The Village Shop for Lonely Hearts

by Alison Sherlock

  The Village Shop for Lonely Hearts

  Alison Sherlock

  This book is dedicated to Gill Collins, with grateful thanks for being the most wonderful sister I could have wished for and who still holds my hand and lets me scream in her ear on the Gringotts Ride even though I’m old enough to know better. With much love x

  Contents

  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

  Acknowledgments

  More from Alison Sherlock

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  1

  Amber Green stood in the pouring rain and sighed. The things you do for family, she thought.

  As the taxi drove away, she drained the last of the coffee that she had picked up at Heathrow Airport even though it was now stone cold. She was past caring. She just needed the caffeine.

  A rough overnight flight from JFK trying to find a comfortable position in a cramped economy seat hadn’t allowed her any sleep. The passenger in the next seat had hogged most of her personal space as well so she had been bunched up in the corner next to the cold window for most of the night.

  To add insult to injury, the airline had sent her luggage to the Caribbean by mistake, so presumably it was now enjoying a cocktail on a sunny beach instead of the drizzly and damp English village she was now standing in. She wished she could join it.

  The jet lag had kicked in, she was exhausted and she really didn’t want to be in Cranbridge. And yet, here she was. Still being bossed around at the age of thirty and trying to please everyone but herself.

  ‘You will go, won’t you?’ her mother had said on the phone only a fortnight ago. ‘Cathy is my oldest friend as well as your godmother.’

  ‘Who I haven’t seen for about ten years,’ Amber had reminded her.

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ her mum had told her, as usual dismissing her daughter’s point of view. ‘You know that we talk almost every day. Breaks my heart not to see my best friend any more. She’s like a sister to me. She’s had such a rubbish time, what with being widowed and then getting so poorly. I just thought that you could pop in to cheer her up before coming on to see us.’

  ‘Pop in!’ Amber had laughed with incredulity. ‘Mum, I’m in New York! You’ve just moved to New Zealand. England is the wrong way round the world.’

  ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ her mum had replied. ‘People catch flights to England every day from New York.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ Amber had said, rolling her eyes down the phone line. ‘Look, I haven’t got time for this. I need to find a job.’

  ‘Maybe you could find one in Cranbridge. It’s got quite a few shops, including Cathy’s, of course. Cranbridge Stores has been in the village forever. It’s ever so sweet.’

  Amber didn’t want to upset her mum, but Cathy’s local village shop wasn’t sounding much like Saks Fifth Avenue in New York.

  But you don’t work at Saks any more, Amber had to remind herself. With the retail sector struggling so much everywhere, even the luxury shops in Manhattan weren’t immune to the economic downturn. So she had found herself included in the wave of recent redundancies at the famous department store.

  She still felt numb from the shock that after two years of working in New York, she’d been let go. With no other jobs to go to, her work visa had run out, so she could no longer live and work in the United States. Thanks to the financial crisis spreading worldwide, none of the big shops back home in England were taking on window dressers either. With nobody recruiting, her career and life had crashed to a sudden halt.

  Having to leave the United States was bad enough, but even worse, her parents didn’t live in England any more. As far back as Amber could remember, her parents had been looking for their next big adventure. Amber had spent her entire childhood trailing around as they moved from home to home, north to south of the country and back again whilst they tried their hand at running a restaurant, a bed and breakfast, owning a bookshop and even a brief sojourn into the world of gin distilleries.

  However, this time they had really outdone themselves and had emigrated to New Zealand a couple of months ago to become sheep farmers, despite never having kept sheep or even run a farm before! There was no other close family in England and her parents had never stayed anywhere long enough for her to make any real friends during her childhood. As an only child, it had been a lonely start to her life, which had carried on into adulthood.

  She felt completely adrift at the unexpected turn of events in her life that summer. Window dressing and design had been her lifeline during the lonelier moments of her life. It had been something to lean on when things had become really tough. And now she didn’t even have that to comfort her.

  When her mum had originally suggested that she join them to live in New Zealand, Amber had laughed at the limited career options for her on a sheep farm.

  Take a look at where you’ve ended up instead, she thought, standing in the drizzle that autumnal morning.

  ‘You’ll love Cranbridge,’ her mum had told her. ‘You used to play in the river when you were little.’

  ‘I don’t even remember it,’ Amber had replied.

  ‘I always loved going back to see Cathy there,’ her mum had said. ‘I grew up there, you know. The people are lovely. It’s such a beautiful vibrant village. It’ll be a nice little holiday for you after working so hard.’

  Amber stared across the river which split the village into two halves. Vibrant wasn’t quite what came to mind. Deserted, definitely. She didn’t know which village her mum had been describing but it certainly wasn’t Cranbridge that Monday morning.

  The only thing she had to concede was that it was rather beautiful as a setting, with its sandy coloured brick cottages lining the river banks and the green rolling hills surrounding the village peeping through from between each house. Instead of a main street, there was a wide shallow river running down the middle of the village, with three ancient pedestrian stone bridges connecting either side over the clear, bubbling water.

  Next to where she stood was a pub, a faded sign showing The Black Swan. Or rather, that was what she guessed it was supposed to say as it was missing a couple of letters and the sign actually read The B ack Sw n. It could be quite pretty if you ignored the rotten windows and air of shabbiness about the place. In fact, she realised as she looked around once more that the whole village appeared to have an air of neglect about it. It was hardly the idyll that her mother had tempted her with as
a short stay holiday destination.

  On the opposite side of the river, there were four detached buildings which ran along the grassy bank and wide path. Amber could just about make out the words on a faint road sign proclaiming it to be Riverside Lane. All four of the detached buildings were shops. They each had the same pretty coloured stone with wobbly chimney pots and slate roofs. However, they were all as equally run-down as the pub; each one appeared more dilapidated than the last. Roof tiles were missing. Window frames appeared rotten. Two of the shops were completely boarded up.

  At the very end of Riverside Lane, almost hidden by the large willow trees that flanked the river, was a water mill, although the huge wheel looked as if it hadn’t turned in many years. It added to the sense that the village had long since closed down.

  But whereas the run-down nature of the shops and businesses was a surprise, what was most shocking was the fact that there were no people. Amber blinked and looked around the village once more, but, no, there wasn’t a person in sight. Yes, it was drizzling. It was also Monday morning, but where was everyone?

  Used to the crowded, chaotic streets of New York whatever the time of day, all she could hear was birdsong and the river bubbling up against the narrow bridges as it slowly meandered through the village. The peace unnerved her. She was used to being on her own. In a big city, wasn’t everyone? But this was more than a little strange.

  Finally, she looked across the narrow bridge in front of her at Cranbridge Stores, the first shop on the corner of Riverside Lane, facing out towards the river.

  It was a detached brick building in the same honey-coloured brick as the rest of the village. On the upper floor were three sash windows, above which the roof narrowed to a point. On the ground floor, the main shop had a large front door in the middle, flanked by two huge bay windows on either side. Outside the shop was a large wooden veranda that ran the entire width of the shop, covered by a wonky roof in the same dark oak. It looked shabby with its faded sign adding to the air of neglect.

  Amber screwed up her eyes and tried to connect the ramshackle shop with her godmother. She had last seen Cathy Kennedy at her twenty-first birthday party in London. She was a warm, attractive woman who always gave out the most enormous bear hugs.

  Amber could just about remember Cathy’s husband, the infamous Todd Kennedy, laughing with her dad about something. Todd had been a man who didn’t appear to take anything seriously, as begat a man who had been a rock guitarist for most of his adult life.

  Then there were two sons, Josh and Pete, but she couldn’t remember them at all, having not seen them since she was ten years old or so.

  But that all seemed a long time ago now. She wondered why a famous musician with a dazzling personality had ended up bringing his family to such a quiet village.

  Aware that the drizzle was beginning to frizz up her long dark blonde hair, Amber took a step forward towards the bridge and found something crunching underneath her Converse trainers. She looked down to see a carpet of acorns that had fallen from the oak tree beside her.

  It was autumn already. That back-to-school feeling after the long summer holidays. The nausea washed over her as she glanced down at the jeans and leather jacket which she had travelled in. She instantly felt frumpy. Weird. A loner.

  The school bullies’ taunts went around and around inside her head – Oh my God, look at her shoes! Have you seen her earrings? Her hair is awful! She’s got no friends. Just spends all her time alone, drawing.

  She automatically tucked a long lock of blonde hair behind her ear and then wondered whether it made her ear stick out and drew it back in front of her face. Since leaving school well over a decade ago, she had told herself that the bullies hadn’t won. After all, she had lived and worked in London and New York in some of the most famous shops in the world. But, in truth, the endless bullying throughout her childhood had shattered her self-esteem. She had tried to tell herself that she must have been talented to have been headhunted for the job in New York. But she continued to doubt her abilities each and every day.

  When she had first moved out to Manhattan, she had been excited. She imagined Sex and The City-type cocktail nights and swanning down Park Avenue with her takeaway coffee, catching the eye of some hunky guy in an expensive suit.

  And yet the reality wasn’t so dreamy. She had actually felt desperately alone in the big city. Friends had been hard to come by and whenever she had tried dating, it had been an utter disaster. One guy just wanted to hear her swear in her British accent. Another had conveniently forgotten to tell her he was engaged to be married.

  So, she retreated back to her safety net of channelling all her efforts into her work and then stayed in each and every night. It was better that way, she told herself. If you hid yourself away then you couldn’t be hurt.

  But that seemed to make things even worse, she had found. If you’re lonely we recommend you join a club, the magazine articles said. Go out and meet new people. But Amber’s lack of confidence held her back. So she had tried to remain positive whilst keeping inside her rented room each night and watching box sets on Netflix whilst eating peanut butter out of a jar.

  Occasionally, she got cross with herself over her drab existence and would head out on her days off to one of the many museums to study design or to ride the Staten Island ferry, determined to live the New York dream. But it never completely stemmed the loneliness.

  A sound on the opposite side of the river made her focus back on the present day. In the distance, she could see that a man had just come out of the Cranbridge Stores. He was the first person she had seen so far in the village. At least it showed her that the shop was actually open.

  She was looking forward to seeing Cathy, who had been so unwell during the past couple of years. At least they could catch up before Amber booked her forwarding flight on to New Zealand in a few days’ time.

  Thinking that her aunt may be beginning to worry about where she was, Amber began to walk across the narrow bridge. It wasn’t until she was almost halfway across that she realised that the man who had just come out of the shop was also heading over the same pedestrian bridge towards her. She glanced at his face as he grew nearer and realised that she recognised him. But he also looked to be in an absolutely foul temper. With his leather jacket and five o’clock shadow, he had an air of menace about him.

  Amber quickly decided to step to one side to let him by as the bridge was barely wide enough for two people.

  However, she was still jet-lagged and not quite with it and so took a misstep as the toe of her trainers got stuck in the raised edge of the bridge. She flailed, her arms swinging around like a helicopter. Beginning to lose her balance, she reached out and grabbed the man’s arm in a panic.

  Then, as if in slow motion, she dragged the man with her as she fell off the side of the bridge and into the river below.

  2

  If Josh Kennedy had been in a bad mood only a minute ago, that was nothing compared to his temper once he found himself suddenly falling into the freezing-cold river.

  ‘What the hell!’ he shouted out in shock as his bottom crashed into the stony bottom of the river and the whole of his spine jolted in pain.

  As the agony slowly faded, he registered that he thankfully hadn’t broken any bones. However, he quickly became aware of the cold water seeping into his clothes. He shivered, wondering whether the day could get any worse.

  It was nine o’clock in the morning. He’d managed one coffee so far that day, swiftly followed by the normal row with his mum, which was becoming a daily event. Storming out in a fit of pique, he had wanted to cool his anger off. Ending up in the river certainly hadn’t helped.

  He wiped the water dripping from his hair and face and stared in shock at the blonde-haired woman sitting in the river next to him, who was looking right back at him with brown eyes which were huge in shock.

  ‘Hi, Josh,’ she said, to his amazement.

  He gave a start. ‘Do we know each other?�
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  ‘You could say that,’ she told him. ‘After all, our mothers have been best friends for all of their lives.’

  He looked at her, incredulous. ‘You’re Amber?’

  She gave him a sheepish smile, which lit up her pretty face. Josh was almost rendered speechless. He couldn’t quite believe that this attractive woman was the same Amber Green who had been a gawky teenager with huge frizzy hair.

  Now she was all grown up, with her blonde hair hanging in soft waves around her shoulders. Long dark eyelashes. Pale smooth skin highlighted by freckles and a rosy blush across her cheeks. Her trendy leather jacket was also soaked at the hem and dripping water back into the river.

  She nodded ruefully. ‘I’m afraid so. Sorry about, you know, taking you into the river with me.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ he said, standing up, which caused the water to drop from him in a small wave. ‘It’s almost like old times.’

  She looked up at him. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t you remember?’ he said. ‘You, me and Pete used to play in our paddling pool when we were younger.’

  She shook her head as she looked around. As she sat in the river, Josh took in the long legs sprawled out, the jeans as soaking wet as his own.

  He shivered in the cool breeze. It was already late September and the weather was turning colder. He supposed he was lucky that it wasn’t midwinter, when he’d have either caught a cold or skidded across the frozen river.