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flooded with joy. Matthew’s tenacity combined with his responsibility and honesty was good for her daughter. And Ella’s love of spontaneity, adventure, and all things beautiful was good for him.
    They turned off the main highway and drove back through the grassy hills in the Cotswolds. “I only want you to meet someone who will—” Ella started.
    “Who will what?”
    “Who will make you smile.”
    “I can smile just fine on my own.” Heather flashed her a grin to prove it.
    Ella rolled her eyes. “It’s so much better to smile with someone else, isn’t it?”
    Of course it was, but she didn’t tell her daughter that.
    Ella closed her eyes, her short curly hair forming a sort of halo around her head as she leaned back against the seat. A couple minutes later, her breathing deepened into the steady pace of peaceful slumber.
    Heather glanced over at Ella’s unblemished skin and button nose. She looked like Mum, but their personalities were different. Maggie Doyle had been wary of most people and their motivations, but Heather adored her, even during her teenage years when it felt as if her mum interrogated her almost every night about where she had been and with whom.
    In hindsight, she should have listened more instead of balking—and ultimately all out rebelling—against both her mum and dad.
    Ella woke again as they entered the picturesque village of Bibury. A stone bridge arched over the placid River Coln, and Ella craned her neck to watch a swan and its fuzzy, brown cygnets floating alongside beds of watercress and the boggy watermeadow called Rack Isle.
    Ella lifted her phone and snapped a picture. “It’s like someone cued them.”
    “I called ahead.” They drove past a row of sandstone cottages with colorful gardens, and in the center of town, Heather pointed out the ancient Saxon church. “St. Mary’s was on a Christmas stamp a few decades back.”
    Ella rolled down her window to take another picture. “It’s all so—so perfect.”
    Sometimes it felt a little too perfect, Heather thought, on the outside at least. For better or worse, one thing she liked about Portland was that no one seemed to be afraid of their imperfections.
    As they climbed the hill above the village, Heather sped past the large country home on her left, averting her eyes from the Westcott family residence. But she slowed the car as they neared the Croft family property.
    Ella took off her sunglasses to examine the massive iron gates and gray stone wall. “What’s behind that?”
    “An old manor house called Ladenbrooke.”
    “How far away is our cottage?” Ella asked, her gaze still on the formidable wall.
    “Right next door.” She hadn’t thought about Ladenbrooke in such a long time, not until Nick had brought that painting to her studio.
    Ella looked back at her and grinned. “Perhaps we should pay a visit to our neighbors.”
    She tapped the gas. “The Crofts moved a long time ago, and as far as I know, they’ve never returned.”
    “But you haven’t been here in eons!”
    “No, but—” She slowed again before turning into the driveway for the cottage. “Their son Oliver died the year after I was born, and the family moved over near London. I don’t think they ever returned.”
    Ella unbuckled her seatbelt. “How did he die?”
    “He drowned in the River Coln.”
    “The same river that goes through town?” she asked skeptically.
    “The very one,” Heather said as their car bumped over the gravel. “The current travels fairly fast down the hill, but I used to wonder as well how a teenage boy could drown in it.”
    Ella opened her door, but she didn’t step outside. “Did you ask your parents?”
    She nodded. “I asked my mum, but she said no one can explain a tragedy.”
    “Surely she knew something—”
    Heather shrugged. “She hated talking about sad things like that.”
    “I’ll do a little digging,” Ella said, looking past Heather at the stone wall that wrapped around the