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This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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A Paperback Original 2007

Copyright © Therese Fowler 2007

‘What You Won’t Do for Love’ Words and Music by Alfons Kettne and Bobby Caldwell © 1978, EMI Longitude Music, USA. Reproduced b permission of EMI Music Publishing Ltd, London WC2H 0QY

‘Anthem’ Lyrics by Leonard Cohen © Sony/ATV Music Publishing All Rights Reserved

Therese Fowler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9781847560094

Ebook edition © August 2008 ISBN: 9780007278978 Version: 2018-06-05

Do, for love, what you would not do.

Title PageCopyrightDedicationProloguePart IChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenPart IIChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeChapter Twenty-FourChapter Twenty-FiveChapter Twenty-SixChapter Twenty-SevenChapter Twenty-EightChapter Twenty-Ninechapter ThirtyChapter Thirty-OneChapter Thirty-TwoChapter Thirty-ThreeChapter Thirty-FourChapter Thirty-FiveChapter Thirty-SixChapter Thirty-SevenChapter Thirty-EightPart IIIChapter Thirty-Ninechapter FortyChapter Forty-OneChapter Forty-TwoChapter Forty-ThreeChapter Forty-FourChapter Forty-FiveChapter Forty-SixChapter Forty-SevenChapter Forty-EightChapter Forty-Ninechapter FiftyChapter Fifty-OneChapter Fifty-TwoChapter Fifty-ThreeChapter Fifty-FourChapter Fifty-FiveChapter Fifty-SixChapter Fifty-SevenChapter Fifty-EightPart IVChapter Fifty-Ninechapter SixtyChapter Sixty-OneChapter Sixty-TwoPart VChapter Sixty-ThreeEpilogueAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorAbout the Publisher

August 1989

What she was doing was wrong. But then, everything was wrong, wasn’t it?

She was sneaking out to see Carson, even though in thirteen hours she’d be another man’s wife. Brian’s wife. Brian’s wife. No matter how she phrased the words, they hardly made sense to her, even now. They belonged to someone else’s reality. It was as if she, Meg Powell, would cease to exist at the end of the wedding ceremony, becoming some unfamiliar woman called Mrs Brian Hamilton. But maybe it was better that way.

She left her house in the dark and traced the familiar path through the pastures, toward the lake and the groves and Carson’s house. The sun would rise before much longer, and her sisters would wake, excited – Meg’s wedding day! Her parents would find her note saying she’d gone for a walk and wouldn’t be concerned. They’d know she’d be back in plenty of time; she was nothing if not reliable and responsible. A model daughter. Their deliverance.

And she was glad to be those things. If only she could shut down the Meg who still longed for the future she’d sacrificed. This visit to Carson was meant to do that, to shut it down. This part of her mission was appropriate, at least; this was the part she would explain to him. If she knew Carson – and after sixteen years of best-friendship, she knew only herself better – he would accept the partial truth without suspecting there was anything more to it.

She wanted so much to tell him the truth about the rest, to explain why she was marrying Brian. But besides jeopardizing everything, it would make him want to try to fix things. If that had been possible, there would not now be a breathtaking four-thousand-dollar wedding gown waiting in her bedroom like a fairy tale in progress. The thought of it hanging from her closet door, specter-like, made her shudder; she’d read enough fairy tales to know they didn’t always end happily.

Carson lived in a converted shed on his parent’s Florida citrus farm. The McKay farm adjoined her family’s horse farm, sharing an east–west line of wood posts and barbed wire. The fence kept the horses out of the groves but had never been a serious obstacle for Meg or her three younger sisters or Carson. When she was seven or eight years old, they’d found a wooden ladder and sawed it in half, then propped the halves on opposite sides of a post to make their passage easy. Meg wasn’t surprised, now, to see the ladder gone. Climbing the barbed wire, she took care not to get a cut she’d be hard pressed to explain tonight.