Second Chance - Jane Green [112]
‘Yay!’ Anna shouts with joy, turning to Paul. ‘See? I told you everything would be all right.’
‘We don’t know how much he’s going to charge us,’ Paul grumbles. ‘It might still be more money than we can afford to spend. Even this plumber coming out to fix the heating is yet another unexpected expense.’
‘Will said he’d do it for cost,’ Holly says, unable to wipe the smile off her face – and not because he’s doing it for cost. ‘He’s bringing all his tools. Apparently lumber is much cheaper out here, and he’s not going to charge anything for his time.’
Anna plants her hands on her hips and shoots Paul an I-told-you-so look as Paul shrugs. ‘If that is true, that is amazing.’
‘Of course it’s true,’ Holly says. ‘Remember, he’s Tom’s brother. Tom would never have promised something he wasn’t going to deliver. Think his brother’s going to be any different?’
‘Let’s just hope you’re right,’ Paul says, and donning his face mask he goes back into the living room to finish sanding the floor.
Holly hasn’t thought much about Marcus. Hasn’t thought much about her marriage ending or about the fact that she probably isn’t going home to the same life she left behind. Marcus has left two messages. The first furious, the second sad, asking if they could talk.
She responded not by calling him, but by phoning Frauke. She left details of where she was with Frauke, in case of emergency only, and told Frauke to tell Marcus they’d talk when she got home.
The rest of the time, she hasn’t thought about him.
Partly, she is burying her head in the sand. Just as she did throughout her marriage. When her unhappiness became almost too much to bear, she would bury her head in the sand and pretend that everything was fine. If she didn’t think about it, it wasn’t happening.
There is only one thought filling her head today. One thought that is keeping her going, keeping her as dizzy as a teenager.
Will.
Saffron, when sober, is as perceptive as she is direct. She has learnt to become an expert people-watcher for her acting profession, and as soon as Holly mentioned Will, Saffron saw how her eyes lit up, how she couldn’t stop smiling when she came back from having phoned him, how it would appear that she is practically bubbling over with happiness since that phone call.
Saffron would have to be stupid if she really believed that Holly is bursting with joy over the fact that the kitchen cupboards will be done at cost.
Hmmm, she thinks. Interesting. Not that she can see Holly and Will together – Will, though sexy and charming, is definitely not ready to settle down – but doesn’t Holly deserve a bit of fun after being married to that awful bloody Marcus? And Holly may not have the strength to stay separated – Saffron can see how Marcus might talk her back – so maybe it’s a good thing there’s someone else around to help Holly see she’s made the right decision.
Maybe it’s a very good thing indeed.
Chapter Twenty-four
Holly pulls up to the tiny little station and zooms right into one of the parking spaces next to the tracks. She is nervous, jittery, keeps pulling the mirror down to see what she looks like, so lost in her own world she tunes out of the constant questions from Daisy in the back seat.
‘I’ll be back in a second,’ she says to the kids as she sees the distant lights of the train, and she jumps out of the car and up the steps onto the platform, feeling dizzy with excitement and nerves.
It feels like an age since she last saw Will, but it is only, what, a few days? She is used to speaking to him all day; and somehow, now that she has left (for in her mind, over the last few hours, she has not been thinking that her marriage may be over, but she has rewritten history as her having left Marcus, as it being signed, sealed and delivered), something has shifted. She no longer feels guilt at the amount of time she spends thinking about Will or the thrill she feels at the prospect of seeing him.
She paces