Secrets at the Last House Before the Sea

by Liz Eeles

  ‘This is where I like to sit and survey my estate.’ He grinned before climbing up the gate and sitting on top of it. ‘Would you care to join me?’ He held out his hand. ‘Can you manage in that dress?’

  Rosie hesitated for a second before grasping his hand and clambering up the gate to sit beside him. ‘It’s a bit wobbly up here.’

  ‘It’s fine when you get used to it. I didn’t want to ask over lunch, but now we’re on our own… did you manage to track down your elusive Morag MacIntyre?’

  ‘I did, thanks to Belinda. I paid her a visit earlier this morning, actually, before I came round.’

  ‘Why exactly did you want to see her?’

  ‘To find out more about my mum, when she was young and I was a baby.’

  ‘Was it helpful?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  Liam nodded, encouraging her to go on.

  Rosie gnawed at her bottom lip. Should she tell him, or might it get back to Katrina – who’d love the fact that she didn’t know who her father was?

  ‘Morag didn’t know much,’ she said, making a snap decision. ‘But we had a good chat about Mum in her younger days.’

  ‘Are you glad you went to see her?’

  ‘Yeah. She was a nice woman.’

  ‘That’s good. How’s the decorating going at Driftwood House?’

  ‘The sitting room’s looking much better already and I’ve filled and sanded every window frame in the house, ready for painting. My life is nothing but glamour and excitement.’

  Liam grinned. ‘Sounds like it. Do you think these cosmetic changes will do the trick?’

  ‘Maybe. I hope they’ll be enough to show the Eppings what an amazing guesthouse Driftwood House could be.’

  ‘Hmm. I could nip up this week and sort out your front door?’

  ‘You really don’t have to.’

  ‘I know, but it’s not very secure, and it won’t give a good first impression of the house when the Eppings turn up. I’m busy tomorrow but I can come up on Tuesday morning. It’s a date.’ He paused. ‘I mean—’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  Liam nodded and pointed to the land that sloped towards the beach. ‘Those fields over there are the ones we rent from Charles Epping at an extortionate price. I’m hoping we get a good crop from them this year. It’ll make all the difference.’

  ‘Then I hope so too.’

  Rosie held on tightly to the gate, the hem of her dress wafting in the breeze. A skylark swooped and trilled over her head and there was a faint wash of waves against rock in the distance. Everything was perfectly peaceful.

  ‘I used to think that staying in Heaven’s Cove and becoming a farmer would be boring, but I can see the appeal,’ she said, quietly.

  ‘I can too, now. I resented the farm madly when I was a teenager and my future was all mapped out. I envied you.’

  ‘You envied me?’ When Rosie wobbled alarmingly, Liam put out a hand to steady her.

  ‘I did. You had big dreams that could come true. You weren’t tied like I was.’

  ‘I didn’t think you minded, and I envied you because, unlike me, you were popular and un-nerdy.’

  ‘Is un-nerdy even a word?’ He laughed. ‘You were different from the other girls, Rosie, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.’

  ‘Katrina thought so.’

  ‘Katrina is very mainstream.’ He turned carefully on the gate until he was looking directly at her, his eyes cornflower-blue against his white shirt. ‘I admire you for doing your own thing and moving away from Heaven’s Cove.’

  ‘And I admire you for staying.’

  She smiled, holding his gaze, and neither of them moved for what seemed like ages.

  Liam suddenly looked away and jumped down from the gate. ‘I’d best be getting you back to the house. I expect Mum will try to fill you up with cake before you head for home.’

  ‘Cake? I couldn’t eat another morsel.’

  Rosie stumbled when she jumped down and Liam caught her in his arms. Her cheek rested against the soft cotton of his shirt.

  ‘Careful,’ he murmured, standing her upright and stepping back. ‘You don’t want to get your dress muddy. Matt wouldn’t approve.’

  The atmosphere had shifted and they walked back to the house, across the fields, almost in silence.

  CHAPTER 17

  Liam didn’t mean to snoop. He’d done some questionable things in the past – telling fibs, letting people down, being careless with people’s hearts. Things that made him go hot and cold when he thought of them these days. But he’d never been a sneak.

  However, it was hard to miss the list that was lying on the kitchen counter at Driftwood House: a list of men, many of whom he knew.

  Jackson Porter

  Jim Kellscroft

  Jason Fulton

  James Garraway

  Jeremy Brockman

  Jacob Dawe

  Justin Maunder

  The common denominator was a first name beginning with J. Rosie seemed determined to track down her mother’s mystery flower-giver, though Liam wasn’t sure why she was bothering. Not when her mum was gone, and she’d be leaving for Spain in a couple of weeks’ time.

  ‘Liam, is that you?’ shouted Rosie from upstairs.

  ‘Yep,’ called Liam, stepping back from the list with a guilty start. ‘I’ll be up in a minute.’

  First, he placed a homemade gammon pie in the fridge and dropped a handful of carrots into the vegetable rack. His mum insisted on sending food parcels, convinced Rosie was wasting away. She probably was, if the empty shelves in her fridge were anything to go by. That’s what came of spending every waking minute sprucing up Driftwood House for the Eppings.

  The thought of them walking through the place as if they owned it – even though they did – made him shudder, and he just hoped they’d appreciate the hard work Rosie had put in to improve the house over the last two and a half weeks. Even he, with all of his initial misgivings, had started to picture Driftwood House as a cosy bolthole for paying guests.

  The kitchen, in particular, was looking miles better now he and Rosie had painted the walls and back door, polished all the surfaces and scrubbed the table. And the sitting room was transformed from a gloomy, shabby space to a light, bright room with yellow cushions, bought online, that seemed to draw sunshine right into the house.

  ‘I’m working in the bathroom,’ shouted Rosie, swearing as something heavy fell to the floor and thudded above his head. ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing.’

  Liam grinned and climbed the stairs to the main bathroom, which was opposite Sofia’s old bedroom where Rosie now slept.

  ‘There you are.’ She smiled and stood up from where she’d been crouching barefoot in the bath tub. ‘I left the back door open in case I didn’t hear you arrive. What do you reckon?’ She brandished the toothbrush that she was using to scrub the discoloured grouting. ‘It’s starting to look better, isn’t it?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  She turned to survey her handiwork. ‘This place will look polished before you know it.’

  Rosie didn’t look polished. Her old jeans were covered in paint and there were splodges on the big white shirt, probably an old one of her mum’s, that she’d tied at the waist. Her hair was tumbling down from its hairband, and she wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up. Katrina would be horrified at Rosie’s lack of glamour, but actually she looked amazing: healthy, natural, radiant.

  ‘Oh, no. Have I got paint on my face again?’

  She started scrubbing at her cheeks, turning them pink.

  ‘Not that I can see.’

  ‘Good. I thought you were staring at me.’

  ‘I was admiring your fabulous grouting. Mum sent more provisions, by the way.’

  ‘Good grief, I’m going to be the size of a house. It’s kind of her though. Can you tell her thank you? And do you fancy a cup of tea? I was about to take a break.’

  ‘I’ve only got a couple of hours free to give you
a hand.’

  ‘Five minutes won’t matter, if we have a cuppa.’

  She clambered out of the bath tub and padded downstairs, with Liam following.

  He’d only intended to fix her front door – smooth the warps in the wood, stop it making such a racket when it scraped across the tiles, and protect it with some paint. But there was so much to do in the house, he hadn’t felt he could abandon her once the door was done. So he’d started nipping in when he could spare an hour or two.

  Now he’d been calling in for a fortnight, and their initial awkwardness with each other had eased into a quiet companionship. Rosie seemed distracted a lot of the time, grieving for her mum and missing her life in Spain, so they didn’t really talk much. When they did speak, it was always about the house or the farm or her work abroad. And when her boyfriend rang, she never mentioned that Liam was there.

  In the kitchen, Rosie filled the kettle at the sink and switched it on. ‘Nessa came in yesterday after work and helped me paint the conservatory, which was…’ She spotted the list on the worktop near the fridge and turned it face down. ‘It was kind of her.’

  She stood with her back to Liam for a few moments before turning with the list in her hand. ‘Did you see this when you came in?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to but it was hard to miss. I didn’t realise you were still trying to track down the mysterious J.’

  ‘I’m interested to know who he is so I’ve been through Mum’s address book for everyone whose first name begins with J, and I’ve started trawling through recent mentions of local people online.’

  ‘It seems like a lot of effort to find someone who brought flowers to a funeral.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Rosie stared into the distance. ‘How well do you get on with your dad?’

  ‘My dad?’ That was a bit left field, but Rosie nodded, with the same anxious expression Liam remembered from school. ‘I get on fine with him, I guess, considering he’s so much older than me. He didn’t settle down with my mum until he was well into his forties. Before that, he was quite the ladies’ man, apparently.’

  ‘That’s where you get it from.’ Rosie’s cheeks flushed pink. ‘Sorry. I just meant—’

  ‘I know what you meant.’ Liam shrugged, resigned to his reputation and the fact that people weren’t allowed to change in Heaven’s Cove – even if heartbreak ripped you apart and you weren’t the same person at all once you came back together.

  ‘Can you keep a secret from everyone, but especially from Belinda?’ Rosie’s eyes looked huge, and when Liam nodded she carried on staring at him as though she was trying to read his mind. ‘OK,’ she said at last, ignoring the kettle belching steam at the ceiling. ‘Keeping this to myself is driving me crazy. When I went to see Morag a couple of weeks ago, the midwife who delivered me, she said that my Mum told her that’ – she swallowed, before blurting out in a rush – ‘my dad who brought me up isn’t my real dad.’

  That wasn’t the secret Liam was expecting, not at all. He’d anticipated a stash of cash in the attic, a handy windfall to fund Rosie’s globetrotting life. Not a secret, long-lost father.

  ‘Do you know who he is?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘Morag didn’t know and Mum never told me. She never told me anything, it seems.’ Sliding the teapot towards her, she started shovelling in spoon after spoon of tea leaves. ‘It makes me so angry with her. Is it all right to be angry with someone you love? Someone who’s died?’

  ‘I’d be furious.’

  She paused from filling up the teapot. ‘Would you, honestly?’

  ‘I would. I’d feel let down and kind of duped.’

  ‘That’s it, exactly.’

  ‘But your mum was a good person and must have had her reasons for keeping you in the dark. Do you want to find your father? Is that what the list is about?’

  ‘I think I do, though it feels disloyal to my dad – the man who I always called Dad, even though he left us.’

  ‘He brought you up, he was your dad. But he’s not here any more so you can’t hurt him.’

  ‘I know.’ Rosie swallowed, close to tears.

  ‘What does Matt think about all this?’

  ‘He’s trying to be supportive but he’s not that interested. He thinks I should let sleeping dogs lie and go back to Spain.’

  ‘He might have a point,’ said Liam, though it stuck in his throat to agree with her boyfriend.

  ‘Probably, but I’d like to know where I come from and why Mum was so secretive. Can you imagine finding out that everything you thought about your parents was built on a lie?’

  He couldn’t imagine it. His mum and dad drove him mad at times. Living in the same house as your parents at the age of thirty was always going to throw up challenges. But he never doubted that they told him the truth.

  Liam shook his head. ‘What makes you think that the mysterious J who put flowers on your mother’s grave might be your real dad?’

  ‘It all fits together. Wait here.’

  Rosie disappeared into the sitting room while he emptied the tealeaf mountain from the teapot and spooned in the requisite amount. They were both going to need a drink after this. When she returned, she thrust a letter into his hands. ‘Read that. It’s a letter to my mum that I found in a locked box in the attic.’

  It was quite a letter. Liam scanned through it and then read it again, more slowly. It was the sort of lovey-dovey letter that would prompt Alex to put his fingers in his mouth and gag. Liam too, a while back, before he’d been properly in love. But now, although it struck him as a bit flowery, he found the letter heartfelt, and sad if J never did get to marry Sofia. Maybe she’d left him standing at the altar, too. Poor bugger.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Rosie, standing close and looking over his shoulder.

  ‘I think it’s a very heartfelt love letter.’

  ‘And J is still around and cares enough to leave flowers and an anonymous message on Mum’s grave.’

  ‘Was this letter hidden away with the photo of you and Morag?’

  ‘They were both in the locked box.’

  ‘Like a fail-safe, in case anything happened to your mum before she had a chance to tell you about your father.’

  ‘That’s what Morag suggested. She reckoned the photo was like a breadcrumb, leading me to her so I could choose whether or not to find out the truth.’

  ‘Are you going to approach the men on your list?’

  ‘And say what? Did you have an affair with my mum thirty years ago, because I think I might be your daughter? It would be all round the village like a shot, and Belinda would self-combust.’

  ‘She really would, especially if her husband turned out to be your dad.’

  ‘I don’t know why I put him on the list. I know it’s not him.’

  ‘Do you think, though, that Belinda might know who your mum was going to marry before she married David?’

  ‘Absolutely not. There’s no way she’d have kept that quiet all these years.’

  ‘That’s true. Perhaps it was a secret affair and your mum and J were going to elope.’

  ‘Who knows? That’s the point, I don’t know and I need to, Liam. So for now I’ll keep digging quietly about the men on my list and see what that turns up.’ She took the letter from him and folded it. ‘Anyway, talking about this just makes me sad, so let’s have our tea and get on with the decorating. You won’t say anything about this to anyone, will you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Liam, disappointed that she felt she had to ask.

  ‘Thanks. You are a friend.’

  When she smiled at him, her eyes still shiny with tears, he walked quickly to the door. The room was suddenly hot and stuffy, and he was finding it quite hard to breathe. ‘I’ll carry on with the grouting if you can bring my tea up.’

  He took the stairs two at a time, rather like he was running away from Rosie. Liam had never run from a woman before. They usually ran towards him. But intense, emotional Rosie made his locked-down heart feel unsteady
, and that was a feeling he couldn’t afford for two good reasons: one, she already had a boyfriend, and two, she’d soon be gone from his life for good.

  CHAPTER 18

  Liam finished piling up the Savoy cabbages and stood back to make sure they weren’t going to topple over. They seemed secure enough. He smiled at the sight of his stall, which was a rainbow of colour – carrots, parsnips, spring greens and spinach, many of the vegetables still sporting a thin coating of rich, red Devon soil.

  Around him, other stallholders were setting up, ready to sell produce to the tourists and locals who flocked into Heaven’s Cove for the monthly Farmers’ Market. Though ‘farmers’ was a broad church these days. Stalls selling face creams and massage oils jostled for space with potters and jewellery makers.

  ‘Morning, Liam. Nice day for it.’ Peter tipped his hat and continued on his way down to the sea. He’d be ferrying tourists around the bay for hours – mid-week market day was always busy, especially when the sea was like a millpond. There wasn’t even a hint of a breeze this morning to ruffle the waves.

  ‘My, my. That’s looking good, Liam.’ Belinda stopped to run her hand across the display of cabbages, which wobbled alarmingly. ‘We’re blessed with the weather so let’s pray for a good turnout. What do you think of the sash?’

  She turned slowly on the spot, so Liam could better see the shiny blue sash that draped from one shoulder to the opposite hip. Support Your Village Hall! was picked out across the fabric in large gold letters. A collecting tin was hanging from her arm. ‘We’re raising funds to buy a new hot water boiler in the kitchen.’

  ‘The sash looks great. I’m sure a lot of people will donate.’

  ‘No one will escape me,’ muttered Belinda, in a tone that made Liam think she was probably right. She stepped a little closer and her shoulders slumped. Oh no, the blessed head tilt was on its way. Liam moved quickly behind his stall as Belinda’s head dropped to one side.

  ‘And how are you doing now the first anniversary is well behind you, Liam, honestly?’

  Honestly? He was still lonely, heartbroken and humiliated. He’d always been confident around women, cocky even, so maybe he’d had it coming. But no one around here was ever going to let him forget what happened. He’d hoped that the sympathy brigade would have moved on by now to other poor unfortunates, but the anniversary seemed to have galvanised them all over again.