The House At the End of the Street Read online

  THE HOUSE

  AT THE

  End of the Street

  JENNIE JONES

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  Also by Jennie Jones

  The House on Burra Burra Lane

  12 Days at Silver Bells House (novella)

  The House at the Bottom of the Hill

  The Turnaround Treasure Shop (novella)

  About the Author

  Born in Wales and now living in Australia, Jennie Jones loved everything with a romantic element from an early age. That’s why she became an actor before she started writing. She toured the UK in all the grand old theatres, becoming someone else for two hours, eight performances a week and loving every second.

  Now, Jennie loves writing rich, warm-hearted, and refreshing stories of adventures of the heart. She’s a self-confessed would-be small-town country girl and longs for the day when she and her family can set up home in a cute country cottage in the middle of a huge field. Until then, Jennie is enjoying life a five-minute walk from the beach. She can hear the ocean as she types her stories.

  She says writing keeps her artistic nature dancing and her imagination bubbling, and like acting, she can’t envisage a day when it will ever get boring.

  Thanks for reading The House at the End of the Street. Jennie hopes you enjoyed it.

  If you’d like to know more about Jennie, her books, or to connect with her online, visit her webpage jenniejonesromance.com, follow her on Twitter @JennieJRomance, or like her Facebook page facebook.com/pages/Jennie-Jones-Romance-Author

  For Karen C and Karen B, my bridesmaids from so long ago. You are

  still my best friends, even with seas and oceans dividing us.

  Contents

  Also by Jennie Jones

  About the Author

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Acknowledgements

  One

  Gemma Munroe checked the sports watch on her wrist. Eight forty-five am. Not much time to mull over the calamitous state of her affairs, Sunday or not: in fifteen minutes she’d be coaching the kids’ soccer team; at eleven she’d open the toy shop. First, she had an aging rabbit who needed morning cuddles. She lifted the curtain on the window of the flat she leased above the toy shop, peered outside and shivered.

  Get matched! Speed-dating at Kookaburra’s. Second Saturday in July.

  Gem swallowed her sigh. That damned billboard.

  Not having been kissed for three years shouldn’t be on the list of calamities—which included having to call her father to ask for fifty thousand dollars so she could keep a roof over her head—but the billboard meant she could ignore it no longer. Everyone in town was trying to get her to speed date. If the Tillman twins weren’t two of her best friends, she might have strangled them both for falling in love with twin brothers who worked outside town on the Pebble Creek Wind Farm project. With their double wedding only seven weeks away, the town’s elders had decided something magical had happened and were keen to see how far they could shove providence and keep their community populated and flourishing.

  She ran her fingertips over the soft black and white fur of Thumper, her rescue rabbit. ‘Eat up, Thumps. Time’s a-wasting.’

  She lifted her shoulders to her ears and let them drop, trying to release the tension she’d slept with, then turned to the window again and leaned her forehead on the glass. This morning the sky was crisp blue. The claret ash trees lining Main Street were laden with clusters of tiny silver lights and a nightfall’s worth of snow. The town’s old truck chugged down Main Street, the attached plough clearing last night’s deluge.

  After years of living in Europe, even Gem, born and raised in Australia, had trouble believing it was only the middle of July and not Christmas.

  She let the next sigh out, and the pane of glass in front of her nose steamed up.

  Once Jess and Jillian Tillman got married, Gem would be the only single girl living in town. Not that she considered twenty-seven to be anywhere near past it—or even chugging up the hill towards it—but a girl had her pride. Most days anyway …

  She rubbed the condensation with her hand. The speed-dating notice was replicated on the door of Kookaburra’s hotel and pub, which was only four doors down from Gem’s Cuddly Bear Toy Shop and far too close for comfort. Especially since, by all accounts, the prodigal was on his way home and about to take up residence there.

  Josh Rutherford: the stray, the drifter—or whatever he’d been doing for the last decade—was on his way home. His return meant she might lose the one thing she loved more than Thumper—the toy shop. He was selling it.

  She’d loved Josh, too—all her life. Well, from the age of seven; couldn’t say much about him before that, because he’d been in high school and Gem in primary. But there was no way she wanted to rake over the memory of a kiss that happened ten years ago.

  She glanced across the road to the wall art she’d started on the rendered brick of the stock feeders’ back when the summer sun was out in January. She’d wondered when she’d get time to complete it. If she lost the toy shop, she might have all the time in the world.

  Where would she live if she didn’t have the shop? What would she do? There was little employment around to begin with. Her heart was committed to the shop—her mother had bought it when Gem was a toddler, she’d done her homework in the back room—and her resolve was absolute about the country lifestyle she wanted, but her financial status had two years to catch up. If only the all-time shit hadn’t divorced her mum, forcing the sale of Cuddly Bear to Josh’s mother. She couldn’t think of a way to get the last fifty grand she needed to purchase the shop quickly enough except to make that phone call to Nigel Munroe, her father. Due to an unfortunate scenario which had seen her savings stolen, he’d agreed to give Gemma a small sum from her future inheritance so she could deal with start-up costs. Since then, she’d handled everything on her own, but because he was trustee of her inheritance, he’d insisted on acting as her intermediary with Josh’s trustees over the lease of the shop. He’d never thought a woman capable of handling business because he was an all-time shit. Now she’d have to ask him to turn the tap on full flow.

  If only Josh had stayed away another two years, she’d have saved the money herself, regardless of the inheritance that would be hers when she turned thirty.

  She took one more look at the dating billboard then bent and kissed Thumper’s head, picked him up, tickling him under the chin as she left the two-roomed flat and made her way down the narrow staircase, through the shop and out the back door. She plopped Thumper in his straw-filled hutch in the cosy pergola area she’d rearranged when she’d come home three years ago. The rabbit dived for cover under sheets of newspaper, taking a bunch of celery leaves with him.

  She checked his water bottle and food bowl, then went back through the shop, grabbing her kit bag and making sure her change of clothes was waiting for her. She braced for the cold and let herself out the shop door. Her breath clouded the air in front of her face, her scalp tingled and her heart bounced at the thought of what she would be dealing with today. The nip of frosty air on her skin helped bring her out of her gloomy thoughts—bor
dering on cranky.

  She licked her lips, tasting the pineapple-flavoured lip balm she’d applied, as she pulled her pink baseball cap from the waistband of her track pants and put it on her head, tucking her shoulder-length tangle of blonde hair inside in case it froze to her ears. She locked the shop door and stood back on the empty wooden walkway, hands in the pockets of the thick woollen cardigan she wore over her soccer strip.

  Please don’t let Josh still be handsome, fit and fine. Please let him have aged badly, even at the age of thirty-three.

  She pictured the twenty-three-year-old Josh, with a gallant smile for anyone around him who might need one; the dangerously sexy young man who’d left town for a better life, or to make money, or just to get away.

  Maybe the rumours about him returning were wrong. Maybe it was the same name but a different guy. Maybe he wasn’t coming back to sell the toy shop and maybe she wouldn’t have to call the all-time shit.

  She studied the shop. Icicles dripped in solid formation from the top of the bay window, making the building even more quaint. A laurel-green and ruddy-pink emporium filled with games, puzzles, books and happiness. It was hers in all but name. Should have been hers all along. What a shame people had to grow up and get married and get divorced.

  ‘Is he here yet?’

  Gem turned to Lily Barton, who was opening her Turnaround Treasures shop door.

  ‘Who?’

  Lily laughed. ‘Your boyfriend. God, I can’t to wait see him, I’ve missed him.’ Lily patted her arms around her tall, yoga-slim body. She’d wrapped herself in leggings, woolly jumper, scarf and beanie.

  ‘He wasn’t my boyfriend,’ Gem said.

  ‘Ten years, Gemma! Imagine it. Wonder what he’s coming back for?’

  To sell the toy shop. ‘No idea.’ Something else she’d kept hidden from the townspeople, along with the torment of her true feelings for Josh. They didn’t know. They didn’t understand that Josh had no idea it was Gem who’d been running his shop for the last three years. That Josh hadn’t cared. That his trustees—some fancy-pants company in Sydney—received the monthly income from the lease and any reports her father chose to send them.

  ‘What did happen with you two, Gem?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Rubbish. The two of you were so close, then suddenly—’ Lily threw her hands in the air. ‘You weren’t even looking at each other, never mind talking.’

  ‘I was seventeen. He was twenty-three.’ Gem shrugged. ‘We simply no longer had anything in common.’

  Lily frowned.

  Gem closed her eyes, attempting—and failing—to crush the memory of Josh’s kiss ten years ago. Unfortunately, it had been, and remained, the most memorable touch from a man she’d received.

  ‘Good morning, dear. Love in the air, is it?’

  Gem turned to Mrs Tam with her first smile of the day. Darling Mrs Tam. The town’s heart. Running a-thousand-and-one errands of kindness whenever and wherever she was needed. The female equivalent of Grandy, the patriarch who’d watched over Swallow’s Fall and guided everybody in town, if they’d needed it. Sometimes whether they’d wanted it or not.

  It was Mrs Tam Josh had written to, asking about his mother’s old house and maybe trying to get an evaluation of how his return would be taken.

  ‘Won’t be long now before we see our Josh. How’s your heart holding up, Gemma?’

  He hadn’t arrived yet and already people were on her case. ‘Fine, Mrs Tam. That was a schoolgirl crush, remember?’

  Mrs Tam lifted her hand to pat the bun that had sat on the top of her head for as long as Gem could remember. As kids, they used to bet on whether or not she slept with her then jet-black hair in its bun, wondering if it was a wig. ‘A crush only has two ways to go,’ she said. ‘It can melt and disappear, or the excitement and the anticipation of more can carry you away.’ She wagged a plump finger at Gem. ‘Watch your heart, young Gemma, that’s all I’m saying. Tension lasts a long time when it’s not released. Years, sometimes, and you and Josh have had a decade apart.’

  Gem swallowed her unease at the advice. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so ardent about refusing to buy a ticket for the speed-dating do. Maybe she should have gone out with the few guys from the wind farm project when they’d asked her. Maybe then people wouldn’t be so determined to see the friendship she’d had with Josh blossom to something more. Too late now. The prodigal would have to take her as he found her.

  She couldn’t still be in love with him, could she?

  Not that he would care any more. What would he see? A twenty-seven-year-old spinster. What a terrible word. It should be struck from the dictionary.

  ‘She’s looking downright grumpy,’ Lily said to Mrs Tam.

  ‘Not me,’ Gem said, and lifted the sides of her mouth—hopefully it looked like a smile.

  ‘It’s excitement,’ Mrs Tam said.

  It was just a mood swing. She’d expected the ribbing from the Tillman twins and from Lily. She was waiting for Sammy Granger to try to push her and Josh together because Sammy was Swallow’s Fall’s self-proclaimed matchmaker, and Sammy wouldn’t let the past rest, Gem knew. But with Mrs Tam getting on board, it looked like the whole town might be on her case.

  Gem hefted her kit bag onto her shoulder. ‘See you both later.’

  ‘Have a lovely day,’ Mrs Tam called.

  ‘I will!’ Not.

  Gem trudged across the street to the sports field. No point, or time, to mull over history and worry herself stupid about seeing Josh again. Whatever was going to happen, she’d have to face it.

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered as she walked between the stock feeders’ and the pioneer cemetery.

  Josh Rutherford stepped from the warmed interior of his hire car to the icy air of his hometown. Nothing like an immediate chill factor to remind a guy he was fifteen thousand kilometres south-east of his comfort zone. Swallow’s Fall: population an incredible one hundred and twenty-nine if the sign at the northern entrance to town was right. Thirty more than when he’d left. One thing was for sure: Main Street had changed. The B&B was no longer pink but yellow. The town hall had had a makeover too—and so had Josh.

  He brushed at the light fall of snow landing on the sleeves of his cashmere overcoat, opened the wool jacket beneath, and took a moment to check that his business shirt was tucked into the waistband of his dark denim jeans. His fingers numbed and shook a little. It would take him a while to get used to this climate again.

  He’d dressed carefully for his return but now he was here, the smart clothes felt wrong. He doubted he’d ever blend in but neither did he want to stand out. Not that his return was in any way hallowed. He hadn’t expected a parade on arrival but here he was, parked in town with nobody to welcome him. Not even Mrs Tam, who’d replied to his letter a week ago, telling him how delighted everyone would be to see him again. Josh doubted everyone would be happy. He pushed the dilemma away. Once his business was done, he’d never come back, so there was little point in worrying about anything else.

  A blanket of pristine white covered the railings of the raised walkway to his left, and people had been out with their shovels on the pavement to his right. It looked like a snow plough had been in and cleared most of the road. When had they bought a snow plough? The mid-winter morning light lent a burnished shine to the bare branches of the claret ash trees lining Main Street, making it look like a captivating painting of a time-gone-by country town.

  The golden hue of the lights inside Kookaburra’s hotel beckoned. The sight of his old workplace did something to the regular beat of his heart and regret stirred inside him.

  He turned, being careful not to slip. His brown leather shoes weren’t a match for any ice underfoot. There were billboards everywhere, announcing some speed-dating event. Maybe this was how Swallow’s Fall populated its township these days.

  He ran an eye down the wooden walkway and the businesses. So much development. The grocer’s had turned into what looked like a gourmet m
ini-mart. Morelly’s Hardware had changed ownership to Barton’s Hardware. A smile grew as he pictured Grandy Morelly sitting outside his store, watching the town. What would Grandy say about all this change? Josh raised his face to heaven and tapped two fingers to his forehead in a salute to the old man. I’m back, Grandy. He didn’t ask what Grandy thought about how his return would be taken. No need to kick up dust on that one. He was here. He’d booked his room at the only hotel and for the first time ever, he was able to pay his way. Pride in the accomplishment settled the unexpected nerves beating in his chest.

  There was a whole string of shops in town now, open for business, even on a Sunday. But winter was Swallow’s Fall’s goldmine. Tourists making their way from the beaches in the east to the ski slopes a two-hour drive west from the 170-year-old alpine town trying to do its best to survive. Before heading for the cast-iron balustrades in front of Kookaburra’s swing doors, he glanced at Cuddly Bear Toy Shop. His trustees had told him it was open for business seven days a week. He hadn’t wanted further information on what or how things happened with his mother’s shop—his now—other than the quarterly update about the income from the lease that the trustees mailed to him. A couple of years ago he’d been asked by the trustees to put up a small amount of money for a renovation, which he’d agreed to. A good move; it looked in fine fettle. Maybe he’d get a better deal for the shop than he’d thought. He wondered if he’d have to wrangle with the woman who leased it; his trustees told him she was hoping to buy it. As far as Josh was concerned, if she had the money, she could have it. Something hard and cold slammed into his jaw, sending him reeling. He grabbed at the roof rack on the car, steadied himself and straightened. A soccer ball bounced off the bonnet and fell to the ground, ten centimetres of snow in the gutter bringing it to a stop.

  ‘Don’t know my own strength,’ a woman called. ‘Couldn’t kick it back, could you?’

  Josh took hold of his jaw and jiggled it to evaluate the damage. Not broken but still stinging. He turned to the area between the stock feeders’ building, covered by scaffolding for some reason, and the pioneer cemetery. The gap used to lead to nothing but fields. When had they built a park?