Chapter Forty
Three years later . . .
Kate Bryne stared at the shelves of books as she stood in the hallway of her home.
She’d read them all.
The book that she’d enjoyed the most was a paperback.
The cover was eye-catching and the pages well turned.
The Deadly Dating Game by Kate Bryne was a best-seller and, apart from her husband, the pride of Kate’s life.
Two more books had followed since its publication and were selling worldwide.
Kate’s agent, whom she’d met through Bob and Anthony, said that she was a publisher’s dream.
A prolific author with a fresh and sensitive feel for her writing.
Kate had never been happier.
She went into the kitchen and stood by the window.
In the garden, James was feeding the ducks.
A black Labrador scampered about beside him and a toddler wobbled across the lawn.
James stooped down to scoop the little girl up and held her high in the air.
Her cries of joy were music to Kate’s ears as she waved at Jack and Desiree, pregnant once more, who were lazing in the gazebo nearby.
A paper lay on the table. James had folded a page back to fall open at the business section where he’d highlighted an article for Kate to read.
Boomerville was booming.
Jo Docherty was expanding her business and the journalist explained that Boomerville was a concept with a difference, where people of ‘a certain age’ were flocking to its doors.
She watched James play with his grandchild and remembered the day that she’d seen Hattie’s advert and decided that it was time to do something positive with her life.
The people she’d met at Boomerville were good friends now.
Jo, Pete, Bob, Anthony, Lucinda, Paul, and Hattie and Hugo too.
Kate knew that she’d learnt a difficult lesson when she’d foolishly fallen for Andy.
She’d lost a great deal of money, but mercifully, some had been returned.
Boomerville had been the best thing that had ever happened to Kate.
For in James, she’d found The One and he was everything she could have wished for.
Boomerville had picked her up when she was down, taught her how to write and how to love and how to make friendships in later life, when she thought that she may never have another friend. She closed her eyes and thanked whatever path had steered her to the people and courses at Boomerville.
It was never too late to begin again.
Her mother’s words no longer haunted Kate and with a sigh of pleasure as she watched her new family, she whispered, ‘Somewhere in the universe, there is someone who will love us, understand us and kiss us and make it all better.’
THE END