Novels by Rebecca Buckley

NOVELS BY REBECCA BUCKLEY

Midnight in Moscow

Midnight at Trafalgar Square
Midnight at the Eiffel
Midnight in Brussels

CLICK HERE

MIDNIGHT IN MOSCOW is the fourth novel in Rebecca Buckley's "Midnight" contemporary romantic series. Each novel introduces a new ensemble of characters whose lives intermingle with that of "Rachel O�Neill" (the common thread character in all twelve novels). Rachel's an American writer living in Cornwall, England.

In this novel, set in Russia, the story of Dana Doheney unfolds. She's in her 40s, has never married, is a strong independent woman afraid of relationships, afraid of the side effects and pain they cause. She owns a publishing company in New York City and is taking a month off from the stress and strain to do what she loves most - travel. This isn't her first trip to Russia, but it's the first time she feels a kinship with the people and the small villages. She never wants to leave. She's ready to give up all she has in the U.S. to live in Russia. Besides she may just fall in love for the first time in her life.

Rachel O'Neill reappears in all the "Midnight" novels as she celebrates New Year's Eve celebrations around the world (a promise she made to her dying father). Dana meets Rachel in Moscow at a booksigning during the Christmas holidays. Rachel is in Russia doing research for a new novel, is staying with a Russian gentleman friend she has been seeing since they met in Brussels on the previous New Year's Eve.

This is also a story of the Russian Amber trade, Russian peasant life, and touches on the glorious history of the country.

"Midnight in Moscow" is based on a short story that is included in my second volume of short stories: "Bits & Pieces of Me." It's called "The Train to Moscow", so for a preview ...

FIRST CHAPTER

Even with her eyes closed Rachel could see all four of them plain as day, just as they were when they were alive. Her Irish father Neal - tall, lean, and freckled, with a grin revealing his dry sense of humor. Her spiritual Blackfoot Indian mother Lily - tall as Neal, with a long braid hanging down her back, teaching children on the reservation in Montana. Her dear friend Ethan in all his British rotund joviality and clumsiness, always in a rush. Her fiance Pete - tall sexy Pete, her Liverpudlian lover with his forearm tattoos and dangling cigarette. All four of them she had loved, but now they were dead and gone.

She was still in the last stages of grief over Pete, the last stage of acceptance. But as always, when she thought of one, the memories of all four would resurface, dredging up the grieving processes all over again.

A sick feeling and heavy cramping was growing in her belly as she thought of them. It was making her want to double over. Stress affected her that way. She breathed deeply but could feel the emotions moving up into her stomach combining heartbreak with heartburn. There was a moment she felt as if it would explode through her chest. Her throat closed down on it, trying to suppress it, but she knew she had to let it go.

In her imagination she saw them in a pile of dead bodies.

In her dreams she would tug and pull at the bodies, trying to separate them one from the other.

In her conscious mind they were bundled together, one memory sparked the memory of the other and the other and the other - all four of them, dead in a heap.

The dreaded nightmares began right after her fiance Pete Bell was shot and killed in Brazil. He was in South America on assignment to collect plant life in the jungles for the Eden Project in Cornwall; his lifelong dream was to be of service to the world, to aid in preserving plant life for future generations. Pete and Rachel were to be married that Christmas in Paris. Rachel had always dreamed of being married on Christmas Day, same as her mother and father . . . but just a few weeks before the wedding was to take place, Pete was killed.

Now it had been almost a year since his murder. She kept telling herself that she should be able to deal with it by now. But not only was she not dealing with his death, she still felt bereavement for the loss of the ones who had died before. Pete�s death seemed to bring it all back to her. So now her bereavement was four-fold.

Rachel shook her head at the ridiculousness of the continual mourning and swiped her eyes in protest, blinking back the next wave of sorrow that threatened to follow the previous one.

She pushed her thick auburn hair behind her ears away from her face.

She didn't know why the crying jags kept coming. It wasn't as if she was the type to weep, whimper, and wallow in misery and depression. She was like her father in that respect, able to mask her feelings, to get on with life. Sure she succumbed to the grief the night Pete died, to the extreme. She'd taken an overdose, but that was a fluke, she would never do that again no matter what. It was just that it was one more tragedy piled up on the others, too many too soon. That's what it was.

But these recent emotional outbursts had to stop. She was an upbeat person, had always looked on the bright side of things. Everybody said that about her . . . 'Nothing can hold Rachel O'Neill down for long.' 'Rachel is a survivor.'

"This is ludicrous!" She grabbed a wad of paper towel that lay on the table and used it to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. Nonsense! She had to get control. It was time to move on.

Rachel stood up from the lawn chair, gave one last nose blow then scrunched up the towel again, throwing it at the table in a brusque, deliberate motion.

The wad bounced and landed in the grass. She stared at it for a moment as it lay in its spiked, green nest like a misshapen egg. A sigh of resignation escaped her lips and she scooped up the towel and plopped it back on the table as if she were punctuating the end of a sentence in one of her manuscripts.

Her cell phone rang. She stared at the phone for a few seconds before picking it up.

Finally, "Hello?"

"Rachel, it's me, Maxim."

"Oh my goodness, how are you, Maxim?" She closed her eyes and changed phone hands. "What are you doing?"

"I'm calling you, of course."

Rachel took a deep breath and held it. "So, are you in Brussels or Moscow?"

"Neither. I'm in London on business and I thought I might come down to see you afterwards, if you don't mind? Do you?"

"When?" She frowned and began to pace while nervously running her free hand through her hair.

"I can be there tomorrow, if that is all right with you."

"Tomorrow? Uh, okay. Sure. That'll be all right."

"Good! Then I will call you early morning to let you know when I arrive. I will fly to Newquay and take a train to Penzance. I am told that is the best way."

"Yes, it is." This was catching her off guard; the last person she wanted to see was Maxim Ballenchine. She didn't need any interruptions in her life at the moment and she wasn't fit for company.

"I'll call you in the morning then. Bye," he said, and then he was gone.

Stunned, Rachel listened to the dial tone. She couldn't believe that Maxim was actually coming to Cornwall to see her.

They'd met the previous New Year's Eve in Brussels; Maxim a widower, Rachel in the throes of her own grief over the death of Pete. Her friends Mandy and Richard had convinced her to come to Brussels for their wedding on Christmas Eve and she ended up staying with them till the week after New Year's. So she had become acquainted with Maxim during that week. And now, he was coming to Cornwall.

God, I need to make a list! She grabbed her pen and notebook and quickly jotted down what to get at the market and what she needed to do in preparation for his arrival. As soon as the grocery opened in another hour, she'd go. But for now, she decided she wasn't going to let anything or anybody interrupt her daily morning routine. Not even a rich, handsome Russian like Maxim Ballenchine. Her mornings were her time for reflection and meditation.

Taking a deep breath, she stood up again and inhaled the cool, crisp June morning air that smelled of sea and flora. She lifted her pointed, straight nose towards the sky and closed her eyes. Regardless of where she went in the world, this was her favorite place to be, at her Heart�s Ease Cottage. No matter how distraught she would become, this was where she found solace and peace. This was where she came to soak up the environment and be inspired, to heal and gain strength. This was her haven.

She leaned forward against one of the four garden chairs surrounding the glass covered wrought iron table. With her hands atop the curvature of the chair's iron back, she gazed out across Mount's Bay towards Saint Michael's Mount. She never grew tired of the view of the Mount.

There it was . . . Saint Michael�s . . . standing majestically on a rocky mound off the coast of Marazion across Mount's Bay. It once had been a Benedictine monastery granted to the famous Mont St. Michel of France across the English Channel. In addition to Saint Michael's earlier glorious life, since the seventeenth century the medieval castle belonged to the St. Aubyn family of Cornwall. Rachel had fortuitously met a member of the family when she came to Cornwall - Margaret Trimble, a second cousin to John St. Aubyn.

She made a mental note to give Margaret a call and tell her Maxim was coming for she knew all about the story of the meeting in Brussels. Rachel sighed as her thoughts shifted to her dear friend Margaret who had just recently married a present-day Spanish nobleman. There's a fairytale for the older set, she thought to herself, amused. Rachel loved fairytales, collected books of them - Grimes, Andersen, Perrault, and others. She even owned a book of Russian Fairy Tales that she'�d purchased the last time she was in St. Petersburg.

Even after Margaret Trimble married the Count, Margaret continued to manage the Godolphin Arms in Marazion. In fact, the newlyweds lived at the Godolphin, although they were permitted to use a sectioned-off portion of the castle along with the rest of the family, away from the tourists.

Margaret;s husband, Felipe, was hardly ever around. Rachel could count on one hand the times she'd seen him. But when he was there, it was always fun to kibitz with him. He had such a great sense of humor, reminded Rachel of her father Neal. Margaret and Felipe made a splendid couple.

Rachel's hands shielded the sun from her eyes as she focused, trying to see the tiny Marazion village past Penzance on the far shore of the bay. She could barely make out the Godolphin where the view of Saint Michael's was a clear shot across the man-made granite walkway. At high-tide the causeway was hidden beneath the water. So crossing the bay to the sea-bound castle could be an adventure in itself. At mid or low tide one could walk in the footsteps of those who had crossed the causeway throughout the ages, but when the tide flooded over the historic footway, row and motor boats ferried tourists to where trading ships once anchored at the medieval village at the base of the Mount.

Since that first memorable visit to Marazion, Rachel lunched at the Godolphin quite regularly for more reasons than one: she loved the history, she loved talking to Margaret, she loved the food, she loved the view of the Mount, and she loved nosing around the quaint bayside town, had made friends with many of the local merchants.

As it turned out, Margaret and Rachel shared a belief in reincarnation; they both felt strongly that they were connected in past lives. The familiarity between them was much too strong for that not to be true. They both believed in the premise that they were part of a group traveling together from one lifetime to another, her beloved Pete Bell included. Like Rachel and Margaret, Pete had been a believer and, in fact, had introduced the two women to each other, knowing they had something in common.

Since Rachel first moved to Cornwall, she had spent many hours visiting the towns and villages in the south of England, even traveled from the west to the east coast meeting people with whom she instantly felt a previous connection. She was convinced more than ever she had lived in Cornwall in the seventeenth century. Even her dreams hinted at it. Investigations suggested it. It felt like she belonged there for more reasons than one. Open mindedness and eagerness to accept was the key to the belief she adopted long ago when her mother first introduced her to the theory.

Sounds of a car horn in the distance broke into Rachel's thoughts, bringing her back to the present. Sounds were magnified and echoed loudly in the Newlyn bay area.

She stepped to a nearby stone wall in her garden on which sat some of her favorite potted plants. She lifted a small pot of hyacinths to her nose, a hand-painted decorative pot she'd found in an art shop in St. Ives. She had intended to place it on the white filigree table that morning before she had her morning coffee and slices of toast, but she had forgotten.

Rachel was all about setting the table as beautifully as possible, whether she was alone or with guests. She used porcelain china and crystal, tea cups instead of pottery mugs, silver instead of stainless . . . even outdoors. Plastic was not an option. She used cloth napkins instead of paper. The paper towel she�d used earlier was there because she kept a roll of it nearby for spills on the glass-top table. But she loved pretty things and surrounded herself with them, they made her feel good.

The sweet smell of the hyacinths soothed her as she breathed in the aroma. The perfume of all flowers soothed her soul and lifted her spirits, whether from a bottle or from the actual bloom.

It had been years since Rachel first set foot on the British Isle and had immediately fallen in love with the English gardens wherever she went. So when she moved into her cottage in Newlyn, she worked diligently to create her own blossom-filled space in her own little corner of the island.

Her garden was picturesque with the emerald grass and multi-colored flower beds stretching to the magnificent magnolia tree perched near the edge of the bluff. Surrounded by the climbing vines and roses, the sounds of the seagulls and fishing boats bobbing in Newlyn Harbor below, and the varying shades of blues in the sky and sea beyond � it all came together to create a picture-perfect world. Rachel�s picture-perfect world.

Yes, Rachel loved Newlyn - her charming town in her own boot of Cornwall - that part of England reminded her of the shape of Italy . . . although a bit different, more like a backwards boot. Still, with an imagination one might visualize a boot.

Newlyn laid claim to having the largest fishing port in present-day England. Where winters are wild and raging, summers are mildly engaging. Rachel had written the rhyming description of Cornwall in one of her feeble attempts at writing poetry. It seemed her creativity ran rampant in England, but rather than her paltry poetry, she wrote romantic novels and screenplays. At times she even dabbled in oil and acrylic painting as well.

Rachel had first made the trip to Cornwall's seacoast with her dear friend Ethan Philips, during the Christmas holidays. She had come from the States for an extended stay, just after her father died.

She frowned. Too many dead. She attempted to drown out the emerging death thoughts by singing dramatically at the top of her lungs . . .

"Oh what a beautiful morning . . . oh what a beautiful day . . . I�ve got a beautiful feeling . . . everything�s going my way."

It worked.

Usually did.

But she hoped no one had heard her melodious outburst. That would be embarrassing. Of course if she didn�t see anybody watching her, then it wouldn�t matter. She wouldn�t know who they were, would she? She usually sang to herself as she walked to the villages of Newlyn and Penzance from her cottage, but she sang quietly, not belting out as she just did. She figured someone had definitely heard her, though, because there is always someone watching and listening, no matter what.

Sighing heavily, she poured another cup of coffee from the glass cafetiere that sat on the table, hoping the coffee would still be warm. She moved to the lounge chair, sat, and leaned back, allowing only pleasant memories of her first trip to Cornwall with Ethan slip back into her thoughts. Only the good thoughts, please.

She remembered how she and Ethan had arrived during a wicked storm, one of the most violent storms that had hit the region in years. It pounded the coastline of Mounts Bay the entire week before Christmas and continued on through New Year�s Day.

Of course Rachel had always loved the romance and drama of stormy weather - the high seas, the waves crashing over the granite boulders and pebble-strewn beach and up over the coastal road. It reminded her of Daphne du Maurier�s Cornwall, her dramatic, romantic novels set in the region. Daphne, too, had lived and written in Cornwall. Rachel felt a connection to her.

But her friend Ethan hated storms. He wanted to go back to London and spend the Christmas holidays with his sister and mother, and insisted they do that.

Needless to say, Rachel couldn�t pull herself away from the Cornwall coast, she was fixated. So she remained at the Queen Hotel in Penzance and Ethan returned to London to be with his family.

It turned out to be the best Christmas week and New Year�s Eve Rachel had spent in years. Growing up with an alcoholic father, who spent nights and holidays tending his pub, left Christmas something to be desired, never to be experienced. Her young adult Christmases were just as vacant, although she did try to make them as nice as she could for her son over the years.

But for her, personally, those first holiday nights with the locals at the Ship Inn in the tiny fishing village of Mousehole were exciting. While meandering through shops and pub-crawling the few days before Christmas after Ethan left, she had learned from the shop and pub people that Mousehole was the place to be on both holiday eves. Not being a religious sort, Rachel�s mode of celebrating the holidays fit right in with the Mousehole celebrants.

Now she was living just a mile from Mousehole and a mile from Penzance�in between the two towns�in Newlyn. Her dreams had come true, literally come true. Yes, she was exactly where she wanted to be, she was where she belonged. She knew it the moment she arrived that day in Cornwall with Ethan, but it took her three more years to finally make it her home. She�d lived in Cornwall four years now.

Again her reverie was interrupted, this time by sounds of lines beating and clanking against the boat masts below in Newlyn Harbor. The winds were picking up. Sounds of squawking seagulls as they pillaged for food filled the atmosphere too, mingling with the memories of that first visit and of Ethan.

All of a sudden a vision popped into her head - Ethan lying dead in the hospital morgue. She shook her head and stood up.

Ethan had died in a car crash just after Rachel moved into her cottage, was on his way to visit her. She remembered it as if was yesterday. They hadn�t seen each other in quite some time, not since she and Pete had committed to each other. And Ethan was at last coming to see her and she was glad, she still cared for him. But in his haste, the unexpected happened, a heart-breaking tragedy. He�d had an aneurism while driving and rolled his car just a few miles east of Penzance, pronounced dead on arrival.

She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her temples before lifting the bottom edge of her chambray shirt to wipe emerging tears from her already sore, reddened eyes. A deep, dull ache was again growing deep in her abdomen. She bent over, arms clenched across her belly.

Loud voices and laughter wafted up the steep bluff from the harbor below, instantly distracting Rachel�s increasing stress. She walked to the edge of the cliff.

She heard the cheerful voices, gladly letting them steer her imagination to visions of the Mayflower pulling into the harbor for fresh water as it had in 1620.

This was how her mind worked � jumping from one subject to another, from one imagination to another, from one feeling to another. It wore her out at times. But she�d given up trying to tame her fleeting thoughts and feelings; it wasn�t conceivable nor plausible. Even as a little girl, her father had given up trying to quell her hyperactive actions and thoughts, he�d push her off onto the housekeeper to get her out of his way, to silence her. In those days he was a serious drinker at the pub he owned, as well as at home, so he didn�t have the patience or time for an inquisitive little girl who seemed to have an interest in everything. Not until his later years when he sobered did they become loving friends, father and daughter.

Why she was thinking of the Mayflower right at that moment, she had no clue. But it came at a most opportune time, eradicating the death images of Ethan, which would inevitably bring on the death images of her father, mother, and Pete . . . all in a pile of dead bodies.

She sat on a nearby boulder.

The Mayflower. She�d been reading about the history of Newlyn Bay, maybe that was why the thoughts of the Mayflower came to mind. She allowed her historical thoughts to wander.

The Mayflower had anchored in Newlyn to take on water because the supply in Plymouth was contaminated. Rachel loved history and she�d read that the journey from Plymouth, England to Plymouth in Cape Cod Bay on the eastern coast of North America took two months when they finally were able to make the trip after several attempts. They actually first sailed from Holland on a different ship, the Speedwell (a contradiction), then transferred to the Mayflower in Plymouth because the Speedwell was leaking between the planks.

The pilgrims were separatists, branching off from the Church of England. They had fled to Holland to worship as they wished, but wanted to go to America for complete religious freedom, which was their ultimate goal.

She visualized Captain John Smith and John Alden�of the Priscilla Mullins and Miles Standish love triangle. Alden had been a member of the crew on the Mayflower, a barrel-maker. Priscilla was seventeen years old when she boarded the ship. Being the military advisor of the new colony in Plymouth, it was said that Miles Standish�s unrequited love for Priscilla never came to fruition. According to Longfellow�s famous poem, whether it was true or not, it was Standish who convinced Alden to propose to Priscilla for him, only to have Priscilla tell Alden to speak up for himself. As it turned out, John and Priscilla were the third couple to be married in Plymouth and they had ten children.

In Rachel�s imagination she saw the story and history unfold that had begun right there in the bay below where she lived. She could see the men, women, and children on the ship. She saw John Alden and all the eager, hopeful faces staring up at the hills and cliffs of the bay around them, not realizing the dangers ahead on the long and grueling journey they were about to take. They lost two lives at sea and more than half of the remaining settlers that first year while anchored in Cape Cod.

Sighing heavily, Rachel returned to the table and poured herself another cup of coffee. She sat for a few minutes, sipping the contents from her favorite teacup. She lifted the saucer and closely perused the tiny pink roses in the yellow and blue flowered pattern - the gold scrolling and solid pink background around the edges. Lady Carlisle was stamped on the back of the saucer - Royal Albert Bone China. She had seen the same china used in quite a few British movies and was thrilled to have the set. She took the last sip of coffee and set the cup and saucer on the table.

Standing up, stretching her arms, and reaching for the sky, she breathed deeply. Then she bent over and easily touched her toes. She placed her hands on her hips and turned from side to side to the count of twenty.

One of the most difficult things was to take time away from writing to do physical exercises. It took effort to maintain her ideal 5-foot 4-inch, 120-pound body. She loved gardening and walking, but she didn�t feel that was enough to keep her in shape after spending such long hours, thinking and writing. Her thought processes were as much a part of her writing as the actual physical act of putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, whichever the case might be, depending on where she was writing. Her imaginings and dreaming played bit parts in the concepts that unfolded in her stories.

Again at the cliff�s edge she did more stretching and bending, thinking she should be jogging which would never happen in a million years of course. She�d leave that to the Stephen Kings of the world, who jogged every day for miles before sitting down to write. Not her. Besides she believed that jogging bruised the insides, jostled it all around, not to mention broke down the feet and knees. Plus . . . she was sure jogging would bruise her soul. No thank you.

She dropped to the grass and lay flat on her back, arms outstretched. Silent film star Gloria Swanson said the only exercise she did to maintain her slim, svelte body was to stretch like a cat before she got out of bed every morning. That was the extent of her daily exercise.

As Rachel lay splayed on the lawn, she closed her eyes, trying to calm and relax her mind and body. Visualizing a color with her eyes shut was a good trick. She�d think of a color until all she saw behind her eyelids was that color, bright and sparkly. She could even change the hues with her thoughts, and the concentration would eliminate all other thoughts. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn�t.

It wasn�t working.

Again she stood up, this time turning and heading towards her cottage. She stopped and pinched off a few stalks of tiny, pink rose buds from a climbing vine, inhaling the handful of fragrance as she passed through the open French doors that led into the master bedroom of her small, cozy house.

It had been four years since her fianc� Pete Bell had emailed her about the availability of her Heart�s Ease Cottage while she was in Montana.

Four years.

She plopped down onto her pink satin duvet cover, lying face down, crossways on the bed, her nose buried in the bunch of roses still clutched in her hand.

She rolled over and stared at her bedroom walls covered with wallpaper of pink and pale yellow rosebuds, chintz draperies to match, lacy curtains covering the diamond-shaped panes in the windows between the panels. Pete had called it her cotton candy world.

Yes, just four years since she bought the cottage after her dear mother died. Four years since Rachel had gone to the Blackfoot Indian reservation in Montana for the service honoring her mother and the contributions she�d made to her native Indian nation. Rachel was half Blackfoot and half Irish, her father being the O�Neill side of the family which explained her rust-colored hair, her olive brown skin�easily mistaken for a deep tan�coming from her mother�s side.

Both dead. Too many deaths.

Tears filled her eyes again as she remembered her dear parents, and how she missed them more than ever. She squeezed her head with both hands, trying to rid herself of the visuals and the emotion.

"That�s it!" she said aloud as she jumped up and hurried into the dressing room to splash cold water on her face. She stared into the mirror. Who was this haggard, red-eyed, red-nosed, sad-looking creature standing before her? Whatever happened to the happy-go-lucky Rachel, the one who could suppress her feelings, always show a bright smile and a happy face, no matter what? That had always been her claim to fame. Where was that person? This one was looking old and haggard.

She would be forty-nine in September. Maybe her problem was the proverbial change of life, the chemical changes that were going on inside her body, screwing up her emotions and her good looks.

"Get over it, will you?" She yelled at herself in the mirror and wiped her eyes and nose again with her shirt tail.

She grabbed the bunch of roses from the bed, and went into the kitchen to get a vase.

The kitchen wall phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi. What are you doing?" Belinda Newland asked across the wires, sitting Indian style on a settee in her shop.

"Taking a break from writing, putting some roses in a vase. How about you?" Rachel sniffed and blotted her nose on her sleeve.

"Are you crying, Rachel?"

"No, I just had a sneeze attack."

"Well, I was thinking maybe you�d like to go to an early lunch with us in Penzance? Mama�s visiting, she�s at home with the boys, so we thought we�d take advantage and go into town for some R & R. What do you think?" Belinda grinned at her husband, Paul, who was standing on the bottom stair of their workshop galleries in Mousehole - his painting gallery upstairs, her sculpting studio on the ground floor.

Cradling the phone against her shoulder, Rachel ran water into the vase. "Sure. Sounds good to me. When are you going?"

"We�ll pick you up at half past eleven."

"Okay, works for me." Rachel looked at the clock on the wall. "I'll be ready."

"See you then," Belinda said and hung up.

Rachel put the roses in the vase and set them on the kitchen table. Resting her hands on the back of a chair, she remembered when she and Pete had found the white-washed table at an antique shop in St. Ives, along with a wall mirror with the same fanciful carvings. Pete had hung it on the wall next to one of the heavy pine ceiling-to-floor bookcases that he had built for her.

Exhaling, Rachel turned and headed for her bedroom. No time to dawdle.

She quickly changed into a clean pair of faded blue jeans, black sandals and a black scoop-neck T-shirt. Decided that the chambray shirt she had been wearing and had used as a handkerchief all morning just wouldn�t do. She tossed it into the wicker hamper.

After splashing more cool water on her face, she brushed her reddish-brown hair straight back from her face.

I can�t believe Maxim is coming here. I just cannot believe it!

She searched through her drawer of scrunchies, grabbed a black and blue plaid one and fastened a pony tail to the nape of her neck.

Tomorrow, for God�s sakes!

She added a touch of pink lipstick. It never took her long to get dressed and put on her minimalist makeup.

She went back out to the garden, cleared the table, and grabbed the shopping list she�d made. After plopping the cafetiere and the dishes into the sink to soak, she headed for her car in the small detached garage near the lane that ran in front of her house.

Then after driving the walkable distance to the Newlyn co-op market, stocking up on the provisions she figured she�d need for the weekend, she returned to the cottage�total trip thirty minutes.

While waiting for her closest friends�Belinda and Paul�she straightened the living room, returned books to bookshelves, restacked magazines, and fluffed the pillow cushions on the overstuffed chairs and sofas.

She just finished vacuuming the living room and giving the pastel Persian carpets in the bedrooms a once-over when she heard a car coming up the lane, so she grabbed her bag and out the door she flew.

She was exhausted. It had been an emotional roller-coaster morning.