Page 1 of Summer in Paradise Valley
Chapter One
Lyndsey’s mother had cleverly maneuvered her into a corner.
‘Have you asked Becca what she thinks of the idea?’ Lyndsey asked, on a resigned sigh.
‘There’s no need. She’ll be thrilled.’ Maureen Carne’s declaration sounded as convincing as a fox swearing blind to a suspicious chicken that it had no ulterior motive in hanging around the hen house.
That’s a ‘no,’ then, Mother. Lyndsey’s relationship with her younger sister, Becca, had always been tricky, to say the least. There were long-standing resentments on both sides, so it suited them both when Becca’s marriage to an American country music star put four thousand miles of Atlantic Ocean between them.
‘She had a baby six weeks ago, she’s got a moody twelve-year-old stepson to cope with and her husband’s going off on a concert tour for three months. Do you honestly think she’s going to make a fuss over who offers to help her out?’Maureen shrugged, remaining at a safe distance on the other side of the kitchen table.
‘Three months!’ Lyndsey’s voice turned shrill. ‘Are you mad, Mum? I can’t possibly leave Cornwall and disappear off to Tennessee for all that time. In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve a business to run.’
‘I know that, but Nicola’s very capable and you can work online from Becca’s house, can’t you?’ Her mother was now begging.
During the pandemic, Lyndsey was forced to adapt her home organizational business, The Right Place, or go under. At the time, she’d recently taken a lease on a small shop in Truro, so immediately switched to opening by appointment only, and developed strategies to avoid having to enter her clients’ living spaces. It’d been tough, but she’d survived, and business doubled as soon as things opened up again. When, a couple of months ago, it became impossible for her to cope with all the work herself, she hired Nicola May, a similarly minded young woman, who was a huge asset.
‘Icouldmanage, although the six-hour time difference will be challenging . . . but not for three months . . . no way.’ Lyndsey was emphatic. ‘For a start, Becca and I would kill each other long before then, and you know it.’ She allowed herself a small smile when her mother didn’t disagree.
‘You know I’d be there myself in a heartbeat if it wasn’t for your father.’ Maureen dabbed at her suspiciously dry eyes with a snowy-white lace hanky. ‘I’d love nothing better than to get my hands on that sweet baby.’
Lyndsey gritted her teeth. ‘I know you would.’ Her stoic father had dealt with being on dialysis three times a week for over two years while he waited for a new kidney, and a month ago they miraculously found a match. The surgery was successful, but it would be months before he fully recovered his strength, and that was without any setbacks, so there was no way her mother could leave him.
From the start of this conversation there’d been only one possible outcome. ‘Okay, if Becca agrees, I’ll go — but only for a couple of weeks to start with, and we’ll see how that pans out.’
That concession brought a wide, self-satisfied smile to her mother’s weary face. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down.’
How could I?The guilt buried deep inside her never went away. Simply by her unexpected arrival, Lyndsey wrecked all of her mother’s youthful plans. Instead of leaving Cornwall and becoming a smart, high-earning solicitor, life’s curveball meant she still lived in her cramped childhood home and had only ever been able to work a raft of low-paying jobs. Looking back, Lyndsey wondered how her parents managed to raise two girls on limited resources, without ever making their children feel deprived. These days, she helped them as much as she could, knowing her dad’s disability pension didn’t go far, but it was like pulling teeth to persuade them to accept anything from her. Almost worse was the fact neither of her parents ever complained.
Once, as a teenager, she foolishly brought up the subject with her mother and lived to regret it. Maureen’s normally placid, easy-going temperament disappeared when Lyndsey naively asked if she ever wondered how different her life could’ve been had she not been saddled with raising a baby on her own at nineteen. Her mum turned on her with a fierceness she’d never forgotten, insisting that she never regretted falling in love with Luis Reyes, and that far from considering herself ‘saddled’ with Lyndsey, considered her unplanned baby to be an absolute blessing.
It hadn’t convinced Lyndsey, though she’d kept silent about her determination not to repeat what she saw as her mother’s mistakes. Teenage boyfriends who sarcastically labeled her an ice queen were swiftly dismissed, because she knew the brief heartbreak that ensued was far better than the alternative. She’d become single-mindedly focused on carving out a secure, financial future on her own terms — if it was to the exclusion of everything else, then so be it.
She watched her mum whip out her mobile to ring Becca. Although Lyndsey only fully heard one side of the ensuing conversation, it convinced her that her sister was no more thrilled than she was. Once the call ended, Maureen turned back around with a bright, forced smile.
‘She’s over the moon.’ The no-nonsense declaration dared her oldest daughter to disagree. ‘Becca says don’t forget the Minstrels.’
Their love for the delicious creamy chocolate was one of the few things they had in common.
‘You’ll have to lower your standards while you’re there, remember, or there’ll be uproar.’ The warning came with a wry smile. ‘I expect having to share a bedroom with Little Miss Messy when you were girls is why you’re so . . . particular.’
Particularwas a tactful way to phrase Lyndsey’s obsession with neatness and order. These days she found it somewhat ironic that the trait that irritated and amused so many people in her life over the years now made her a very comfortable living. After university, she initially trained as an accountant and worked at a firm in Falmouth for almost ten years, but the moment she read the Japanese woman Marie Kondo’s bestselling book about the art of decluttering and organization, a light bulb went off in her head. Becca almost died laughing when Lyndsey announced her plan to start The Right Place.
‘It would be a different thing up in London, but you can’t seriously expect to find enough gullible Cornish people to pay you to tidy up their cupboards, surely to God, Li-Li. And we both know you don’t have the guts to leave and give this business idea a try somewhere bigger. I suppose you think this is your “right place.”’ The last two words came with sarcastic air quotes.
Her sister’s negative attitude, along with the childish nickname that started when two-year-old Rebecca couldn’t pronounce Lyndsey, had grated on her. She hadn’t tried to defend herself, possibly because there were more than a few grains of truth buried underneath the standard sibling rivalry. Apart from her three years at Plymouth University, which was barely over the Cornish border so might not count, she’d never lived or worked further than about a twenty-mile radius from St Lanow. She’d never dug too deep about why that was.
‘Becca’s a slob,’ she protested, and noticed her mother didn’t argue with that true statement. She dreaded to imagine the state her sister’s large, sprawling house would be in with a baby to juggle on top of everything else. It was probably bestnotto imagine it until she landed in Nashville, or she might change her mind halfway across the Atlantic and demand the pilot turn the plane around and fly her back to London.
‘You two always were chalk and cheese.’ Maureen shook her head. ‘Becca should’ve been Luis’s daughter, not you. Your dad was the most laid-back person I’ve ever met.’ Her soft blue eyes turned misty.
Lyndsey was swept with a wave of sadness. She had no memories of Luis Reyes, a handsome smiling man from Dominica, who she only knew from a few treasured photographs. When she was younger, it confused her when Maureen explained that Paul Carne wasn’t her biological father, although Lyndsey considered the kind, patient man who raised her absolutelyher father in every other way. Luis had left the sunny Caribbean behind for a summer job at one of the big hotels in Newquay where he hadn’t been able to resist the charms of a certain bright bubbly chambermaid. Maureen Nancarrow was making some much-needed money over the long summer vacation following her first year at university. Two months into their whirlwind romance, Luis’s tragic death in a motorcycle accident shattered the naïve young couple’s plans for a future together. The Reyes family wanted nothing to do with his pregnant girlfriend, and left the Nancarrow family to pick up the pieces.
‘Luis would be so proud of you.’ Maureen sounded wistful. ‘And Paul is, too, so you’re extra lucky.’ Her bright smile inched back.
‘I’ll check on flights and get something booked.’ Lyndsey tried her best to sound positive, rather than resigned.
‘You’re a gem,’ her mother declared and threw her arms around Lyndsey. ‘I knew I could rely on you.’
