LONG LOST
THE STORY SO FAR: Single mother Leigh Doyle runs her own gardening business and has done since her daughter Mollie was a baby. Her first client was newly widowed Janice Cooper, who has become a close friend and honorary grandma to Mollie. Mollie’s sixth birthday is coming up and Janice wants to hold her birthday party in her garden so Mollie can invite all her classmates. She books magician Richard Thompson, who lives over the road, to provide the entertainment. Janice has been estranged from her family since running away as a teenager and rarely talks about them, and she insists that Leigh and Mollie are her family now. Leigh is shocked when she arrives at Janice’s house to find Janice’s nephew Mark Canning is staying there. He’s told Janice that her younger brother – his father Trevor – passed away a few years ago. Leigh can’t explain it, but she has a bad feeling about him…
Leigh’s heart sank when she arrived at Janice’s house and saw Mark’s car parked on the drive. Three weeks had passed since his arrival and he was showing no signs of leaving. Surely, she thought, he must have somewhere else to be? A job to go to? A home of his own?
As always, she told herself she was jealous, but she missed her cosy chats with Janice. It was hard to talk at all with Mark constantly present.
As Mollie began to
