Page 12 of Coming Home to Maple Tree Lodge

‘Most places until I went to boarding school,’ she told him. ‘Africa, South America, India, and then finally the Far East.’

‘How marvellous,’ said Dotty, her eyes gleaming. ‘India was one of my favourite countries,’ she added, looking down at her ornate rings. ‘These gold ones were from a market in Kolkata. I treated myself when I was working there.’

‘What did you used to do?’ asked Lily.

‘I was a photographer forNational Geographic,’ Dotty told her. ‘Used to do a little bit of journalism too, in my time. Remind me to show you all the treasures I picked up on my travels. We can compare notes on the places we’ve both been to.’

‘Replace the word treasures with junk and it would be about right,’ murmured Walter, giving his wife a wink.

Dotty brushed his teasing aside with a wave of her hand. ‘I’m sure Lily would appreciate it.’

‘So you’ve also travelled around the world?’ asked Lily, grateful for the change of conversation direction so that the spotlight wasn’t on her.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Dotty, nodding in memory. ‘I went everywhere. And then I went to London to photograph the mods and rockers in the mid-sixties and got a puncture on my motorbike. Some guy who was visiting for the bank holiday weekend ended up helping me…’ Her voice trailed off and she looked across at her husband. ‘I married him a week later.’

Lily watched as Dotty exchanged a smile with Walter before turning back to look at her.

‘So you decided to settle in England?’ she asked.

Lily nodded. ‘I moved to London after college.’ She shot Hannah a grin across the table. ‘Which is where I met your granddaughter.’

‘In that awful house,’ replied Hannah, laughing.

‘It was terrible,’ agreed Lily, joining in her laughter. ‘The windows were so rotten that they eventually got stuck and wouldn’t even open.’

‘And then one night Ella pushed the bathroom window open and the whole thing fell out into the garden!’ added Hannah.

Lily smiled at the memory, still hearing the laughter shared with her friends over the disaster. ‘And trust me, the places I’ve rented since haven’t been any better,’ she found herself saying.

‘Is that why you keep moving about?’ asked Faye. ‘Hannah tells me that you have a new address every year or so.’

Lily instantly felt the need to shut down again, even under Faye’s gentle questioning.

‘Well, they’ve all been pretty awful,’ she said. ‘Not lovely like this.’

She looked around the kitchen once more, hoping they picked up on the change of topic. The truth was that she had deliberately kept moving around. She was still wary of getting too close to anyone other than her best friends.

To distract anyone from asking her anything else, she reached forward to pick up another brownie from the plate, even though she was full. ‘They’re just too delicious,’ she said.

‘I agree,’ said Walter, with a rare smile. ‘They’re my favourite.’

‘Hannah’s got such a talent for baking,’ said Faye, looking proud.

‘I inherited it from you but it’s really not anything special,’ said Hannah automatically. She had always had no confidence in her abilities.

‘Rubbish,’ said Ben, helping himself to a large piece of cherry cake and shooting his younger sister a smile.

Lily found herself warming to this close-knit family. She wondered again about the lack of hotel guests but decided that after the renovations, and with a great new interior that she would design for them, the hotel would be full once again all year round.

Then maybe they could all help each other become a success, she thought.

6

Once dinner was over and the plates had been cleared, Ben leant back in his chair, feeling exhausted. He hadn’t had a day off in months and was willing to let the family concentrate on Lily and the conversation washed over him.

‘I still can’t believe your family built all of this,’ Lily was saying to Hannah, as she looked around the room.

‘Well, to be fair, it was already built,’ Dotty told her. ‘Walter and Tony, our son, just added a few more rooms, as well as the veranda.’ She shot Lily a grin. ‘I did help with that though. I’m great with a hammer and a bunch of nails.’