Sommersgate House (Ghosts and Reincarnation #2)(7)

And impossible it was. With over a decade of the not-very-nice (to say the least) Monique Ashton yawning in front of her, without any family or friends of her own nearby and with everything familiar to her so far away, it was not only impossible, it was inconceivable.

And that was without taking Douglas into consideration.

Julia walked out to the doorway of the room and whispered, “I’ve been here a few hours, please give me time, let me see how it goes.”

“I’m coming for Thanksgiving. I can’t wait until spring term or whatever they call it. I want to see my babies,” Patty returned.

Julia’s mother wanted to be close to her baby’s babies. Gavin had been her pride and joy. She was using her drama to cover her grief and Julia was glad of it. This kind of Patricia she could handle, grand statements, dire threats she never intended to carry out, Julia was used to that. If her mother gave way to the mourning she was covering, Julia would lose it herself and she couldn’t, not now. She had to be strong.

“We stick with the plan, Mom. I need a chance to settle in here and the kids need it too. No more upheavals. No more drama. Please, please, let me handle it.”

Patricia hesitated for a moment and then sighed extravagantly. “Thank God you have Mrs. K, she at least, even through that English reserve, has got a heart in her chest. Okay, call me tomorrow. Love you, miss you already my Doll Baby.” And she hung up, not letting Julia say her own good-byes.

Julia walked back into the room and replaced the phone. She took a moment to study the kids; Willie and Lizzie doing their homework and Ruby playing some game by herself.

Julia was tired. No, not tired, exhausted. And she knew it wasn’t jetlag. Since the phone rang in the deep of the night five months ago, she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep. That same, awful night, she and her mother had rushed to the airport and then spent the next two weeks dealing with their own grief and the grief of the three children.

A car accident.

Gavin, Julia knew, drove too fast. It was raining. They were coming home from having dinner together at some country pub on one of England’s dangerously winding roads. It was dark. Gavin might have driven fast but the driver of the other car was driving faster, he’d lost control and gone over the centre line on a curve. Gavin had died at the scene, so had the other driver. Tamsin had lived for three days and thirteen hours but never woke from her coma.

She just quietly slipped away.

One summer, many years ago, while Julia was in England for a visit, they were in the garden, drinking Pimm’s and lemonade and watching Lizzie and Willie run through the hose that Gavin was pointing at them. It was then that they had asked her to be guardian to the kids if anything ever happened to them.

She’d said, “Of course!” In the way someone says when they’re honoured but they know they’re answering a question that pertains to an event that will never, in any darkest imaginings, ever happen. Ruby hadn’t even been born yet and Julia was still married to Sean.

Of course, she thought now as she watched the kids.

She hadn’t known that she’d be sharing custody with Douglas but they had told her they wanted her to move to England and she’d agreed to that as well. It wouldn’t happen anyway, so why should she worry?

Sean, as usual, had been angry. “It’s f**king cold there. I’m not moving there,” he’d ranted (even though it was colder in Indiana than it was in Somerset).

“It’s not going to happen so there’s no need to get angry about it,” Julia responded, as always, trying to soothe his foul temper (and, as always, failing miserably).

Now, Sean was gone, which was one less worry but perhaps the reason for another.

Why on earth had Tamsin and Gavin given joint custody to Douglas? Why had they asked Julia to move into this enormous, ghastly house with their kids and share that responsibility with a brother who was responsible to no one?

Julia knew Tamsin loved her brother and saw the best in him.

But Julia didn’t see it.

And how on earth did Tammy convince Gav?

A tremor went up Julia’s spine just thinking about Douglas Ashton.

It wasn’t an unpleasant kind of tremor, not in the slightest. It was a pleasant kind of tremor, exciting and slightly wicked.

Any time over the many years she’d known him, when her mind wandered to Douglas, that same thrilling, illicit tremor would chase its way up her spine.

Julia had had a screaming crush on him the moment she’d first met him. Perhaps, if she was completely honest with herself, she always had one. He was just that type of man.

To a girl of twenty-one, this tall man with his powerful body, thick, dark hair, strong jaw and eyes so intensely blue they were nearly black… well, he was exactly what one would think of as a titled English aristocrat. He had a posh accent and was so arrogant and sexy, she squirmed just being in the same room with him.

But then had come Sean, then Douglas’s mysterious disappearance.

Julia had learned a great deal from the mistakes she’d made with Sean, mistakes she vowed to herself (on a daily basis) she would never repeat.

Sean was a great deal like Douglas, reserved, handsome, edgy. Julia knew now that it matters not how dangerous they seem, how attractive, exciting and wealthy they are, or the challenge they represent with their ice-cold aloofness that you were certain you could penetrate.

What a woman needed in a mate was a companion. Someone who would clean the cat litter, pop to the store for milk or fix the sink.