I let out a sob. What had I done to my little cousin?
Chapter Thirty-Four
Amber
Winterton Chine
24 December 2009
‘So you see,’ Gwyneth says to Amber after she finishes telling her what had happened, ‘it was my fault. I fell asleep, and you couldn’t get back inside as the door swung shut. You ended up somehow getting out of the garden and getting lost in the blizzard.’
‘You were just a kid,’ Viv says to Gwyneth as Amber stares at the cousin she never knew she had, blinking in shock.
‘I shouldn’t have assumed you could look after Amber that day,’ Rita says. ‘You needed your own time too.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Amber asks her mum.
‘We didn’t want anyone to know,’ Rita replies. ‘We were worried Gwendolyn would get into trouble with the police or something.’
‘So instead you sent me away,’ Gwyneth said. Lumin clutched her hand, standing shoulder to shoulder with her mother.
‘Not because of that,’ Viv says, going up to Gwyneth, eyes pleading. ‘I’d never have sent you away for that. You were so wild after, going to parties, getting drunk … and worse,’ she added, eyes flickering over to Lumin then away again. ‘I think the guilt of what happened just ate you up inside and you reacted in the only way a teenager knows: by rebelling.’
‘We were worried for you,’ Rita says. ‘Then your dad suggested it might be a good idea for you to work at his sister’s hotel in London for the summer, get you away from that crowd you were hanging around with.’
‘Where is Dad?’ Gwyneth asks.
‘We’re not together any more, he lives in Worthing,’ Viv explains. ‘But we can call him. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you. Do you understand now though, Gwen? It was just supposed to be six weeks. But then you disappeared!’ She lets out a sob. ‘Do you forgive me?’
Gwyneth stares at her mother and Amber can see the battle inside.
‘Mum,’ Lumin says. ‘Say something.’
‘I need time,’ Gwyneth says. ‘There’s so much to process.’
‘You’re telling me’ Amber says.
Gwyneth looks at her. ‘I hope you can forgive me?’
Amber face flickers with pain as she rubs her bad hand.
‘She didn’t mean it,’ Lumin says. ‘And do you realise, this all means we’re related!’
‘And you’re my granddaughter,’ Viv says, shaking her head in shock.
‘Why are you here, Lumin?’ Gwyneth asks, turning to her daughter.
Lumin looks down at the icy pebbles. ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’
Viv explains all that’s happened to Lumin and Gwyneth’s eyes widen. ‘My God. That’s terrible. You must have come here to find my family. Your family. You thought I wouldn’t ever come …’
‘… so I took it into my own hands,’ Lumin finishes for Gwyneth.
‘Sounds like the kind of thing you’d do,’ Gwyneth said. ‘Take it upon yourself to track down our family and bring us together in time for Christmas, you determined stubborn amazing daughter of mine.’
‘And you,’ Viv says to her. ‘You said you wouldn’t come here, but you did, darling! And so did my granddaughter,’ she adds, smiling with tears in her eyes as she takes Lumin in. ‘My granddaughter,’ she repeats again.
‘My great-niece!’ Rita adds. The two older women both impulsively hug Lumin and Viv grabs Gwyneth’s hand and pulls her in for a hug too.
Gwyneth is hesitant at first but then she joins them, laughing with her daughter. Then she puts her hand out to Amber, her cousin. Amber goes to take it but then she sees the stubby remains of her fingers. She thinks of Katy and the fact that she might be alive if Amber hadn’t gone for that appointment about prosthetics. It all goes back to the day Gwyneth had abandoned her. It was her cousin’s fault! And yet there they all were, hugging each other, oblivious to the fact.
Amber turns on her heel and strides off.
A few hours later, Amber is sitting in the darkness of her sparse bedroom. The phone has long stopped ringing, the doorbell hasn’t echoed around the flat for at least an hour. They’ve all finally accepted she needs to be alone. She stares at her damaged hand. How different her life would be if her cousin hadn’t been so selfish.
The life she could have had stretches out before her. She could have grown up to be a famous renovator with clients around the world. She would have left Winterton Chine, maybe lived somewhere exciting like Paris or even the US. Or Iceland, like Gwyneth had got the chance to with her perfect hands. And then Katy, she might have lived. But then Amber wouldn’t have met Jasper. The first conversation they’d struck up had been all about her hand.
Amber allows herself even darker thoughts. Maybe that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. She wouldn’t have had Katy. There would be no grief, no gaping hole inside her. There might have been another child. One that would still be alive today.
How could she think that? Amber catches sight of herself in the mirror. She sees the streaks of mascara down her cheeks. The horrible sadness in her eyes. And her deformed useless hand.
Her phone starts buzzing again. This time it’s Jasper. She’d been so hopeful travelling back with him, her hand on his leg. But the arrival of the woman who had changed the course of her life had dragged her back kicking and screaming to square one again.
She picks her phone up and smashes it into the mirror, glass shattering all over the room, the reflection of her face falling apart like broken ice. It knocks her bag over, its contents spilling out amongst the glass. With it is Gwyneth’s notepad, which she’d kept in her bag for Lumin. All this time, she’d been reading her cousin’s notepad, travelling the breadth of the country with her cousin’s daughter, her own flesh and blood.
Amber crawls over and carefully retrieves the notepad from the pile of glass. She flicks through it and is surprised to find new sketches in the back, small drawings by Lumin of various sights on their journey to Scotland: the peaks of the Lake District, the pretty farmhouse there, the frozen waterfall, then a face.
Amber’s face.
Lumin had drawn her without her knowing. Amber stares at the sketch of herself, standing proud, a look of defiance on her face, her chin up, her damaged hand held up as though in a fist. Before her, a map of Scotland spreads out.
Is this how she sees me? Amber wonders. A strong defiant character striding across the country to find her truth?
Amber turns to the next page. It’s her again but this time she’s huddled up on a window seat, chin to her knees, her fingerless hand dangling limp and useless at her side. Flung on the floor is the very notepad she’s looking at, with the defiant portrait of her. But it’s unfinished.
Amber flicks between the two.
‘Defiant or powerless,’ she whispers. ‘Which one am I?
She looks down at her mangled hand. Was it really just Gwyneth’s fault?
She catches sight of her reflection in what remains of the mirror. A half-formed thing. One eye, part of a nose, a chin. It reminds her of when she first saw a scan of Katy. She’d had some spotting so she and Jasper went in for an early scan at just eight weeks. There was barely anything there, half-formed. But Katy’s heart beat strong and true. Amber remembers the elation she’d felt at the life that held strong and dear inside her. Jasper had clasped her hand. ‘This one’s a fighter,’ he’d said.
And my God, she was! She really was, right until the end, Katy fought … just as Amber had when she’d been in hospital with hypothermia all those years ago. The doctors had called her the ‘miracle child’. She’d lived when Katy hadn’t.
But what had she done with the life she’d been given? The life that Katy had never got the chance to live? She’d squandered it, feeling sorry for herself, bitter and resentful. That bitterness had made her turn her back on the one man she’d ever really loved.
And it made her stop loving herself too.
Is she going to waste this ne
w opportunity? A cousin … and her niece, Lumin.
She stands up, wiping the tears from her face. ‘No more,’ she whispers to herself. ‘No more.’
Then she grabs her coat and bag, yanks open the front door and runs back to the icy beach. When she gets there, the four women – her family – are waiting for her. Jasper is there too. She runs to them, ice cracking beneath her feet, the sadness of the past melting, the future opening up to her.
If The Girl on the Beach had you mesmerised, you won’t want to miss Tracy’s gripping domestic thriller My Sister’s Secret!
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My Sister’s Secret
Get the the #1 Kindle bestseller here!
What if everything you’d built your life on was a lie?
Willow’s memories are happy: full of smiles, love and laughter. But a mysterious invitation to a photographic exhibition exposes a secret that’s been buried since a tragic accident years ago.
Willow is forced to question everything she knew about Charity, her late mother, and Hope, the aunt she’s lived with since she was a child.
How was the enigmatic photographer connected to Willow’s parents? And what is the secret Hope has been keeping from her sister for so long?
Willow can’t move forward in her life without answers, but no-one wants to give them.
Is there anyone she can trust?
A gripping, page-turning and emotionally powerful story, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Diane Chamberlain.
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Books by Tracy Buchanan
No Turning Back
My Sister’s Secret
Before I Say Goodbye
The Lost Sister
The Girl on the Beach
A Letter from Tracy
Hello,
I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read The Girl on the Beach. If you did enjoy it, and want to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up at the following link. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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I remember when I first came up with the idea for this novel. I was on one of my annual writing retreats in Devon in the UK, sitting on the window seat and looking out at the beautiful autumnal scenery. I thought to myself how it really wouldn’t be long before the hills and trees would be laced with ice.
I remember peering towards the coast, imagining what Devon’s beaches might look like in the winter. And that’s when the idea hit me: an icy beach. A girl walking on it barefoot. A beautiful Christmassy lodge sitting on the edge of a frozen lake filled with secrets and lies. My first true winter book! I emailed my agent straightaway and she loved the idea… and I very much hope you love the end result, this book.
If you do, please leave a review. They let other readers know whether they should buy this book… and if it’s a nice review, it’ll make me smile.
If you haven’t already, I’d love to see you in my Facebook group, The Reading Snug. You’ll get the chance to read my next novel in advance, be entered into giveaways, get insights into my writing process… and tips from other readers about great new books. You can find it at www.facebook.com/groups/thereadingsnug.
And as always, please get in touch, I love hearing from you. Visit my website at www.tracy-buchanan.com to find out how.
Take care,
Tracy
Before I Say Goodbye
How far would you go for those you love the most?
When Louise McKenzie’s mother is reported missing after the Boxing Day tsunami, Louise leaves her young family and travels to Thailand. There, she finds a bag containing her mother’s passport and a book filled with beautifully illustrated maps: The Atlas of Us, belonging to a woman named Claire.
Who is Claire? How was Louise’s mom connected to her? And might the atlas help Louise find the answers she needs – and her mom?
As Louise pores over the keepsakes hidden amongst its pages, she pieces together the mystery of a love affair, a dark tragedy and a secret both Claire and her mother would go to the ends of the earth to protect.
A gripping, page-turning and emotionally powerful story about love, loss and making peace with the past, perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty.
Previously published as The Atlas of Us in the UK.
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The Lost Sister
From the #1 bestselling author of My Sister’s Secret, a powerful new novel about families, secrets and lies.
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For the first time in your life, your mother is about to tell you the truth…
When Becky’s mother Selma asks her to visit during her final days, she tells Becky her darkest secret.
When Becky was just eight years old, her mother left home to live with a strange and enigmatic man named Idris, shocking the neighborhood and disgracing their family. Becky has never forgiven her.
But what her dying mother tells her still shocks Becky to her core – that this affair had resulted in a child… that Becky has a sister.
As Becky struggles to process this information, she knows one thing for certain – she must find her missing sister. Even if it takes her on a journey that will force her to confront the darkest secrets and lies of her mother’s life… and her own.
The new, addictive, page-turning, emotional thriller from bestselling author Tracy Buchanan. Perfect for fans of Kerry Lonsdale, Emily Bleeker and Kerry Fisher.
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Acknowledgements
Big wintry thanks to my agent Caroline, who endures zillions of emails from me with all my crazy ideas and is calm and informed enough to pluck out the best ones. A festive thanks too to my US editor Isobel Akenhead and the whole team at Bookouture.
Thanks as ever to my husband for his unwavering support, my daughter who asked if this book would have fairies in it when I told her it’s a bit Christmassy, my brilliant friends and my wonderful family including, as ever, my mum. As you can tell from the dedication in this novel, just like aunts play a big role in this novel, they also play a big role in my life so a big shout out to them for their support. I’m also proud to be an auntie myself to eight wonderful children including the lovely Lumin… now you know what inspired that wonderful name!
And you, my readers! What on earth would I do without you guys? I’m especially grateful to the wonderful bunch in my Reading Snug. I am also so grateful for the support of my fellow authors too, especially those who read my novels and take the time to provide quotes.
Published by Bookouture in 2019
An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.bookouture.com
Copyright © Tracy Buchanan, 2018
Tracy Buchanan has asserted her right to be identified
as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
Originally published in the UK in 2018 by HarperCollins
eBook ISBN: 978-1-78681-712-9
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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