One Summer Between Friends Read online

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Trish always fancied herself a writer, but she dutifully picked gherkins and washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant on her way to earning herself an economics degree and a qualification as a chartered accountant instead. Work took her to Canberra where she promptly fell in love with a tall, dark and handsome hero who cut computer code, and marriage and four daughters followed, which gave Trish the chance to step back from her career and think about what she’d really like to do.

  Writing romantic fiction was at the top of the list, so Trish made a choice and followed her heart. It was the right choice. Since then, she’s sold more than thirty titles to Harlequin with sales in excess of seven million globally, with her books printed in more than thirty languages in forty countries worldwide.

  Four times nominated and two times winner of Romance Writers of Australia’s RuBY Award for Romantic Book of the Year, Trish was also a 2012 RITA finalist in the US.

  You can find out more about Trish and her upcoming books at www.trishmorey.com and you can email her at [email protected]. Trish loves to hear from her readers.

  One Summer Between Friends

  Trish Morey

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  To the warm and wonderful people of Lord Howe Island.

  You and your fabulous island rock.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Preface

  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 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Acknowledgements

  Book Club Questions:

  Excerpt

  PREFACE

  Looking back, you never quite knew when or where or how it began, whether with a hairline fracture that grew like a crack in an ice shelf until something snapped and broke free, or with a sudden seismic jolt that shifted the plates of friendship so hard and thrust them so far apart that there was no going back. Did it begin with the betrayal? Or was that merely the final act, and the seeds had been planted much earlier? Waiting through the decades. Biding their time. Invisible.

  Trying to pinpoint the root cause was the sort of thing that a person could beat themselves up about, replaying every conversation they’d ever had, trawling through memory after memory, searching for a clue. A sign that your world and all you’d ever held dear would be blown apart by those you’d trusted the most.

  But when it all came down to it, there was no point knowing. Because however and whenever it had begun, whatever you’d missed or not missed, the outcome was the same. Loss. Devastation. Hurt that cut so raw and so deep that the wound would never heal and the pain would never go away.

  Life went on, of course. Even if you had to read every self-help book you could get your hands on. You pored over pages about death and betrayal and forgiveness. You worked your way through all five stages of grief that the dying and bereaved were said to endure, because you knew grief and this was a kind of dying too. You worked your way through denial and anger, bargaining and depression, until you came to a wretched, uncomfortable acceptance.

  This was your lot and there was no changing it.

  And so you dragged yourself up, put one foot in front of the other, until one day you could even manage a smile again. To everyone else, you looked normal. But you were forever changed inside. You were harder. Stronger. And determined that nobody was ever going to mess with you again.

  But forgiveness?

  There was no room in this hard-won existence for something as generous as forgiveness.

  No room at all.

  1

  North Sydney

  You just knew some days were going to be special. Days when you knew that all the hard work you’d put in was going to pay off, that you’d turned a corner and your life was finally about to change for the better. Days when anticipation fizzed in your blood like the bubbles in champagne, and the air around you shimmered with expectation. Like the day Richard had proposed to her in the most magical place on earth. And like the day she’d confirmed what she’d felt deep in her bones and her belly—she was pregnant.

  Precious days. All too rare days. But today, Sarah Thorpe knew, was one of those days.

  A partnership at Fortescue, Robbins and Lancaster, Chartered Accountants. After more than a decade and a half of slog, and in spite of being told it would never happen, she’d made it.

  At least, that’s what Gerard Fortescue had hinted ten minutes ago when she’d bumped into him coming out of the lift. ‘Ah, Sarah!’ he’d said, seeming delighted to see her as he’d shaken off his wet umbrella, his eyes darting from side to side before he’d smiled and tapped the road map–veined end of his nose. ‘Red-letter day for the firm,’ he’d whispered conspiratorially. ‘There will be celebratory drinks in the boardroom after the meeting, of that you can be sure.’ And then he’d smiled again and winked at her. He’d actually winked at her. What else could that mean?

  Sarah shuffled papers on her desk and rechecked her appointment schedule, not that she registered any details. Just for once she cursed her lack of social media skills. If she’d been the type to Facebook or Twitter, she might have seized her phone and posted something short and sweet that reflected her heady mood and the anticipation that was bubbling in her veins: Just deserts, here I come! Or #TakeThatGlassCeiling! #Smashed!

  But Sarah didn’t Facebook. She didn’t tweet or Snapchat. She did nothing on social media that might reflect badly on the firm or attract the adverse attention of the partners. She did nothing on social media period. She was squeaky clean and above reproach and that—and the fact she’d worked her butt off for years—was finally about to pay off. Big time.

  A partnership!

  There’d been talk of Gerard stepping back to concentrate on his directorships for the last three years. It’s what she’d focussed on to keep her sane. It was what she wanted, more than anything. The first woman to make partner in a firm filled with dinosaurs would be a red-letter day indeed. She was about to drag the company into the twenty-first century, even if it had taken the best part of two decades to do it.

  God, how could she wait until this afternoon’s partners’ meeting to find out?

  Sarah checked her calendar again and this time her first appointment registered. She headed for the kitchen. There was just enough time for a cup of tea before her client arrived. She dangled a chamomile and honey t
eabag in a mug, thinking it might work some serenity and calm into her over-excited brain before she had to turn it back to the intricacies of the recent changes in legislation governing self-managed superannuation funds. Which meant ten delicious minutes to indulge herself with thoughts of what it might mean if she was right.

  Like an office with a door and a view over Sydney Harbour instead of a partitioned-off dog box in the middle of the building. A serious company car—maybe she could finally get that little Audi TT she’d been lusting after?

  She looked down at the teabag she was jiggling and snorted. Who was she kidding? All the chamomile in the world wasn’t going to calm her, not now when her every career dream was about to come true. Her only regret was that her ex wasn’t around to see this.

  ‘No ambition,’ Richard had told her when she’d refused to follow up the job leads he’d sprinkled in front of her like fairy dust. ‘That mob will never make you partner. It’s a boys’ club. All they care about is the status quo and golf.’ And maybe he’d been right about the boys’ club and the golf, but the firm had been good to her when she’d needed it and surely they would reward her loyalty eventually? Besides, why should she have thrown away a job that was a thirteen-minute commute from their home in Turramurra? This was Sydney—a thirteen-minute commute was like working from home. If Richard didn’t like working in the same office as his wife, he could move on. Which was exactly what he’d done.

  Still, it would have been nice to be able to tell him he was wrong.

  ‘Deep in thought?’ asked a resonant voice behind her.

  Tea sloshed over the rim of the cup and splashed on her hand. ‘Oh, Dillon, hi,’ she said, switching hands and shaking her fingers.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said with a grin, as he fossicked in a cupboard for his mug. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  She smiled back despite the sting in her fingers. Impossible not to return a grin like Dillon’s really, not when it came gift wrapped in a tall, dark and square-jawed twenty-something footballer package. No wonder all the pretty young things had sat up and taken notice when he’d joined the firm a few months back.

  ‘You caught me lost in the hidden delights of self-managed superannuation funds.’ Which was only a tiny white lie.

  He cocked an eyebrow as he reached for a coffee capsule. ‘There are hidden delights in self-managed super funds?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I just made that up.’

  ‘Damn. And there was me about to ask for a transfer from insolvency to come play in your superannuation sand pit.’

  She laughed. This day was getting better and better. She knew better than to think Dillon was flirting with her—she had something like a decade on him and he was clearly just a natural-born charmer. But right now she felt like being charmed. It had been too long since she’d felt so light-hearted. She sipped her tea. ‘So, how are you settling in to FRL then?’

  He took a moment to answer, a slight frown pulling his brows together as the coffee machine hummed into life. ‘Not bad. But then, I’ve been here more than twelve months. I’m all settled in.’

  ‘Twelve months already? Wow. Time flies.’ She felt the phone in her pocket vibrate and glanced at the clock over the fridge. It was probably Frankie on reception advising that her client was here.

  ‘I’ve got to run,’ she said, emptying her mug into the sink as she pulled out her phone. ‘Catch you later.’

  Except when she looked at her phone on the way back to her office, it wasn’t Frankie. It was her mother. Great. Sarah sighed and ran her hand over her hair to give her bun a reassuring squeeze. She really didn’t have time for whatever or whoever her mother wanted to snipe about right now.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ she said, ‘listen, can I call you back? I’ve got a client due any minute.’

  ‘It’s your dad here, love,’ said a voice heavy with gravel and an innate sense of when to pause for effect. ‘Your mum’s had a fall. Broken her hip.’

  Sarah stopped walking. ‘What?’

  ‘And so the doc ordered the air ambulance and of course I forgot my bloody phone in all the panic or I would have called up earlier. Dot said not to bother you last night, but I thought you might want to know that your mother went under the knife.’

  She put her hand to her head. Good grief. At least one of her parents had the sense to let her know. ‘Thanks, Dad. Where are you?’

  ‘Royal Sydney. They did an MRI, or whatever it’s called, the minute we got here, and whisked her straight into surgery.’

  ‘I better come in.’

  ‘Didn’t you just say you were expecting a client?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  Frankie appeared from behind a partition, saw Sarah standing, phone in hand, and pointed towards reception. Your client, she mouthed. Sarah nodded and held up two fingers and Frankie disappeared again.

  ‘Look, lovey, there’s no need to rush,’ her father said. ‘You get what you need to get done there. Dot will be here when you’re ready.’ He gave a low chuckle. ‘It’s not like she’s going anywhere.’

  Sarah bit her lip. Part of her was relieved she didn’t have to make an emergency dash. Another part of her was asking why this had to happen today. Trust her mother to shove an oar into what should be the best day of Sarah’s life. But it was still early and her appointment shouldn’t take any longer than an hour. There was plenty of time to get out to the hospital and back before this afternoon’s meeting. She was definitely not going to miss that.

  ‘Okay, I should be able to get there around lunch time. How’s she coping?’

  ‘Bloody unimpressed with it all, I can tell you. You know your mum doesn’t like to be slowed down.’ Sam Rooney gave a long sigh. ‘Gonna be interesting to live with for a while, she is.’

  Interesting to live with. That was her father, always master of the understatement.

  ‘Does Danny know?’

  ‘No, your mother doesn’t want me to bother him either.’

  Sarah rolled her eyes. How were they expected to find out their mother was in hospital? Osmosis? ‘Want me to let him know? It won’t be for another hour or so, though.’

  ‘Oh, love, I’ve got to get back to your mother. I’d be ever so grateful if you would.’

  It was late morning by the time Sarah and the arrangement of pink, purple and white lisianthus she’d picked up from the florist made it across town to Sydney General and her mother’s room.

  Dot Rooney grumbled what sounded like a welcome. ‘And after I specifically told your father not to bother you.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘But I suppose it’s just as well you’re here now.’

  Sarah put the vase containing the flowers on a shelf and leaned over the bed to kiss her mother, careful not to put any pressure on her or interfere with any of the tubes going in and out. ‘It’s good to see you too, Mum,’ she said, thinking that whoever said, ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’, was bang on the money. Sam rose from the visitor’s chair in the corner to give his daughter a kiss and a hearty hug, and as she breathed in his familiar dad scent and felt his big arms squeeze her, she knew at least one of her parents was genuinely pleased to see her. She suspected in her heart that Dot was too, Sarah just wished that she was able to come out and say it. ‘And don’t blame Dad. Of course I needed to know so I could come visit you both. I haven’t seen you since you came over for Easter.’

  Dot sniffed. ‘Well, whose fault is that? My own daughter always too busy to visit us so that I have to break my hip to get to see her.’

  Sarah let the barb slide by. She had used the ‘too busy’ excuse a lot, especially when it involved spending extended time back on Lord Howe Island. But not without good reason. ‘So,’ she said, perching herself gingerly on the side of the bed nearest her mother’s good leg, ‘how are you feeling?’

  Her mother assumed a pained expression. ‘Like I’ve been run over by a truck. The surgeon had to bolt me together with plates and pins.’

  ‘Ouch. How did
you do it?’

  ‘I didn’t do it. It was that wretched rail in the shop that did it. I was coming down the stairs with a box of tomatoes and when I reached for the rail, it wasn’t there and I missed the step. And the next thing I know, I’m lying on the floor in agony and there’s tomatoes rolling every which way, and not a hope in hell that I could get myself up off the ground to pick them up.’

  ‘You missed the handrail?’ Sarah inserted what she knew of her mother and of the sturdy timber handrail her father had built into the story. ‘Were you in a hurry?’

  Sam chuckled. ‘Have you ever known your mother to operate at anything less than warp speed?’

  Dot bristled. ‘I don’t like wasting time, if that’s what you mean. But that handrail definitely needs to be fixed. It’s dangerous the way it is, Samuel Rooney.’

  Sam patted his wife on the arm. ‘Don’t worry, love, I’ll have a look at the handrail. Make sure it’s a bit easier to get hold of. We can’t have people tripping down the stairs.’

  ‘Least of all me.’ Dot nodded, looking suitably mollified.

  ‘Least of all you,’ Sam agreed.

  ‘Oh,’ Sarah said, remembering, ‘Danny sends his love and best wishes for a speedy recovery.’

  ‘Oh, he does?’ At the mention of her son, Dot’s eyes lit up. ‘Isn’t he a lovely boy, to think of his mother like that? Wasn’t that lovely, Sam?’

  ‘Yes, that’s nice.’

  ‘Just such a shame he has to live all the way down in Melbourne,’ she continued. ‘I do wish he could have got a job on the island.’

  ‘Not enough work for all the young ’uns, unfortunately,’ Sam said, turning his head at the sound of a trolley clattering its way down the corridor.

  ‘But he didn’t have to go all the way to Melbourne. If he had to work at Myer, he could have got a job right here in Sydney. At least he’d be closer then.’

  ‘What do the doctors say?’ Sarah asked, knowing there was nothing to be gained by pursuing that particular topic. ‘How long before you can go home?’

  ‘The surgeon’s been this morning, hasn’t he, Sam? Such a nice man too. He had a holiday once on Lord Howe with his family. Stayed just next door at Sullivan’s. Thinks he even popped into the shop once or twice. Imagine that! Although he didn’t remember me. I think Deirdre must have been on duty that day, don’t you, Sam?’