, so I set down my plate and ran across to shake her arm. “Put it on,” I yelled. It mattered so much to me that my mom join in our excitement.

But Mrs. Brown took a gentle hold of my shoulders and pulled me toward her. “It’s all right, Lucy,” she said quietly. “The doctor told us that your mother would need to rest, and Daniel and I are here to keep an eye on you both, so just leave her be and she’ll come around…you’ll see.”

I relaxed against the warmth of her pale blue woolen sweater, clinging to the comfort she offered and smiling contentedly, knowing I was safe within her violet scent. It made me feel good inside to know that I was safe.

“I’ll keep an eye on her, as well, shall I?” I offered gravely.

She nodded in agreement. “Good idea, for she’ll be well again in no time if we both watch out for her.”

I believed then that Mrs. Brown’s magic was working already, for my mom slipped into one of her more lucid periods. Sometimes they only lasted minutes before she drifted back into her cloudy-eyed apathy, but this time her lucidity went on and on and she gazed at Mrs. Brown with real emotion in her gray eyes.

“Edna,” my mother suddenly said. “Whatever am I going to do?”

I hadn’t known that Mrs. Brown was named Edna until that moment. Mr. Brown called her Mother, Daniel called her Mom, and I just called her Mrs. Brown, so hearing her first name made me stand and gawk for a moment, until Daniel grabbed my arm.

“Can we go outside for a bit?” he asked. Mrs. Brown smiled and made a shooing motion.

“Make sure you put your coats on and don’t go out of the garden,” she yelled after us as we raced into the tiny kitchen to get our boots.

We built a den in the shed that day, Daniel and I. He said it was our headquarters and we had to sit at the pretend table and make our plans, but we couldn’t think what to plan. Then he had one of his good ideas.

He screwed up his face, just as he always did when he was thinking, and ran his fingers through his tufty blond hair, which I liked so much.

“We’ll plan a trip,” he said. “A trip to the…to the circus. I’ll be a lion tamer and you can—”

“I’ll ride the horses,” I cut in, excitement buzzing through me.

Daniel was always contriving crazy things to do. We spent hours making plans that amounted to nothing, but we both understood that it was just a matter of time. One day, once we were grown up, we would fulfill all our dreams.

When we went back into the cozy warmth of the house, the living room seemed taken up by the tree. The gaudy baubles sparkled in the light from the fire, and its golden glow turned the silver tinsel to flickering orange. The bowl on our small scratched coffee table was filled with fruit and two brightly colored presents now lay beneath the canopy of green branches. One had no name on it, and Mrs. Brown said that she had bought it for me to give to my mom, so I filled in the card she handed me, meticulously writing my name in big letters and putting lots of kisses at the bottom, before arranging it carefully underneath the tree, next to the one from my mom to me. In that moment my world seemed complete and I turned to look at Mrs. Brown with tears of happiness in my eyes.

“It really is Christmas, isn’t it!” I exclaimed.

She laughed. “It certainly is,” she agreed. “And we’ll expect you and your mother for lunch tomorrow at twelve-thirty prompt.”

“At Homewood?” I cried, clapping my chubby hands.

“At Homewood,” she said. “Now, come on, Daniel. There are all the chores waiting for us at home.”

I stood in the front door and watched Mrs. Brown and Daniel drive away in their blue car. I watched until the car disappeared around a corner in the lane, and when I went back inside, hugging my warm glow of happiness, I realized that my mom’s lucid period had slipped again. She was sitting very quietly in her chair, just staring, I didn’t mind, though, because tomorrow we were going to have Christmas lunch at Homewood Farm.

It was after dark when a knock sounded on the door. My mom had fallen asleep in her chair, the fire had died to a red glow in the grate and I was curled up on the floor in front of it, dreaming about tomorrow and imagining Father Christmas hurtling through the sky in his sleigh. The knock made me jump, and for just a moment I thought that he was here already, before I had even gone to bed, so I ran and hid behind my mom’s chair. When the knock sounded again, more urgently, I shook her shoulder hard, calling her name. To my relief, she opened her eyes, but she stared at me vacantly, holding her hand against her forehead as if she had a headache. The knocking came yet again, and she pushed me toward the door.

“Go and see who it is, Lucy,” she groaned.

I was terrified in case it was Father Christmas and he wouldn’t leave me any presents because I was still awake, but the knocking was so loud that in the end I wriggled at the bolt until it slid back and the door burst open.

The man on the step was thinner than I recalled. His cheekbones seemed to push against his skin and his dark hair curled down over his collar, but there was no mistaking those twinkling blue eyes.

“Hello, princess,” he cried with a flourish. “I thought I’d find you here when I saw Mrs. Brown leave. Now, give your dad a kiss, since he’s come home for Christmas.”

I gawked at him for a moment, caught between fear and joy, and then I remembered his horse.

“Have you brought the horse?” I asked him.

He stepped inside and leaned down to look into my eyes.

“Now, what horse would that be?” he inquired in a serious voice.

“The one that all your money went on,” I replied, clenching my hands to help contain my excitement.

For a moment he eyed me curiously. His forehead puckered into lines and his eyes narrowed as he tapped his chin with one long forefinger. Then suddenly he raised his hands in the air and let out a great guffaw.

“I’m afraid that particular horse galloped off a long time ago, princess,” he told me. “And it wasn’t to the winning post.”

I felt tears well in my eyes, and my bottom lip started to tremble. I was so sure that one day my dad would bring the horse home, and now I would never be able to show it to Daniel. It wasn’t fair—

“Who is it?”

My mother’s voice floated through from the living room, thin and reedy as it always was nowadays. My dad took hold of my hand and led me through the door with determined strides.

“Hello, Mary,” he said. “Your old man’s here to see you on Christmas Eve.”

My mom lifted herself slowly from her chair. She was trembling all over, and there was more emotion on her face than I had seen her show since before she went away, as if she had all of a sudden managed to shed her protective coat of apathy.

“Get out!” she yelled. “Get out of my house.”

My dad just grinned, unconcerned by her ferocity, and turned to me.

“Not wearing your red shoes, princess?” he asked. I gazed up at him, confusion flooding my brain.

“They don’t fit,” I mumbled.

He grabbed me beneath the armpits and swung me around and around, so that the blood rushed to my head. When he put me down, I felt sick and faint.

“Well, in that case we’ll have to buy you others, won’t we,” he exclaimed.

He was like that, my dad. First he made you sad and then he made you smile. But my mom wasn’t smiling. Her face was all white and her eyes were open very wide.

“Get out!” she yelled again.

My dad looked at her for a minute, then he turned to me.

“Lucy,” he said, pointing to the door. “Time for bed.”

I stood my ground, setting my legs ready for a fight.

“I’m hungry,” I cried, clutching my stomach.

A dark shadow passed across his handsome features and he glanced around the room. Then his eyes brightened and he reached across to where a mound of multicolored fruits spilled from the bowl that Mrs. Brown had put together for us. His fingers paused above a yellow banana, plucked a purple grape and popped it into his mouth, then settled over a large red apple.

“Here,” he said, handing the apple to me. “This’ll fill you up. Now, go to your bed.”

I made a parting shot, anything that would keep me there for just a bit longer.

“We’re going to Homewood Farm for Christmas lunch tomorrow,” I announced, and when he scowled and turned back toward my mother, unimpressed by the information, I scuttled up the stairs, clutching my apple.

I had been waiting forever for my dad to come home, but now that he was here, it didn’t feel right. I lay in my bed, trying to keep warm, nibbling on the apple and listening to the voices downstairs. At first I heard my mom shouting again, but then she went quiet and I thought I heard her cry. Then there was silence, and the next thing I knew it was pitch-dark. I sat up, fear coursing through me as a shadow rippled across the ceiling. When I remembered my dad had returned, I lay back down again, listening to the silence and wondering if I dared to go and find my mom.

A clock ticked in the hallway, and I blinked in time with the sound until I heard an owl hooting in the darkness. Too wit, too woo, too wit, too woo, too wit, too woo, it called. I mouthed its cries, curious what it would be like to be an owl. When it fell silent, I became aware of another sound. It came from my mom’s room next door, and it was a kind of thumping, an urgent rhythmic banging, followed by a moaning gasping cry. So I pulled the covers over my head, and when I woke up again, daylight was streaming though my window and hunger pains were clawing at my stomach.

My mom, who had only been home for a short time, rarely got up until midday. It didn’t matter to me, though, as I had become used to fending for myself. Usually I would go and find some cereal or bread to eat and then play in the cold living room until she came downstairs, but this morning was different. This morning was Christmas Day.

In my eagerness to get downstairs, I fell from my bed onto the brightly colored mat that covered the floorboards, scuffing my elbow and hurting my head, but I didn’t care. I scrambled down the steep narrow stairs and burst through the living-room door. The Christmas tree was still there in all its gaudy finery, the presents bought by Mrs. Brown lying beneath it. With a flicker of disappointment, I saw that Santa hadn’t eaten the mince pie I’d left him, nor had his reindeer even nibbled on the carrot, so I ate the pie myself and wondered why he had forgotten to call at my house.

My present was wrapped in bright shiny red paper covered in tiny Christmas trees. It looked so good that I hardly dared to tear the paper. I unwrapped it carefully, wanting the anticipation to last as long as possible.

“Love from Mom,” said the label. When I saw what was inside the parcel, I began tearing at the rest of the paper with eager hands. Jodhpurs! She had bought me jodhpurs to wear when I rode Chocolate.

Dragging them on, I stumbled up the stairs and burst into my mom’s bedroom, eager to share my excitement. I froze in the doorway, though, when I remembered that my dad was home.

He was sitting on the side of the bed in his boxer shorts, his long dark curly hair all tousled and his eyes bleary with sleep, or the lack of it. His swarthy skin seemed even darker with the stubble of a beard. I hopped uncomfortably from foot to foot for a moment, then he held out his hand and I saw the twinkle in his bright blue eyes.

“Happy Christmas, princess,” he said.

My mom was lying very still with her back to me, a long shape beneath the blue-and-white bedspread. When I tried to go and look at her, my dad laughed and grabbed my arm.

“Now, what is this you’re wearing?” he asked, peering at my new blue jodhpurs.

I squirmed with delight, twirling to show them off with such pride that I thought I might explode.

“Your precious Mrs. Brown, I suppose,” he remarked.

I stopped and stared at him. “My mom got them for me,” I told him.

He laughed. “Your mom couldn’t even go and buy a loaf of bread.”

“Mrs. Brown says she just needs to rest.”

I felt troubled by the expression on his handsome face. The dad I remembered was my hero; he made me laugh and bought me presents. When he was there, murmured an inner voice, and a distant memory of him shouting at my mom leaped, unwanted, into my mind.

“Well, we won’t need to bother the wonderful Browns again, will we?” he said. “Now that your dad is home.”

All those weeks I had longed for him to return. All those times I had blamed my poor mom for chasing him away. And now he was here and he wasn’t what I remembered. The world closed in around me and I saw Homewood Farm slipping away.

“Will you come for Christmas lunch with us?” I asked in a wobbly voice, guessing at his answer. He grinned again and held out his arms.

“I think we’ll all just stay here,” he announced. “I’m sure your mom will be able to find something nice for us to eat.”

“My mom’s not very well,” I told him. He turned to eye the motionless form beneath the bedspread.

“Oh, I think she’ll pull herself together now that I’m here.”

For the first time in my life I withdrew from my father’s embrace and walked slowly back down the stairs thinking of the big warm living room at Homewood Farm and the huge turkey I had seen Mrs. Brown preparing the other day. But it would be all right when she found out, I decided. Mr. Brown would be sure to come and get us. Except, I didn’t have any presents for Mr. and Mrs. Brown. I raced into the living room to retrieve the shiny red paper with the Christmas trees from where it lay crumpled in the hearth…but what to give them?

My eyes flicked desperately around the room, before finally alighting on the bowl of fruit. With great deliberation I chose the brightest orange and the most perfect apple to wrap up in the Christmas-tree paper and place beneath the tree. For Daniel I would draw a picture of Chocolate. With a new flood of happiness, I went off to get my pencils.

The knock on the door sounded at a quarter to one. I knew that was the time because I had asked my dad on a dozen occasions when half past twelve was—aware that when we didn’t turn up at Homewood, someone would look for us. The someone was Daniel. When I opened the door, he grinned and stepped straight inside.

“My mom says you’re late,” he told me in a breathless voice. “We’ve got presents for you and I got a bike from Santa. Come see. It’s just outside.”

I followed him out into the crisp air, feeling glad about the presents I had so carefully wrapped that morning and recalling the picture of Chocolate with pride.

“Isn’t it ace?” he cried.

I nodded, gazing appreciatively at the shiny red bicycle.

“So are you ready?” he asked eagerly.

I stared at the ground.

“Tell your mother that Mick McTavish says thank you very much for looking after his family and finding them somewhere to live, but we won’t be needing your help anymore now that he is home.”

My dad was standing behind us in the open doorway, his arms folded across his chest and a satisfied smile on his face. When Daniel gaped at him, he laughed.

“Don’t worry, lad. I’m not going to bite you,” he said. “Now, run off home and deliver my message.”

Daniel gazed at me and I could see my own disappointment mirrored in his deep brown eyes.

“But what about the presents?” he whispered for my ears only.

“Can’t I just go for a little while,” I begged my dad. His face clamped up.

“Not today, Lucy,” he told me.

I wanted to scream at him, but all I did was watch the big fat tears dripping onto my shoes as Daniel rode off down the lane, back toward Homewood Farm and presents and Christmas lunch.

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