and starting our own family.
Meant to Be Hers is about other things, too—rediscovering a career passion, dealing with loss, navigating a path to happiness and, of course, finding that special person, the one you’re meant to be with.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing the journey with me.
Joan Kilby
PS: This isn’t goodbye. I’m still writing, with many more stories to tell. Look for them at joankilby.com.
This book is for all my readers, everywhere. Because of you, I’ve spent my life doing what I love—telling stories.
Contents
WHERE WAS FINN? Carly Maxwell scanned the funeral guests clustered around her late aunt Irene’s living room for the tall, dark-haired musical prodigy. Finn Farrell had been Irene’s star pupil, his family’s greatest hope and Carly’s teenage crush. He should be here. He’d disappointed her aunt enough during her lifetime. Did he have to add to it after her death?
Carly moved among the guests, pouring tea from a huge earthenware teapot, trying to hold herself together when all she wanted to do was curl up under the covers and bawl her eyes out. It didn’t help that she was still on New York time and jet-lagged.
“More tea, Brenda?” Carly paused before her cousin, a comfortably plump blonde in her early forties who had sunk deep into soft sofa cushions.
“Yes, please.” Brenda’s blue eyes were sympathetic as Carly poured unsteadily into a hand-thrown pottery mug. “You’ve been on your feet since early this morning. Can I take the tea around for you?”
“Thanks, but no,” Carly said. “If I stop moving I might never get going again.”
In fact, she hadn’t stopped the entire week, from the moment she’d heard about Irene’s death. Finn’s Facebook message had popped into her work inbox like a Molotov cocktail, exploding her crammed diary into shards of missed meetings, unreturned phone calls and hurried apologies. Rushing back to her apartment, she’d listened to voice mail messages from her aunt’s neighbor, Frankie, who was worried about Irene’s dog, and Irene’s lawyer, Peter King, who said her aunt had listed Carly as next of kin.
Carly had caught the red-eye from New York to Seattle, rented a car, and driven up to Fairhaven, Washington, an historic district at the south end of Bellingham. Grief-stricken and in a daze, she’d arranged for a celebrant, put notices in the newspapers and on Irene’s social media, organized the funeral home and the caterers. After the service Carly had invited everyone to Irene’s three-story Queen Anne home on South Hill for the reception.
Now here they all were. With barely a moment yet to shed a
