Maddy doubted it. She still hadn’t the faintest idea how anyone, let alone Kate Taylor-Trent, could have found out about herself and Kerr, but somehow it had happened.
The bad news was that she had planned on speaking to the instigator privately to explain how vital it was that Marcella shouldn’t find out and generally appeal to their better nature. Well, what a waste of time that would be, seeing as Kate Taylor-Trent didn’t have one.
‘Let me get you a drink,’ one of the visiting team offered Nuala. ‘Who blacked your eye then?
Jealous boyfriend?’
Dimpling, Nuala said, ‘I tripped and fell down the stairs. And thanks, I’d love a white wine spritzer.’
Dexter, serving behind the bar, glanced at Nuala’s legs. ‘Fasten the buttons on that skirt,’ he said curtly. ‘You look like an old tart.’
‘That’s a coincidence,’ Kate chimed in, ‘you sound like an old fart.’
Nuala spluttered with laughter. Even Dexter, initially taken aback, managed to crack a smile.
‘See?’ Nuala whispered to Maddy. ‘She’s all right really. Not as bad as you think.’
Seriously? Was Nuala right? Maddy looked across the bar at the girl who had belittled her for so many years. For a split second their eyes met and Maddy wondered if, just this once, Kate might acknowledge her with a brief smile.
Who was she kidding? It didn’t happen. Whether out of guilt or indifference or plain dislike, Kate turned away and Maddy knew two things for sure.
Kate was the one who had told Jake about herself and Kerr.
And Nuala was wrong; Kate was every bit as bad as she thought.
Just the sound of Kerr’s voice on the phone had the ability to melt Maddy’s insides like chocolate.
She loved ringing him so much she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever managed to get through life without it.
‘Change of plan,’ she murmured from the back room of the delicatessen, having triple-checked that no customers had ventured into the shop. ‘I can’t make six o’clock. Marcella just rang Jake and left a message for the two of us to meet her at six.’
‘When you say the two of us,’ said Kerr, ‘you don’t mean—’
‘No, not you and me and Marcella with a shotgun.’ Maddy smiled because, miraculously, when she was talking to Kerr nothing else seemed to matter. ‘She wants to see Jake and me. No idea why, but apparently she sounded fine, so it can’t be anything too scary. Anyhow, I’m sure it won’t take long, so I’ll be over by seven.’
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ said Kerr. Maddy’s stomach flip-flopped like a landed fish. ‘The bad news.’
‘I still haven’t gone off you.’
Bastard! Overcome with relief, she said, ‘And the good news?’
Kerr’s voice softened. ‘You haven’t gone off me.’
Maddy made her way back through to the shop with a dopey smirk on her face. Juliet, carefully slicing up a kiwi-lime torte, said, ‘You’re going to hate me for saying this, but it’s all going to end in tears.’
Stubbornly, Maddy said, ‘Don’t be such a pessimist.’
‘Take it from me, a secret is only a secret if nobody else knows about it. Even a secret shared between two people can be risky. It only works if they both have watertight reasons for wanting it kept.’
‘I know, I know, but we’re managing.’ If there had been any sand around, Maddy would have stuck her head in it.
‘I’m just warning you, that’s all.’ Juliet’s dark eyes were luminous with compassion. ‘You and Kerr know. I know. So does Nuala and Jake. And now there’s someone else as well. You think it’s Kate Taylor-Trent but you’re not completely sure. At this rate there aren’t going to be many people left in Ashcombe who aren’t in on the secret.’
Not wanting to hear this, Maddy reached for the silver tongs and began placing rum truffles from the glass-fronted case into one of the glossy cream boxes. Rum truffles were Marcella’s favourite.
Having weighed the box, she said, ‘Six pounds fifty,’ so that Juliet could add the extra amount to her slate.
‘That’s what a guilty husband does when he’s been spending too much time with his mistress,’ said Juliet. ‘Stops off at a garage and grabs a bunch of orange carnations for the wife.’
‘Is that what Tiff’s father used to do?’ Maddy felt mean, but she couldn’t resist the dig. Life was complicated enough right now, without being subjected to lectures from well-meaning friends who hadn’t exactly led blameless lives themselves.
‘I’m sure he did,’ said Juliet with a faint smile. ‘Although I’d like to think he did a bit better than a few grotty carnations smelling of petrol.’
Juliet had never deliberately set out to steal another woman’s husband, Maddy knew that. She hadn’t discovered until it was too late that he had a wife at home, and by then Tiff had been on the way.
‘Do you miss him?’ said Maddy.
‘You mean do I wish we could still be together, like a normal happy family?’ Juliet slid the torte back into the chiller cabinet and moved towards the till as a retired couple came into the shop.
Lowering her voice, she murmured, ‘No, I don’t. Tiff and I are fine together.’
‘Just the two of you? Don’t you ever want anyone else?’
‘We can’t always have what we want, can we?’ said Juliet. ‘Sometimes we just have to settle for what we can get.’
The bus trundled along Main Street, finally slowing up as it reached the war memorial. Marcella would normally have collected her bags together by now, made her way to the front of the vehicle and chatted to the driver while she waited for the bus to come to a halt.
This time she stayed in her seat, clutching her pink raffia bag to her chest, until the bus stopped running and the door opened.
‘Thought you’d fallen asleep,’ said the driver when she finally reached the steps.
‘Not me.’ Marcella smiled absently at him. ‘Thanks, Mickey. See you.’
‘What happened to all your bags?’ He looked surprised; one of life’s great shoppers, Marcella was invariably loaded down like a packhorse.
She shook her head as she climbed down and waggled her fingers at him. ‘Didn’t buy anything today, Mickey. Nothing caught my eye.’
It wasn’t true of course, but she could hardly show him the one item she had bought; there were some things it just wasn’t appropriate to share with your friendly neighbourhood bus driver.
Still in a bit of a daze, Marcella waited until Mickey had driven off along Ashcombe Road before turning to face Snow Cottage. It was hard to believe quite how drastically life was about to change.
‘Mum!’ Her gaze shifting to the upstairs window, Marcella saw Maddy waving at her. ‘Come on, we’ve been waiting for you! You’re late!’
Darling Maddy, she loved her with all her heart. And Jake. And Sophie too. Her wonderful family
– oh Lord, here she was, off again, how completely ridiculous.
Upstairs in her bedroom, Maddy saw the tears tumbling down Marcella’s smooth brown cheeks and felt her heart sink like a stone. Marcella didn’t cry; she was the strongest, bravest person she knew.
This had to be bad.
Either bad, or something to do with Kerr McKinnon, in which case it was a catastrophe.
‘Jake?’ Suddenly terrified, Maddy backed away from the window and clattered downstairs. ‘Open the front door quick, Mum’s here,’ she heard her voice falter, ‘and she’s crying.’
By the time Maddy reached the hall, Jake had opened the door and there was Marcella in her denim jacket and primrose-yellow pedal-pushers, with her hair wrapped up in a spectacular pink scarf and tears rolling down her face.
Hardly daring to breathe, Maddy said, ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
Fumbling for a tissue that was already shredded and damp, Marcella shook her head. ‘I’ve got a bit of news. Brace yourselves now, you two.’ She broke into a huge, unrepentant grin. ‘I’m pregnant.’