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Bibury for more than thirty years, and as a child, she had been proud of his discipline and reputation in their village and the surrounding towns.
    On the summer evenings Mum worked as a hairdresser, earning extra money for Heather’s boarding school, he would entertain her with the most wonderful tales. It seemed like he knew a little about everyone’s business, but when he told her what he’d heard, he would put wings on the stories and make them bigger. Grander.
    The childhood that started idyllically, however, began to sour in the latter part of her secondary school years. And then, after what happened with Christopher—
    She’d left to attend a university in London though really she’d been running away—from her parents and Christopher and the big, gaping wound she thought would heal with time. For years the wound stung, the rejection from her first love slashing through her core. Over the years, it left behind an ugly scar, but even now, she sometimes felt as if her wound had never fully healed. The thought of reopening it terrified her.
    Her father had never forgiven her for eloping with Jeffery during her second semester of college, and none of her visits back to England had repaired the rift that separated them. Unlike the artwork she restored, there were no paints or paste or tools to mend the ragged gap in their relationship.
    Regret and shame haunted Heather during her years with Jeffery. She’d tried to forget the young man she’d loved deeply back in Bibury, but her heart warred inside her. It wasn’t her love for Christopher that slowly severed her marriage. It was her anger at Christopher—and anger toward herself.
    When Ella was six, Jeffery decided to leave, and he never returned. Heather knew she’d made some lousy choices in her struggle to grow up, but she never once regretted being Ella’s mother.
    She glanced out the window again at the sprawl of London that stretched like the threads on a cobweb. As if it wanted to capture her and her heart again.
    Heather’s mum had been disappointed when Heather told her that she and Jeffery had married . . . and were expecting a child. But during the last three years of her life, Mum had loved her granddaughter dearly. Ella attended the service for her grandmother back in 1992, but she hadn’t been back to England since then. She and Matthew had been on their honeymoon the week of her grandfather’s memorial service.
    Having Ella here now would keep Heather focused on the task at hand. For the next two weeks, she was determined to put her past behind her and honor her father by caring for his things.
    And she was determined to avoid Christopher Westcott and his family.
    Once she set the cottage in order, she would hand the keys to a real estate agent and return to Portland. In the rhythm of her work back in Oregon, her ordered life, peace would be restored.
    The plane’s wheels touched down, jolting her back to her reality.
    She found Ella by the window in the Terminal 4 lobby, texting her husband even though it was three in the morning Phoenix time. Ella looked like she was still in high school, with her short strawberry blonde hair pushed back behind her sunglasses, not the least bit frazzled after her long flight.
    “How is my son-in-law?” Heather asked as she slid into the seat beside her.
    Ella turned and squealed before wrapping her arms around her in a giant hug. “He says he’s afraid I’ll love it so much here that I won’t come home.”
    “I have no doubt you’ll love it, but I think you love him a bit more.”
    “That’s what I keep telling him.” Ella reached for her backpack and strapped it over her shoulder. “I can’t believe we’re finally here!”
    “Me neither.” Heather smiled at her beautiful daughter. “I’ve sure missed you.”
    Ella grinned back at her. “The last time I was here, I was like two.”
    “Actually, like three.”
    “I don’t remember a thing.”
    Heather stood up. “Then let’s see