Els groaned. “Don’t remind me. Jo makes me feel like a heifer.”
Jo laughed, gently brushing Ellie aside so she could hug me. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever,” she groaned, giving me a squeeze.
Except for the neat bump, Jo didn’t look much different – she was gorgeous, as always. I wondered how many women in the room hated her for being able to look glamorous while pregnant. “I’ve been so busy. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She smiled reassuringly at me. “I know how hard you work.”
“Right, my turn.” A musical American accent hit my ears, seconds before Olivia Sawyer embraced me. “It’s been ages,” she complained, her eyes teasing so I’d know she wasn’t really grousing about my absence. “Your hair is so much longer than last time we saw each other.”
Olivia, or Liv, as we all called her, was a curvy, attractive brunette who was practically a sister to Jo. Liv’s dad, Mick, had been like a close uncle to Jo when she was young. He left for America to be with a kid – Liv – that he hadn’t known about until she was thirteen, and returned to Scotland seven years ago when his wife, Liv’s mother, died. Liv came with him to rebuild their lives. Mick and Jo worked together in his painting and decorating company, and Dad got Liv a job at the University of Edinburgh’s main campus library. She got her own happy ending when she married one of the sexiest men I’d ever met, Nate Sawyer. He was Cam’s best friend.
The group was so tightly connected we were all like one big family.
“Work.” I shrugged unhappily. “Being a probationer takes a lot out of me.” It didn’t help that Liv and Nate had moved farther outside of Edinburgh to a house that could accommodate their growing family. They had a four-year-old daughter, Lily, and a one-year-old daughter, January. “I take it Nate has the kids?”
“The men have all the kids.” Joss grinned, coming toward me with a flute of Buck’s Fizz. “Honey.” She kissed my cheek affectionately. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too.” I grinned suddenly at the imagery that had popped into my head. “Are all the guys together with the kids?”
Joss chuckled. “Yeah. They took them to the zoo.”
I burst out laughing. “Four men and five young children. The guys are totally outnumbered.”
Braden was dad to the almost-six-year-old Beth and three-year-old Luke. Joss was an American who had come to Edinburgh to study. Tragically, she’d lost her entire family when she was fourteen – her mother, Sarah, her father, Luke, and her baby sister, Beth. Sarah had been Scottish, so Joss decided to start over in her motherland. After graduation she moved in with Ellie, met Braden, and began an affair with him that quickly grew into so much more. They’d been married for seven years and were two of the happiest people I knew.
“We’ll see who comes back in one piece,” Joss muttered dryly.
After joking with them all for a bit, I could hear Mum calling me, so I hurried into the kitchen and gave her a hand sorting out the buffet.
We all settled in the sitting room, oohing and aahing over the presents and laughing when Jo threw the packet of condoms at me.
I let them all chat, sitting there, just enjoying the happy atmosphere and the excitement of the upcoming births. Jo and Ellie were both almost seven months pregnant. Neither wanted to know what the sex of the baby was, so everyone had mostly gone neutral with the presents.
A few hours later, a little buzzed from the Buck’s Fizz and needing some water, I quietly disappeared into the kitchen. I was trailed by Joss.
“Hey.” I smiled at her over my shoulder as I filled my glass with water from the fridge.
Joss gave me an appraising look. “You seem tired. Are you okay?”
“Late night. And I’m exhausted at the thought of another two babies,” I said teasingly. “I’m not going to have a life with all the babysitting I’m going to be doing.”
Joss groaned. “I hear you. After all the babysitting Jo and Cam have done for me, I’m going to have to reciprocate. Beth, Luke, and a baby? It’s going to cripple me.”
“Ach, let Braden do it.”
Joss laughed, but a masculine voice called out, “Let Braden do what?”
We both turned to the doorway to see Braden towering inside it. In his arms was Luke and hurtling toward her mother was Beth.
“Mummy, I sat on a penguin!” she shrieked, throwing her arms around Joss’s legs.
Joss caught her, but her eyes were wide on Braden.
He chuckled. “Not a real one.”
“Oh, thank God.” Joss reached down and lifted her skinny, tousled-haired girl into her arms. “I thought we had a lawsuit on our hands.” She rubbed her nose against Beth’s. “Did you have fun with the animals, honey?”
Beth nodded and turned her head to look at her dad. Whatever she was about to say was abruptly halted when she spotted me. “Hannah!” she squealed.
Beth immediately scrambled out of Joss’s arms and threw herself at me, whereupon Joss walked over to kiss her son’s head and her husband’s lips. I bent down to catch Beth, who chattered to me excitedly as the noise level in the house rose. I heard what I could only imagine was baby January crying, and William giggling. Pushing past Joss’s leg was the beautiful, dark-haired, olive-skinned Lily. She ran at Beth and me, a stuffed tiger dangling from her small hand.
I caught her too, as Braden and Joss moved out of the doorway to allow a harried-looking Nate into the room. When he saw me with Lily, he relaxed and threw Braden a relieved look. “I handed Jan over to Liv. She’s the baby whisperer.”
We heard sudden laughter coming from the sitting room.
“William.” Braden smiled. “A comedian in the making.”
“Hannah!” Beth pulled on my hand, drawing my attention back to her. “We saw lions.”
“And tiggers, Nanna,” Lily added softly, pronouncing my name the only way she knew how, before chewing on the paw of her stuffed toy.
“What the hell…” We heard a loud, familiar voice speaking in a tone of confusion and dismay. A few seconds later my little brother, Declan, came into the kitchen, his hand clasped in his girlfriend’s. Dec was eighteen and had been dating Penny since he was sixteen. I wasn’t as close with him as I’d like to be, but I think that had much to do with his age and the fact that he spent most of his time with Penny.
His eyes swept the room and he looked beyond flummoxed. “Is this Sunday?”
I laughed. He was referring to my mum’s famous Sunday lunches. Not everyone could make Sunday lunch every week, but on the occasions we did, the house was loud and full to bursting. “No. It’s Ellie and Jo’s baby shower.”
Dec grunted moodily. “As if we need more people in this family.”
“Hey,” Joss admonished, “you should be grateful you have this.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He gave her a half grin. “It’d just be nice to come home to an empty house every once in a while.”
“Hmm.” I stood up, holding on to the girls’ tiny hands. “We all know why.” I looked at Penny pointedly and then winked at my brother.
He rolled his eyes. “There’s something seriously wrong with you.” He gently nudged the ever quiet and now blushing Penny out the door. “We’ll be upstairs.”
“Don’t do anything I would do!” I called after him as Braden, Nate, and Joss laughed.
Nate shook his head at me. “You’re mean to him.”
I made a mock-shocked face and looked down at the girls. “Do you hear that? Auntie Hannah isn’t mean, is she?”
Beth shook her head adamantly, while Lily nodded, clearly confused by the question.
CHAPTER 3
T
he house was quiet once everyone but my little brother and Penny had scampered. Although there had been many offers to help Mum clean up, in the end I helped her shoo them out and I stayed behind to offer my services, despite the pile of marking waiting for me in my flat.
I was just putting away some newly washed and dried dishes when Mum said my n
ame almost tentatively. Wary at her apprehensive tone, I turned around, my eyebrow raised in question.
She was fiddling a little nervously with a sponge she’d been using to wipe down the counters. “Your dad and I have something we need to ask you.”
I sighed, crossing my arms over my chest. “If it’s to help you get rid of another body I told you last time I was done with that.”
Mum cracked a smile. “Funny,” she said dryly. “No… well…”
“Come on, Mum, spit it out.”
She blew out air between her lips. “I’m worried about telling you because I don’t want you to feel like we’re shoving you aside.”
“See this?” I pointed to my face. “This is what ‘confused’ looks like.”
Mum gave a small huff of laughter. “I’m trying to tell you we’ve turned your room into a nursery.”
I shrugged. “Well, that makes sense. You have the kids staying over here more than I ever do.”
Mum seemed to deflate. “You’re not upset?”
“No, Mum.” I laughed. “I’m a grown woman with a very nice flat just up the road. It even has a bedroom in it. Two, actually.”
She rolled her eyes. “Make fun all you want, but I’m still your mother and you’re still my baby and I didn’t want you to feel like we were ousting you from the house. We’ve got a single bed in the nursery so you can stay whenever you need to, and of course at Christmastime.”
Shaking my head at the unnecessary worry in her eyes, I walked over to her, arms outstretched, and pulled her into a tight hug. “I can’t believe you were worrying over telling me this.”
She melted into me. “It’s what mums do.”
After a while I pulled back. “I take it you didn’t get rid of my stuff, though?”
“No. We boxed it up. I thought maybe you could go through it just now and decide what you want to keep and what you want to throw out.”
I really should have been getting back home to start work, but Mum and Dad never asked much of me and I knew it would help them out if I got organized as quickly as possible. “Okay. Oh, Sunday lunch might be out for me tomorrow. Got a pile of marking.”
“Oh, well, just leave the boxes for now, sweetheart.”
“Nah.” I waved her off, heading toward the stairs. “I was probably going to have to miss it anyway.”
Although I knew I would be walking into a different room from the one I’d left behind, it surprisingly winded me a little to see the cream walls painted a warm buttercream yellow, to see that my double bed had been removed and replaced with a beautiful whitewashed cot and a single bed. The posters I’d left up on the walls were all down, the books I’d left were packed away, and the photographs of my friends were boxed up too.
I stared at the boxes stacked on the floor at the far end of the room. My childhood was inside them, my developing personality, my teen years. I smiled as I walked toward them.
An hour or so later I’d pushed aside boxes of clothes that could go to charity, Dad had returned home and come upstairs to say hello and leave me with a cup of tea and a biscuit, and I was just ripping open a box I assumed was filled with books because it was heavy.
I found some books inside, but I also found diaries. My heart thudded a little at the sight of them, and I lifted them out to put them aside, with no intention of reading them. Ever. I was just lowering them to the “to keep” pile when a photograph floated out of the leaves of a black journal from my later teen years.
My heart no longer thudded.
It pounded.
Eight years ago
My English teacher had held me back after class to talk about entering my short story in a local competition. The thought freaked me out. My writing… on display like that to people who would judge whether it was good enough or not? I said no, thanks.
So why was I kicking myself as I hurried out of the school entrance toward the gate? I glanced around, noting that nearly everyone was gone. I’d missed the bus. It looked like I was walking home.
I hung my head, heaving a sigh.
Why had I said no to Mrs. Ellis? If she thought the story was good enough for the competition I should have just gone for it. Ugh. Sometimes I hated being this shy. Sometimes I even wondered why I couldn’t change that somehow. It didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere.
Frustrated at myself, I moved through the gates, catching sight of three older boys kicking a football against the school wall and talking. I recognized one of them.
Marco.
I didn’t know what his surname was because he was in fifth year and I was a third-year. I only knew of him because he was so popular his name had made its way down the years. And also because he was hard to miss. Really tall. Really good-looking. I’d heard he was foreign, but there were so many rumors flying around about where he was from, I didn’t know for sure.
Looking away quickly so I didn’t get spotted ogling him, I turned left and started heading for home. I’d taken only about four steps when my feet faltered on the fifth and sixth.
Up ahead, smoking, yelling, laughing, and swearing at one another were Jenks and his crew. They were in my year. We’d had first-year classes together, but things had changed, since we’d gotten to choose which classes we wanted to take as our high school careers progressed. My friends and I were smart and didn’t care to pretend that we weren’t. Jenks and his friends had picked on us since first year. To begin with it had just been in class, calling us “teacher’s pet,” “geeks,” and “swots.” Lately, because they couldn’t get to us in class, they’d taken to verbally abusing us as we got on the bus, or when they saw us in the corridors. The verbal abuse had gotten slowly cruder and nastier.
I glanced up the road to make sure there weren’t any cars coming, then dashed across the street to avoid the boys.
Unfortunately, Jenks wasn’t in the mood to avoid me.
I was looking at my feet, head down, when I heard him yell my name.
As if it knew something I didn’t, my heart started hammering hard against my ribs.
Looking up, I was filled with dread as a grinning Jenks casually swaggered across the street toward me, his two friends following him with nasty smirks on their faces.
“Whit’s up, geek?” Jenks stopped in my path and I moved around him.
He grabbed my arm, pulling me to a stop.
I did my best not to show fear as he stepped into my personal space, his eyes moving down my body in a way that made me feel nauseous. “I said whit’s up, geek?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head and tried to move away, but the three of them blocked me. “Look, I’m late for home.” I wished my voice were stronger. I wished I could set them down or beat them or just somehow get them to stop thinking they could intimidate me.
“We just want tae talk.” Jenks sneered at me. “So fuckin’ stuck up. But ye always were.”
Jenks’s friend Aaron punched him playfully in the arm. “She got fuckin’ tasty, though. I’d shag it.”
I blanched, taking a step back.
Jenks grunted, glaring at me. “She’s still a fuckin’ swot.” He took a step toward me. “Maybe a guid pumpin’ would loosin ye up, though, eh?” He reached a hand out to grab at my waist and I stepped out of range.
I felt the blood rush in my ears at the decidedly dark turn of their bullying. “I’m going home.” I tried to inject authority into my voice, but the words came out in a trembling tone.
They laughed and Jenks grabbed for me again.
My shriek of alarm was immediately quieted at the sight of Jenks crashing like a rag doll into Aaron. They almost fell to the ground, only barely catching each other. Their other friend, Rube, stumbled back, too, and my eyes went from them to the person who had shoved Jenks.
My gaze traveled upward in surprise.
Towering over us all was Marco.
A very angry Marco.
His menacing glower was fixated on Jenks.
“Whit the fuck?” Jenks pushed himself off Aaron
and scowled up at Marco. “Who the fuck dae ye think ye are?”
I was astounded that he’d be so aggressive with Marco. Even Rube and Aaron looked unsure.
“Get out of here,” Marco said quietly, calmly, his words soft and rounded with an accent. “I see you try this shit again and you’ll be dealing with me.”
Jenks opened his mouth as if to fight, but Marco was suddenly flanked by two friends. Seeing they were definitely not going to win against the older boys, Jenks spat at Marco’s feet and marched away, fists clenched at his sides.
I shuddered at my near escape.