For a sneak peek of my new book, THE FIRST WIFE’S SECRET, read on!…

Prologue

The shards of broken glass are everywhere.

Mara Spencer stands in the garden in the inky darkness. The wreckage gleams everywhere around her. It’s long past midnight, and on this June night in East Warrington it feels like the sun will never rise again.

One of the tables has overturned. The white tablecloths have come unmoored, flapping in the night wind like shrouds. There are plates with unfinished food still on them, remnants left to congeal under the sun.

Mara sinks onto one of the rented party chairs and turns her face up to the sky. The night song of cicadas is all around her, but Mara doesn’t hear it. All she hears is what happened in the garden just hours earlier. Blaring sirens, glass breaking; a scream–the noise filling up every inch of her skull. All she could see was red-and-blue light.

Was it only today that the Spencer clan, their friends and well-wishers, were gathered in this very spot, getting ready to celebrate one of the happiest days of her life?

Wake up, Mara, she thinks. But she doesn’t wake up.

How did this happen?

Where did it even begin?

Chapter One

Twelve hours earlier

Dinah

‘I still don’t get it.’ Max Brannagh crosses his arms and frowns at me. ‘Don’t you want me there?’

It’s three in the afternoon and already sweltering. The anniversary party’s going to be one sticky mess. I can picture it now, the women with makeup running down their faces, dripping off their noses; everyone drinking too fast in the heat, and Dad’s poker buddies starting into their inappropriate jokes before the food’s even served.

‘Come on, Max,’ I say. ‘You’d hate it. You know you would.’

It’s my fault my boyfriend isn’t invited to our big family party. Or at least, that’s what he thinks.

Max frowns back at me. And though I feel bad, I have to admit he’s very handsome when he’s frowning. His eyes seem to get darker, somehow, and he seems an inch taller. In his jeans and plain white t-shirt he’s like a modern-day James Dean. Usually when I see him he’s coming straight from work and he’s rocking his front-of-house blazer, with sharp shoes and gel in his hair. I like him this way though – looser, more untamed. But I still have to deal with the fact that he’s feeling wounded and a little mad at me. Maybe more than a little.

‘I just think it would have been a nice opportunity,’ he goes on. ‘To spend some more time with your parents.’

‘Not my parents,’ I remind him. ‘My dad. And my stepmom.’

‘I know, I know. But your dad’s so busy, Di. You and I have been together almost a year and it feels like I’ve barely met the guy.’

Which is true, and by design. Of course, Max doesn’t know that. It isn’t all as easy as he thinks.

Maybe that’s the reason for this feeling I’ve had all day, this sense of something looming over me. It won’t be hurricane season until the end of summer but that’s kind of what it feels like: a hot, grey shiver of unrest, rippling through the air.

Or maybe it’s just that I’m dreading this stinking party.

‘So have you thought about -’ he starts, but I put my hand over his.

‘Give me a few more days, Max? Please?’

I know I could ruin things if I take too much time, but I could ruin things too if I don’t take enough. And I don’t want to ruin things. Not again.

‘I just-’ Max begins, then trails off. I know what he wants to say, and I think he knows it won’t help.

I go to take his hand, but as I turn my wrist I can’t help glancing at my watch. Max gives me a withering look.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m really sorry. But -’

‘But you need to go.’

‘I have to find something to wear,’ I say. ‘And something for Josie to wear. And the house… you know what Mara’s like.’

Max sighs, and pivots so we’re walking back towards the park entrance. It’s a nice enough little park for a two-bit town. There are picnic tables which in probably an hour or two will be packed with families, or teenagers sharing a sneaky six-pack concealed in brown paper bags. I’ve always liked coming here to people-watch, spying on the happy families and wondering what the secret is.

Maybe one of these days, I won’t have to wonder.

Max is striding fast but I find his hand with mine and thread my fingers through it. He slows his pace just enough to let me.

‘This isn’t forever,’ I say, and look him square in the eye. ‘I promise.’

He sighs heavily, and there’s the ghost of a smile.

‘It better not be,’ he says, and leans in to kiss my hairline. ‘I don’t think I could bear it.’

I look up at him, and he looks back. It’s that intense, hungry look of his, not a smile but maybe better than a smile.

‘So am I going to see you this week or what?’ he asks.

Normally Max and I try to plan a couple of date nights a week – it depends. We only live thirty minutes apart but getting alone time as a single mom isn’t so easy. This weekend is out of the question though, since Josie and I are staying overnight at Dad and Mara’s tonight, and Mara’s doing a “family brunch” tomorrow. It’s all part of Mara’s Grand Plan for their anniversary party. My sisters and I are all staying over at Magnolia Cottage, each of us back in our childhood bedrooms – though since Lottie still hasn’t moved out of hers, I guess she doesn’t count as a guest.

‘Monday?’ I suggest to Max. ‘I’ll see if Trisha’s okay to take Josie for a sleepover.’

Trisha’s my neighbor in Rhodesbury, one town over, and she has a daughter Josie’s age. Rhodesbury’s pretty much the same as Warrington but less wealthy, without all the cute boutiques on Main Street. I never thought I’d find myself living round the corner from where I grew up but I guess life is like that. After the break-up with Jeff I was done with bright lights and big cities. And Dad helped out so much with Josie, it made life so much easier to live nearby.

‘Okay,’ Max says, his voice still a little taut. ‘Monday then.’

We say goodbye and I watch him go, walking the way he always walks – like a spring is coiled inside him, barely held back and ready to spring.

When we were teenagers growing up in this town, Max Brannagh was more my sister Vaughan’s type. I hung out with the alternative kids mostly, the musicians and the wannabe goths; Max was preppy in the same all-American way my sisters have always been. He was just another face in the football team line-out, another not-so-good good boy who held doors for teachers and yes-sirred their elders, then got wasted on the weekend and vomited in the neighbors’ swimming pools.

At least, that’s how he seemed back then. When he talks about his high school years to me now, it sounds like he didn’t go to that many parties after all. He didn’t have such an easy time fitting in with the other guys, plus he always had to work at his family’s restaurant in his spare time.

And then last October he came into Bud & Branch, wanting a quote for flower arrangements for the new café he’d just opened. It was years since I’d seen him but I recognized him right off. People in Warrington tend to know the Brannaghs but the recognition’s not always mutual. Frankly, I’m glad to be from one of the families that keeps a lower profile. The Brannaghs are not exactly well-liked, they have a tendency to kind of lord it over other people. That’s not Max’s fault though. I guess he’s the diamond in the rough.

I shake the memories away and head for my car. A bead of sweat trickles down my neck – it’s so hot already, unseasonably so for June – and I’m starting the engine when my phone buzzes with a text. It’s from my sister Vaughan:

I will personally kill you if you are late for tonight.

I roll my eyes and drop my phone in the hands-free. Obviously I’m not going to be late. I pump the gas, buzz the windows all the way down. I’ll take wind over AC whenever I can – I like things natural. Authentic.

The thing is I love Vaughan, she’s a great big sister, but it irks me how even now she has to take that older-and-wiser high ground. There are only three years between us and I’m thirty now, for crying out loud. Maybe Mara’s been needling her: where’s your sister, have you spoken to your sister; why isn’t your sister here?

But they should trust me enough to know I wouldn’t be late for this. Mara might get on my last nerve sometimes, but I’m not the kind of person who would sabotage her big day. Or Dad’s – this is his special day too. Even though things haven’t been easy between us lately, I’d never jeopardize tonight.

But it seems like in this family I have an identity I can’t shake off, no matter what I do. Middle child. Renegade. Where did we go wrong with Dinah? I’ve thought often enough about what it would be like to be a golden child instead of the black sheep. Pretty great, is my guess. That’s why I’m committed to never, ever letting Josie feel less than the apple of my eye.

Thinking of my daughter puts a sudden lump in my throat and I tell myself to get a grip. I don’t think of myself as a sentimental person but it’s something about today: the memories, the might-have-beens. And that strange shivery feeling that keeps washing over me, this sixth sense of a storm rolling in. But there’s no storm, and the forecast is for a balmy night.

*

Ten minutes later, and there it is rising up ahead of me: Magnolia Cottage. Maybe the name sounds a little grand for what it is – a rackety old house with a roof that leaks and birds’ nests in the chimneys – but to me it’s a palace. I’ve always loved this house. Mom loved it too. Dad says she fell in love with it right from the start, the second she saw the magnolia tree blooming in the front yard. It still blooms, not once but twice a year now: the miracle magnolia, Dad calls it. He says it only started doing that when I was about five years old. It’s just a fancy of mine, but I like to think that the miracle is Mom, somehow: a kind of sign that part of her is still watching over us.

What did I say just now about not being sentimental?Today must really be getting to me.

The thing is, three years old isn’t old enough to have real memories. Even the ones I have of Mom may just be because of what Vaughan has told me. She was seven when Mom died, and at that age, four years makes a world of difference.

Josie’s six now and I can’t imagine – God forbid – what her world would be like if she were suddenly to lose me. I couldn’t bear to imagine her growing up without me. At least Mom couldn’t have foreseen any of what was going to happen. At least she didn’t have time to realize all she was losing. The crash happened so fast. I wonder if we were the last thing she thought of before it was all over.

The car clunks over gravel and I ease it into the space beside the magnolia tree and cut the engine.

I don’t begrudge Dad the happiness he’s found with Mara, but I just can’t help thinking today of the might-have-beens. Of the alternate reality where my mom is still alive, and of the party she and Dad might have thrown for their anniversary if they’d had the chance. What would it have been this year – their thirty-fifth, maybe?

I wonder if Dad has been thinking of her today.

I wonder if he thinks of her every anniversary.

I bet Mara would hate that thought.

I get out of the car and slam the door. Through the hanging ivy I can see into the back garden, the circular tables already laid out, a couple of neighbour kids Mara has hired for the day to help. I’d have thought Mara would be out there with them, issuing instructions in her Manager Voice, but I don’t see her or Dad out here. I scan the garden for Josie too but there’s no sign of her. She’s probably up in our room with a book. I used to spend so many hours in this garden as a kid, but my daughter is more of an indoor creature.

I pause at the door, looking up at the house again before I step inside. The brickwork crenellated with ivy; the windows like eyes in a beloved face. I know why Mom fell in love with these four walls.

It comes over me again, this strange, haunting feeling that won’t leave me alone today. I’m looking at everything like it’s the last time – which is absurd, Magnolia Cottage isn’t going anywhere. But I can’t shake this flicker of foreboding.

A shadow moves across a bedroom window upstairs – Lottie’s window. My younger sister; my half-sister, technically. Mara’s daughter. We used to be best friends… once upon a time.

Life is weird like that, the way it upends things you thought would always be the same.

The things you thought you could count on forever.

My phone pings again – probably Vaughan, still wearing her big-sister boots. I draw in a long breath and square my shoulders. I’m about to open the door when I hear the voices through the open window.

‘George, just snap out of it, will you? Dinah’s a grown woman. This can’t go on.’

I inhale sharply. What’s Mara saying about me now?

Whatever Dad mumbles in response, he’s too far away for me to hear. I remind myself that I don’t believe in eavesdropping. With an effort of will, I crunch over the gravel to the side door instead. Time to face the music.

I push open the door and step inside.