A Heart Stuck On Hope Read online

  A Heart Stuck on Hope: A Dollar for a Dream

  Jennie Jones

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  A Heart Stuck on Hope

  Jennie Jones

  Move to the country for $1 a week.

  Dulili is suffering a people drought. Over the years more people have moved away than have arrived to stay in this old New South Wales farming town, and now only a handful of young families and elderly residents are left. The locals put a plan into action to entice newcomers: offering the town’s empty houses to newcomers from anywhere in Australia. Who could resist renting a beautiful homestead for a dollar a week?

  There’s nothing left for Adele Devereux in Sydney: no job, no relationship, no hope, and no diagnosis for her shy, uncommunicative daughter Ali. So she packs her bags, takes her meagre savings, and moves her small family to the country. She never expects to meet Tom Wade, a man facing his own hopeless situation, but whose kindness reaches her daughter in an unexpected friendship. As the small town of Dulili attempts to regenerate itself, Adele finds herself drawn further in to the community – and into her attraction to Tom.

  Tom is not back in Dulili to build a relationship. He’s there to heal wounds, help his grandmother, and make new plans. Plans that don’t include his grandmother’s new tenant, part of the Dulili dollar scheme. But as Adele and Ali effortlessly work their way into his thoughts and his heart, he realises that there are two crucial elements that he left out of his long-term plans – the chance for love and renewed hope for the future.

  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, touring the UK’s 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 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.

  Acknowledgements

  I thank my fellow Dulili authors Catherine Evans and Lisa Ireland from the bottom of my heart for being such fun, inspirational writing partners. Never a cross word, never a doubt—always a smile and a big jolt of excitement. Writing this anthology with you two has been the best experience. Let’s do it again!

  As always, my huge and heartfelt thanks to Harlequin and Escape Publishing. It’s always a thrill and always a jolt of excitement to be working with such a fabulous team and wonderful publishers.

  And to my readers: I hope you enjoy this new story from me and thank you for your wonderful support for all my books. It means so much.

  For Catherine Evans and Lisa Ireland for their resounding enthusiasm and professionalism throughout our Dulili association, and for the new and valuable friendship.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Chapter One

  Retrenched, belt tightened to the limit and looking at her last resource, Adele Devereux still felt the tug of a smile as she eased the hire van to a stop outside her new home.

  She sat a moment, letting her body and mind rest because that’s what she felt she ought to do, although excitement rose inside her, regardless of the mental advice to ease down. It had only been a four-hour drive from Sydney but her muscles had cramped long before that. Not that they had much furniture, but loading what they did possess from the first-floor flat to the van had been more of a challenge than making the decision to let go of what wasn’t working and try something new.

  She inhaled, not wanting to test the excitement by breathing in the newness of this small rural town too soon or too deeply, even though the windows were rolled down—no aircon in cheap hire vans.

  ‘I wonder if there’ll be flies,’ she said, glancing at the windscreen and the dozens of dead bugs. Flies were the bane of everybody’s life back in Perth. Not that she’d been back there for years, and only God knew why she was thinking about that place now, but when you were brought up with flies, you never forgot them.

  She reviewed the last hour of the drive as the excitement in her heart fought her sensible mind with regard to this momentous moment. Her heart was trying with all its might to hijack sense and she was almost willing to let it.

  The Orange-to-Dulili road into town wasn’t too bad. Decent bitumen, countrified with rough-edged verges and open paddocks beyond—although no footpaths until you got into town—and trees. Lots of trees of all shapes, sizes and colours, but again, not so many in town. None in her street—her street! She’d never had a street before, just a first-floor apartment on a crowded avenue. Now she had parkland at the end of the street of seven houses and that had trees. Big shade-giving gum trees.

  Once, the roads in Dulili would have been black bitumen, not grey and weary as they were now. Even the tyre tread marks were washed out, like tired shadows, but still … shadows meant life had been lived.

  She leaned back in the vinyl seat, arms stretched, hands gripping the steering wheel. She’d made a good choice. Dulili had potential and although imagination hadn’t been utilised yet, she knew that the townspeople had plans and she was going to be part of them. And wasn’t that exciting! That was her heart talking again—but stuff it. It was about time her heart saw some action.

  The few doubts creeping under her skin regarding her new hometown could be conquered. Fear of losing hope, probably. Hope of betterment for her and her daughter. Hope for the future when the past had been so difficult. She’d read the ad in the national newspaper. A tiny, four-line notice asking for expressions of interest from honest, capable people to move out of the city and back to the country to help Dulili regenerate its population. ‘The work-shy need not apply.’ That last line had made her smile so much that she’d answered the ad immediately, and she’d got lucky. She’d been given a lease on a house for one dollar a week rent.

  ‘This town needs flowers,’ she said as she jumped out of the hire van, enthusiasm and hope engulfing concern about what lay ahead of her. She walked around the bonnet to the passenger door. The heat from the overworked engine skimmed her bare arms in a haze of smelly oil, permeating the warmth of a fresh spring breeze. ‘Out you get,’ she said to her eight-year-old daughter, Alison Devereux, before turning to look down the street. Adele didn’t wait for a response from Ali since she likely wouldn’t get one.

  Most people would have missed the ad, she thought as she stared down the street, especially as it had been placed—wrongly, surely?—in the Obituaries column, although perhaps that was a sign too. Especially as they were the first newcomers to arrive, and hadn’t she wanted to be here at the start and help put her mark on this new adventure she and Ali were taking? One dollar for a dream. By her retrenched administrator’s calculations, once everyone on a list of possible new residents arrived, there would be fifteen extra dollars a week in the town kitty. If the town had a kitty.

  ‘It’s pretty enough,’ Adele said. It could be beautiful. It certainly had been once, and that meant there was hope—for Adele, Ali and
the town. The few businesses on the main street were probably well-loved but the brown and dull-green paintwork so often associated with small country towns was flaking on the verandah posts and awnings, and it looked like the windows of the few businesses still operating hadn’t been cleaned often in the last year. Still, even without the sparkle of rejuvenation, Adele saw it as it might soon be. The two-storey pub looked like a reasonably lively place. Where there was a pub, there were people. When the people were buying booze, there had to be money. Even if most were scraping for their livings. Maybe the pub was the heart of Dulili. A place for people to gather and share a laugh or a few moans. Or maybe a few dreams.

  She turned to her child and ran a hand over Ali’s hot head, smoothing the long brown hair that was caught in a ponytail. ‘There’s hope for us too,’ she said, and smiled. ‘I think we’re home, Ali.’

  Ali blinked. She appeared to be looking down the street, but Adele wasn’t sure what she saw, or if she was even focused on anything.

  A flock of parrots rose from a gum tree in the parkland and cackled their way to wherever they were headed next. ‘Can you hear all those birds?’ Adele asked. ‘Do you think they’re having a party?’

  ‘Hello. Hoy! You, there.’

  Adele turned, and produced a smile. ‘Hello.’ She faced a wiry old woman stomping towards them. Sunburned or simply weather-burned, her eyes were piercing blue, and her frown set like dried bark among the wrinkles on her brow. She appeared to be on a mission. Was she a normal Dulili-style resident? Adele didn’t know but, hell, she was here and she didn’t care. These were now her people and she hadn’t had people in—well, forever.

  ‘How do you do?’ she asked, her smile brightening. ‘Adele Devereux. We’re just moving in. We’ve just arrived.’ Even stating the facts out loud sent a lightning strike of joy down her spine.

  The woman regarded her, as though she were having a moment of reflection. Adele didn’t care. She kept her smile bright.

  ‘Imelda Wade,’ the woman said. ‘And I didn’t think I’d have need to say “welcome”, but by the look on your face I’m guessing you’re expecting it, so I’ll say it. Welcome.’

  The old woman shoved her hand forwards. Adele took it, and shook the bones beneath fragile skin carefully, getting a jolt of surprise at the strength of the tough-skinned fingers gripping hers. Also surprising was the woman’s clothing. The seventy-something-year-old woman wore dark denim jeans, a navy-checked shirt and work boots. It was the look of a die-hard resident and a hard worker ready for anything, night or day. Something Adele would have to adjust to after being used to working a regular nine to five job.

  ‘I’m hoping you’re going to get us a library. Could do with a good book.’ The woman almost laughed, so presumably it wasn’t a real expectation.

  ‘I can but try,’ Adele said. ‘You have no idea how fabulous it is to be here,’ she added, when the need to tell someone how she felt rushed to the fore.

  ‘Well now, downright enthusiastic, aren’t you?’

  Adele laughed, but she wasn’t going to apologise.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind an electric goods shop neither. Washing machine’s playing up and my toaster doesn’t pop.’

  The tasks Adele had agreed to for the one-dollar-a-week rent were to help out in the primary school’s administration office two days a week and spend a few hours with the town’s historic society for whatever admin tasks they needed. She’d be paid a small remuneration for the school job—enough to keep her and Ali each week—and of course, she was tasked with doing up her house. Eventually—if she passed muster—she’d be given the chance to purchase the house cheaply. The Project Committee owned this one, and Adele presumed her small payments each month would fund future endeavours for their town.

  A thought struck her. Did her house have whitegoods? She hadn’t asked. She’d brought her own fridge, but the washing machine she’d been using in their small Sydney flat had belonged to the owner. She didn’t want to spend any more of her redundancy money than necessary. She didn’t know how long she’d have to make it last.

  Before she could enquire, Imelda Wade pointed to Adele’s new house. Correction—old house. The one Adele hadn’t had time to view properly. Adele turned and took in the state of the stained metal roof, the peeling paint on the weatherboard, and the unkempt small garden at the front with cracked concrete and weeds settled in the crevices as though delighted by the neglect.

  The beauty of it filled her heart and her soul.

  No more than two metres of street frontage, maybe room for a bench beneath one of the two front windows. But it was the far-end house, a corner house, and it looked like there was garden space at the side that faced the parkland too. Hopefully there’d be a fenced-in lawn area at the back for Ali.

  ‘I’d like to see that tidied up,’ Imelda said.

  Adele didn’t need to ask what the old woman was referring to. ‘So would I,’ she said in a contemplative tone as she envisioned the small garden in six months’ time: the space cleared of weeds, maybe paving slabs for the short pathway to the front door instead of broken concrete. Possibly flower boxes on the windows—if she could barter for the boxes or save up to buy some. She glanced down Thompson Street at the other six houses and the street frontages that were in a similar state to her own. Her own.

  She inhaled the wonder of that mental statement. Just one dollar a week for a place of their own. ‘It’s part of the deal to clean up the house and the garden,’ she said, turning to Miss or Mrs Wade—the woman wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, wasn’t wearing any jewellery, not even a brooch. ‘I’ll be working in the school office two days a week and I have to do as much renovation work to the house as I possibly can.’ Mostly with her own elbow grease, but that didn’t worry her. ‘How many of these houses are occupied?’

  Imelda Wade nodded to the southern end of the street, closest to High Street. ‘I live in the first one. But I own all the others.’

  The first house off High Street looked in a less sorry state than the others and it looked lived in. Its peeling paint had been sanded, the garden frontage was weed-free and the front door looked like it had recently had a new coat of paint: plum red.

  ‘I sold one of the houses to the town. Yours.’ Imelda Wade indicated Adele’s house. ‘Not sure what I’ll do with the others yet. Got my grandson around a lot these days, but he’s not into Dulili so I haven’t persuaded him to make any commitments. He’s dealing with other things.’

  She owned the entire street? There were no houses opposite, just patchy scrub and a fence and, behind that, old buildings that looked official although the windows were boarded up. But they had the parkland at the end of their street. There were kiddie swings and a slide, which looked reasonably new. And from where Adele stood, she could see through the backs of the buildings on High Street, all the way to the roof of the pub.

  ‘You been shopping?’ the woman asked, looking inside the cab of the hire van through the open passenger door, and at the biodegradable bags stacked behind the seats.

  ‘We stopped in Orange,’ Adele said. There was another pretty town name, like Dulili, which meant Together. ‘I wasn’t sure what …’ She didn’t finish her sentence but offered another smile. She hadn’t known what Dulili supermarket stocked. Since she hadn’t seen a supermarket while driving down the main street, she was glad she’d spent an hour in Orange, stocking up on necessities. ‘Why did you sell my house to the town?’ she asked, not wanting to make a wounding statement about Dulili and what it did—or didn’t—offer. Of more interest was how this old woman had managed to own all seven houses.

  ‘Doing my bit for the project.’ The woman turned her attention to Ali, who was still standing beneath the security of Adele’s arm. ‘Who’s this, then?’

  ‘This is my daughter, Ali.’

  ‘How d’you do?’

  Ali didn’t answer and Adele held her breath, gauging the woman’s features before she spoke for Ali. ‘She’s fine,’ Adele said at
last, not seeing anything untoward on the wrinkled face except slight interest. ‘Ali doesn’t talk much.’ Time enough to let people know that Ali only spoke to her stuffed animals and to the occasional person other than her mother. Not that she spoke to Adele often either.

  The woman looked down at the top of Ali’s head. Ali was short for an eight-year-old and was often mistaken for six. ‘Right, then.’ The woman didn’t seem bothered or overtly interested.

  Adele needed to change the subject and get into her house. ‘Where do I find the key?’ she asked. ‘And is it Mrs Wade or Miss Wade?’

  ‘It’s Imelda.’ She thrust her hand into the pocket of her jeans. ‘Here.’ She handed Adele a key. ‘I’ll give you a hand with your stuff.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no need.’ Adele smiled at the thought. Though she was a toughened old girl with a strong handshake, she was wiry-slight, like a coathanger, and Adele couldn’t see her managing more than a few small boxes and bags. ‘I can manage.’

  ‘No, let’s get on with it.’ Imelda walked to the back of the van and released the side catches on the drop-down door.

  Adele let go of Ali and sprang forwards to catch the heavy door; it once had springs to lever it gently and safely to the ground, but those had long been broken.

  Imelda bore the weight on her shoulder, her face pinched in effort, and let the door down to waist height. Adele caught it and together they lowered it to the ground.

  Imelda looked inside the van, her gaze darting over the sofa, armchair, bureau, dining table and chairs, the mattresses, the chests of drawers and the boxes and bags filled with their clothes and kitchen and bathroom necessities. ‘We can do the smaller stuff.’ Imelda did a quick take of Adele. ‘You must have had help getting it packed.’

  ‘A neighbour helped me.’ He was stronger than Adele, and there was no way she’d have been able to carry the big pieces out to the van on her own; even carrying her end of heavy furniture hadn’t been easy.