Lendle

There is nothing I can do– my husband is dead.My teenage son lost his father. But the will? Don’t get me started. I’m a lawyer – my four sisters are too. My hot-shot investment guy will take care of our son; he told me he would. There are so many shocks in that will. Not the least of which is a cottage in France that nobody knew existed.As the hits keep coming, I have no choice but to rally, thanks to my sisters. I will go to France, fix up this little stone shack, and secure my son’s future. Putting anxiety, grief, ambition, and a righteous work ethic behind, I answer the call.What my son and I find in southwest France, in a little village in the Dordogne, is so much beauty, new friends, great wine. But also secrets— a squatter, a leaky roof, a creepy wine cellar, a rude mayor, a deadly fall, and more. How are these my problems? I stay and figure it out, because I must, using my fabulous list-making and legal research skills.Because France, the future, and a certain handsome roofer make this way the only forward.• • • • • •PROLOGUEShe didn’t want the summer to end. She wanted it to go on, full of flowers, wine, olives, and — possibility. Yes, possibility, that thing she was so afraid of. Now she hungered for it, she lived for it. She rolled onto her stomach and put the pillow over her head.Was it possible to hide from your own life, from the prescribed steps, the set-in-stone trajectory? Was it possible to, say, change your name and live in France and be a completely different person, one your parents wouldn’t recognize, someone carefree, a nature girl, a bon vivant? Was it possible to forget the people you leave behind, those who nurtured and loved you, those who made you who you were? If you wished, wished, wished hard enough, would your fairy godmother, or an ogre-ish old widow, give you a string of magic pearls that would transform you into somebody who could do such a thing? A woman who could decide absolutely and exactly what would make her happy, right there, on the spot, and then actually do those things, without compromise or regret?She sighed under the pillow. How old do you have to be to stop believing in fairy tales? Because she didn’t think she’d actually reached that age.