been so gloriously happy she’d have got married in sackcloth and ashes if he’d asked her to. As it was, she’d worn a powder-blue suit and large hat, and everyone had said she looked radiant.
Keith had whisked her off to the Bahamas for two weeks and they had returned to live in his modern apartment on the outskirts of London. The original plan had been to start looking for a house straight away, but as the weeks and months had slipped by it had never happened. Keith had said there was plenty of time and she had agreed with him. When they decided to start trying for a baby in the future, they would think about a house. Until then they were happy as they were.
And then one terrible night her sister and brother-in-law, Michael, had turned up at their apartment. White-faced and trembling from head to foot, Catherine had told her their beloved parents had been killed in a head-on collision. Two eighteen-year-old joyriders in a stolen car had veered across the motorway, causing a lorry to swerve to avoid them. In doing so, the lorry driver had lost control of his vehicle and her parents had ploughed into it. The lorry driver had cuts and bruises and the joyriders not a scratch. Neither had they any remorse. The case had attracted nationwide publicity, as much because one of the joyriders had a famous rock star brother as anything else.
A day or two after she and Keith and Catherine and Michael had been interviewed by the press on the steps of the courthouse at the finish of the trial, the joyriders having received the maximum sentence possible, she had returned home from work to find a young woman waiting outside the apartment.
The recent past, as she and Catherine had battled to come to terms with the sudden loss of their parents, had been bad enough, but nothing could have prepared her for what had followed. The young woman was Keith’s long-term partner. They had two children and had been living together for seven years. On the nights he had been ‘away’ on business he had, in fact, been on the other side of London with Anna. And there were girlfriends too, Anna had told her in a bitter rage. There always had been. Anna had turned a blind eye to Keith’s women because she loved him and he was the father of her little girls, but when she had seen him on the news with a wife… Only the day before he had left them all with hugs and kisses after spending the night in her arms. She’d had no idea he had actually married someone else.
Beth had stared at the distraught young woman as her world had come crashing down about her ears. She had believed Anna instantly. Later she’d questioned why and had come to the conclusion that as Anna had spoken a thousand and one little things had suddenly come into sharp focus, starting with their quiet no-fuss wedding twelve months before. And a couple of days before Christmas he had supposedly had to fly up to Scotland on business and had been unable to make it back to her before Boxing Day. Of course he had spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Anna and his children. Wheels within wheels and so cunning.
The more she and Anna had spoken, the more she had realised just how devious Keith had been. He had walked in on them some time later and if ever she’d needed confirmation that Anna was speaking the truth, the look of horror on Keith’s face was it.
She had walked out that same night and had never gone back except to pick up a few personal belongings with Catherine when Keith had been at work. She had refused to see or speak to him and once he had realised she was deadly serious he had not contested the divorce. But then he couldn’t have, not with her evidence.
Catherine and Michael had been wonderful, insisting she stay with them, but as Catherine was pregnant with their first child she had only stayed a short while. As soon as she was able she had found a small one-bedroom flat and bought it outright with her half of the inheritance from her parents’ estate. It had taken every last penny but she had needed to know she had her own home. The day after she’d moved in Catherine and Michael had turned up on the doorstep with Harvey, who had been nothing more than a bundle of fluff with outsize paws and a pink tongue.
‘A housewarming present,’ Catherine had announced. ‘And now I’ve left work I can look after him on the days when you’re in the office. You need company at night. OK?’
She had protested she didn’t want a dog and that it wouldn’t be practical, but she knew Catherine was worried to death about her and convinced she’d sink into a bog of despair once she was alone and it had been that which had persuaded her to take Harvey. As it was, it had turned out that Catherine was absolutely right. She didn’t know how she would have got through the last tortuous eighteen months without him. And there was something immensely reassuring in having Harvey with her at night and taking him to some of the more isolated sites she had to visit. He was so fiercely protective of her. He was also as good as gold with Catherine and the baby on the days she was confined to the office.
And so, with Harvey’s help, she had battled on until a few weeks ago when the combined pressure of grief over the loss of her parents, Keith’s betrayal and the breakdown of her marriage, plus the fact she’d been working too hard since the divorce had finally caught up with her. According to the doctor, she had suffered some kind of mini breakdown and needed a complete rest.
She had flatly refused to take the medication he’d prescribed but had acknowledged an extended holiday would be no bad thing. Somewhere totally quiet and isolated, she’d decided. A step out of time. Somewhere she could learn to sleep properly again and regain her appetite, where she didn’t have to see a soul if she didn’t want to. She’d put her requirements with several estate agents and when Herb Cottage had come to her attention she had known she’d found her little piece of English heaven.
English heaven! Beth snorted out loud, swinging her feet out of bed and walking into the en suite bathroom, where she poured herself a glass of water. It hadn’t seemed like heaven tonight, standing in the wind and cold. Once she was back in the cottage tomorrow she would go and get an extra key cut in the nearest town and hide it in the garden so there was never a repeat performance of this travesty. She still couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid.
She drank the water and climbed back into bed, leaving the bedside lamp on. This was a beautiful room. She glanced about her before sliding back under the duvet and determinedly shutting her eyes. It was a beautiful house altogether. Did Travis Black often bring his girlfriends here for a romantic weekend? No doubt he had plenty of women to choose from; he was that kind of man. They’d be queueing up in their droves.
In the shadowed darkness her lip curled. She bet he knew all the right things to say, like Keith had. Men always knew what to say to get what they wanted but they weren’t to be trusted. They said one thing and meant another. At least a certain type of man did, and very often ones who had an extra something that was hard to define but which was very real.
She turned over in bed, bringing the pillow over her head as though she could shut out her thoughts that way. And it was like that, virtually buried in the downy softness, that she finally went to sleep, but not before the first rays of morning were beginning to streak across a charcoal sky.
Beth was woken the next morning by a loud scratching at the bedroom door followed by a sharp knock. She sat bolt upright, her heart pounding and momentarily disorientated until in the next moment she remembered. She’d been locked out; this was Travis Black’s house. Her heart pounded even harder.
When the knock came again she pulled herself together, making sure the duvet was up round her chin—in spite of having slept in the jogging bottoms and T-shirt—as she called, ‘Come in.’
‘Hi.’ As the door opened she was conscious of Travis’s voice but it was Harvey jumping on to the bed that took all her attention. The big dog plonked his massive paws on her shoulders and proceeded to lick her face anxiously in spite of her protests. When she finally managed to push him away it was to see Travis at the side of the bed with a tray. His voice amused, he said, ‘Harvey’s been whining and pacing the kitchen for the last hour. I think he thought you’d run
