Susan Wiggs - Fireside

Acclaim for New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs

‘… Truly uplifting …’

—Now magazine

‘This is a beautiful book’

—Bookbag on Just Breathe

‘… Unpredictable and refreshing, this is irresistibly good.’

—Closer Hot Pick Book on Just Breathe

‘A human and multi-layered story exploring duty to both country and family’

—Nora Roberts on

The Ocean Between Us

‘Susan Wiggs paints the details of human relationships with the finesse of a master.’

—Jodi Picoult, author of Nineteen Minutes

‘The perfect beach read’

—Debbie Macomber on Summer by the Sea

Also by Susan Wiggs

The Lakeshore Chronicles SUMMER AT WILLOW LAKE THE WINTER LODGE DOCKSIDE SNOWFALL AT WILLOW LAKE FIRESIDE LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS

The Tudor Rose Trilogy AT THE KING’S COMMAND THE MAIDEN’S HAND AT THE QUEEN’S SUMMONS

Contemporary HOME BEFORE DARK THE OCEAN BETWEEN US SUMMER BY THE SEA TABLE FOR FIVE LAKESIDE COTTAGE JUST BREATHE

All available in eBook

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This book is for my friend Lois, with love.

Thanks to my own personal brain trust—

Anjali Banerjee, Carol Cassella, Sheila Roberts,

Suzanne Selfors, Elsa Watson, Kate Breslin,

Lois Faye Dyer, Rose Marie Harris, Patty Jough-Haan,

Susan Plunkett and Krysteen Seelen—

wonderful writers and even better friends.

Thanks to Mr David Boyle, president and co-owner

of the New Haven County Cutters, for information

regarding Independent Baseball and the

Can-Am League.

Thanks also to Margaret O’Neill Marbury and

Adam Wilson of MIRA Books, Meg Ruley and

Annelise Robey of the Jane Rotrosen Agency,

for invaluable advice and input. Thanks to my publisher

and readers for supporting the Lakeshore Chronicles

and for coming back to Avalon again and again.

With every word I write, I’m grateful to my family—

the reason for everything.

‘A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive

feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the

beholder measures the depth of his own nature.’

—Henry David Thoreau

Walden , ‘The Ponds’

LaGuardia Airport

Concourse C

Gate 21

The dark glasses didn’t hide a thing, not really. When people saw someone in dark glasses on a cloudy day in the middle of winter, they assumed the wearer was hiding the fact that she’d been drinking, crying or fighting.

Or all of the above.

Under any number of circumstances, Kimberly van Dorn enjoyed being the center of attention. Last night, when she’d donned her couture gown with its scandalous slit up the side, turning heads had been the whole idea. She’d had no idea the evening would implode the way it had. How could she?

Now, at the end of a soul-flattening red-eye flight, she kept her shades on as the plane touched down and taxied to the Jetway. Coach. She never flew coach. Last night, however, first class had been sold out, personal comfort had taken a backseat to expediency, and she’d found herself in seat 29-E in the middle of the middle section of the plane, wedged between strangers. Sometimes the need to get away was more powerful than the need for legroom. Although her stiff legs this morning might argue that point.

Who the hell had designed coach class, anyway? She was convinced she had the imprint of her seatmate’s ear on her shoulder. After his fourth beer, he kept falling asleep, his head lolling onto her. What was worse than a man with a lolling head?

A man with a lolling head and beer breath, she thought grimly, trying to shake off the torturous transcontinental night. But the memories lingered like the ache in her legs—the lolling guy with a snoring problem, and, on her other side, an impossibly chatty older gentleman, who talked for hours about his insomnia. And his bursitis. And his lousy son-in-law, his fondness for fried sweet potatoes and his dislike of the Jude Law movie Kim was pretending to watch in hopes of getting him to shut up.

No wonder she never flew coach. Yet the nightmare flight was not the worst thing that had happened to her lately. Far from it.

She stood in the aisle, waiting for the twenty-eight rows ahead of her to deplane. The process seemed endless as people rummaged in the overhead bins, gathering their things while talking on mobile phones.

She took out her phone, thumb hovering over the power button. She really ought to call her mother, let her know she was coming home. Not now, though, she thought, putting the phone away. She was too exhausted to make any sense. Besides, for all she knew, the thing had one of those tracking features, and she didn’t feel like being tracked.

Now that she’d arrived, she wasn’t in such a big hurry. In fact, she was utterly unprepared to face a dreary midwinter morning in New York. Ignoring the stares of other passengers, she tried to act as though traveling in an evening gown was a routine occurrence for her, and hoped people would just assume she was a victim of lost luggage.

If only it could be that simple.

Shuffling along the narrow aisle of the coach section, she definitely felt like a victim. In more ways than one.

She left behind a scattering of sequins in the aisle. There was a reason clothes like this were designated as “evening wear.” The silk charmeuse dress, encrusted with sequins, was meant to be worn in the romantic semidarkness of a candlelit private club or Southern California garden, lit by tiki torches. Not in the broad, unforgiving daylight of a Saturday morning.

It was funny, she thought, how even a couture gown from Shantung on Rodeo Drive managed to look tawdry in the morning light. Especially when combined with a side slit, bare legs and peep-toe spike heels with a crisscross ankle strap. Only last night, every detail had whispered class. Now her outfit screamed hooker. No wonder she was getting funny looks.

But last night, in the middle of everything, Kim hadn’t been thinking about the morning. She’d just been thinking about getting away. It seemed as though a million years had passed since then, since she’d dressed so carefully, so filled with hope and optimism. Lloyd Johnson, star of the Lakers and the biggest client of the PR firm she worked for, was at the pinnacle of his career. More importantly for Kimberly, he’d found his dream house in Manhattan Beach. They planned to live there together. It was supposed to be her night, a moment of triumph, maybe even a life-changing occasion if Lloyd had decided to pop the question. Well, it had been life-changing, just not in the way she’d anticipated. She had sunk everything she had into her career as a sports publicist. And overnight, that had crumbled. She was Jerry Maguire without the triumphant ending.

She finally reached the front of the aircraft, murmuring a thank-you to the flight attendants as she passed. It wasn’t their fault the flight had been so miserable, and they’d been up all night, too. Then, just as she stepped onto the Jetway, the security doors opened and a ground-crew guy in a jumpsuit and earphones blew in on a gust of frigid wind.

The arctic air slapped her like a physical assault, tearing at the silk dress and skimming over her bare legs. She gasped aloud and gathered a fringed wrap—the only outerwear she had—around her bare shoulders, clutching it in one fist, her jewel-encrusted peacock evening bag in the other.