Kate's father owns a boatyard and they have a comfortable, loving family life until her father gets drunk, something which is increasingly frequent - then he gets violent. Kate and her mother survive it together until the father attacks Kate one night when she is almost eighteen. Her mother stabs him in the back with a kitchen knife, kills him, is tried and hung for murder. Kate's loving grandmother and friends help her through her trauma. The only thing she doesn't have is a man - until she meets Bernard Pinfold (Toby). They walk out together and have a night of love just before he goes off on a two-year contract in South Africa. He doesn't write and Kate is saddened by his let down. However, she gets on with her life, converting her grandmother's house into a home for handicapped children, caring for a motherless child, Joshua, whom she comes to love and almost brings up as her own. Almost two years later she receives red roses and a letter from Toby wondering whether she is free, or found someone else. He is due to return and still loves her, but doesn't want to upset her if she's got another life. Of course, she forgives him...
- ISBN10 0708991335
- ISBN13 9780708991336
- Publish Date 1 January 2000 (first published 3 December 1998)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 17 October 2009
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher F A Thorpe (Publishers)
- Imprint Charnwood (Large Print)
- Edition Large type / large print edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 392
- Language English