The knight, p.20
No Place Like Home, page 20
No Place Like Home
A Home Sweet Home Novel
Lilly Mirren
About This Book
Lisa never thought she’d leave her high-profile finance job in the city to work in a small-town bakery. She also never expected to still be single in her forties.
What Lisa really needs is a time-out, a circuit breaker to give her space to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. A new life in a small town provides just the opportunity she needs to formulate a plan. It should be easy. She's smart, decisive, confident - there's only one problem, she has no idea where to begin.
Her thoughtful plans are soon interrupted by some unexpected guests who teach her that sometimes the twists and turns in life can bring the most joy.
Please note:
This book is set in Australia, so may on occasion use terms and spelling that may be unfamiliar to you. A glossary has been included at the end of the book for your convenience.
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home
* * *
- Home, Sweet Home by John Howard Payne
Contents
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
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Also by Lilly Mirren
Glossary of Terms
About the Author
Chapter 1
Thirty-Four Years Ago
With legs pumping, Lisa Miller leaned forwards over the handlebars, the wind buffeting her ears. Pink streamers fluttered and snapped in the wind by her hands. She was far too big for her bike. She’d told her parents so countless times, but they didn’t listen. An eight-year-old didn’t need sparkly pink streamers. And besides that, her knees almost hit her elbows when she pedalled. It was embarrassing, but there was nothing to be done about it since it was still another nine long months until Christmas. She’d have to make do with her sister’s hand-me-down.
“Come on, Lisa!” shouted Callie, several bike lengths ahead and standing on her pedals, her brown ponytail flapping about her head. “They’re catching up.”
Lisa glanced over one shoulder. Behind her, three boys ran, feet slapping on the bitumen, their laughter and shouts drifting to Lisa’s ears whenever she turned her head and the noise of the wind died down for a moment. Her heart flipped and her mouth went dry as she stood up to push harder still. The road curved then ascended; they’d definitely catch her on the hill. This was the hill that always bested her, the one right before her driveway. Most of the time she swung a leg over the centre bar and climbed off the bike to push it slowly up the slope, not even attempting to ride it. But this time, she didn’t have a choice. If she got off to push, they’d catch her for sure. And she had no idea what that would mean, given she’d never been caught by a group of boys before, but the thought of it sent bubbling panic in a spike up her throat and made her head feel light.
Her breathing grew laboured, her legs ached. “Callie, wait!” she cried.
Callie didn’t even look back. She simply peddled steadily up the hill, pulling further and further ahead.
Lisa puffed harder, the bike slowing even as she pushed with all her strength, the road steepening beneath her. Behind her the sound of boys whooping in victory spurred her onwards, her eyes widening in fear. They were almost on her when footsteps on the hill above caught her ear.
It was Callie, running in her direction. She passed Lisa, and Lisa stopped the bike— breath like fire in her lungs—turning to watch.
Callie stood behind Lisa and lifted her hands into fists. Lisa’s throat tightened. Her sister would be hurt. She set her bike down on the road, ran to stand by Callie’s side and glanced into her sister’s narrowed brown eyes as she raised her own fists high. Her heart pounded a staccato rhythm in her throat.
Callie grinned. The boys stopped short, seeming unsure of what to do now.
“What’s wrong?” mocked Callie. “Come over here and I’ll show you somethin’.” She puffed out her chest and moved towards them. They backed up, eyes darting as they laughed nervously.
The boys pushed each other, urging the others forward.
“You two are crazy!” jeered one boy.
“Yeah, crazy Millers!” added another.
Callie laughed in a maniacal way as she charged at them, arms flailing. The three boys turned and fled. She chuckled and let her hands fall to her sides. Then, with one arm around Lisa’s shoulders, she smiled down into her younger sister’s face. “Let’s go home, Bear.”
Lisa put her bike away beside Callie’s in the garage and followed her sister, still laughing, into the house. In the kitchen, Callie poured them each a tall glass of cold milk and Lisa chugged it between gasps of breath from the climb up the hill.
She set her empty glass on the bench by Callie’s.
“That’ll show them,” said Callie to no one in particular.
Muffled yells drifted down the stairs and both sisters looked up at the ceiling overhead in unison. Callie inhaled a slow, deep breath, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. They both knew what it was. Their parents were fighting again. Lisa’s hand found Callie’s and she slipped it into her sister’s and squeezed.
Callie’s nostrils flared. “Let’s go to the playroom.”
They walked hand in hand through the living room to the small, rectangular space that jutted off the outside verandah they called the playroom. It was in desperate need of a paint job, but the colourful toys in boxes against the walls brought a smile to Lisa’s face as soon as they stepped inside.
Then, she caught sight of the one thing both of them loved more than anything else in the room. Their tent.
It was pink and purple, shaped like a princess castle. It stood in the centre of the room, the fabric door hung over the entry and with a laugh Lisa pushed it aside. The two girls crawled inside and lay on their backs, side by side, staring up at the pink dome glowing overhead.
Shouting echoed through the ceiling. Lisa reached for Callie’s hand.
Lisa hummed a tune to drown out the fighting.
“I wish I was somewhere else,” said Callie, suddenly.
Lisa turned her head to study her sister’s profile. Callie’s eyes were shut. “Where?”
“Anywhere,” replied Callie. Her eyes popped open. “I want to see everything.”
“Everything?”
“Yep, the whole world. I’m gonna go to Africa and see elephants, and to Antarctica to see the penguins. Then, I’m gonna visit that leaning tower and see if I can make it stand straight. I bet if a few of us pushed all at the same time we could fix it.”
Lisa laughed. “You could not.”
“Could too.” Callie inhaled a quick breath, then let her eyes drift shut again.
“Well, I’m gonna have a family of my own. We’ll love each other forever, and no one will ever fight.”
Callie blew out roughly through puckered lips. “Not me. I’ll be rich and famous.”
“You can visit, have Christmas at my house then. You can bring all the best toys.”
Callie nodded, her eyes still shut. “I’ll be the cool auntie and you’ll work your fingers to the bone washing clothes and cooking for your ungrateful children.”
Lisa inhaled a sharp breath. “Just because Mum says that, doesn’t mean it’s true. I’m going to hold my babies, love them, and sing to them all the time. I’ll cook their favourite biscuits and let them choose the clothes they want to wear.” It was a particularly painful point of contention for Lisa that Mum never let her pick the clothes she bought and wore. She inevitably found herself squeezed into jeans that were a size too small and layered pink dresses with ruffles that were hopeless for adventuring or riding her bike.
Lisa closed her eyes like Callie, humming the tune for Every Breath You Take. It wasn’t her favourite song or anything, but every time she heard it on the radio it got stuck in her head for days, and she couldn’t help humming it until it drove Mum mad.
Callie began to sing, softly at first, the words not much more than a whisper. Lisa joined in, and their voices rose. They sang together, two shaky voices climbing higher and louder as the words tumbled out of their small mouths. Callie’s voice was strong and clear, Lisa’s breathy and a little off-key. She smiled, her eyes still shut, and squeezed Callie’s hand. She couldn’t hear the fighting any longer.
Chapter 2
Present Day
The horse’s dappled grey coat shivered, shifting a fly from his shoulder. Jasper turned his head to watch as Lisa struggled to hold onto the saddle. Where was she supposed to put her hands? She tried to recall Trina’s lessons, but it was so awkward. One hand under the poking up front bit of the saddle, then another under the round, soft back part, she shuffled towards Jasper. He watched her as though judging her efforts.
“I’ll be with you sometime today,” she muttered. “You might as we
Jasper dislodged another fly, this time with a wave of his grey and black tail. The coarse hair caught Lisa across the mouth, and she spat it free with a scrunched-up face. Then coughed twice.
“Ugh, oh wow. That’s gotta be about a billion germs directly in my mouth — I don’t want to think about what that brown stuff caked to your tail is. Please tell me it’s not what I think it is.” She grimaced. “Thanks for that, old fella.”
The horse lowered his head to munch on some hay while Lisa regrouped. She’d almost dropped the saddle during the tail-swishing incident but had managed to adjust her grip and use one knee to balance it on. Saddling a horse shouldn’t be so hard. Trina Cook, her best friend, owned the farmhouse and had managed to teach herself how to saddle a horse from some YouTube videos. Surely Lisa should be able to do it after watching her friend at least a dozen times over the past three months since she’d moved in with her.
A willy wagtail perched on top of the half-door attached to one of the stalls in the stables. The bird’s tail wagged back and forth as he studied her through beady, black eyes.
“I don’t need your judgement, either,” she huffed, eyeing the bird. “This is harder than it looks.”
The bright sunshine of a pleasant winter’s day cast a rectangular shadow on the hay-strewn dirt floor through the open stable doors. Outside those doors, birds twittered and somewhere in the distance a cow lowed.
Lisa turned her back to the horse to haul the saddle skyward, when she tripped over something and fell backwards. Her grip on the saddle loosened, but not in time to break her fall and she landed hard on her rear end, rolling onto her back with a cry of pain.
Jasper sniffed her, then took a sideways step away from her.
Lisa squeezed her eyes shut as pain radiated up her back. She felt the muscles of her lower back tightening, then seizing. She’d often experienced lower back pain. Her physiotherapist in Sydney said it was something to do with a bulging disc. She hoped she hadn’t done permanent damage.
She blinked her eyes open and relaxed on her back as best she could, the pain coming in waves now.
“Ugh. Ahhhh…” she cried, as her muscles tightened, then loosened, then tightened again. “I don’t think I can move.”
The black stable cat with white mittens, Cinder, purred beside her, tail wrapped around his plump body.
“Did you do this?” she asked.
He didn’t respond.
She grunted. “Can you at least help me up?”
Nothing.
“Argh!” She lurched onto her side, then slowly worked her way up to hands and knees.
The pain seized her lower back muscles into a permanent spasm, and she was sure she wouldn’t be able to stand, but somehow, she managed it by holding onto the wall as she inched her way up.
Lisa released Jasper, who wandered back out to the yard. Then she eyed the saddle, still sitting where it’d landed when she dropped it. There was no way she could stoop over and pick it up; she might not ever manage to be vertical again.
She shuffled across the yard and up the back stairs. Then, into the house where she lowered herself with a groan into the reclining chair in the lounge room.
Trina followed from the kitchen with one eyebrow arched. “Are you okay?”
Lisa grunted with her eyes squeezed shut. “I hurt my back.”
“Oh no! What happened?”
“Trying to saddle the horse and I tripped over Cinder. That cat gets under my feet every single time I go outside.” She pushed the words through clenched teeth. “I swear he planned the whole thing.”
Trina laughed and combed her curly brown bob behind her ears, then reached for a cushion to offer Lisa. “Would you like this?”
Lisa shook her head. “I can’t move.”
“That sounds serious,” replied Trina, her eyes narrowed. “I suppose that means you can’t come to the bakery today, then.”
“I’m sorry,” said Lisa, opening her eyes. “I really don’t think I can.”
“That’s okay, Mum and I will manage fine without you. And you weren’t rostered on, anyway. I’ve got some muscle relaxants upstairs. I’ll get you one if you like.”
Lisa cringed as a pang ran down her spine. “Yes, please.”
Trina hurried upstairs, soon returning with a glass of water and a packet of tablets. She handed the water to Lisa, then popped a tablet out of the packet to give her. Lisa downed it in one gulp, then gave the glass back to her friend.
“I made eggs. Do you think you could manage to eat something?” asked Trina, hovering. I was going to take some over to Peter’s before work, but I could make more if you like.”
Lisa tried to shake her head, but a stab of pain stopped her mid-shake. She loved that Trina made time to cook her boyfriend and neighbour breakfast on the days when he was up early for a shift at the police station. It allowed the two of them time together, which was often hard to find given both their schedules. “Uh, no thank you. I could probably drink something through a straw though.”
“You should try to get some food in your tummy with that tablet. I’ll make you a lovely fruit and spinach smoothie with almonds and coconut water. How does that sound?”
“Perfect, thanks.” Ever since she’d moved in with her friend, she’d begun drinking smoothies for breakfast and had become slightly addicted to them. Trina had one every morning with her scrambled eggs and Lisa had to admit it was much more delicious and satisfying than her usual espresso in the car on the way to work.
It’d been three months since she’d arrived in the small, rural township of Murwillumbah after leaving Sydney and her career in finance. The memory of those days of long commutes and hours behind a computer faded more with each passing month. These days, she spent most of her time serving customers in the bakery and cafe that she and Trina co-owned with Trina’s mother, Anthea.
Trina carried a tall cup with a lid and straw into the lounge room and set it on the side table next to Lisa, along with her mobile phone.
She patted Lisa’s arm. “I’ve set your phone beside the smoothie. The TV remote is there too if you want to watch something. Call me if you need anything. I’ll check in later to see how you’re going. Okay?”
“Okay, thanks, hon,” replied Lisa.
“I was going to have dinner in town with Pete tonight after his shift, but maybe I should cancel…?”
Lisa frowned. “No, don’t cancel your date. I’ll be fine. I’m sure the medicine will kick in soon, then I’ll be able to get around on my own.”
Trina sighed. “Hmm…I don’t know. Anyway, we can talk more about it later. I’ve got to get moving or Mum will kill me. I’m already going in late since it’s Saturday and technically my day off. But I promised her I’d come in before lunch, since she hates doing the lunch rush on her own with only Lettie to help her.”
“I’ll be fine, I promise. This is what I get for trying to take a morning horse ride before work. Let’s face facts — I’m just not that cool.”
Trina chuckled. “Neither am I.”
“You’re the coolest person I know,” replied Lisa with a wink.
“Apparently, your circle of friends is dangerously small,” returned Trina, pressing a kiss to the top of Lisa’s head. “See you later.”
Lisa listened as Trina started her car and pulled out of the short driveway before heading to town along the winding dirt road. The quaint farmhouse was set back from the road and surrounded by rolling, brown-tinged fields dotted with stout leafy trees, still green in winter, and grazing cattle with swishing tails.
Lisa loved it here.
