Telling herself Thursday would soon come around, Lottie threw herself into her work, even though her fingers itched to dial Steph’s number. She also couldn’t help planning her wedding in her head. It would probably be at the village church overlooking the lake with the reception at the hotel she worked for. She knew a local designer whose dresses she loved. She smiled to herself, thinking what a thrill it would be to ask the seamstress to make her a bespoke bridal gown.
Now she’d had chance to think about it, it was probably not the worst thing that Connor had persuaded her to delay announcing their engagement by a few days. If she timed it right, they could catch their parents on Zoom before they went to work, and after the twins were in bed, make a proper ‘party’ of it even if not everyone could be there.
Buoyed by making plans for the wedding in her head, Lottie managed to get through the days. Connor was busy in the evenings and they only managed a quick text exchange but by Thursday Lottie was growing as excited as a kid on Christmas Eve. Connor messaged to say he’d be home from Scotland very late, so not to wait up if she was too tired.
But Lottie very much did want to wait up. She put some fizz on ice and sat in the sitting room, in heels and a slinky dress, waiting for him. She heard his BMW crunch onto the driveway, the security light flicked on and she flew into the kitchen, grabbed the champagne and flung back the door, ready for a romantic reunion – and the start of the celebrations.
Yet there was something about Connor that made her pause in the doorway, and stopped the cry of ‘Surprise!’ in her throat. Even from metres away, she could see that something was wrong. His shoulders were slumped; his face was pale. He looked a broken man.
His first words when he reached the door were: ‘I’m sorry. I’ve done something unforgivable.’
Five seconds later, Lottie’s world started to unravel.
Chapter One
4 November, the following year
Langmere, Lake District
‘Morning, Lottie. How’s it going? Found yourself a nice young man, yet?’
Lottie rolled her eyes. One of the village’s senior residents asked her this very question every time he saw her, often in front of everyone in the post office. It was now a running joke between Irina and her husband, Jan.
‘Not yet, Irina,’ she said. ‘Still waiting …’
‘I would keep away from them all. Especially the nice ones – they’re the most dangerous.’ Irina raised her voice. ‘I don’t have a problem fending off the young ones any more.’
‘Eh? What’s that?’ Jan asked, walking out of the storeroom with a carton of Kendal Mint Cake. Originally from Poland, he and Irina had been running the post office for over a decade now and were both stalwarts of the village.
‘Is it your day off?’ Irina asked Lottie. ‘Doing some Christmas shopping?’
‘No, I’m on my way back to Firholme from dropping the twins at school. Steph has a hospital appointment today.’
Irina frowned in sympathy. ‘How’s she doing? I bet she’ll be glad when that’s over.’
‘She’s OK. It’s been very tough for her.’
‘Those gorgeous little girls of hers are such angels. Good job she has you to help her out, what with your parents living on the other side of the world.’
Amused at the idea of Myra and Jodie as ‘angels’, Lottie smiled. ‘I’m definitely glad I live so close.’
‘Here you go, have these for the girls.’ Irina reached for a bag of Milky Way Magic Stars and pushed them under the screen.
Lottie smiled. ‘Thanks, you’re very kind but let me pay for them.’
‘No way. It’s only a little treat!’
‘In that case, thank you.’ Lottie popped some coins in the mountain rescue box.
The doorbell dinged and an elderly man with a stick walked in. Wilf Carman was over ninety and had piloted a glider into Normandy as part of the D-day landings, as he never ceased to remind everyone, not that Lottie minded.
He waved his stick. ‘Hello, young lady! I still remember when you were Dotty Lottie.’
‘Morning, Mr Carman.’ Lottie smiled, but did wish he wouldn’t use her school nickname every time he saw her. He’d been caretaker at the school when she’d first started at the village primary. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Irina stifling a giggle behind the post office screen.
‘Have you found a nice young man, yet?’ he said.
‘Not yet, Mr Carman. Why? Are you offering?’
He let out a cackle. ‘If I was sixty years younger. I cut quite a dash in my RAF uniform, you know.’
After listening to him reminisce for a few minutes, and then begin to tell Irina the latest news about a branch of his family who lived in Cornwall, Lottie had to excuse herself as she needed to get back to work.
She walked towards her car, parked on the small car park by the lakeside café. Ducks and geese waddled around, picking at scraps. Woodsmoke spiralled out of the chimneys of the village, where the stone and slate-roofed cottages huddled around the pub and church looked as if they were straight from a Beatrix Potter tale.
Lottie drove out of the village, past the café, mountain equipment shop, gallery and pub until the houses gave way to the open fellside, edged with dry-stone walls. The Herdwick sheep had been brought down off the fellside to the lower fields now and were gathered in fields near the farms. They munched away as she drove past, their winter fleeces shaggy and marked crimson to make them easier to identify. Lottie had often thought they were the punk rockers of the sheep world and her nieces delighted in finding the most colourful.
It was a crisp November morning, with
