Starting Over at the Little Cornish Beach House Read online

  Also by Nancy Barone

  Dreams of a Little Cornish Cottage

  No Room at the Little Cornish Inn

  New Hope for the Little Cornish Farmhouse

  STARTING OVER AT THE LITTLE CORNISH BEACH HOUSE

  Nancy Barone

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.ariafiction.com

  First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus

  This edition first published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

  First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © Nancy Barone, 2022

  The moral right of Nancy Barone to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (PB): 9781803284361

  ISBN (E): 9781803284354

  Cover design: Nina Elstad

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  To Lidia, the strongest woman I know and love.

  Prologue

  July

  ‘Gabe?’ I called, shoving the front door closed with my hip as the heavy grocery bags slid to the floor from my now purpling fingers.

  ‘Faith, you’re back…’ Gabe leaned over the glass railing overlooking the two-storey living room, his hair still wild from our marathon last night.

  ‘You bet your Gibson guitar, I am, baby!’ I chimed as he rushed down the stairs to help and I leaned in to kiss his luscious mouth while chucking off my sandals that were full of sand and grass.

  ‘Please don’t tell me you climbed all the way up the path again,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you drive?’

  ‘Because the views are worth the effort.’ Especially on a gloriously sunny day like this, the south-west coastal path was like paradise, especially in this part in south Cornwall.

  ‘I stopped by Cornish Born and Bread to get you your favourite blueberry muffins. Let me just put the kettle on and I’ll be with you in a jiffy.’

  ‘Wait, Faith…’ he said, tugging gently on my hand. ‘Come and sit down a minute, will you?’

  I obeyed instantly, my knees turning to rubber. I knew that look. That was his bad news look.

  ‘Oh God, is someone ill? My sister? One of the kids? I left my mobile here—’ They were all I had now, besides him.

  ‘Your family’s fine,’ he reassured me, his hands on my elbows almost as if to keep me from jumping to my feet.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  He ran a hand through his blond hair, taking a deep breath. ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, Faith, but… I’ve met someone else. Please don’t hate me.’

  Any second he was going to laugh and say, ‘Fooled you, you silly sausage!’ But he didn’t. Instead, he looked at me while he joined his hands as if in prayer, exactly the same way he did at the end of his concerts when he played ‘Impossibly You’, the most beautiful song he’d ever written for me. I sat still, my mind numb and my lungs frozen in a sudden permafrost.

  ‘But… but… up until last night…’

  And just like that, even if I hadn’t even been born yet, I saw my father on the night he left my mother. I saw her bawling, begging him, and him pushing her away, telling her he was already married. How betrayed and abandoned she must have felt! I didn’t want to bawl like she had. But all the same, tears fell hot on my cheeks as I struggled to understand. And I’d thought that buying this house would have been, in a sense, a way of vindicating my poor mum.

  Because Gabe and I weren’t like my parents. We were happy even with each other’s faults. Where Gabe had tendencies to live the life of a rock star to its fullest by being scatterbrained and a spendthrift, I kept him on the straight and narrow. Where I was insecure, he reminded me about my qualities, assuring me I would never have to doubt myself – or his love for me. Until a moment ago, we had been ‘Indelible’, just like another one of the songs he’d written for me. So how had this happened all of a sudden? How could he go from loving me one minute, to leaving me the very next?

  This was my own mother’s trauma all over again, and, by a strange twist of fate, in the very same house.

  ‘S-someone else?’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘B-but how? Why?’

  He sighed as if to say Where do I begin? Which was insane. I was the one who put up with a lot of nonsense from him – not vice versa. And then he shrugged. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, Faith. I just… Jesus, this is so hard – I just need someone less staid, less sentimental. Someone less dependent on me, is all.’

  ‘Less dependent?’ I knew it. I knew that pouring out my heart to him about my childhood was more than he could take. But then, if I didn’t tell him, my fiancé, who was I ever going to tell?

  ‘I mean emotionally independent. Someone more proactive.’

  ‘More proactive?’ I dashed a hand across my eyes. ‘I started my own design company at twenty-four. Despite my childhood. I have six people working for me. I don’t take a penny of your money. Who is she? Someone you’ve met on tour?’

  His eyes shot to mine, and then down to his hands. ‘It’s Vanessa…’

  ‘Vanessa?’ Which meant nothing to me, because I only knew one Vanessa who was a cross between Courtney Love and Paris Hilton. And then I saw it on his face. ‘You do mean Vanessa… Chatsbury, my professional nemesis…’

  ‘Yes…’

  The one who has made it her life’s goal to steal all my clients and who took a picture of me at the design awards ceremony when my skirt split open. She’d even posted it on Instagram with the caption Half-arsed creativity, to boot.

  ‘But… you know all that she’s done to me…’

  Gabe sighed. ‘She’s driven. That doesn’t make her a bad person.’

  ‘No, it makes her a regular Florence Nightingale,’ I blubbered, covering my face with both my hands. When had all this happened?

  ‘Come on, Faith. You must have felt something between us wasn’t right anymore?’

  ‘You mean like last night?’ I bawled through my fingers.

  How was I supposed to have felt it, when he said he couldn’t get enough of me? I
t was all my fault for loving him too much. Just like my mum had loved my dad. And where had that got her, if not into clinical depression and alcoholism, leading to her death? But that wasn’t going to happen to me. I was not my mother, despite my own teenage struggles with alcoholism, which I’d overcome. I would never go down again.

  I shot to my feet and dragged the shopping to the counter, fumbling for the muffins, which I shoved into my handbag.

  ‘Faith, please don’t hate me…’ he whispered, coming to stand behind me.

  ‘These,’ I bawled, ‘are coming with me.’ There. Let him buy his own blasted blueberry muffins. ‘If you want some, go and face Karen and the rest of Perrancombe and tell them what an absolute heartless arse you are, because I’m out of here!’

  He hung his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets. ‘Are you going to Truro? To your sister’s?’

  ‘Where else do you want me to go?’

  He followed me up the glass staircase into our master bedroom where I began to pull open drawers and cram some of my stuff into a wheelie suitcase.

  I loved every inch of this house and every moment of our life together. If I had managed to be happy here, then my life would have served a meaningful purpose. But not anymore.

  I tucked my mum’s diary among my clothes, nestled and protected from the ugliness of the moment, all too similar to her own break-up. I wish I could take this entire home with me, for her as well. But I could only take my memories and my broken heart, just like she had. A diary and a picture of the house, with the breakwater in the background. I’d had so many dreams for our future. And a proper family, something I’d never had. I couldn’t believe he didn’t love me anymore and that he was doing this to me. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t told me before going straight to dumping me. Who did that?

  I shoved the last of my things into the suitcase and rushed down the stairs, my luggage bumping against each step.

  He followed me, rubbing the back of his neck, obviously upset, but not as much as I was. I took one last glance around before throwing myself out of the only happy home I’d ever known, the very house where I had been conceived. The very house where we could have started the family I pined for.

  1

  Hello (It’s Me)

  Six months later

  ‘Hello, Faith. Long time no hear…’ comes Gabe’s gravelly voice over the phone, making my heartbeat shift to a rumba dance. I’m so shocked at his phone call that I’ve dropped my mobile and am scrambling to retrieve it, his contact photo still filling my screen to assure me I haven’t lost the connection.

  Long time indeed. Six months of singledom is an entire lifetime when, after three years of love, your boyfriend dumps you for your professional nemesis.

  ‘Er… hello, Gabe…’

  Everyone, from my sister, Hope, to my girlfriends to my design crew had all supported me through it, assuring me I was much better off without him, and that being the golden boy of the pop charts didn’t give him the right to treat me as he had. And, over endless evenings and tons of chocolate (just to make sure I didn’t hit the bottle all over again) I had somewhat reluctantly, though technically, agreed with them all.

  But I can’t help but remember that Gabe and I also had good times. No one would ever understand what Gabe and I had when we did have it. No one had ever loved me the way he’d loved me – while it had lasted. And no one knows about the time he’d stayed up with me all night to help me finish decorating my best clients’ new home – or how I’d supported him through a nasty bout of depression when his cousin Charlie died.

  Gabe would do simple but kind things for me, like bring me a cup of chamomile and give me a shoulder rub when I was stressed or down or simply exhausted. Whenever he was away on tour, which was very often, he’d call me just minutes before going on stage, just to hear my voice. ‘It makes me feel ten feet tall, to know you love me,’ he used to say.

  And no one, not even my sister Hope, knows how he would hold me in the middle of the night when I woke up sobbing after dreaming about the night my father had abandoned my mother, leaving her a mess. And consequently Hope and myself, daughters of a home that was already broken before we were even born.

  But when I met Gabe, it was like the floodgates had opened and years and years of loneliness had simply gushed out of me as I’d poured my heart out to him. And he, in turn, had confessed his own awful childhood to me and his fears about flubbing his career as a rock star. But all it would take was a quick pep talk from me and he’d be back in the saddle, whilst it had always been difficult for me to believe in my own worth. We were twin souls drifting that had finally reached safe ground, finding somebody to love.

  We’d been through all the stages: meet, date, fall in love, commit and buy a house. And when we’d viewed this one, my heart had stopped at the realisation that this was the same house my mother and father had vacationed at. I had recognised it from the views from the back to the sea. What were the odds of something like that happening? It was a sign.

  But after that, the following stages of Us were pretty basic: cry, move out of the beach house – the only place I’d ever felt safe and wanted since I was born – and move out of the picture-perfect Cornish seaside village of Perrancombe to a flat in Truro. End of.

  Perhaps, I now acknowledge, I loved him a bit too much, because eventually, even Gabe had tired of my insecurities. I had, in effect, proven to him I was no better than my mother. And that’s when all my insecurities came flooding back as if they’d never left me, memories of my childhood flushing out my happier ones with Gabe as if they’d never deserted my mind in the first place, filling every inch of good headspace.

  Had I actually pushed him into Vanessa’s arms without realising it? Had I not been good enough for him? Or perhaps not famous enough, like Vanessa? After all, he is a rock star. Or is it simply because I’m just not lovable enough? Am I more leaveable than lovable?

  It’s surprising how quickly sad thoughts can take over, dominating and domineering despite your best efforts to keep your head above the raging waters of fear. It has taken me the whole of these past six months to understand just how much my insecurities had ruined our relationship.

  And now, six months A.G., After Gabe, I take care to not depend on people emotionally. Nor do I even dream of getting involved with anyone lest I revert back to my previous weakness and fall in love again.

  But despite myself, even after all this time, he still has this effect on me. He is the only person I have ever loved – and ever will. What could he possibly want from me, after all that had been said and done, and just as I’ve finally convinced myself to at least try and forget him once and for all?

  ‘Happy New Year, by the way,’ he says.

  I look around my flat. There is absolutely nothing new or happy about it, if you don’t count the Christmas cards stacked on my kitchen counter that I haven’t even bothered to open. Festive is not exactly one of my top priorities at the moment.

  And then his voice drops an octave to a more caring tone. ‘How are you, Faith? I mean really?’

  If I didn’t know him better I’d swear he’s gloating. How am I? Not as good as he sounds, that’s for sure. Because while he’s having wild sex with Psycho-Vanessa in our beautiful home, I’m barely holding it together here with my new friend, i.e. my goldfish Jawsy. Not even she (he?) is happy with me, staring at me with those huge eyes day in, day out, probably wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of our lives.

  ‘F-fine, thank you. What can I, er, do for you?’

  ‘You always assume I want something.’

  ‘Am I wrong?’ Please tell me I’m wrong.

  ‘Ah, but this time it’s different. This time, I’m giving you something. A huge job. I want you to renovate the beach house for me.’

  The beach house? My former home?

  ‘Faith? Are you there?’

  I swallow the knot forming in my throat. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘I’m on tour in Thai
land at the moment, but I’ve left you a cheque on my desk in the study. All you have to do is say yes, cash it and get to work.’

  I sigh. ‘Gabe, just a tip for you: never leave a signed cheque lying around – and never, ever tell an ex-girlfriend where the money is. I could easily take it and run.’

  He softly strums his guitar. ‘You would never do that, Faith. Besides, this was your home, too.’

  He can’t be doing this to me! I’ve just barely managed to pull all the shards of myself together, reorganising my life without him and all the things we used to do, and now this?

  ‘So what do you say?’

  I say I’m sooo not ready for this, and I don’t think I ever will be. Because merely stepping through the front door and plunging back into a past I’m still trying to get over would kill me. So I straighten my shoulders and take a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it.’

  The now pleading twang of his guitar comes through the ether. He’s never far from his guitars, Gabe. ‘I understand, Faith. But you must have seen what Vanessa’s done to the place? It’s an absolute shambles.’

  Seen it I have – four full glossy pages in Arch-Design, the publication belonging to the gurus of interior design, Lord and Lady Wickford, where my rival in work and love Vanessa boasts about how she has transformed a traditional Cornish beach house into a rock star’s dream home. And to think that everyone secretly refers to her as ‘Hurricane Vanessa’, and not in a good way.

  ‘Apart from my recording studio, Vanessa has completely changed the atmosphere,’ he complains.

  She’s also changed you, I want to retort, but my decision to be amicable about the split, and to not go under as my mum had, has compelled me to make an effort to be civilised and not say everything that I think. Which is a feat in its own.

  I can just picture him in his usual black skinny jeans and his Girls Love A Rock Star T-shirt, with his boyish face and spiky blond hair, strumming away, desperately searching for his next hit. He always got rather panicky when it didn’t come to him immediately, and I would encourage him to be patient.