The Boy is Back in Town

Praise for Nina Harrington

‘I look forward to reading this author’s next release … and her next … and her next. It truly is a stunning debut, with characters that will remain in your thoughts long after you have closed the book.’

—pinkheartsocietyreviews.blogspot.com on

Always the Bridesmaid

‘Rich with emotion, and pairing two truly special characters, this beautiful story is simply unforgettable. A keeper.’

—RT Book Reviews on

Hired: Sassy Assistant

‘A well-constructed plot and a scrumptious, larger-than-life hero combined with generous amounts of humour and pathos make for an excellent read.’

—RT Book Reviews on Tipping the Waitress with Diamonds

About Nina Harrington

NINA HARRINGTON grew up in rural Northumberland, England, and decided at the age of eleven that she was going to be a librarian—because then she could read all of the books in the public library whenever she wanted! Since then she has been a shop assistant, community pharmacist, technical writer, university lecturer, volcano walker and industrial scientist, before taking a career break to realise her dream of being a fiction writer. When she is not creating stories which make her readers smile, her hobbies are cooking, eating, enjoying good wine—and talking, for which she has had specialist training.

Also by Nina Harrington

Her Moment in the Spotlight

The Last Summer of Being Single

Tipping the Waitress with Diamonds

Hired: Sassy Assistant

Always the Bridesmaid

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Boy is Back in Town

Nina Harrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

MARIGOLD CHANCE scrolled through the images on her digital camera with her thumb, and cringed. Of all the crimes against photography she had ever committed for her sister Rosa, of which there had been many, the past few hours had been a low point.

Mari might be forgiven for the portrait of the dry cleaner’s miniature dachshund in a cute beaded princess sweater, or even the popcorn-puff hooded jacket Rosa had made for the hairdresser’s Pekinese. But persuading the newsagent’s fox terrier to pose with a knitted plaid waterproof raincoat with the name ‘Lola’ in gold chain stitch on the back was the last straw.

Her sister Rosa had a lot to answer for.

‘Oh, you are such a genius.’ Rosa grabbed the sleeve of Mari’s coat and squealed so loudly that two elderly ladies in the street looked across in alarm. Mari gave them a smile and a small wave with the hand that was not firmly in the fierce grip of her sister, the budding internet entrepreneur, who was wrestling to see the back of the camera.

‘Lola looks amazing. You see? I knew it would be useful to have an IT expert in the family one day. You told me how important it was to have great visuals on the website you made for me and now I have. It was hard work but so worth it.’

Mari snorted in reply and lifted the camera out of her sister’s reach. ‘You spent most of the time lying on the floor playing with the puppy and feeding her treats. I was the one doing the hard work.’

Rosa waggled her fingers at her dismissively. ‘What can I say? Some of us are blessed with the creative touch. Animal models are hard to find in the world of Swanhaven pet fashion and Lola wasn’t too keen on posing for more than a few seconds. I think bribery is acceptable in the circumstances. After all, it’s not often my big sister has a chance to be a fashion photographer for the day. The least I could do was sacrifice my dignity in the name of your future career. You might need that extra line on your résumé one day soon.’

Mari sighed and gave her head a quick shake. ‘I should never have told you that my department is laying off technical staff. I’m fine. Seriously. There are lots of hardware engineers who want to take the package and do other things with their lives, but not me. I love what I’m doing and don’t plan to change any time soon.’

‘Um … fine. Right. Is that why you were looking for IT jobs around Swanhaven on the internet this morning?’

‘Hey!’ Mari play poked Rosa in the arm. ‘Were you spying on me, young lady? I can see behind that sweet innocent face, you know.’ Mari paused for a moment and decided to give Rosa a half version of the truth. ‘I wanted to compare the freelance rates in Dorset compared to California, that’s all,’ she replied with a smile and shrug. ‘Things have certainly changed a lot in the years since I last lived here. Apparently there’s Wi-Fi in the yacht club. Could this really be possible?’

And the moment the words had left her mouth, Mari instantly felt guilty about not telling her only sister the full truth. But she couldn’t reveal her secret just yet, no matter how much she was looking forward to seeing the look on Rosa’s face when she broke the news that she was buying back their childhood home. Rosa had been inconsolable when their little family of women had been evicted from the home where they’d once been so happy, and Mari knew how much she’d wanted to live there again.

But she couldn’t even hint that the house could be theirs until she was certain that everything was in place.

Rosa was sensitive enough to pick up that Mari was worried about her job security and with good reason. Mari Chance had been the provider in this family since the age of sixteen, when their father had left and their mother floundered in grief and despair.

It had been Mari’s decision to sacrifice her dreams of university so that she could leave school as soon as she could to work for a local business and become the breadwinner for Rosa and their mother. And she felt even more responsible now that Rosa was on her own and she had a high-flying job with a salary to make sure that Rosa was taken care of. Even if it did mean that they were apart—her sister had to come first before anything that Mari wanted in her own life.

Rosa was the only person in Mari’s life who she truly trusted but this was one time when she wasn’t ready to open up and share her fears and dreams for the future. She had worked too hard to give Rosa hope, only to see it replaced with bitter disappointment.

Luckily her sister was distracted by a lovely spaniel who dared to be out in the cold air without one of her knitted coats and, spotting a potential customer, Rosa pulled Mari closer and whispered, ‘See you back at the cottage. I’m on a mission. Bye for now. Oh—and thanks again for the photographs. I knew I could rely on you. We’ll talk more later.’ And with that, she released Mari all in a rush and scampered off in the direction of the spaniel, her hand already in her pocket looking for dog treats.

‘You’re welcome, sweetie,’ Mari replied in a low whisper nobody was going to hear as she watched Rosa laugh and smile with the spaniel’s lady owner. ‘You know you can always rely on me.’

Marigold Chance was never the girl called for sports teams or talent contests. She’d left that to her brilliant older brother Kit and her little sister Rosa. Both extroverts to the core. No, Mari was the person who’d stayed in the background and made the teas and watched the other people having fun. Usually at events she had organised and made happen. Every family needed a Mari to keep things working behind the scenes to make sure that everyone was safe and well and had what they needed. No matter how great the personal cost.

Especially in times of crisis when the whole world fell apart.

Mari shrugged off a shiver of sad memories, turned the corner and started down the narrow cobbled street towards the harbour, and was rewarded by the sight she never grew tired of—Swanhaven bay stretched out in front of her.

The sea was a wide expanse of dove-grey, flecked by bright white foam as the waves picked up in the icy wind. A bright smile warmed Mari’s face despite the cold. Swanhaven harbour had been built of granite blocks designed to protect the fishing fleet from the harsh English Channel. Now the long wide arms held more pleasure craft than local fishermen, but it was still a safe harbour and delightful marina which attracted visitors all year round, even on a cold February afternoon.

But that was not where she wanted to go before the early winter darkness fell. There was somewhere very special she wanted to visit now she was free for the rest of the day. The one place that meant more to her and Rosa than anywhere else in the world. She could hardly wait to see her old home again. Snow or no snow. Nothing was going to stop her now. Nothing at all.

‘Well, you know what your father’s like. Once he gets an idea in his head, nothing is going to stop him.’ His mother chuckled down Ethan Chandler’s cellphone, her voice faint and in snatches as it was carried away in the blustery wind. ‘He’s out by the pool at the moment and quite determined to experiment with all of the fancy extras on his new barbecue, even if we are in the middle of a mini heatwave. Which reminds me. How is the weather in Swanhaven at the moment?’

Ethan Chandler took a firm grip with his other hand on the tiller of the small sailing boat he had hired from the Swanhaven sailing school and let the fresh wind carry the light boat out from his private jetty into deeper water before answering. A spray of icy sea water crashed over the side of the boat and he moved the phone closer towards his mouth and under the shelter of his jacket.

‘You’ll be delighted to know that at the moment it is grey, wet and windy. And cold. Cold by Florida standards at least. You’re going to freeze next week.’

Her reply was a small sigh. ‘I did wonder. I remember only too well what February can be like. But don’t you worry. Your father and I wouldn’t miss seeing our new holiday home for anything. We are so proud of you, Ethan.’

Ethan inhaled a slow calming breath. Proud? Proud was the last thing his parents should be.

Far from it.

Apart from a couple of one-to-one sailing classes he had run as a personal favour to his old mentor at the Swanhaven Yacht Club, he had made it his business to keep out of sight and hide away at the house. The work that needed to be done was an excellent excuse for not socialising in the town but, the truth was, in a small town like Swanhaven, people had long memories. Ten years was nothing, and Kit Chance still had a lot of family in the area and the weight of the accident which killed Kit had become heavier and heavier the longer he stayed here.

Proud? No. The minute his parents were settled, he would be on the first flight back to Florida.

Luckily his mother did not give him a chance to reply. ‘And how are you managing at the house on your own?’

Ethan turned his head back towards the shore and enjoyed a half smile at the sight of the stunning one-storey home which hugged the wooded hillside on one side and the wide curve of the inlet on the other. Now that was something he could be proud of.

It was a superb location. Quiet, private and secluded but only ten minutes drive to Swanhaven, which lay around the headland in the next bay, and even faster by boat. Perfect.

‘Everything’s fine. I’m just heading out now to Swanhaven to pick up some groceries. But don’t worry, Mum. The team have done a great job and it will all be ready for next weekend.’ I hope.

‘That’s wonderful, darling. You’ve been so secretive these past few months; I can hardly wait to see what you’ve done with the place. And don’t you worry about your father. I know he was reluctant at first to let you manage the project, but you know how hard it is for him to hand over control of anything to anybody. He’s so pleased that you agreed to finish off the work for us. We both are. Who knows? With a bit of luck your father might actually start slowing down and think about retirement one day soon.’

Ethan fought down a positive reply but the words stuck in his throat.

It had taken a few years before his parents understood that their only son had no interest in becoming the fourth generation architect in Chandler and Chandler, Architects. Ethan had no intention of spending his life in an air-conditioned office looking out on the ocean when he could be on the waves himself, pushing himself harder and harder. He felt sorry to let them down but they eventually accepted the fact that he had his own life to lead and they had supported him as best they could.

The least he could do was come over to Swanhaven and finish off their retirement home for them. It was ironic that his mother had chosen to come back to Swanhaven of all places, but she had grown up in the area and they had some happy memories of the summers they spent here before the accident which changed all of their lives. His most of all.

They had talked about Swanhaven many times and he knew that, although his mother loved this bay, they had chosen not to come back here because of the accident and how he felt about it.

But now they were ready to move on and this house was a symbol of that.

And if they could cope with having a holiday home here, then he would have to learn to live with that. It was the moving part that he had a problem with. But that was his problem, not theirs, and there was no way he was going to spoil his mother’s delight in her new house.

‘Good luck with that one, Mum. If anyone can do it, you can.’

‘Well, thank you for that vote of confidence. Oh, I’m now being called to ogle some gizmo or gadget. Keep safe, darling. And see you next Saturday. Keep safe.’

Keep safe. That was what she used to say at the dockside before he set out on a dangerous sea journey. They were always her final words. Only a year ago they had been squeezed out through tears when he left for the Green Globe round-the-world race. Now he could hear warmth and an almost casual tone in her voice through the broken reception.

So much had changed. Now she was saying it before a short shopping trip across the bay to Swanhaven, not months spent alone battling the most treacherous oceans in the world where a simple mistake could cost him the boat or his life. Or both. Where he could be out of contact with the world for hours. Perhaps days.

Now she could call him from the kitchen of their lovely Florida home and know precisely where he would be for at least six months of the year. Safe and out of harm’s way. Running sailing courses at the international yacht club where troubled teenagers from all over the state could receive the help they needed to rebuild their lives.

And she was happier than he had seen her for a long time.

How could she understand that he had chosen to abandon his comfortable car in Swanhaven and come out in wild wet weather in a boat which was smaller than the one he used to have as a boy, just to feel the wind and the spray? To sense the reaction of the rudder under his hand as the tiny sail stretched out to the fullest it had probably ever seen as he angled the craft into the wind at just the perfect inclination to squeeze every drop of speed.

He knew this stretch of water like the back of his own hand. Kit had shown him where the currents lay over shallow water and the best place to turn into the wind so that they could practice how to use the sails.

Ethan smiled to himself and shifted the tiller just a little more. Just seeing this part of the bay again on his first day had brought back so many fine memories, and some sad ones. Those summers spent sailing every day with Kit Chance had been some of the happiest times of his life. And he still missed him.

Over the past year or two his mother had dropped not so subtle questions about when he planned to stop pushing himself harder and harder with each yacht race. He had always laughed it off. But she had a point. Maybe there was more to life than competitive sailing? But he had not found it yet. Teaching kids to sail for a few months a year had done nothing to lessen his need to be at the helm of a boat, on his own, testing the boundaries, running faster and faster. But it was a start.

Kit would have loved it. But he couldn’t. Because he had died in a freak accident nobody could have predicted or prevented. And Ethan had survived. The burden of that guilt still lay heavy on his shoulders. Especially in this town where Kit had grown up. So far he had managed to keep a low profile and focus on the work at hand.

Ethan shrugged the tension away from his shoulders.

He had seven days to finish the house before his parents flew into London, then he would get back to honouring Kit in the only way he knew how. By sailing to the max and teaching young people how to live their lives to the full, just as Kit had done.

With a bit of luck his parents might actually like what he had done. Especially when they found out that he had made a couple of alterations to the original plans. Instead of an extended parking area, Ethan had built a solid garage, workshop, boathouse and jetty. These were his personal gifts to his parents. And particularly his father.

Maybe, just maybe, they could find the time to sail out on their own boat together from their private jetty, like they used to, when he came back in July to make good his promise to open the Swanhaven regatta.

Now that was something worth looking forward to.

A squall of icy sleet hit Ethan straight in the face and he roared with laughter and dropped his head back in joy. That was more like it. Bring it on. Bring. It. On.

Marigold Chance thrust her hands deep inside the pockets of her thick padded down coat and braced herself against the freezing wind, which was whipping up the sand onto the path that led away from Swanhaven and out past the marina and jetty to the wild part of the Dorset shoreline.

Leaving the village behind, she walked as fast as she could to get warm, her target already in sight. A slow winding path started on the shore then rose slowly up and onto the grassy banks onto the low chalk hills which became cliffs at the other end of the bay.

Steps had been cut into the cliff face from the beach, but Mari paused and closed her eyes for a moment before she stepped forward, desperate to clear her head and try to relieve the throbbing headache which had been nagging at the back of her neck for the past twenty-four hours.

This part of the beach was made up of pebbles which had been smoothed by the relentless action of the waves back and forth to form fine powder sand in places and large cobblestones in others. It had been snowing when she arrived in Swanhaven and the air was still cold enough to keep the snow in white clumps on top of the frozen ice trapped between the stones at the top end of the beach where she was walking. The heavy winter seas carried with them pieces of driftwood and seaweed that floated in the cold waters of a shipping lane like the English Channel.

For once Mari was glad to feel the cold fresh wind buffeting her cheeks as she snuggled low inside the warm coat, a windproof hat pulled well down over her ears.

The relentless pressure of her job as a computer systems trouble-shooter was starting to get to her, but exhaustion came with the job and it was all worth it. In a few years she would be able to start her own business and work from home as an internet consultant. With modern technology, she could work from home and run an online internet advisory business from anywhere in the world, and that included Swanhaven. This small coastal town where she had spent the first eighteen years of her life was where she wanted to make a life and create a stable, long-standing home, safe and warm, for herself and Rosa. A home nobody could take away from her. From either of them.

Mari inhaled slowly to calm her breathing and focused on the sound of the seagulls calling above her head, dogs barking on the shore and the relentless beat of the waves.

She could still hear the flap of the pennants on the boats in the marina and the musical sound of the wind in the rigging of the sailing boats.

This was the soundtrack of her early life, which had stayed with her no matter where she might be living and working. Here she could escape the relentless cacophony of cars, aircraft engines, noisy air conditioning and frantic telephone calls in the middle of the night from IT departments whose servers had crashed. In her shoulder bag there were three smartphones and two mobile phones. But right now, for one whole precious hour, she had turned everything off.

And it was bliss. Her breathing tuned into the rhythm of the ebb and flow of the waves on the shore and for a fraction of a second she felt as though she was a girl again and she had never left Swanhaven.

Sailing and the sea had formed a fundamental part of her childhood. She loved the sea with a passion. She knew how cruel it could be, but there was no finer place in the world. And Kit would understand that.

Turning her back to the wind, Mari slipped the glove from her left hand and reached into the laptop bag she carried everywhere. Her fingers touched a precious photograph and she carefully drew it out of the bag, holding tightly so that it would not be snatched away in the gusty wind. It was only right that she should look at this photograph here of all places, even though it had been around the world with her more than once. Not like Kit’s best friend Ethan Chandler, on the deck of some horrendously expensive racing yacht, battling the ocean for his very life, but inside a bag which went into the cabins of aircraft and hotel rooms and even restaurants and offices and computer server rooms.

The smiling face of her mother looked back at her from the photograph. She was a tall, slim, pretty woman with freckled skin illuminated by the sunlight reflected back from the water in the sunny harbour of Swanhaven. One of her arms was draped around Rosa’s shoulders. Rosa must have been about fourteen then and so full of life and fun and energy. Her baby sister was always ready to smile into the camera without a hint of embarrassment or hesitation. But this time Rosa and her mother had something to laugh about—because they were watching Kit playing the fool. As always. Seventeen years old and full of mischief, Kit was their hero, full of life and energy and funny, handsome and charming—everyone loved him, and he was indulged and spoiled. Kit would not sit still for a moment, always jumping about, always wanting to be in the action, especially when it came to the water and sailing.

Mari remembered the day she’d taken the photograph so well. It was the Easter holiday and the sailing club had been open for a training day. Of course Kit was the instructor, yet again, but he was not content to simply smile for his younger sister, but had to leap forward onto one knee and wave jazz hands at her, which, of course, made Rosa and her mother laugh even louder. This was her happy family she loved, so natural and so unrehearsed. Just a typical shot of a mum having fun with her three kids on a trip to the marina.

Looking at the image now, she could almost feel the sun on her face and the wind in her hair on that April morning when she’d captured the precious moment in time when they’d all been so happy together. It was hard to believe that she had taken the photograph only a few months before the yacht race in the annual Swanhaven Sailing Regatta when they lost Kit in a freak accident and the thin fabric of safe, loving little family was ripped apart.