Starry Nights over Dragonfly Lake (The Maple Tree Lodge Hotel #3)

Chapter 1

‘If we can send one man to the moon, why can’t we send them all?’ grumbled Beth Jones by way of greeting as she opened up the car door.

She climbed out into the car park at Maple Tree Lodge and was immediately enveloped in a massive bear hug from one of her best friends, Lily Wilson. Despite the late hour, Lily had been standing patiently outside the hotel waiting for her arrival.

Beth immediately felt better and let herself relax into her friend’s embrace, blinking away the tears that pricked her eyes.

Lily gave her a squeeze before stepping back. ‘You drove all the way here from London wearing those?’ she asked, wide-eyed as she looked Beth up and down.

Beth glanced down at her favourite nightwear, a pair of oversized men’s blue striped pyjamas.

‘Well, you could hardly expect me to stop before walking out on my cheating boyfriend to say, “Oh, by the way, I just need to get changed into my normal clothes before I flounce out of here in disgust,” could you?’ she replied, with a shrug.

‘Please tell me you didn’t need to stop for petrol on the way?’ asked Lily with a smile.

Despite feeling miserable, Beth giggled. ‘Luckily no.’

Having a full tank of fuel in her ancient Fiat 500 was about the only good thing to have happened to her that evening.

That and arriving at Maple Tree Lodge, her favourite place in the whole world.

She looked across at the hotel and was shocked to see it in total darkness.

She knew it was gone midnight and in the middle of the English countryside but there had always been soft lighting dotted all around the wood-clad building even in the darkest hours.

On the nights when she had wandered outside alone to look at the stars, she had always been aware of the hotel behind her, like a warm, oak-framed hug.

‘Where are all the lights?’ she asked, realising the only thing illuminating both her and Lily was coming from inside her Fiat.

Lily rolled her eyes. ‘Another power cut,’ she said, with a grimace. ‘We’ve had high winds all afternoon and then just after nine o’clock tonight, wham. Everything goes out again. It probably won’t come on now until the morning.’

Being in the Cotswolds, the electricity to all the villages in the area was powered by overhead cables, always susceptible to any storms. Beth shuddered as a chilly October wind swept across Dragonfly Lake next to the car park and wondered whether she could quickly locate a jumper from her bag.

At least her Uggs had been in the hallway of her now ex-boyfriend’s flat and she had been able to slip them on quickly enough as she had left.

Her overnight bag was packed in the back of the car but it was late and anyway, the comfiest bed she had ever known was waiting for her upstairs so she would be warm soon enough.

‘I hope your mobile phone is charged,’ carried on Lily. ‘Although I’ve got a power bank you can borrow.’

Beth grimaced. ‘Don’t want any calls anyway.

Put it on mute as Jeremy kept trying to get hold of me.

’ She groaned, feeling the pain of his betrayal wash over her once more.

‘Why on earth he thinks I’m going to talk to him when I literally just overheard him declaring his love to another woman on the phone is beyond me.

I mean, I’m super bright! I can figure out a cheating lowlife pretty quickly. ’

She frowned to herself. Of course, it would have been helpful had she worked out that he was a cheating lowlife before she got involved with him, she added to herself.

Four months of dating, of getting her hopes up that she had finally found ‘the one’, and once more, all her hopes and dreams had been dashed.

She looked at Lily, one of her three best friends.

Lily, Hannah and Ella had all warned her to be careful about Jeremy and the many disastrous boyfriends before him.

They kept trying to tell her that perhaps she was too trusting, too eager to fall in love each time.

But she was an eternal optimist where men were concerned.

She believed in romance, happy ever afters and the whole dream.

She had to. After the worst start in life, her romantic dream had been the one thing keeping her going, her belief that there was a soulmate somewhere out there for her with whom to build a happy family of her very own, something she had never known.

Abandoned at birth, Beth had been moved from foster home to children’s home and then back again over and over throughout her childhood.

She had always hoped for someone to take her in permanently, to be welcomed into the heart of a family like the Jacksons, who owned Maple Tree Lodge.

They were warm and loving, her surrogate family since she had met Hannah Jackson all those years ago, and she adored them.

‘Tell me, how is everyone?’ she asked Lily, as she walked around the car to open the boot to retrieve her bag.

‘Ben’s stressed with all the power cuts and we’re both dreading any negative reviews from the guests who were moaning about it as things are still so tight,’ said Lily, leaning against the car.

‘Hannah and Alex are so loved up that I’d like to say it’s positively sickening but Ben and I are probably just as bad. ’

Beth watched as Lily’s face took on a goofy grin.

She was thrilled for two of her best friends to have found such happiness.

Lily had fallen in love with Ben Jackson when she had arrived to work on the hotel’s interior design a year ago.

Then his sister Hannah had unexpectedly begun a relationship with one of Ben’s best friends, Alex, just a few months ago and seemed equally blissful.

It had been watching two of her best friends looking so utterly happy and in love that had spurred Beth on to giving Jeremy every conceivable benefit of the doubt about having a relationship with her older work colleague who had been in the middle of divorcing his second wife.

As usual, she had put all her faith into the wrong man. When was she ever going to learn?

‘I’m such an idiot,’ she muttered, picking up her large overnight bag.

‘Dr Elizabeth Jones, you are in no way an idiot,’ Lily told her, shaking her head. ‘You have a PhD in astronomy as well as having the biggest brain I’ve ever encountered. Plus the biggest heart as well. Stop beating yourself up.’

Dr Jones. Beth wasn’t sure that she would ever get used to that moniker but it still made her smile. It had been worth every exhausting hour of work to get there.

The reason why nobody had ever wanted to adopt Beth was that she had been a sickly child.

The heart condition that she had been born with had meant frequent visits to the hospital and it apparently had been more than anyone wanted to ever take on permanently.

Each of her foster families had been kind and caring enough towards her but every time it was just a little too much to hope that anyone would want to adopt her and give her the much longed-for family that she dreamt about.

One night in her early teens, whilst staying in hospital and feeling particularly lonely, Beth had looked out of the window and seen the stars twinkling in the sky.

Always a bright child who had excelled in maths and science, she became curious about how they had been created in the first place.

And that began a lifelong passion for astronomy.

It had been one of the brightest moments in a somewhat bleak childhood.

After that, the constellations, planets and their romantic stories had kept her going at the worst of times.

Just after her final school exams, Beth had finally been mature enough to endure a major heart operation.

After a successful recovery, she had finally been able to leave behind her frequent hospital visits and look forward to the future.

Having passed all her A levels with top marks, Beth had moved to London after receiving acceptance into the Royal Observatory in Greenwich to volunteer as a helper.

Unable to afford the cost of attending an expensive university, she had funded herself to study for her degree at home whilst taking on any and every job that she could to make ends meet, including waitressing, cleaning and menial office work.

As well as being able to work in the Royal Observatory part time, London had produced one other major plus.

Only able to afford a room in a shared house in a less than attractive area of the capital city, her initial reservations about the accommodation had been quickly overcome when she had met her three other housemates.

Lily had been a junior assistant in an interior design firm, Hannah had been working as a pastry chef in a restaurant in the West End and Ella was a social media assistant in Canary Wharf.

The four women had quickly bonded and their lifelong friendships had begun.

It was one of the happiest times that Beth had ever known, secure with her best friends’ love and support that had continued ever since.

After two years, Beth had impressed a professor at Greenwich so much with her voluntary work that she offered Beth the opportunity to accompany her on a two-year sabbatical at the South African Astronomical Observatory as an assistant.

Under her tutelage and encouragement, Beth had blossomed, although she had begun to realise that the bias against her for not having a degree from one of the most noteworthy universities was beginning to hold her back in the field of her chosen career.

Even when she completed her astronomy degree and got top marks, still no doors were open to her for a full-time job.

So she continued to volunteer wherever she could, earning her living by continuing to take on as many jobs as she could.

She travelled the world, working at many of the amazing laboratory stations for a pittance whilst studying in her spare time for her PhD as well.