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  FERN MICHAELS

  THE GODMOTHERS

  Far and Away

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Fern Michaels.

  Fern Michaels is a registered trademark of KAP 5, Inc.

  “Hideaway” copyright © 2017 by Fern Michaels; Fern Michaels is a registered trademark of KAP 5, Inc.

  “Spirited Away” copyright © 2017 by Fern Michaels; Fern Michaels is a registered trademark of KAP 5, Inc.

  “Getaway” copyright © 2017 by Fern Michaels; Fern Michaels is a registered trademark of KAP 5, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: May 2019

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1204-2

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1204-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1204-8

  First Kensington Trade Paperback Edition: August 2019

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  HIDEAWAY

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  SPIRITED AWAY

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  GETAWAY

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  THE TRUTH WILL RISE

  Dear Readers,

  At long last you hold in your hands the final book in the Godmothers series.

  First, a big thank you for picking up not only this book but also for supporting this series over the course of seven books! I’ve had so much fun writing these characters since they first appeared in The Scoop. These girls (and their guys, their kids and their four-legged friends) hold a special place in my heart, and based on the letters and e-mails I’ve received over the years, they mean a lot to you as well. Beside inspiring a lot of laughter, Toots, Ida, Mavis and Sophie help remind us that life doesn’t necessarily slow down as you get older—and the one constant in their lives is the friendship that holds them together.

  This story first appeared as three separate e-novellas: Hideaway, Spirited Away and Getaway. But a lot (and I mean A LOT!) of you wrote and asked when it would be available in print. So here it is, as requested, as a single print book for the very first time. Far and Away is special to me for a couple of reasons. With this book I decided to go back in time and show how the
Godmothers first met in junior high school, laying the groundwork for decades of future friendship. But I also consider this the last book in the series, with the perfect grand finale for their stories. That said, as satisfying as it was to provide the Godmothers with their happy ending, they do have a history of reinvention . . . so who knows where they might show up again in the future?

  For now, please enjoy Far and Away and I hope you agree that I gave Toots, Sophie, Mavis and Ida the send-off they deserve.

  Happy reading!

  Fern

  HIDEAWAY

  Prologue

  Dabney House

  Florence Dabney waited at the top of the staircase while Theodore said goodbye to their guests. They had celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary tonight, and she couldn’t wait for the evening to end. Just couldn’t wait to be alone with her husband.

  Her low-waisted, bright scarlet dress, with a full, just-below-the-knee hemline and bodice typical of the times, fell around her, yet when she tried to grasp the silky material, her hand appeared as though it was passing through her dress. Again, she tried to touch her dress, yet she still could not feel the material in her hand. She remembered dressing earlier tonight as she prepared for their evening dinner party. Ruth, her personal maid, had made sure that the way her dress fell around her hid the slight burgeoning of her waistline. She recalled Matilda Watson’s remark last week, pointing out that Florence was no longer as thin as Cora Russell, and that maybe she should not overindulge in Cook’s sweets. Florence had smiled, knowing full well that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for her thickening midsection.

  Tonight, she would tell Theodore all about that reason. Though she was unsure of exactly what his response would be to her important news, she took heart. Ever since their nuptials, he’d talked of nothing else but having an heir. Possibly, he would visit her rooms later tonight—after he learned she was with child, carrying his much-desired heir.

  Though Florence had dreaded that part of their marriage once she and Theodore were betrothed, she knew it was required and gave Theodore his needed relief. As a child, when her mother entertained guests, she’d very often overheard whispered discussions about what took place on one’s wedding night. Truthfully, being raised as she had been, until her own wedding night, she’d been completely unaware of what happened between a husband and a wife. Though it had not been as pleasurable as the hushed whispers had suggested, making her wonder what all the fuss was about, other than experiencing a moment of intense pain, she had found the experience not entirely unacceptable.

  Again, she reached for the luxurious silk, and, for the second time, she was unable to feel the soft texture of the fine material that had been shipped all the way from Spain. For a moment, she felt a slight tremor of fright, but then disregarded it. There was nothing for her to fear. Her evening had been pleasant if somewhat long. The Hamiltons had been very impressed with Cook’s baked quail and peas. Conversation about the arrival of goods for use in a new method of using waste products to fertilize the fields had dominated the evening. Theodore was quite excited about the new shipment arriving and could hardly talk of anything else. Actually, she thought it was distasteful dinner conversation, but it was not her place to voice an opinion.

  Downstairs, she could hear Theodore bid a final goodnight to the Hamiltons. As she waited for him, she smiled in anticipation, suddenly even more excited. A child would make Theodore happy. As of late, their marriage had not been quite as pleasant as it had been those first few months, since dear Theodore had so many responsibilities running the plantation he’d inherited from his father on the day of their wedding in June of 1921. Florence adored her position as the lady of the manor and took her duties as a wife quite seriously.

  Taking a deep breath, she suddenly felt chilled, and the air around her had become icy, unlike anything she’d ever known. It was so cold, and as she exhaled, she saw wafts of air come from her mouth. Again, she felt frightened and desperately wished that Theodore would finish up with whatever was taking him so long and come upstairs. She peered down the stairs in search of him, but the scene before her was not what she expected to see.

  The staircase, which should have displayed a brilliant polish on the gleaming oak surface, seemed aged and in need of repair, dilapidated. The rich tapestries that had been hanging on the walls were no longer there. The sconces, lit when she’d come upstairs, were not only snuffed out but were no longer even visible. Florence moved her hand toward her chest. It felt strange. She looked at her hand as she placed it across her heart and saw it as an eerie luminescence, more like a misty fog than her own flesh-colored appendage. As she pushed her hand harder against her chest, waiting to feel the reassuring beat of her heart, she became still when she felt absolutely nothing other than her hand slowly gliding through her dress and right through her flesh.

  Dear Lord, she must be dreaming. Taking a deep breath, she was sure this must be a result of her condition. She was having a nightmare and would wake up in the morning, at which time she would tell Theodore all about this, and the two of them would have a good laugh discussing the utter silliness of her dream.

  But no, this was different. She felt as though she was wide-awake. “Theo,” she called out. Again, she felt cold, and again, she saw wisps of a white, smokelike substance coming from her mouth. “Theo, please, where are you? I am quite frightened.”

  Suddenly, another frigid blast of cold air swirled around her. She observed the phenomenon as though in shock. The cold gust swirled around her, then stopped as quickly as it started. “Theodore?”

  And, suddenly, Theodore was there, right in front of her. Then a cruel, cackling laughter emanated from the man. But it wasn’t her Theo standing there; he wasn’t the man with whom she had dined earlier. No, this was some evil form of Theo. His finely tailored clothes hung in shreds, and his eyes glowed, as though a candle were lit behind them. “If this is a dream, please wake up,” she said aloud. “I don’t like this.”

  She reached out for the image of Theo before her. Her hands went right through him. She yanked them away, so frightened now that she backed away from the evil image and tried grabbing the banister for support. As she tried to steady herself again, her hand seemed to melt right through the wood. And before she knew what was happening, she felt a heavy hand at the small of her back, a hand with great power.

  Theodore’s hand? Except it wasn’t as comforting as she remembered. No, this was forceful. Before she could turn around and ask him to please remove his hand, she felt him shove her forward, toward the staircase. “Theodore!” Those were the last words Florence Dabney uttered before everything went totally blank.

  Chapter One

  Sophie jerked upright in the bed, stunned. Her heart drummed against her chest, sweat dampened her forehead, and the back of her neck was slick with perspiration. Unsure whether she had just experienced a vision by way of a dream, she reached for the lamp on the bedside table. Turning it on, she could see that she was safe in the master bedroom, with Goebel snoring contentedly beside her. They’d celebrated their first wedding anniversary that evening. Poor Goebel! He rarely drank, and had imbibed one too many celebratory glasses of champagne. Not wanting to wake him, she grabbed her robe from the bedpost and tiptoed out of the room, not bothering to turn out the light. She knew that Goebel wouldn’t hear her. His soft snores were comforting as Sophie crept out of their room and headed downstairs.

  She didn’t even want to begin to analyze her dream, or rather her vision, until she’d had a cigarette. As usual, Goebel had been after her to quit, and, as usual, she said she would think about it. Downstairs in their newly renovated kitchen, Sophie found her cigarettes and lighter on the counter by the back door. Just like at Toots’s house, she thought. Except she didn’t have a coffee can full of sand in which to stub out her cigarettes. She’d actually bought one of those ashtrays used in public places, the kind where you dropped the cigarette in a small hole and it went out as soon as it beg
an to suffer from oxygen deprivation.

  Sophie stepped outside on the screened-in veranda, into air almost oppressively thick with humidity. Goebel’s bubble-gum tree filled the air with its sweet scent. Birds chirped and the occasional croak of a frog could be heard, all the ordinary night noises that were normally soothing. But after what she had just experienced, Sophie found them annoying. She stepped outside, where she had a lounge chair and table for this very purpose. She lit her cigarette and took several drags, letting the nicotine’s calming effect settle her nerves. She thought about the dream or vision she’d had.

  The woman in her dream had been dressed in clothes from the early 1920s, before the flappers but after the drab style of the World War I era. And she had been excited, then all at once frightened; Sophie felt the woman’s fear again. She closed her eyes and focused, something that was becoming easier with time. Last year, Sophie had developed a new psychic skill, clairsentience. By touch she was able to see through the eyes of another, to feel what they were feeling in real time. She returned her focus to the woman in the dream. Her dress was scarlet, made of the finest silk. Sophie saw a bolt of cloth on a ship, which startled her. “That wasn’t a dream,” she said out loud.

  Knowing this, she lay back against the recliner’s plump cushions, closing her eyes and trying earnestly to decipher the images imprinted on her mind. Taking several deep breaths, Sophie could feel herself relax, the way she did right before she fell into a trance. Unlike a trance, however, she was very much aware of the woman, her fears, and her physical pain.