The Backpacking Housewife. Janice Horton

       The Backpacking Housewife

      The Next Adventure

      JANICE HORTON

      A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      HarperImpulse

      an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

      Copyright © Janice Horton 2019

      Cover images © Shutterstock.com

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

      Janice Horton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008302696

      Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008340629

      Version: 2020-01-23

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

      Chapter 1: Tortola, British Virgin Islands

      Chapter 2

Chapter 3: George Town, Grand Cayman

Chapter 4: London UK

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9: The Bahamas

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12: Luminaire

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15: Back to Tortola and Waterfall Cay

      Chapter 16: London UK

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20: Six Months Later

      Acknowledgements

       About the Author

      About the Publisher

       To my family … with love. xx

       Chapter 1

       Tortola, British Virgin Islands

      This morning, in bright sunshine and on calm waters, we’re heading back to Road Town, Tortola, the capital of the British Virgin Islands: the starting point of our round the world adventure eight months ago and today our final port of call. I gaze out from my viewpoint on the forward deck at the shimmering vista ahead of me and at what must certainly be one of the most beautiful sights in the world; a chain of tropical islands laid out like an emerald necklace.

      I know I should be feeling elated, excited, or even triumphant about our return, but I’m feeling rather overwhelmed about it instead. That’s because I woke up this morning to realise that its’s exactly one year ago today that I grabbed my passport and got on a plane at Gatwick, leaving my whole life and my old life, behind me. A whole year.

      And today, it feels quite literally and figuratively, like my life has come full circle.

      So, while everyone else is busy and getting ready to disembark and celebrate our homecoming, I can’t help but to look back, rather than forward. I can’t help but to wonder what happens next for this backpacking housewife.

      If this is the end of my journey? Or just another new beginning?

      I’m torn in two by my conscience and my heart.

      I have a big decision to make and it’s not going to be an easy one.

      Do I continue to travel the world with Ethan? Or do I head back home to the UK?

      I know that Ethan wants me to be with him. I know he loves me. And I love him.

      But how do you tell someone who is something of a real-life Indiana Jones and who thrives on a life filled with endless adventure that you’ve started to think it might not be the life for you after all? That a life spent in perpetual sunshine while saving the planet has become too difficult for you? That the weeks and months and the thousands of miles of distance between you and those you’ve left behind is all too much?

      I have two grown up kids and an aged mother who I haven’t seen in a very long time.

      My heart aches as I realise it’s almost the end of November and Christmas is coming.

      I missed Christmas with my family last year. I spent last Christmas on a tiny island in the middle of the South China Sea. If you looked it up on a map, you’d see it really is as far away from anywhere else as you can possibly get. I imagine, as far as my family were concerned, I might as well have been on the moon. On Christmas Day, I remember sitting crying on the beach, under a scorching sun, thinking of the place I used to call home and imagining them all opening presents without me, which brought on another kind of guilt. The kind that tells you how spoiled and ungrateful you are for not appreciating what you have and where you are now.

      I’ve missed a whole year of birthdays and anniversaries and other special family days too.

      When I last checked in with my family, via a wi-fi signal in a port of call just several days ago, I discovered that my eldest son, Josh, and his girlfriend, Zoey, had just got engaged. That was unexpected. I mean, he didn’t even have a girlfriend on the scene when I’d left.

      He sent