All my contemporary romances are set in the town of Framlington St. Mary, a fictional country market town in the far north of England. The stories are linked by place rather than characters but people from previous novels do appear or get mentioned so you might find spoilers if you read them out of sequence. Not a problem at the moment since only one is available!
Lizzie Braithwaite's Last Chance; available now from Amazon. Read the first chapter below.
Lizzie
Braithwaite stretched and moved away from her easel. The light was still strong
even though eight o’clock had passed. Summer in the highlands brought endless
days and an extended twilight, it was easy to forget how long she had been
working. The light had been wonderful today and she had got a fair bit done.
Cleaning her brushes over the small sink Lizzie thought again about the
possibility of an exhibition. The Hethrington was a very small gallery in Framlington
St. Mary but from there the paintings could go on to a gallery in Edinburgh. She didn’t want
to think about Framlington, not yet and anyway, she still hadn’t agreed to the
exhibition.
Stepping out
into the light evening, Lizzie strolled across the yard to the farmhouse where
she hoped the kettle would be on. Meggy would be expecting her so there might
be cake as well. Meggy and her husband Findlay
were trying to get a holiday business off the ground as well as scraping a
living from the farm but at the moment there were no guests. Lizzie rented their
tiniest barn as a studio and the flat above it which provided a small but
comfortable home to her at a reasonable price.
Meggy
looked up from a pile of papers heaped in front of her on the big kitchen table
as Lizzie stepped into the room.
“Bloody red
tape.” She swore vehemently. “Anyone would think they wanted us to go out of
business.”
She pushed
the kettle across to the hotplate of the Aga while Lizzie looked at her own
post.
“That looks
an interesting one,” said Meggy as Lizzie tore open a thick creamy envelope,
“almost certainly an invitation.”
She busied
herself with mugs and tea while Lizzie sat and read the card and letter.
Letting out a sound between a groan and a growl Lizzie hurled the papers onto
the table.
“No. What
is it?” Meggy hurried to the table and snatched up the card from where Lizzie
had thrown it, her corksrew curls bobbing over her shoulders as she bent to
retrieve it.
“It’s an
invitation to my sixth form reunion.” said Lizzie.
“Blimey,”
said Meggy, “they must be keen to find you if it came up here.”
“Aunt Grace
has sent it on,” Lizzie replied, “and before you say anything I’m not going.”
“Oh. Okay,”
said Meggy. “Here, I made you a sandwich since I’m pretty sure you didn’t have
any lunch.”
“Thanks,”
said Lizzie “I’m starving.” she looked at her friends’ calm expression, her
innocent clear blue eyes.
“So have you
decided about the exhibition yet?” Meggy asked
“Not yet”
Lizzie replied. “I still have a few days.”
“Well I
think you’d be mad not to,” said Meggy. “It might mean you could spend less
time painting dogs and more time painting those fantastic angels and anything
else you wanted to do. I know the dogs are a living but really Lizzie, you’re
an artist and you’re really good. You need to let your spirit soar.”
Lizzie
chewed her sandwich slowly waiting for what she knew was coming next. She and
Meggy had met at University where she was studying Fine Art and Meggy Textiles.
They had fallen into best friendship during freshers week and had remained so
ever since. Lizzie made a small living painting pets and sometimes houses,
largely from photographs, but whenever she could she worked on her own stuff.
At the moment, a series of energy paintings of angels.
“Of course,
if you went to this reunion you could go and see the gallery in Framlington,
kill two birds with one stone as they say.”
Lizzie
sighed deeply. “Meggy please don’t give me the “you’ve got to get out more”
speech again. I’ve told you, I’m perfectly happy here and I have no intention
of having any more relationships. I’ve learned my lesson there.”
“But
Lizzie, not all men are abusive and unfaithful. I know you had a horrible time
with Kev but it’s been five years and you’re still only thirty four. You can’t
retire from life completely and anyway you didn’t meet Kev at school. You could
go to your sixth form reunion, find the sexy naughty…
What?”
“Just stop right there.” Lizzie held the palm
of her hand towards her friends face. “I know that you and Fin are blissfully
happy and you want everyone else to feel the same way but I can assure you
there is no-one from my school days I would want to live happily ever after
with.”
“What?”
said Meggy incredulously “you didn’t have a crush on anyone?”
She
lengthened the last word as though it was an entirely impossible idea.
“I didn’t
say that,” said Lizzie” but it was seventeen years ago and nobody, including me
is the same as they were then.”
Meggy held
up the card again looking puzzled. “Seventeen years. That’s a strange gap for a
reunion isn’t it. You would think it would be fifteen or twenty.”
Lizzie
snatched the invitation from her friends hand, tore it in half and threw it
into the bin.
“Read my
lips. I am not going and that’s the end of it.”
“Okay.” said
Meggy again. “What was he like then?”
“Who?” now
Lizzie was puzzled.
“The bad
boy crush?”
Lizzie
laughed. “What makes you think he was a bad boy?”
“Oh they
always are.” said Meggy airily. “Leather jacket, motorbike, the sort of
reputation that would make Aunt Graces hair curl.”
“Aunt Grace
already has curls.” Said Lizzie dryly, “and you clearly know nothing about my
school.”
“So tell
me.”
“It was,
still is in fact, a posh, fee paying independent school that had entrance tests
and a code of conduct and attracted wealthy parents who expected their little
darlings to do well and go to Oxbridge, not tear around the county on
motorbikes.”
“Oh.” Meggy
was clearly disappointed. “Do you know I never knew you went to boarding school
even though I’ve known you all these years.”
“I only
boarded for three years. I was a day girl before that.” After my parents died
was the unspoken part. After Aunt Grace took me but didn’t want me.
“What was he like then? A bespectacled would
be scientist who walked everywhere or occasionally rather daringly rode a bike?”
Lizzie
burst out laughing. She tried to picture Daniel Frobisher like this but it was
impossible.
“No,” she
said, “he was the school golden boy. He was handsome, athletic, clever and what
Aunt Grace referred to as “rather fast”.”
“Ooh,” said
Meggy, “he sounds like Rupert Campbell Black.”
“Not
quite,” said Lizzie “but he did go through girls at quite a rate and he had his
pick. I don’t think anyone ever said no to him. He did also nearly get expelled
a couple of times for various pranks while drunk but his parents always managed
to smooth things over with a set of equipment for the cricket team or part of a
science wing or something. He got a Porsche for his eighteenth birthday.”
“Gosh, they
must have been rich. He sounds perfect for an affaire.”
Lizzie almost
spat her tea. “Woman what are you
drinking?”
“Well you
could go to your reunion, have a torrid affair with him and not die wondering.”
Lizzie
raised an eyebrow and swallowed another mouthful of tea.
“In course
you’re forgetting Miss Matchmaker, I lived with Kev for six years and he was my
second lover. I’m hardly going to die wondering.”
“I bet
you’ve wondered what RCB would be like though.”
“Well,
maybe in the past, “Lizzie mused, “but I haven’t thought about him for years.
I’ve only thought about him now because you’ve brow beaten me into it.”
“Then I’ve
done you a favour. You’re in danger of becoming an old lady with twenty cats
and only the turps fumes for pleasure.”
“I don’t
mind. I’m happy single and I really don’t know why you’re so concerned about
it.”
“I’m
concerned because you’re denying yourself something fundamental to life.”
“Sex?”
“And love.
Waking up from a bad dream and feeling the warmth of someone there with you.
Companionship through troublesome times.”
Meggy frowned “and wonderful times. Babies for goodness sake.”
“Babies! I
don’t see you and Fin in any hurry to reproduce.”
“No, not
yet,” said Meggy more serious now, “but we will or at least we hope so. What
will you be then? Godmother and live in babysitter? I think you’ve cut yourself
off for too long. You’re even thinking of saying no to the exhibition and
that’s crazy.”
“Yes,
you’re right,” Lizzie shifted uncomfortably “I probably should say yes to that.
It’s just fear of being found not good enough.”
“Oh love,”
Meggys hand covered hers, “you are most definitely good enough. You were easily
the best in our year. So, go and check out the gallery and while you’re there…”
“He’s
probably married.” Said Lizzie
“Hah, not
him. If he has been he’ll be divorced now.”
“And have a
supermodel dangling from his arm.”
“Nah, we’d
have seen him in Tatler.” They both laughed at that. “Tell me what he looked
like,” said Meggy, “My imagination is running away with me.”
“Tall,”
said Lizzie remembering, “somewhere over six feet. Broad shoulders, athletic
build.”
“Bald,
eyeless.” Said Meggy.
Lizzie
pushed her, “He had wheat blond hair and cornflower blue eyes and he always
seemed to have a tan.”
Meggy
looked incredulous, “Did you just make that up?”
“No,” said
Lizzie, “except maybe the tan. I remember him as bronzey but that might be a
trick of the mind. He was very attractive and he knew it.”
“So what
happened to him?”
“Dunno.
Went to Oxford
I think. I wasn’t exactly part of his circle. He was a year older, in the upper
sixth when I was lower.”
“And he was
your one true love,” said Meggy in a mock breathy voice.
“Yeah
right. Me and thirty others.”
Claire
Bishop, she remembered. She had been the one he slung his arm around after he
helped her to the nurse. She hadn’t been too pleased to trail down a corridor
after her boyfriend and a nobody who had been hit by a bag coming over a wall.
“I don’t
suppose he remembers me so it really doesn’t make any difference. I didn’t have
boyfriends at school, I was too swotty and they thought I was mad because I
didn’t dress in the latest fashions although the hippy look was still a bit
fashionable then. I always had paint or charcoal on my hands. He was totally
unobtainable so I suppose I sort of fixed on him. He was gorgeous though.” She
sighed “He probably is bald now.”
“And no
doubt toothless and bent to boot! Don’t be daft he’ll only be thirty five, he’s
probably still quite fit.”
“He might
not go to the reunion.”
“Aha so you
are considering it?”
“No,” said
Lizzie, “I am definitely not going.”
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