CHAPTER 1
“Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, in twenty minutes we’ll be starting our descent into Seattle. If you need to make use of the washrooms, please do so now as the fasten seatbelt signs will shortly be illuminated.”
The lights flickered on above their heads and Lola looked up bleary-eyed. “Are we nearly there?”
“Almost,” Cate said softly, leaning across the divide between the seats to place a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. “Do you want to come with me to get changed?”
“I guess,” Lola shrugged. She threw back the blanket and swung her pyjama-clad legs down from the flat-bed. Her inky-black hair was all tangled up at the back of her head.
Cate handed her infant son Mateo, who was still asleep to her mother-in-law, Jean. He didn’t even stir as his grandmother settled him on her knee.
She retrieved her navy-blue carry-on bag from the overhead locker and followed her daughter down the short aisle to the washroom. While Lola changed out of her pyjamas and into her regular clothes, Cate waited outside. She looked around at the almost empty Club World cabin. Her husband might be extremely wealthy but she didn’t think that she would ever get used to being able to travel in such comfort and luxury.
After brushing out the tangles from her daughter’s hair and fixing it in a ponytail, it was Cate’s turn to use the washroom. As she washed her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror. She was stupidly nervous. In a couple of hours, she was going to see her husband in the flesh for the first time in five months. She pulled a band out of her pocket and quickly plaited her long, inky-black hair to the side. He’d always liked it like that.
There were dark shadows under her eyes and she still looked too pale. It had been tough being separated from Kian for so long, much tougher than she’d admitted to him during their nightly Skype chats. She pinched her cheeks trying to get some colour back into them.
Her t-shirt had ridden up during the flight, exposing a ribbon of skin around her midriff. Cursing softly, Cate quickly pulled it down and removed a lightweight khaki jacket from her carry-on bag.
“Mama!” Mateo was awake when she got back to her seat. He looked so much like his dad that it had been both a blessing and a punishment for the last five months. He reached out his chubby little arms and she took him back from Jean. “Hey buddy.”
Cate had been concerned about how Lola and Mateo would cope with such a long flight but they’d both slept for most of the journey. They’d booked an extra seat for Mateo but even though he was tired and cranky, he wouldn’t go to sleep unless he was snuggled up with Cate. Fortunately, the seats were roomy enough to accommodate them both.
Cate had the aisle seat while Lola was next to her by the window. She’d kept the screen between the two seats open but after the meal had been served; Lola had fallen asleep almost straight away, snuggled up under the lovely, quilted blanket.
Jean had the seat on the opposite side of the aisle to Cate. When she’d woken up halfway through the flight and realised that Cate was still awake, she’d kindly asked if she wanted to swap seats for a while. Cate had shaken her head – it wasn’t physical discomfort that was keeping her wide awake. There was a loud cacophony of voices inside her head questioning whether she was doing the right thing. They weren’t just flying to Seattle for a holiday; she and the children were moving there permanently.
Cate sat down again and settled Mateo on her knee. He amused himself playing with her braid.
While she’d been gone, they’d raised the window blinds and Lola was looking intently out of the window. “Can you see anything yet?” Cate asked.
“Just clouds,” Lola grumbled, not looking at Cate. She wasn’t happy that they were moving so far away.
Cate knew just how she felt. Kian was a professional footballer and until last year, she’d thought that he would stay with Manchester Rovers for the rest of his career and that they would bring up their children in the Cheshire countryside, close to both of their families.
Then last September, the club had gone into administration. It had seemed unfathomable, considering the season before they’d been playing against the likes of Real Madrid in the Champions League but they were immediately handed a thirteen-point deduction which had left them rock bottom of the Premier League. The auditors found widespread financial irregularities and several of the club directors were facing jail time.
In December, the administrators had announced that every single member of the first team squad would be put up for sale in the January transfer window. It was devastating; Rovers had always felt more like a close-knit family than just a football club. Their friend, Matteo Di Vela was the first to be sold; he went back home to Italy to play for AC Milan. Kian’s brother-in-law was next; Fabrizio was sold to their local rivals, Manchester United.
Cate and Kian had talked about it at length – he’d been adamant that he didn’t want to play for another Premier League team. He couldn’t imagine running out at the Rovers Stadium as an opposition player. He’d thought about retiring – he’d earned enough over the years and had been sensible with his investments but physically he wasn’t there yet.
When Stephen Locke had first approached him, Kian had listened to him out of respect because he’d been Kian’s first captain at Rovers. Steve had moved to the MLS after his marriage to Kelly had broken down and he was now first-team coach at Seattle F.C.
Kian had always assumed that players who left the Premier League for the MLS were coming to the end of their professional careers and were looking for that last big contract. But after his initial conversation with Steve, he’d felt a fresh burst of enthusiasm.
He hadn’t realised until that phone call just how jaded he’d become with the Premier League. It was getting more and more difficult for teams like Manchester Rovers to compete with all the foreign investment that was pouring into England’s top league.
The enthusiasm had only increased the more he’d found out about Seattle F.C.
He’d flown to Seattle just before Christmas for a meeting with the club’s owners and he’d been very impressed with the set-up of the franchise; they shared a stadium and a lot of personnel with the city’s NFL team. They had a strong fan base, regularly drawing crowds of over 40,000, which was almost unheard of in the MLS.
The next morning, before his evening flight back to London, Kian had walked around the city and he’d easily been able to imagine Cate and the children living there.
They’d eventually agreed that Kian would move out to Seattle at the end of January and Cate and the children would stay in England until the end of the school year in mid-July.
However, they were actually going to be arriving in Seattle a few weeks earlier than planned because Lola’s school had been flooded. The damage to the buildings was so severe that they wouldn’t be able to reopen again before the summer holidays were due to start.