Читать книгу Delivered: One Family - Caroline Anderson - Страница 8

THE following day she put the children in the double buggy, warmly wrapped up and covered with the hood, just in case it rained, and headed off to the centre of Woodbridge.

There was an up-market second-hand shop there that dealt in nearly-new designer clothes, and when she told them what she had to sell, the owner was ecstatic. ‘May I come round, to save you dragging everything down here? I can go through them with you and tell you what will sell.’

‘OK,’ she agreed, hugely relieved that she wasn’t going to have to struggle with the clothes and the children.

‘It’s coming up to the ball season, as well—have you got any evening wear?’

‘Masses,’ Liv assured her drily. ‘Are there any skinny women in Woodbridge?’

‘Lots,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I hate them all. When would you like me to come? Day or evening?’

‘Day’s better,’ Liv said, thinking of Ben coming home from work and the chaos of supper and bath-time, and they arranged a time the following day. Then Liv strolled up the main street, window shopping, and thinking what a pleasant, pretty town it was. She went into the chemist and bought vitamins for the children, and then couldn’t resist the bread shop.

They had big hedgehog loaves in the window, and Missy screamed because they weren’t for sale and she couldn’t get one.

‘Never mind. We can make one,’ she promised rashly, and was wondering how on earth she could achieve it when she clashed wheels with another buggy.

‘Sorry,’ she said, smiling, and looked up to see the familiar face of Kate, an old college friend, staring at her in amazement.

‘Liv? Liv Kensington? What are you doing here?’

‘Shh,’ she said with a smile, conscious that her name, if not her face, would attract attention. Nobody would notice a woman with two children, but her name had once been as well known as Liz Hurley’s, and she didn’t want to be reminded—not when she was two stone overweight and her hair was on end! ‘I’m staying here for a while with a friend. What about you, Kate? You look wonderful! Tell me all about yourself.’

Kate laughed. ‘Nothing to tell. I’m married to Andy—you remember Andy, he was around at college—and I’ve got three children—these are the youngest—and I live in Woodbridge. Where are you staying?’

She told Kate the address, and her jaw dropped. ‘But that’s next door but one! We’re neighbours! How amazing. You must come round—what are you doing now?’

Liv shrugged. ‘Nothing. I have to get back because Kit’s going to wake up soon, and he’ll scream all the way home.’

‘Why don’t you come round?’ Kate offered. ‘Have coffee with me—or lunch. Both. We can catch up. That would be so good.’

So they pushed their buggies back up the hill, and she went into Kate’s chaotic but friendly kitchen, and while Kate made coffee she fed Kit and watched the children playing together. Missy was thrilled to have new toys to look at, and there was a smidgen of hope that she’d forget the hedgehog bread!

‘So you’re staying with Ben, are you?’ Kate said, settling down at the table for a good gossip. ‘Do tell all! How come your hubby’s let you slip the leash and stay with a guy like that? He must need his head examined! Andy gets the hump if Ben so much as sets foot on the drive while he’s out—he says all that testosterone is bound to go to my head!’

She laughed good-naturedly, and Liv gave a polite chuckle.

Testosterone? Ben?

Was she missing something—or had that shiver of awareness when his lips had accidentally clashed with hers been more than just a fluke?

‘I don’t have a husband,’ she confessed, dragging her mind back to Kate’s question. ‘Oscar and I never got married.’

‘Oh, Lord, Oscar Harding—I remember reading about you in one of the glossies. But that was years ago!’

‘Four,’ she confessed with a wry smile. ‘I’m old news now.’

‘Four years. Heavens. I suppose it would be; I was at home with Jake. That was how I had time to read a magazine, I guess! Wow. I never thought I’d see you again. So where’s Oscar now?’

She shrugged. ‘In London. I’ve left him.’

‘With the babies and everything? Gosh, I expect he was gutted.’

Liv gave a hollow laugh. ‘No. Not gutted. Not Oscar.’

‘Oh, love, I’m sorry,’ Kate said sincerely. ‘So how will you cope?’

She laughed again, with more humour this time. ‘I’m Ben’s new housekeeper,’ she admitted. ‘He’s being more than kind. I cannot cook to save my life, and it doesn’t help when Missy puts sugar in the chicken casserole.’

Kate’s jaw dropped, and then she laughed till the tears ran down her face. ‘Oh, no. I’m sorry, I have this dreadful vision—’

‘It’s probably accurate,’ Liv said with another wry smile. ‘It was awful. It probably would have been pretty awful without Missy’s help, though, to be fair.’

Kate sat back and tipped her head on one side. ‘Want me to teach you? I mean, say no if you don’t, but really there are some dead easy things that will impress the socks off him. I’ve got a long list of them—I use one of them on Andy if I want something.’ She grinned mischievously. ‘I do a great line in aphrodisiacs,’ she stage-whispered, and Liv smiled ruefully.