His beard trimmed, his teeth cleaned and wearing a pair of knee-length pyjama bottoms, he hung up his damp towel on the radiator and conceded that he couldn’t put off going to bed any longer. It was show time.
But when he opened the door, he was greeted with Martha looking like sex was the last thing on her mind.
‘Can you believe it,’ she said, waving her mobile phone at him. ‘Willow now says she can’t make it on Saturday. She’s decided that that’s when she’s moving in with Rick instead of meeting Mum’s fancy man.’
The words ‘fancy man’ jarred with Tom, but he let them go. For now, the man they had yet to meet was the enemy in Martha’s mind and Tom would be foolish to think otherwise.
‘Can we change it to Sunday?’ he asked.
‘No, because Willow says she’ll be sorting out her things at Rick’s. Why does she always have to ruin things? Now we’ll have to wait until the following weekend.’
‘Well, it’s just one of those things, isn’t it?’ he said, getting in the bed beside her. ‘Or why don’t we suggest an evening next week?’
‘I tried that as well and Willow claims to be working the evening shift all next week.’
‘Then there’s nothing else for it, we have to be patient and wait for your sister to be free. It’s no big deal.’
Martha frowned. ‘How can you say that when it’s an immensely big deal? This is my mother we’re talking about, who has some strange man getting his hooks into her. Honestly, I could throttle my sister sometimes. I swear she’s being deliberately awkward, putting this meeting off.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘Head in the sand syndrome. If she can’t see the problem, then in her mind it doesn’t exist.’
‘Then why don’t we meet up with your mother and her chap without Willow?’
‘No. I want it to be a united front, you, me and Willow. Together.’
‘What about Rick?’ It was a loaded question, but he’d risked it anyway.
‘Hmm … I suppose so. I don’t have much choice in the matter, do I?’
‘It would be an olive branch after—’
‘There’s no need to say it,’ Martha interrupted him. ‘An olive branch to smooth over the way I spoke to him at Mum’s. I get it.’
‘There again,’ said Tom, trying to be helpful, ‘just the two of us might seem less confrontational. For your mother’s sake, if nothing else,’ he added, knowing full well that with or without Willow, Martha would inevitably take a confrontational stance.
Giving him no more than a sigh for an answer, she put her mobile on the bedside table and switched off her lamp. She then turned to look at him. ‘According to my temperature chart, I’m at my peak fertility window.’
‘Right,’ he said with what he hoped was his best attempt at a smile of enthusiasm, at the same time extinguishing the light from his bedside lamp. ‘We’d better get down to business then.’
‘I’m not sure I can,’ she said in the dark when they were both lying down, their faces almost touching. ‘Not with worrying about Mum and—’
Hearing the unhappiness in her voice, he hushed her with a kiss. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said, wanting desperately to give her the one thing he knew she so badly wanted. If he could do that, then maybe it would take her mind off worrying about her mother having a boyfriend. She might even learn to be pleased for her.
It was almost midnight and with Rick fast asleep in bed, Willow had locked herself in the bathroom.
She was in a state of shock, unable to believe what she was seeing. There had to be a mistake. This couldn’t be happening. It really couldn’t. The kit had to be faulty. Or more likely, she had done something wrong.
But even as she tried to convince herself that she couldn’t be pregnant,she pieced together her suspicions and the reasons she had bought the kit in the first place – two missed periods and a definite urge to throw up in the last few days.
Only a few days ago her biggest worry was breaking the awful news to Simon and Lucy that Cedric was missing. Now this!
But how? How could it have happened? She was never careless about these things.Never!And what on earth would Rick say if he knew? More worryingly, what about her sister, what would Martha say if she guessed?
It had been bad enough earlier this evening when Martha had been sounding off at her on the phone because Willow couldn’t make it down to see Mum at the weekend as that was when she was moving in with Rick. But if Martha knew that Willow had been careless enough to get pregnant when she and Tom had been trying all these months to conceive, she would be doubly annoyed with her. Not just annoyed, but upset. Very upset.
Which meant there was nothing else for it, Willow had to keep her pregnancy a secret. It would give her time to think. But what was there to think about? She couldn’t keep the baby, could she? No way could she take care of a child when she was so useless at behaving like a responsible adult. A responsible adult who had proper savings and a pension plan and ISAs fully topped up. All she had, apart from the trust Dad had left her, was a bank account that fluctuated between black and red as easily as the wind changed direction.
