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slowly down the road that led to the lake, the inn, and the small compound of buildings on its shores. It was a good road, well illuminated by the old-fashioned street lamps Meredith had installed some years before.
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    Peering out of the car windows, she could see that Pete had had some of the workers busy with the bulldozer earlier in the day. The road was clear, the snow banked high like giant white hedges, and in the woods that traversed the road on either side there were huge drifts blown by the wind into weird sand-dune shapes.
    The branches of the trees were heavy with snow, many of them dripping icicles, and in the moonlight the pristine white landscape appeared to shimmer as if sprinkled with a fine coating of silver dust.
    Meredith could not help thinking how beautiful the woods were in their winter garb. But then, this land was always glorious, no matter what the season of the year, and it was so special to her, no other place in the world could compare to it.
    The first time she had set eyes on Silver Lake she had been awed by its majestic beauty—the great lake shining in the spring sunlight, a smooth sheet of glass, surrounded by lush meadows and orchards, the whole set in a natural basin created by the soaring wooded hills that rose up to encircle the entire property.
    She had fallen in love with it instantly and had gone on loving it with a growing passion ever since.
    Twenty-six years ago this year, she thought, I was only eighteen. So long ago, more than half her life ago.
    And yet it might have been only yesterday, so clear and fresh was the memory in her mind.
    She had come to Silver Lake Inn to apply for the job of receptionist, which she had seen advertised 36 / Barbara Taylor Bradford
    in the local paper. The Paulsons, the American family who had brought her with them from Australia as an au pair, were moving to South Africa because of Mr.
    Paulson’s job. She did not want to go there. Nor did she wish to return to her native Australia. Instead, she preferred to stay in America, in Connecticut, to be precise.
    It had been the middle of May, not long after her birthday, and she had arrived on a borrowed bicycle, looking a bit windswept, to say the least.
    Casting her mind back now, she pictured herself as she had been then—tall, skinny, all arms and legs like a young colt. Yet pretty enough in a fresh young way.
    She had been full of life and vitality, eager to be helpful, eager to please. That was her basic nature and she was a born peacemaker.
    Jack and Amelia Silver had taken to her at once, as she had to them. But they had been concerned about her staying in America without the Paulsons, had inquired about her family in Sydney, and what they would think. Once she explained that her parents were dead, they had been sympathetic, sorry that she had lost them so young. And they had understood then that she had no real reason to go back to the Anti-podes.
    After they had talked on the phone to Mrs. Paulson, they had hired her on the spot.
    And so it had begun, an extraordinary relationship that had changed her life.
    Meredith straightened in her seat as the inn came into view. Lights blazed in many of the windows, Her Own Rules / 37
    and this was a welcoming sight. She could hardly wait to be inside, to be with Blanche and Pete, surrounded by so many familiar things in that well-loved place.
    Within seconds Jonas was pulling up in front of the inn. He had barely braked when the front door flew open and bright light flooded out onto the wide porch.
    A moment later Blanche and Pete O’Brien were at the top of the steps, and as Meredith opened the car door, Pete was already halfway down, exclaiming,
    “Welcome, Meredith, you’ve certainly made it in good time despite the snow.”
    “Hello, Pete,” she said as he enveloped her in a hug.
    She added, as they drew apart, “There’s nobody like Jonas when it comes to driving. He’s the best.”
    “That he is. Hi, Jonas, good to see