Meet Me at Fir Tree Lodge Read online

  About the Author

  RACHEL LOUISE DOVE is a mum of two from Yorkshire. She has always loved writing and has had previous success as a self-published author. Rachel is the winner of the Mills & Boon & Prima Magazine Flirty Fiction competition and won The Writers Bureau Writer of the Year Award in 2016. She is a qualified adult education tutor specialising in child development and autism. In 2018 she founded the Rachel Dove Bursary, giving one working-class writer each year a fully funded place on the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writers’ Scheme.

  Also by Rachel Dove

  The Chic Boutique on Baker Street

  The Flower Shop on Foxley Street

  The Long Walk Back

  The Wedding Shop on Wexley Street

  The Second Chance Hotel

  Meet Me at Fir Tree Lodge

  RACHEL DOVE

  HQ

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

  Copyright © Rachel Dove

  Rachel Dove asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  E-book Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008375836

  Version: 2020-09-21

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Rachel Dove

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Acknowledgements

  Extract

  Dear Reader …

  Keep Reading …

  About the Publisher

  To Peter

  Ten years of marriage, two boys, and I still love you fiercely

  (and your scrumptious bum)

  Love George

  Prologue

  Giggling, Frank almost dropped his breakfast on the pavement as he exited the shop. A passing pigeon looked elated at the prospect, before it was snatched away, and the bird was left cooing crossly. Back to the discarded wrappers and food scraps it went as Frank sang down the street, his knees bouncing with every movement.

  ‘You only want me for my baps,’ she’d said. Frank was still chuckling at their little in-joke as he started up his car. Every weekday morning, she said the same to him, passing him his order with a happy smile that he’d grown accustomed to seeing. He looked forward to it. Marilyn always smiled, and she always set him up for the day. Even now, he was still grinning at her saucy humour.

  The sun was shining in the suburbs of York as the silver BMW sprang to life, the occupant ready to get on with his regular journey. Pulling out of the side street, Frank took one hand off the wheel and waved at the woman in the shop window he’d just vacated. She saw him and waved back, and he drove off with a smile. It was Wednesday, which in Frank’s world meant driving to get a paper and a couple of soft bacon butties from Marilyn’s shop, before going to get his hair cut at Tony’s later in the afternoon.

  With the fragrant smell of bacon and fresh bread in his nostrils, he pulled onto the main road, driving away from the small rows of shops that ran along the streets of Pocklington. Nearing the local primary school, he stopped for Audrey Shingles, the lollipop lady, as she brandished her huge stick and walked into the middle of the busy road. Frank nodded at her and watched the boys and girls all walk past, book bags and PE kits swinging from their hands as they were led across the road like baby ducklings. St Thomas’s was where his own son once went, and Frank felt a wave of nostalgia flow through him. Seeing a little boy with brown hair crossing the road, his bag almost as big as him, Frank made a mental note to call his own offspring when he got home.

  He drove past the school, grinning at Audrey as she thanked him for stopping for the children. Audrey went to return his smile, but her face dropped a little as he drove by. Odd, he thought. Not her usual cheery self today. He drove past the school, easing out of the congestion. Away from the chatter at the school gates, the car grew quiet. Too quiet. He could hear a faint buzzing noise in his head, as though he’d just walked out of a Def Leppard concert feeling a little numb between the ears. Frank went to click on the radio, but his arm didn’t connect with the button. He tried again, but his left arm barely moved. Panic hit him like a wave of icy cold water, making his right arm wobble on the steering wheel. He pulled the car straight, his heart pumping in his chest. What was happening? He felt like he was tied to his seat. His heart beat faster. Boom boom boom in his ears. The pulsing made his head hurt. Feel woolly even.

  ‘What the …’ Frank spoke out loud, but it came out like a muffled waaa-faaaa sound. He tried again, his panic building as he used his good arm to slowly move to the side of the road. This wasn’t as easy as it sounded, given that his whole body was now leaning over to the middle of the car. Frank just couldn’t right himself, every movement was awkward, and tiring. Terrifying.

  I have to stop this car.

  The traffic had dropped off past the school gates, but rounding the corner in the direction of the church, Frank could see a queue forming from the traffic lights further down. He could see harassed school mums trying to get to work, bored-looking people heading to their jobs the shops or breakfast with a friend. Life lay before him, but he couldn’t interact with any of it. Couldn’t warn them. He was going to crash, and he couldn’t do a thing. He tried to shout for help, to stop the car. He jammed the foot that was still working down on the brake as hard as he could, trying and failing to wrench the handbrake up with hands that now refused to obey him. Even his own thoughts were jumbled, chaotic. Frank thought of Luke, and his Debra, and shoved his limp hands down on the horn. Beep. Again. Beep. Again. Closer now. Crashing. Beep. Help me. Beep. I can’t, I’m going to …

  The silver BMW slammed side on into a row of three parked cars outside the Bella Donna Care Home, sending care workers and relatives scurrying outside to see what the commotion was, and then racing to help, shouting to each other to bring towels, blankets. Call for help. The horn, held down by Frank’s bleeding skull, continued to sound, cutting through the noise of everything else. Frank, feeling now like he could barely move at all, tried to reach his mobile phone, which was in his coat pocket. He fumbled with the fabric, trying and failing to push his fingers into the space. His door was opened at the side of him, and people were talking to him. Asking him questions, telling him not to move, that help was coming. He wanted to speak, to tell them that something was wrong, so very wrong, but the words eluded him. They floated like mischievous pixies
in his head. Every time he reached for one, they flew off and nothing that came from his lips made sense. Frank was lost and utterly terrified. He thought of the little boy in the backpack, and a tear fell from his slack cheek.

  ‘Don’t move, okay Mr Sommersby?’ Marilyn’s son. Frank couldn’t answer him. He didn’t know how. When he felt Jamie’s hand on his, he squeezed it as hard as he could. ‘Over here! He’s touching my hand! Quickly!’ Jamie’s voice sounded strangled, panicked, and Frank wanted to tell him to shush. Not to make a fuss. It was okay. It wasn’t, but he felt so very confused. So very weary. ‘Mam, have you called for help?’

  He could sense someone else there now, and he felt something on his arm. Warm. It pervaded his numbness somehow, and he tried to turn his head towards the warmth.

  ‘No, don’t move Frank. It’s okay, we’re here. Help is on the way. You hang in there, you hear me?’ Frank recognised the female voice, but he couldn’t conjure up the name or the face in his head. Just the feeling of the voice. The way it made his body respond. It kept the fear at bay, a little at least. He tried to focus, to flex his fingers. He had no way of knowing if his digits had responded, and the voices didn’t comment. They weren’t silent though, and he could hear other noises too. The toot of a car … thingy, and the loud herald of sirens. Help. That’s what that sound meant. He didn’t remember what a horn was, or the name of the woman holding his hand and whispering pleas to cling on, but he knew that help was here. The sad thing was, Frank’s life had already flashed before his eyes, and what he had seen had made him want to let go. Give in. His eyelids fluttered closed, but a voice shrieked at the side of him, waking him up.

  ‘That’s it!’ the voice said, shakily strong. ‘No more baps from me if you leave Frank, so hang on in there.’

  ‘Mam,’ another voice. ‘Mam, is he answering?’

  ‘No son,’ the first voice scolded. ‘He knows what to do though. He’ll be fine. That’s the end of it.’ The sirens grew closer, the noise of the commotion growing ever louder still. Frank would have hated all the fuss normally, all the people put out because of him. He’d have apologised, had he been able to, but he was stuck with one image in his head. The little brown-haired boy in the backpack, that made his tired heart clench. He could still hear voices now, but he couldn’t make sense of them. They were so loud, and he was in so much pain. He went to say something, but his body was no longer his to control. Trying one last time to squeeze the hand that was holding his, he gave a long sigh, and gave in.

  Chapter 1

  Sometimes, when everyone is seemingly out there in the world, being happy, joyful, and full of life, a woman just wants to tell them all to sod off and die in a pit of fire. That was the first thought that entered Rebecca’s head that morning, and it was probably the most upbeat thought she’d had since she awoke. The twinge in her lower back always made her a little grumpy first thing on a morning. Sometimes she would still wake in an odd position, wracked with a sudden spasm. As though her muscle memory had stored that feeling of horrendous pain. As though it wanted to remind her what could go wrong when you reached for the stars. Falling from the heavens wasn’t without injury. Pieces breaking off. It wasn’t so much the pain anymore. It was the memory that haunted her the most. The feeling of falling, tumbling, breaking. Hearing her own bones snap. It was enough to make anyone a little bit jaded about the world. Her nan used to call her arthritic early morning pain the ‘crabby hour’. Now, reflecting on her current early morning mood, she understood just what her old nan meant. Why she’d been so snarky on so many occasions.

  Turning over in bed, registering the current pain-free state of her lower half, she slowly opened her eyes, using her covers as a shield against the bright light coming from the curtained window. She was wrapped up like a mountain Sherpa, with only tiny slits for her to see through exposed to the cold of the room. Turning the heat off on a night saved the pennies, but it meant waking up in a brilliant white icebox. The glamping equivalent of an igloo. It made her even less inclined to jump out of bed with glee.

  ‘Jesus!’ She shrieked as her bare feet finally plucked up the courage to leave the comfort of her 13.5-tog duvet. Padding across the wooden floor, she looked at the view from her bedroom window. The same view she’d looked at for the past year, since she’d moved into the master bedroom. On the other side of the thick glass, the French Alps lay glistening before her. The snow-topped mountains were a dazzling white, the powder fresh and untouched yet by man. No tell-tale sweeping scars left from skis in the snow. It looked like a picture postcard. Something to make a person marvel at the wonder of the world they inhabited. Reaching for the curtains, which were thin and utterly useless white voiles anyway, she swished them closed and dived straight back under the covers. Shivering, she pushed out a hand and grabbed her mobile phone from its charging pod.

  15 MESSAGES

  2 MISSED CALLS

  All from one person: Mum. Unbidden, an image of the woman who gave her life popped up in her head. Crying by Rebecca’s hospital bedside when she thought her daughter was sleeping off the powerful pain meds she was dosed up on. Medicine to keep her still, to let her body heal, recover. The whispered phone calls, her mother’s desperate voice as she tried to field the questions from the press. She could still remember her mother standing there, in the doorway of the private room. Rebecca had woken with the pain, and her mother’s anguished hushed tones from the other side of the room had filtered into her foggy head. Her mother was in the doorway, her back to the room. The stark white glow from the artificially lit corridor made her mother’s complexion look a little grey, her pale white pallor highlighted more by the trademark bright colours she wore. The woman had never met a Laura Ashley design she didn’t love.

  ‘Rebecca will be fine, and your headline is damn right wrong, Bruce. After all the years of professional competing, I think you know the calibre of the skier that we are talking about. The Ice Rebel is down, but she’s not bloody well out.’ Her mother pushed the last of her words out with a fiery flourish, her voice almost cracking with the effort. As the tinny voice of Bruce, editor of the latest tabloid to latch on to her very public accident on the slopes, nattered back into her mother’s delicate ear on the phone, Rebecca watched her mother. The fight had left her with those words, as she watched her mother sink into the visitor’s chair and lean her head against a wall. Right there and then, she made the decision that she’d been thrashing round in her head since …

  The phone rang in her hand, and ‘MUM’ flashed on the screen. Rebecca let it ring off. It was far too early to deal with speaking to her right now. Not that her phone was blowing up these days.

  The thought depressed her every time. Rebecca’s mum, and Hans, her boss and once flatmate, were the only people to ever call. And even that was mostly about work. Since Hans had moved out of his flat, leaving Rebecca as a sole tenant, he’d stayed close, checking on the café below. And his friend, of course. Alpine Bites was still his baby, and although his wife Holly grew larger with their first child every time Rebecca saw her, Hans was keen to keep an eye on his business. She flicked through the messages on her screen, each one firmer in tone than the last.

  DARLING, CALL ME. MUM

  HELLO?

  JUST READ AN ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN ABOUT CHILDLESS WOMEN OVER 30. DIVORCE RATES TRIPLE!

  This was her latest area of interest. A grandchild. Rebecca blamed Holly being pregnant for that one. Baby fever. Not that she resented Holly and Hans for being happy, for taking the next step to add to their family. She was happy for them and couldn’t wait to be an aunt. It just didn’t mean that her clock had started ticking yet. Besides which, she’d only just recovered from a shattered pelvis. Pushing an eight-pound baby out of her hoo-haa didn’t sound like a great idea at this time in her life. And since her split with Robbie, she hadn’t exactly been surrounded by sperm donor candidates anyway.

  She shook her head in disbelief and read on.

  COMPETITIONS MUST BE START
ING UP NOW. HAVE YOU ENTERED?

  Rebecca rolled her eyes, her gaze falling on the stack of competition entry forms that had mysteriously arrived in the post. No postmark though. Funny that. Hans really had a soft spot for her mother, and she played him like a kazoo. Rebecca could only hope she didn’t ask him to drop off a jam jar of his finest, get the ball rolling. Grow your own grandchild from the comfort of your armchair. Wi-Fi connection required.

  Not feeling up to reading the rest, she was about to delete the lot when she saw the next entry. Clicking on the screen to bring up the full text, her jaw hit the floor.

  DARLING, DON’T FORGET. IF YOU WON’T COMPETE, THEN OTHER OPPORTUNITIES MIGHT ARISE TO THE RIGHT YOUNG PROFESSIONAL. YOU COULD DO TV!

  An image of herself with a microphone in hand came to mind, watching everybody else have fun and fulfil their dreams, whilst she stood on the sidelines grinning like a Playboy bunny and freezing her norks off. Rebecca gritted her teeth and started to type out a reply. She could feel herself getting so irritated. Why did her mother always just seem to strive to get her back up, every time they connected?

  Mother, can you at least let me have a coffee before you regret my existence?

  *delete*

  New phone, who dis?

  *delete*

  Sorry Mother dearest, was straddling the hot new contender, Javier! Text you back when I’m with child!

  *delete*

  Yes Mum, all fine here. Was up late practising, sorry. Competition entries going in soon. Love you. Got to get to work. x

  She added a cupcake emoji for good measure. Something jaunty to placate her mother, who was probably already on the phone to Sky Sports, trying to blag her a job.

  Looking at the screen, Rebecca sagged back into her quilt barrier and sighed heavily. The time was coming when she’d have to tell her mum that she hadn’t entered again, and her matriarch-induced stress headache was already playing the bongo drums on her temples at the thought. She wasn’t exactly scared of her mother, but she was weary of feeling like the disappointment in the family. She’d never understood the term ‘black sheep’ really, but she got the gist now. She put the phone back on her bedside table and dragged herself once more onto the floorboards of icy death.