Page 8 of Starry Nights over Dragonfly Lake

‘It’s everyone’s hotel and everyone’shome,’ said Faye, ever the peacemaker in the family.

‘So I can invite whoever I like to stay,’ said Walter, still looking riled. ‘Includingmy great-nephew.’

‘That’s not what I was getting at,’ Ben told him, shaking his head. ‘But I had no idea he was even here. When did he arrive?’

‘Yesterday evening,’ replied Walter. ‘It was late and I figured we still had that room spare. Didn’t know Beth was coming too.’

‘To be fair, it was a last-minute decision on my part,’ said Beth, anxious that nobody fell out over her bad break-up. ‘I didn’t mean to confuse matters.’

‘You didn’t,’ Lily told her, with a reassuring smile. ‘But wait a minute. If Noah slept in the spare bedroom, where did you sleep?’

‘In the same bedroom,’ Beth told her.

The shocked silence that followed was only punctuated by Walter as he dropped his toast back onto his plate with a soft thud.

‘You, er, the same room?’ he spluttered, staring at Beth in surprise before glancing at his wife. ‘Dotty, say something,’ he added in a stage whisper.

‘You go, girl!’ said Dotty, grinning at Beth.

Alex spluttered into his coffee before reaching out for a napkin to wipe his dripping chin. ‘Sorry,’ he added, shaking his head at Dotty whilst laughing.

‘It’s not like that,’ said Beth, who was also laughing. ‘It was obvious that there was some kind of mix-up with the rooms so I slept on the sofa. Honestly! What kind of a girl do you think I am?’

But as everyone else laughed, Ben was still frowning.

‘It’s notyouthat we don’t trust,’ muttered Ben.

‘Now don’t be like that,’ said Walter, his laughter fading as he looked at his grandson. ‘The lad had a rough start in life. I’m sure that’s all behind him now.’

‘Is it?’ Ben was still frowning. ‘You know that for definite, do you?’

‘I think I do actually,’ said Walter, his eyes flaring.

‘He seemed okay at the funeral last month,’ added Dotty. ‘But we only saw him briefly.’

‘What do you mean that you don’t trust him?’ asked Beth, looking between the two men. She felt bewildered by the tense atmosphere as the two men had grown so close since Ben had moved back there over a year ago.

‘What I mean is that you’ve no idea who you just shared a room with,’ Ben told her.

‘Why? Who is he?’ Beth was stunned, her mind now racing with awful possibilities.

Hannah looked at her best friend and grinned. ‘You’ve just spent the night with Noah, the biggest bad boy of them all.’

Beth gasped. She couldn’t believe it.

A sudden movement at the doorway made everyone turn their heads and Beth joined them to look at Noah, who had just stepped into the kitchen and had presumably heard every word.

4

‘The biggest bad boy of them all.’

Noah stood still as Hannah’s words rang in his ears. He’d heard worse, of course. Troublemaker. No good. Unwanted. No hope. Everyone had been giving him a label since he could remember.

He had spent his childhood and some of his adult life as well trying to prove everyone wrong and that he did have something to give this world. All these years on, however, he knew that he only needed to prove it to himself, no one else.

In the awkward silence that followed his cousin’s words, Noah hesitated by the kitchen entrance. It had been a bit of a rollercoaster time since he had arrived, what with his unexpected encounter with Beth the previous evening as well as her decision to sleep on the sofa regardless of them being total strangers.

He had woken up a short while ago upon hearing the bedroom door close with a click. Presumably that had been Beth leaving the room and he had got dressed and come downstairs, anxious to see whatever Walter had to show him and then leave as quickly as possible.