‘Have you discussed this with him?’ She tilts her head.
‘No, it’s still too new. It might freak him out. It freaks me out thinking so much into the future about such serious things.’ We have both tiptoed around talk of what’s next, but it’s been right there, just below the surface.
‘What do you think he’ll say if you did put the question to him?’
I make a face. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of. What if he asks me to move in with him, move back to the UK? As much as I know I’ve used van life as a means of escape at times, I still love it and nothing would make me give up the journey. It’s who I am, it’s what I love. And I don’t want to have to choose.’ Just like the lovers in Collette’s The Vagabond …
‘Has he hinted at that?’
I squirm. ‘Well, no. He hasn’t put any pressure on me at all.’ My heart bongos as another thought hits. ‘Maybe he’s not interested in long term?’ Love can be so messy! ‘Is this just a summer fling for him?’
She scoffs. ‘As if. Listen to yourself, Aria!’
‘It hasn’t come up and I don’t want to bring it up. I don’t want to ruin what we have which has been so much fun. I feel like a carefree teen again, swimming all day, kissing a boy, sleeping after lunch. Reading all hours. It’s been downright magical.’
With a smile, she says, ‘It’s exactly what you need. But summer will come to an end soon enough so you’ll have to bring it up eventually.’
I nod and run my hands through my hair which could do with a cut. My coppery locks have been bleached by the sun and are now a shade lighter. ‘We’re not staying here all summer though, are we? We’re off in another week.’
Van life gives and takes just like that.
Rosie toys with her necklace. ‘We can stay if you want?’
We can’t. I need to go back to the circuit as ever to bank much-needed funds and I know it would make Rosie break out in hives if she had to change her plans. It wouldn’t be fair on them especially when she’s got doctor’s appointments scheduled as we go along.
‘No, we can’t stay. I’m not going to be one of those girls who gives up everything as soon as a man walks into her life.’
She tuts. ‘I hardly think that’s the case, Aria. You’re giving yourself some time to see if Jonathan’s the guy for you, that’s all.’
I fold my arms above me and think. ‘Yeah. But we’re not changing our plans.’
She lifts a hand. ‘I can switch a few things around if we need to. I’m not that rigid.’
I give her a squeeze. ‘I know, Rosie. But let’s wait and see. It’s been a revelation being with Jonathan but real life has to come crashing back eventually. If it’s meant to be, it will be.’
‘You bloody hippies. Honestly. You’re going to make me go into early labour, I swear it.’
‘That reminds me! How did the ultrasound go?’
She grins. ‘Want to see the pic?’
‘Of my first nephew, of course!’
She looks shifty for a moment and I ask. ‘What?’
‘That’s the thing.’ She laughs and it lights up her face. ‘Little Indigo isn’t making an appearance just yet.’
‘What?’
She dashes off and returns with a grainy black-and-white ultrasound picture. A perfect little baby lies there and my heart explodes with joy. ‘Aria Rose has totally messed up the schedule and decided she’s coming first.’
My eyes go wide and I shriek with joy. ‘Aria Rose! It’s a girl!’
‘It’s a girl,’ she confirms, beaming.
I give her a loose hug, careful of her ever-swelling belly carrying my namesake. ‘This is so exciting! We’re going to have to hunt out the cutest little clothes.’
‘No need. Sharia has made me a bunch. She got to sewing as soon as she heard. She’s made little Aria Rose an entire wardrobe of high fashion, and it’s all matching which really helps my OCD side of things.’
Sharia is a friend from London who has a pop-up van selling homemade eco-friendly children’s clothing from hemp fabric. ‘That’s so sweet of her!’
‘I know! She sent me a bunch of pictures of everything she’s made but I told her to hold off posting them as we’d be back eventually.’
‘Good plan. Gosh, I kind of can’t imagine being back in the UK after being in France for so long. It gets under your skin, this beautiful country.’ I’d miss it, that’s for sure. But is it the start of more adventures to come?
Rosie tucks a tendril of hair behind her ear. ‘I’m looking forward to Christmas in London, and then I think we plan the next sojourn. Greece? Spain?’
As ever Rosie and I are on the same level despite our very different personalities. She’s my soul sister, and it strikes me that we wait all our lives for such people to fall into our path and how lucky am I that she’s here? ‘Do you think things will change when you have the baby? What if you suddenly decide you want the house, the car, the picket fence, the dog named Scooby? PTA meetings? Imagine the other mums with you at the helm!’ I laugh in spite of it all.
She considers it for a moment. ‘Part of me always worried that might be the case when I first started this trip, but now I know home is where my family are. And that’s you and Max and little Aria here.’ She taps her belly. ‘Travelling with a baby will definitely have its challenges but I’m not alone. I have you, I have Max, I have my beloved Poppy, what else do I need?’
She’s right. Of course she’s right. Life doesn’t need to be lived one way. It can morph and change and be lived on our terms, our way. This makes me think of Jonathan and how he can fit into my life and I into his. It can be done. We just have to figure out the nuts and bolts of it.
‘I have to go …’ I say to Rosie.
‘Oh?’ She shoots me a look that says she understands.
‘I need to tell Jonathan how I feel and see if he feels the same.’
Her face breaks into a wide grin. ‘Go, go before you change your mind!’
Chapter 30
St Tropez
I find him sitting in silent repose, book open against his chest, eyes closed. Asleep? I tiptoe towards him and am startled when he says, ‘Back so soon?’
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘Nope, quietly contemplating life.’
‘Me?’
‘You’re part of it.’ He grins.
‘And what did you come up with?’ I scooch in next to him and lie on my side.
He takes a deep breath. ‘I was going to ask you the same thing. You leave in a week, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So?’ He arches that lovely brow of his.
‘You first.’
He smiles and traces my lips with a finger. ‘It’s hard for me to go first, Aria, because I made you a promise that I’d go as slow or as fast as you want, so I don’t want to scare you away.’
‘Try me.’ I need to know he feels the same. That this isn’t just some mad summer Instalove that will fizz out like flat champagne. I need the fireworks, the declarations, I need the happy-ever-after. I need it to be like the books.
‘OK. If you insist.’
‘I do.’
‘I’ve been in love with you since the moment I first saw you, even maybe a minute before when I had this strange feeling, this sense of déjà vu that my life was about to inexplicably change and then there you were.’
We all know romances are a guide to life and this proves it!
I don’t interrupt but my heart beats double time.
‘I’ve only known love once before but it was a different kind. Maybe first love is another beast, maybe childhood sweethearts are born from something more innocent, I don’t know. All I know is, this burgeoning relationship of ours is all I can think about. It’s not just the way you make me feel, like I’m in a daze, my heart won’t stop pounding. But like it could develop into a thing of wild beauty. We’re both similar at our core. We both need that solitary time but … when we met it was as though I recognized you. Like I’d
been waiting for you my whole life and there you were …’
I smile a smile of gratitude, one of recognition. Maybe we’d both be each other’s saviours? The person who came next and fixed the break in our hearts. Didn’t we both deserve that?
‘I feel the exact same way about you, Jonathan, and I think that’s I why I pushed back as soon as I met you. It was scary that someone could make me feel such a way when I’d promised TJ my heart was only reserved for him, no matter what he wanted for me.’
‘And I wouldn’t ever question your love for him.’
I smile. ‘I know. But I guess I had to get to that place myself. When the time was right. And it’s right now. But what does that mean for us? How do we know this is real, that this is going to work? I’m a nomad, Jonathan, and I can’t give that up.’
‘And I’m a writer.’
‘So …?’
‘I can do that anywhere.’
‘You’d stay with me?’
‘If that’s what you want.’
I go to hug him. ‘It’s what I want more than anything. The beginning of our very own love story.’
‘Spoiler alert, I know the ending because I’ve waited a lifetime to feel like this.’
‘What’s the ending?’
‘And they lived happily ever after.’
‘Well, you are the writer …’
He leans over and kisses me, stealing the breath from my lungs as the warm Côte d’Azur breeze ruffles my hair. There’s no outline for real love, there’s no way to plot what comes next, all we can do is listen to our hearts and trust that Cupid has a plan for us. I know everything will fall into place because deep down I sense TJ has orchestrated this man to come into my life and fill the space he left behind. Jonathan’s arms encircle me and I kiss him, the kiss of a thousand promises …
Did you love travelling round France with Aria and Rosie? Don’t miss where the journey began in Rosie’s Travelling Tea Shop. Available now!
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Acknowledgements
Thank you to my fabulous editor Abi Fenton for everything you do! And to all the HQ staff behind the scenes that help shape/share/design and promote our books – I may not know who you are, but your work doesn’t go unnoticed, so thank you.
A huge thanks to all the lovely book bloggers and reviewers that live and breathe books just like Aria. Legends, all of you!
Many thanks to my mum for always proof reading for me, always with a time limit attached. If there’s any errors in this book, feel free to put some of the blame on Mum (only joking!).
Lastly, thank you for picking up this book! I hope you enjoyed the sojourn to France and loved living like a Van Lifer for a little while.
Read on for an excerpt from Secrets at Maple Syrup Farm
Chapter 1
With the beeps, drips, and drones, it was hard to hear Mom, as she waxed lyrical about my painting. Her voice was weaker today, and her breathing labored, but none of that took away from the incandescence in her deep blue eyes.
Wistfully she said, “Lucy, you have a real gift, do you know that?” She patted the white knitted hospital blanket. “Look at that sunset, it’s like I’m right there, stepping into the world you’ve created.”
I sat gently on the edge of the bed, doing my best to avoid the wires that connected my mom to the machine. These days her hair hung lank—the wild riot of her strawberry-blonde curls tamed by so many days indoors, head resting on a pillow. I tucked an escaped tendril back, and made a mental note to help her wash it later.
“You’re biased. You have to say that,” I said, keeping my voice light. Beside her, I cast a critical eye over the piece. All I could find was fault. The sun was too big, the sky not quite the right hue, and the birds with their wings spread wide seemed comical, like something a kindergartner would do. When it came to my art, I still had a way to go before I felt confident. Mom was the only person I showed my work to these days.
“Hush,” she said. “I could stare at this all day. If I close my eyes I feel the heat from the sun, the wind in my hair …”
That’s why I’d painted the picture. She’d been suffering quietly for so many years, in and out of hospitals, unable these days to pack her oversized backpack and follow her heart around the globe. She’d been a wanderer, always looking to the next city, a new host of people, a brand-new adventure … but her diagnosis had changed all of that. Even though she never complained, I could read it in her eyes—she still yearned for that freedom.
My mom, a free spirit, looked out of place in the gray-white room. She needed sunshine, laughter, the frisson of excitement as she met other like-minded souls, nomads with big hearts and simple lifestyles. The painting, I hoped, would remind her of what we’d do when she was home again. A short road trip to the beach, where I’d sketch, and she’d gaze at the ocean, watching waves roll in.
“Honey, are you working a double tonight?” she said softly, her gaze still resting on the golden rays of sun.
I had to work as many shifts as I could. Our rent was due, and the bills mounting up, just like always. There were times I had to call in sick, to help Mom. We lived paycheck to paycheck, and I was on thin ice with my boss as it was. He didn’t understand what my private life was like, and I wasn’t about to tell him! It was no one’s business but my own. I kept our struggles hidden, a tightly guarded secret, because I didn’t want pity. That kind of thing made me want to lash out so I avoided it. When I had the odd day off, I tried to make up for it by covering any shift I could. We needed the money anyhow. “No,” I lied. “Not a double. I’ll be back early tomorrow and I’ll take you out to the rose garden.”
She gazed at me, searching my face. “No, Lucy. One of the nurses can take me outside. You stay home and rest.”
I scoffed. “You know the nurses won’t take you all that way. You’ll go crazy cooped up in here.”
She tilted her head. “You think you can fool me? Not a double, huh?” She stared me down, and I squirmed under her scrutiny. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got plenty to do here.” She waved at the table. “Sudoku, knitting, and …” Laughter burst out of us. The Sudoku and knitting needles were a gift from the lady in the bed over, who’d been discharged earlier that morning. When I’d walked in, Mom’s face had been twisted in concentration as she tried to solve the puzzle of numbers. The yarn lay on her lap, knotted, forgotten. She didn’t have the patience for that kind of thing, not these days, with her hands, her grip, unreliable at the best of times.
With a wheeze, she said, “There are not enough hours in the day to waste boggling my brain with knit two, purl one, or whatever it is.”
I laughed. “I could use another scarf or two. Who cares if you drop a few stitches?” A million years ago Mom had taken up knitting for a month or so, producing with a flourish a bright pink sweater for me to wear to school. She’d been so damn proud of it, I hadn’t had the heart to point out all the holes from dropped stitches. She knew though, and looped a pink ribbon through them, and said, “Look, it’s all fixed with a belt.” I wore that sweater until it fell apart, knowing how much love she had poured into every stitch. It was one of her foibles, taking up a new hobby with gusto, and then dropping it when something else caught her eye. It was a sort of restlessness that plagued her, and she’d skip from one thing to another without a backward glance.
She gave me a playful shove. “I’m not the crafty one of the family, that’s for sure. That’s reserved especially for you. Would you put the painting by the window? I’m going to pretend we’re at that beach, drinking fruity cocktails, and squinting at the sunshine
.”
“We’ll be there in no time,” I said, knowing we wouldn’t. It was January, rain lashed hard at the window. Detroit in this kind of weather had a gloominess about it; it cast a pall over the city, almost like a cloud of despair. It was different than other places in winter. Sadder.
I leaned the painting against the rain-drizzled glass, its colors too bright for the dreary room, but maybe that’s what she needed—a bit of vibrancy to counter the gray. The bleak city was not our first choice, but rent was cheap enough for us to afford on one wage. It pained me to think of the places we’d lived when we’d both worked. I’d loved the sun-bleached streets of Florida, and being blown sideways in the woolly weather of Chicago. Those were happier times, when we disappeared for weekend escapades. Home for me had always been where Mom was, as we squished our too-full suitcases closed, and moved from place to place.
Stepping back to the bed, I pulled the blanket up, and settled beside her, checking my watch.
“Before you head to work, I want to talk to you about something.” Her tone grew serious, and her face pinched.
“What, Mom?” I inched closer to her.
She cleared her throat, and gave me a hard stare. “I want you to make me a promise.” She held up her pinkie finger.
“OK,” I said warily. I’d promise my mom anything, she was the light in my life, but I sensed somehow this was going to be different. I could tell by her expression, the way she pursed her mouth, and set her shoulders. The air grew heavy.
“I mean it. You have to promise me you’ll do as I ask, and not question me.” Her lip wobbled ever so slightly.
I took a shaky breath as my mind whirled with worry. “What, Mom? You’re scaring me.” It was bad news. I was sure of it.
She shook her head, and smiled. “I know you, Lucy, and I know you’re going to struggle with this, but it’s important to me, and you have to do it, no matter what your heart tells you.”
Aria's Travelling Book Shop Page 22
