Salvation Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  About the Author

  Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  When you fall in love, if it’s real, it’s forever. But what happens if the woman who gave your life meaning now hates you, for all the wrong reasons? Do you walk away? Claire chooses to stay, knowing her partner will never love her again. Her happiness has been stolen, and her future seems unclear.

  That is until Regan arrives.

  Regan is an angry woman running from problems. Faced with challenges, she moves to Devon to sort out her dead brother’s estate. From the moment she meets Claire, they seem destined to clash. As they do, secrets begin to unravel that test them both but which offer the chance for love.

  Salvation

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Salvation

  © 2016 By I. Beacham. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-549-7

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: April 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Jeanine Henning

  By the Author

  Sanctuary

  The Rarest Rose

  Salvation

  Acknowledgments

  Huge thanks as always to Cindy Cresap, my editor, for her guidance, words of wisdom and ever present sense of humor. Also, but never least, to the entire BSB team for their continued support.

  Dedication

  To Cindy P, the delightful American in England.

  Thank you for your generosity of time, and for sharing those intimate and painful memories. I hope the book has done them justice.

  Prologue

  It was her fifteenth birthday, but she knew there would be no celebrations of that fact, no wonderful surprises awaiting her. Not this day.

  For today, sitting alone at the back of a small English church, hardly daring to breathe or move, she listened to the dull tones of the vicar. He stood in the middle of the aisle, behind a small coffin, and lamented the untimely death of a young life cut short in its prime. His funeral oration was constantly broken by the weeping of a woman—a mother—who could no longer hold her grief.

  The birthday girl wrung her hands and watched as a young man and woman, seated either side of the mother, attempted to console her. She knew who they were. They were the dead girl’s older siblings.

  Beside them was the father who looked far older than his years. For a second, she wanted to flee and run outside, but she knew she couldn’t. She needed to be here. She also knew she must remain quiet and not alert the family and small contingent of friends that she was present. That would never do. So she slid lower on the hard wooden pew and prayed for invisibility.

  She thought of the glorious autumn day outside and how there was still heat in the sunshine. It was a day when she would normally have grabbed a good friend and the dog, donned her walking shoes, and headed into the hills to enjoy the last vestiges of good weather before the anticipated onslaught of winter. But today, inside this church, the contrast could not have been greater. Everything in here was dark, cold, and dull. The brilliant sunshine struggled to push its light through dirty stained glass windows, an occasional successful shaft of blue and green light splintering over the coffin.

  She lowered her eyes as the weight of guilt bore down on her again. Would she remember this day for all her birthdays to come? A small price to pay, she reasoned.

  A bell rang out high above the church, announcing the end of the service. She glanced up to see four men now carrying the coffin on their shoulders. They moved reverently down the aisle toward her, and to the hearse that waited to take the precious contents to a final resting place. She considered how incongruous it was that it took four men to carry her classmate, a girl who had been built like a reed, willowy and tall. Behind them, came the family procession, and despite the organ music that now played, it did nothing to blanket the sound of sobbing.

  Every fiber of her body absorbed the tragedy before her. She wanted to cry too, but her empathy was redundant for it was not wanted here. She quickly looked away, but not before she caught the raw expression of loss and grief on the mother’s face. She bit her lip to stem her emotion. If they saw her here, it would be awful. Dear God, let this be over soon, she prayed.

  They passed, but behind her, she heard a commotion, and then a rustle of clothing and movement to her right. Glancing up, she found the dead girl’s mother hovering over her, and before she had time to stand or do anything, she felt a hard slap cut across her face. Red-brimmed eyes full of loathing bore into her.

  “You stay away from me and my family. You hear? You stay away!”

  The daughter and son were suddenly there, wrapping their arms around their mother protectively, pulling her away. The daughter spoke gently. “This isn’t helping, Mum. Come on.”

  As quickly as the small scene played, it was over, but not before she caught the disapproving faces and stares leveled at her from the congregation. She closed her eyes and hung her head in shame.

  Then she waited.

  Only when she knew everyone had left the church, and heard the hearse and accompanying vehicles drive off, did she dare stand up to leave. As she moved, her body ached and felt tight and slow like it did after a long school run. She headed toward a small car park where she could see a smart, casually dressed middle-aged man waiting.

  He leaned against the side of an expensive, highly polished car smoking a cigarette. As he saw her walking toward him, he flicked the cigarette onto the tarmac and ground it in with his heel before facing her.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “I did it, Dad.”

  He looked hard into her eyes before raising a hand and gently placing it on the side of her face where she had been slapped. His eyes softened.

  “I’m proud of you.”

  He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight.

  Chapter One

  Twenty-four years later.

  Claire unloaded the bags of manure from the back of her old Jeep and into the wheelbarrow. Every muscle in her body ached, and she questioned her sanity. She really should have just ordered this load, and
the rest, and had the stuff delivered. No doubt she would have smiled coquettishly at the deliveryman and got him to take the heavy consignment all the way down to the potting shed and dump it there for her. But oh no, she had to keep going back to the garden center like an ant on a mission and doing ten-bag loads at a time. It was all the weight she dared put into the Jeep at one go. Any more and she’d be driving home on the back wheels with the front ones up in the air like a biker doing a wheelie. It would be fun but not really beneficial for the vehicle’s chassis.

  She sighed as she locked the vehicle and then began yet another wheelbarrow expedition down the sweeping and expansive lawns toward the small wooded area where the shed stood. The trouble was this garden ate manure like a prizefighter beefing up for a heavyweight boxing match. It needed huge amounts to sustain it and keep it at its best.

  The large gardens belonged to no small abode. The Devonshire estate wasn’t quite the stately home, but a very large property. Over the years, it had morphed its way from imposing home, to boarding school, and then a run-down hotel. It had finally been rescued, fully modernized, and converted into a dozen or more luxury apartments. Most were owned, but a few rented. Claire’s task was to keep the gardens in tip-top condition. A job she enjoyed, although her body wasn’t quite agreeing with her at this time.

  As she unceremoniously dumped the manure outside the shed with the other bags, she looked up as someone called her name. She saw Mr. and Mrs. Connell waving from across the lawn and slowly heading toward her. They were in their nineties, and the oldest occupants of the house. Both still sprightly and mentally alert, every morning they walked the grounds, hand in hand like young lovers. Claire started to grin. She was very fond of them, even though Mr. Connell could talk nineteen to the dozen. This time, Mrs. Connell got the first words in.

  “Good morning, Claire. I just wanted to say thank you for repotting my houseplants. They’re already looking more spirited. The bigger pots have done the trick.”

  Claire had willingly volunteered to repot half a dozen plants for the couple. Mrs. Connell’s hands were now plagued with arthritis, and what had once been an easy task, no longer was. Claire’s apparent success quite empowered her. She was still new to the world of gardening, and while she seemed to have mastered the basic tasks of maintenance, some of her other garden creations had withered on the vine…literally. She seemed quite good at repotting, and that sort of thing. The rest would surely come in time. Gardening was a learning process. However, there would be no more talk of her potting successes as Mr. Connell’s verboseness was off the leash.

  “I like what you’ve done with the herbaceous borders, my dear, and I love the crop of tulips and daffs. Spring flowers, always my favorite. They look marvelous. Although,” he continued, “didn’t you plant yellow and red tulips for this year?”

  Claire just managed to get a nod in.

  “They’re all yellow,” he said. “Not a red one anywhere. I don’t understand it. I mean, I don’t mind yellow tulips. They’re very pretty, but if the packet says yellow and red, and no red come up, then isn’t that wrongful sales, or something. What do they call it these days, Grace…something against the Sales Act…mis-advertisement? I suppose it could be fraud.”

  Well practiced patience sounded in his wife’s calm response.

  “George, I’m quite sure the red ones will come up. They’re just a little late, that’s all, and it really is still early in the season.”

  Claire caught the look of amiable suffering Grace shot her.

  “Well, if they don’t,” he continued, “I think she should ask for her money back. I mean, red is red, and when they grow yellow—”

  “Isn’t the weather glorious, Claire?” Mrs. Connell had decided everyone had heard enough of red and yellow tulips.

  Claire laughed. They never failed to lift her spirits, and she marveled at the way Grace had learned to curb her husband’s verbal defecation.

  She glanced at the cloudless day and the strong blue sky. It was glorious weather. “Yes, and it’s only the end of March. You can already feel the heat in the sun,” Claire agreed. “They say we’re in for a lovely summer.”

  “You know what I like about good English summers?” George could never be tethered for long.

  “No, dear.”

  “I like what it does to us Brits. We all become such nicer people, so much friendlier. It’s fascinating really, that just a few sunrays can have such an effect. We’re normally such a miserable nation. It almost makes you love your fellow neighbor.”

  “Not ours, it doesn’t.” Grace’s dour response was pointed.

  “No?” George looked at his wife, shocked.

  “We live next to Michael Cooper. Deaf as a post and plays his music far too loud.”

  “I never hear him,” George said.

  “That’s because you’re deaf too.”

  “Oh.” George nodded. “Quite. Well, the sunshine makes you love almost all of one’s fellow neighbors.”

  “You really do talk rubbish sometimes, George.”

  “I can’t help it. I’ve always been like it,” he acknowledged good-heartedly. “But you still married me, dear.”

  Grace put her hand out and affectionately tugged his arm, “That’s because you have other qualities that make you irreplaceable.”

  His eyes softened, and the depth of love Claire saw there made her heart twist. It was a love that everyone sought in life, and yet so few attained. His words were low and velvet.

  “You think so?” He cast his wife a roguish smile.

  “Don’t be silly.” Reserved as the admonishment was, Grace was loving every moment.

  Claire thought it hard sometimes to picture that this man had made a fortune running a large scaffolding business. He’d had a fleet of trucks with the unforgettable signage of “Connell’s Erections” slapped on the vehicles’ side. Claire could still remember these from her childhood, and it had been her father who had pointed out that the Connells came from an era long ago when naivety reigned. They had been old-fashioned then. Wonderfully, they still were.

  “We’ll leave you now, dear,” Grace announced. “I can see you’re busy, and we only wanted to say thank you.”

  As they ambled away, Claire could still hear George rattling on about the weather and how he really did think the world was full of happiness when the sun came out. She saw Grace reach out and hold his hand.

  She stood a while and watched them cut across the lawn. It was only when they disappeared around a corner that she glanced over to her right and up toward the house.

  Like a snap of fingers, her state of bonhomie evaporated. It was replaced by irrevocable misery that nested in the pit of her stomach. The rapid change in emotion did not shock her. She had grown used to it. A familiar rawness that was never far from her thoughts paralyzed her. For a moment, her feet felt like they were putting down roots and she might never move again.

  George’s words of happiness played in her mind. They made her depressed.

  He said the sunshine made everyone happy. But Claire wasn’t happy.

  Her happiness had been stolen.

  Chapter Two

  There are moments in life one never forgets, the memories that stay forever. Memories burnt into consciousness, that hold every second of every happiness, every pain, as if it were yesterday.

  And so it was for Regan Canning.

  For her, the big burn started early one evening when the doorbell rang.

  She was expecting prospective buyers coming to look at her house, which she had placed for sale over three months ago. Instead, she opened the door to find two police officers who informed her, with as much compassion as they could, that her only sibling was dead.

  Simon, her brother a few years older, had apparently taken himself off to a field somewhere down south, sat in his car, and shot himself.

  It was what brought her now, two days later, all the way down from Yorkshire to Devon. She found herself alone in her dead brother’
s apartment, still reeling with shock and wondering where on earth to begin.

  Though the day was warm, Regan was cold as she gazed out the sitting room window of the second floor apartment. Grudgingly, she accepted that the place wasn’t too bad. It was well located amidst other apartments and all within an old and well modernized, large hilltop property. Her diffident opinion allowed her to accept that the view was impressive too, if you ignored the single row of parked cars in front of the building. Beyond them, and with great theatrical aplomb, the eye was taken down over cedar treetops and to the sea bay in the distance where the afternoon sun glistened like iridescent pearls.

  It was clear to Regan that the ocean view was what had drawn Simon to this place. He had always had an obsessive and magnetic pull to water.

  But at this moment, the scenic vista was doing nothing for her.

  She expelled air through pursed lips and felt like she was going to burst. Damn it, she was tired. She hadn’t slept at all last night. The drive down had been long, the traffic heavy, and just for sheer entertainment value, one of the car tires had blown on the motorway. It hadn’t helped her mood when she’d gone to replace it only to find she didn’t have the key to the wheel nuts. The air had turned blue as she cursed a society that actually had to lock the nuts on car wheels to stop light-fingered criminals from thieving them. As for the key, she had absolutely no idea what she’d done with it.

  The outcome of that little adventure had resulted in her driving off route to find a garage which had announced the tire was now beyond repair, and she’d had to front up for a new expensive one. Her interaction with the man from the garage had been terse. He’d spoken to her like some brainless moron, telling her she should always keep the wheel key in the car. She knew that…now.