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‘I better get going, Dad. I’ve just left Hope with the banana muffin mixture.’

‘Don’t you want to talk to your mother?’

‘I’d better go. Love you both,’ Holly said, then hung up before he could ask another question.

Placing the phone back on the table, she closed her eyes and let out a long sigh, trying to ignore the niggling ache in her chest. It had been a long time since she’d deliberately hung up the phone without speaking to her mother, but she was determined not to feel bad about how she felt. After all, it wasn’t her fault. Her mother had brought this upon herself.

‘Come on, Hopey,’ she said, forcing some joviality into her voice. ‘We need to get these muffins finished and in the oven. Because you know where we’re going today, don’t you?’

33

There were plenty of attractions in Bourton that had stood the test of time. There was the Motor Museum, nestled just next to one of the bridges; a perfect location, with the river running right beside it. Then there was the model village, with its miniature versions of all the old houses in Bourton. The sweet shop proudly sat in the centre of the High Street, and there was even a model village within the model village itself. But since Hope had come along, Holly’s most frequently visited attraction had become the bird park.

Rather than using the baby carrier, Holly had taken Hope in her pushchair, the bottom of which she’d loaded with snacks, including the still-warm breakfast muffins, two of which Hope had eaten on the way. Holly had already received two morning messages from Evan, one telling her he missed her and would ring her as soon as he could, and a second saying that his day was now scarily busy, so would ring her in the evening when he was back at his flat.

As much as Holly would have liked to have spoken to him, she was more than happy to wait until the evening to talk. The last thing she wanted was to become one of those womenwho couldn’t survive without hearing from her boyfriend every twenty minutes.

As she approached the counter to pay for their tickets to the bird park, a woman Holly knew named Kathy stepped out from behind the till and leaned down in front of the pushchair.

‘Good morning, Hope,’ she said, before tugging gently on the baby’s hair. ‘Look at you with all those gorgeous curls. You are lucky. Where did you get them from?’

Holly smiled politely. The close-knit community was what Holly loved about living in Bourton, but sometimes it could get a little claustrophobic.

‘Just the two of you today?’ Kathy said, straightening up to look at Holly, although straightening up was using the term loosely. Holly didn’t know how old Kathy was, but she had been a constant feature at the bird park when Holly was a child. Now, with her white hair and worsening hunch, she was as stalwart a figure in Bourton as the bird park itself.

‘Just the two of us,’ Holly confirmed. Kathy’s eyes twinkled.

‘You know, my grandson is coming down next week. He’s an architect. I think you and him would get on brilliantly. You should bring Hope down on your day off then. He’d love to meet you.’

Holly pressed her lips into the tightest smile she could form, given how badly she wanted to grimace. Another thing with living in a village like Bourton – gossip spread like wildfire. Everyone had known when she and Ben had got together, just like they’d known when they’d broken up, and the fact that they weren’t staying together, even though they were having a baby. Holly had even heard her name whispered in conjunctions with Giles’s once or twice in the pubs, but she’d ignored that.

That was another thing she loved about her relationship with Evan. It was entirely separate from the village. He knew no one and no one knew him. As far as the other shopkeepers andlocal gossips were aware, Holly was entirely single. And she was happy to keep it that way, even if it meant having to politely turn down a few unsolicited requests for blind dates.

‘I’m sure he’s lovely, but you know I’ve actually got a full week in the shop next week,’ Holly said, keeping her lies to a minimum.

‘You know, a lovely girl like you really shouldn’t be on her own,’ Kathy said, refusing to drop the point.

‘Then it’s a good job I’m not, isn’t it?’ Holly said, bending down and kissing Hope on the cheek and receiving the most wonderful smile in the world. Smiles and giggles. Some days, it felt like those were all she needed to live on.

‘Oh well, you know I’m not going to give up,’ Kathy said, reinforcing her point. ‘But I’ll let you go. Just one adult ticket, is it?’

‘Yes, please,’ Holly said with a grin. ‘It’s a proper mummy-daughter day.’

‘Well, that sounds perfect to me. Here you go, have a bag of bird feed on me.’

‘Thank you, that’s very kind,’ Holly said, before she trundled Hope into the park.

During each visit, Hope would find a new favourite animal to stare at for an unfeasible length of time. Sometimes, it was the red parrot stood by the entrance, chattering away. Those days irritated Holly slightly, considering she’d paid the full entrance fee, only for them to stand six feet from the gate the entire time. But other days, Hope wanted to go in further and spend her time looking at other animals.

That day, Hope was struggling to find anything to hold her interest. They went straight to the penguins, only for Hope to grumble and point to the flamingos. They managed a couple of minutes there before the grizzling started again. In fact, the only time she wasn’t griping was when Holly was pushing thepushchair. Realising there was no point stopping and trying to make her daughter look at things, Holly opted to go away from the main part of the park and weave her way through the outer pathways. Thick foliage made a home for large dinosaur models, though when they reached the very outskirts of the park, the scenery changed.

Part of the hedgerows had been cut all the way back. Probably to make room for a new enclosure, although, for the moment, the lack of bushes and trees offered a view right out over open fields. The undulating land rose and fell, and there in the distance, surrounded by green, stood a large, Cotswolds stone building.

At a rough guess, it was at least three floors, and probably large enough for ten bedrooms, though, given how Holly hadn’t seen it before, it was unlikely to be a hotel or pub. Which meant that it would have to be a private home instead. Would they have the license to hold weddings? she wondered. If they did, they were probably fully booked for wedding season. Nevertheless, on her way back out of the park – after Hope had spent a solid fifteen minutes staring at a flock of pigeons – the image of the house refused to shift from her mind.

‘See you again soon?’ Kathy said, as Holly walked back through the main gate. Hope was nodding off to sleep in the pushchair, and Holly had decided to head back to the cottage. With a little bit of luck, Hope would stay asleep long enough in the house to put a load of washing on.

‘Of course you will.’ Holly smiled in response to Kathy’s question, before she moved to go, only to hesitate. ‘Kathy, there’s a house just across the fields. A big one. I don’t suppose you know who owns it.’