Heart in the Right Place: Heart, #1

By Lisa Hill

Book one in the Heart series.

Is it possible to have it all?

Lottie Hardwicke is Yorkshire's answer to Kirstie Allsopp, but ten years spent raising her three children with husband, Drew, has relegated her to Saturday Girl status at the family estate agents. This is Lottie's year; she's turning over a new leaf and is going to make her time in property less of a borderline obsession and more of an actual career. Only, she hasn't bet on her interfering in-laws returning to scupper her plans or her teenage crush, celebrity Tom Thorpe, arriving in the village and offering her the opportunity of a lifetime, which could compromise everything…

Can Lottie have it all? Can she be a hands-on mum and get her career back, without wrecking her marriage in the process?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BLKDOG Publishing
• Release date: Dec 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215001783

Book preview

For my Daddy, who I thought I had lost forever, but was in fact lingering within the pages of a neglected manuscript.

Godfrey Thomas Bodenham

9th November 1936 - 8th April 2016

Truly a Know-it-All, always our Del Boy, forever 'Our Dad'.

Chapter One

Awave of limestone -muddy ditch water washed over the window screen. Lottie Hardwicke flicked the wipers as the Land Rover rocked unsteadily from side to side along the long, uneven driveway which led to the Old Rectory, her eyes concentrating on the property details on the passenger seat instead of the frequent potholes extending out in front of her.

It was her first Saturday back at Hardwickes estate agents since the New Year and Lottie usually relished the challenge of getting her teeth stuck into finding someone a new home. But a fortnight at home curled up in front of the wood burner with her husband, Drew, playing charades with the kids and eating her way through her own body weight in roasted peanuts, had left Lottie with a trace of reluctance about escaping Church Cottage this morning. Especially when her skirt was pinching from all her festive over-indulgence and a brief encounter with Jack, her father, on the driveway had allowed the icy January winds to sculpt her long blonde locks into hedgerow-frizz. 

New Year, fresh start, Lottie had thought earlier that morning, pelting into Harrogate as fast as Jack’s clapped-out old four-by-four would allow, taming her wild hair into something resembling a ‘style’. This year things were going to change.  This was the year she would make her career more than a border-line obsession with property and a weekly excursion into nosing around people’s homes. 

Of course, all that changed five minutes after she’d arrived in the office. Finding Duncan, the rostered staff member, had called in sick, Lottie was faced with an impatient Rebecca Cavendish - Branch Manager and general nit-picker - drumming her fingers at Lottie’s punctuality. Lottie might be the wife of the Regional Director but that did little for her reputation. If anything, it meant she had to work even harder at proving her property prowess. 

‘Drew’s scheduled an appointment in for ten at the Old Rectory, but he hasn’t made a note of the applicant’s name.’ Rebecca had said raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow. ‘There’s little else on today and seeing it’s raining buckets out there I’d rather not do it myself.’ Rebecca’s lip curled in distaste as she cast an eye over Lottie’s bird-nest chic.

‘That’s fine. I’ll do it,’ Lottie had said, reaching into Duncan’s bottom drawer and retrieving a hard hat.

‘You won’t need that, the builders have finished all the structural work,’ Rebecca snapped.

That was the problem with being married to the boss. You were meant to be abreast of every situation. Even if you only worked one day per week. 

The wipers furiously smeared away the ditch water, leaving a brown, rainbow-shaped residue for Lottie to peer through as she navigated her way along the increasingly cavernous drive of the Old Rectory. The freshly rendered limestone of the grandiose Georgian building with its rows of gleaming arch windows stood like a shining beacon against the bleak, Yorkshire landscape. Lottie glanced at the clock; quarter-to-ten.  Noting the builders had removed the scaffolding, she was keen to give the house a quick once-over, to check on progress inside and be ‘clued-up’ before the applicants arrived. It was important to know what you were talking about if you wanted to gain people’s trust. 

Glancing again at the brochure Lottie scanned the post-it note in Rebecca’s scrawl, bringing herself up-to-date on when the house should be completed. Peering through the smidgen of windscreen not caked in mud, Lottie could see the blurry outline of a car parked in front of the house. Dammit. She’d hoped to be there first. It crossed Lottie’s mind how strange it was Drew hadn’t made a note of who was viewing the property. He was normally fastidious about staff taking names, telephone numbers, email addresses; anything to bombard people with information on properties new to the market. 

Lottie’s foot eased off the accelerator as she recognised the black Mercedes casually parked at an angle as if it already belonged to the house and its estate. Her stomach lurched like a washing machine about to switch into spin cycle.

It couldn’t be. It must be a coincidence. After all there were plenty of black Mercedes up and down the country. 

Pulling up in front of the waiting car, Lottie’s heart fluttered, and she gripped the steering wheel harder. Managing to let go, she picked up the keys for the property, gathered her file with the brochure and pulled the car key out of the ignition.

Deep breaths and count to three; this could just be an unhappy coincidence.

But even if her heavy breathing was rapidly steaming up the Land Rover’s windows she could still make out the unmistakable AGENT 1 registration plate as she slowly rotated her head towards the stationary car. And if that wasn’t enough confirmation, the presence of her father-in-law sitting with an expression to match the miserable day outside and her mother-in-law waving a property brochure, certainly was. 

Bugger.

Not wanting to face her in-laws looking like a drowned rat and trying to avoid a big haven’t-seen-you-in-ages type embrace, Lottie dashed past Pamela and Edward Hardwicke’s car, up the steep York-flagstone steps and concentrated as her jittery hands fumbled for the right key to unlock the front door. 

‘What a ghastly day, Lottie!’ Pamela Hardwicke’s voice sounded distant as the blustery winds carried her voice away across the fields. It was a shame that gale forces couldn’t carry Pamela in a similar direction.

Finding the right key Lottie nudged the door open with her shoulder. The calming stillness of the vast, bare floorboard entrance with its broad staircase swept over Lottie. It was tempting to shut the door behind her and stay cocooned from reality. 

‘Oh, Lottie, it’s still a shell!’ No such luck. 

‘Hello, Pamela,’ she managed to stammer out. She waited for some sort of reciprocal greeting, but Pamela was too busy craning her neck to look at the restored cornicing. 

‘All the structural renovation is complete.’ Lottie tried to sound coherent while scanning through Rebecca’s notes. ‘But there’s still plastering and electrics to be finished off.’

‘Not to mention decoration,’ said Edward drily, stepping over the threshold and slamming the door shut.

‘How marvellous. We could choose our own decor!’ Pamela’s voice echoed through the hall as she clasped her hands together and looked wistfully to the upper floors and the ceiling above.

‘Don’t get carried away, Pam,’ said Edward wandering off in the direction of the drawing room. ‘I see you’re still trying to keep your hand in, Lottie.’ Edward’s drawl echoed around the empty room and out into the hall where Lottie was standing, her brain trying frantically to force one foot in front of the other to follow him. Her body wasn’t obliging.

‘If you mean am I still working on Saturdays,’ Lottie said flatly, ‘then yes, I am.’ 

‘Hardly seems any point.’ Edward returned to the hall and leant on the door frame. ‘I mean, it’s not as if you can build up a pipe-line working one day per week and what about poor Drew having to look after three children at the end of a long week at work?’ Edward gave Lottie one of his award-winning Cheshire cat grins, the ones he always reserved for when he knew he was winning the argument. With his silver fox charm and more style than a catwalk of supermodels, Lottie often wondered why Edward had never become a politician. Probably because he was a self-made man and highly respected within the property world. Lottie secretly felt Edward would make an exceptional stand-in for Lord Sugar on The Apprentice.

Lottie chewed the inside of her lip and looked down at Rebecca’s notes again.  She would have loved to have defended herself against Edward’s cutting remark, but she was more interested in finding out why he and Pamela were looking at a property worth a seven-figure sum, just around the corner from her own home, when they should be tucked away in their own Cotswold idyll, deep in the Oxfordshire countryside. 

‘Lottie, you look like you’ve lost a bit of weight.’ Pamela’s kitten heels click-clacked across the oak floorboards as her petite frame, draped in a well-cut camel, three-quarter length coat went down the corridor in search of the kitchen. ‘That’s very impressive seeing we’ve only just had Christmas!’

Lottie took a deep breath and tried to ignore Pamela’s habitual jibe about her weight.  At five-foot-nine-inches and a size fourteen, she knew she was never going to give Kate Moss a run for her money, but Lottie was content with her hourglass curves.

‘Where is Drew anyway?’ Edward asked.

‘He knows you’re coming?’ Lottie gripped the banister at the foot of the stairs. Crikey, if Pamela and Edward actually moved to Clunderton she’d be in danger of wearing out the skin over her knuckles.

Edward frowned. ‘Of course! He arranged the viewing. Why, didn’t he—’

A key rattled in the mortise lock, jolting Lottie from her rising hysteria. Air escaping from her lungs like a deflating balloon, Lottie’s gaze rested on the vibrant stained-glass arch window above the front door, providing some cheer on such a dull day.  It reminded Lottie of her childhood, sitting snuggled up with her mother on the sofa watching Playschool. But Lottie didn’t need to guess what was through the arch-window today. 

‘Drew!’ Edward pulled the door wide and shook Drew’s hand. ‘And you three as well, come on in.’ Edward held the door open wider. Lottie and Drew’s three children, eleven-year-old Ant, eight-year-old Cam, and five-year-old Eve shuffled nervously across the threshold and rushed to Lottie’s side.

‘Hello,’ said Drew nonchalantly, averting Lottie’s wide-eyed gaze.

‘Darling!’ boomed Pamela. Reappearing, she opened her arms wide to embrace her son.  Lottie marvelled at how someone so little could have such a loud voice, not to mention produce such a tall son; Drew’s six-foot-two frame dwarfed Pamela’s, nearly a foot shorter, as he stooped to kiss her on the cheek.

‘It’s so nice of you to have got Lottie involved too,’ said Pamela, releasing Drew from her Chanel-scented grasp and turning towards Lottie and the children. ‘Now children, do come and give Grandma a kiss. I did miss seeing you all at Christmas.’ 

Lottie marked another jibe up on her imaginary chalk board. 

‘Involved in what exactly?’ she asked looking directly at Drew who was busy tracing the wood grain in the floorboards with the toe of his shoe instead of explaining the little family gathering at a cold and draughty renovation project.

‘Us moving to Clunderton; to be closer to you all!’  Pamela beamed from ear-to-ear. ‘Shall we go and explore upstairs, children?’

‘Cool,’ said Ant racing up the twisting staircase. ‘Bet I can count the number of bedrooms before you can, Cam!’

‘Bet you can’t!’ Cam raced past Pamela who was holding Eve’s hand.

‘Careful boys,’ Lottie’s voice echoed up through the house. ‘This is still a building site. There could be tools and exposed wires lying around.’

Lottie turned and fixed Hardwicke senior and junior with a you-won’t-fob-me-off-this-time glare. ‘Would someone please mind explaining what’s going on?’

‘Why are you here Lottie?’ Drew spoke softly. ‘I put the viewing in my diary.’

Lottie felt the hairs prickle against the collar of her riding jacket. ‘Rebecca sent me. She saw the appointment and asked me to attend.’ Lottie jangled the keys to the Old Rectory. Quietly she added, ‘It’s my job.’

‘Now, now boys and girls.’ The stairs creaked as Edward began to ascend. ‘No need for tears before bedtime, we’ve only come to look. It’s Pam’s idea. Christ, you think I want to move back to this bleak barrenness? Why do you think I sent you up here in the first place, Drew?’

Lottie waited for Edward to reach the landing and disappear into one of the empty rooms destined to become a bedroom. ‘Why haven’t you told me about any of this?’ she hissed.

Drew fixed her with pleading eyes, the same eyes she had never been able to resist. Like pools of liquid chocolate.

‘I just couldn’t, okay?’

‘No, it’s not okay,’ Lottie stage-whispered. ‘We moved up here to escape them, have a fresh start. I do not need her coming down on me like a tonne of bricks every five minutes again.’

Drew shook his head. ‘It won’t be like that, I promise. Mum needs our support; she wants to be closer to her family.’

‘But she’s got your dad and James living in Oxford, why come back here? They haven’t lived here for nearly forty years!’

‘Does it matter?’ asked Drew leaning on the balustrade, his eyes not reaching Lottie’s. ‘You’ve got Jack living next door. At least if Mum and Dad bought this they’d be on the other side of the village.’

But the several counties currently between Lottie and her in-laws suited her just fine as it was. ‘Don’t bring Dad into this. He’s different. He hasn’t got anyone apart from me now Mum’s gone. It’s not fair to compare them.’ 

‘Look,’ Drew said quietly, ‘now is not the time for this conversation.’

‘But—’

Drew held his hand up and his shaggy, conker-brown locks shook in time with his head. ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you they were coming to have a look around today, but it might not come to anything! Dad’s not keen and you know what Mum can be like; she changes her mind with the weather. Hopefully they’ll—’

‘Drew!’ squealed Pamela, leaning over the second floor banister. ‘It’s perfect. It’s at a stage where I can choose all the fittings and decor. We’ll simply have to have it!’

Lottie finally found her strength and broke away from the support of the banister. ‘Seems pretty final to me. Say goodbye to the children for me and tell them I had to dash off. Seeing you’ve already got a set, I’ll take these,’ Lottie swung the keys to the Old Rectory, Pamela and Edward’s new home, on her index finger, ‘back to the office.’

‘Lottie, don’t leave like this.’

‘I’ll see you this evening,’ Lottie called over her shoulder as she pulled the door firmly behind her. 

Standing frozen on the doorstep, unable to move again, Lottie felt the odd sensation of icy January raindrops filter into the rivulets of warm salty tears, sliding silently down her face.

Chapter Two

‘A nt, Cam, homework please!’

‘Ugh, Mum, can’t we just...’

‘No Ant! Whatever pressing engagement you have with Star Wars Lego can wait.’ Lottie passed her eldest son his battered rucksack across the kitchen table.  She’d spent most of the day giving Church Cottage its bi-weekly clean but already the ten-seater oak table in the centre of the kitchen looked like it had had a head-on collision with a recycling lorry. Screwed-up fairy cake cases lay abandoned in pools of spilt orange juice and there were more crumbs on the table and floor than the plates Lottie had given the children to eat from.

‘Blimey, what’s happened in here?’ Poking his head around the utility room door, Jack Sellwood’s dulcet Somerset voice washed over Lottie, calming her rising panic of having five children to look after and not a clue what she was cooking for dinner this evening.

Jack kicked off his muddy wellies while Sky – so named by Cam as her black and white markings looked like clouds – snaked through his legs and padded for her basket by the radiator, leaving a trail of muddy paw prints across Lottie’s recently mopped, tiled floor. When they had moved to Clunderton three years ago Lottie had brought Sky home for Jack, thinking the little Border Collie puppy would keep the then recently widowed Jack company. But living in Church End, the annex to Church Cottage, Jack was never far from the hubbub of life in the Hardwicke household and nowadays Sky used her dog basket in Lottie’s kitchen more frequently than her official one in Jack’s. 

‘Tssh,’ said Lottie, resisting the urge to reach for her bucket and mop.

‘Sorry Lotts.’ Jack followed Sky’s trail, trying to rub paw marks out with the toes of his thick, navy welly socks as he went. He slung his wax jacket across the back of one of the kitchen chairs. ‘Still this lot make just as much mess!  Jacob and Emily as well this afternoon? Hello!’ Jack waved at the two who were sitting quietly finishing off their cakes.

‘Jude’s taken on an extra-shift at the maternity ward so I’m helping out. Betty goes to bingo in Knaresborough on Thursday afternoons.’

Jude Bradbury was Lottie’s best friend, bringer of gossip and had been her life support when she had first arrived in the village, knowing no-one. Quickly the tables had turned when Jude’s then husband, Phil – or Philandering Phil as Lottie preferred to call him – had left Jude for a younger woman. A surreal concept to Lottie seeing Jude was only thirty. Lottie had visions of Phil picking up some mini-skirted sixth former from the school gates. Betty, Jude’s mum, having suffered a similar experience with Jude’s father, was very supportive of her daughter.  But even Grandmas were entitled to an afternoon off every now and again.

‘I don’t know how that girl copes,’ said Jack, swivelling a coaster around on the table.

‘Dad, shhh!’ said Lottie, picking up discarded food debris and placing it in the compost bin under the kitchen sink. ‘Evie and Jacob, why don’t you go and play in the snug and Emily you can stand on the steps and play washing-up in the sink.’

‘Okay Mum, can we watch CeeBeebies?’ Eve eagerly pushed her chair back with a spine-tingling scrape along the floor.

Lottie sighed. ‘Okay, but only until Jude comes to collect Jacob and Emily, then you can find something else to do.’

‘Alright,’ Eve rolled her eyes. ‘C’mon Jacob,’ she slipped her little hand through Jacob’s and they skipped off into the hall.

‘Your kettle broken, Lottie?’

‘There’s the tap, there’s the switch, you can brew-up while I sort Emily out and panic about what I’m going to feed everyone for dinner.’

‘Don’t worry about me, I’m going to Mrs Adlard’s for tea.’

‘Okay,’ Lottie buried her face in Emily’s golden ringlets, as she swirled soapy bubbles in the washing bowl, to hide her smile. Lottie didn’t want to cast aspersions on the motives of the widows of the village but not a week had gone by since they had moved to Clunderton when Jack didn’t have at least one supper invite. 

Jack reached over and swung the tap around to fill the kettle. ‘The Old Rectory was shining like a beacon when I walked across the fields. I reckon they’ve drafted in extra workmen; every room had its lights on.’

‘It’s full steam ahead according to Drew; they want to move within six weeks.  Before Easter is Pamela’s deadline.’

The past few winter evenings hadn’t just been frosty outside since Pamela and Edward’s visit last weekend. There had been an icy chill in the air inside Church Cottage too as Lottie and Drew filled their evenings with stony silence. Lottie was still baffled by Drew’s omission to tell her Pamela and Edward were considering returning to Yorkshire.  Equally, he seemed incapable of understanding her objections.

‘Perfect bloody Pamela, that woman has a lot to answer for.’ Jack took two mugs from the cupboard.

‘Language, Dad!’ Lottie frowned and covered Emily’s ears. ‘I’m not so bothered about them living in the village, it’s just, well, it’s—’

‘Drew’s habit of moving mountains to accommodate his parents while everyone else takes a ticket?’

Lottie gazed out of the kitchen window, across the garden at Jack’s barren vegetable patch. 

‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’  Lottie was used to her father’s bluntness, but to have put into words something you thought you only felt deep down was a sobering thought indeed. 

‘I think you’re forgetting what it was like,’ said Jack, clanging a teaspoon around the steaming teapot. ‘How many bridesmaids you had at your wedding, who should be Ant’s Godparents, why Cam had got to three and you hadn’t potty-trained him. Want me to go on?’

‘No,’ said Lottie quietly. She preferred to push those memories firmly to the back of her mind and bury them under happier ones. Memories which frequently excluded Pamela and Edward.

‘And that was when you were living in Bath and them in Oxford, forty miles apart, can you imagine what it’ll be like when they’re living around the corner? You wait my girl; Perfect Pamela will infiltrate everything. The Women’s Institute, the Parish Council, she’ll want it all done her own way. It’ll be hell being associated with her.’

Lottie slumped down in a kitchen chair, resigning herself to calling Drew and asking him to pick up fish and chips in Clun-St-Mary for supper. She leant back and ran her fingers through her hair, vainly attempting to try and flush the thoughts she’d been having about Pamela and Edward from her head. Her eyes fell upon the picture frame above the breakfast bar on the far kitchen wall and for a nanosecond the handsome, rugged face hanging there lifted her spirits. 

When Lottie was fourteen most girls had posters of Take That and Boyzone plastered across their bedroom walls. Not Lottie. She had been besotted with a rough and ready British actor in his late twenties. 

Tom Thorpe had worked his way through a tough northern soap opera – now faded from most people’s memories – and had just landed the role of a likeable-rogue soldier in a military drama set during the Napoleonic Wars. Dashing Daniel Faulkes managed to claw his way up through the ranks of the British Army, defeating danger and bedding more than one busty, Georgian Lady through most of the Nineties. Oh, to be one of those bosom-heaving women.

Numerous pictures of Tom had adorned Lottie’s bedroom wall and her imaginary love affair with Tom Thorpe / Daniel Faulkes – for Lottie the two were inextricably linked – lasted well after her teenage hormones had coursed through her body. 

Drew had been most indignant when he and Lottie had first moved in together. The signed photo of irresistible Thorpe – dressed as Faulkes; full green jacket regalia, tight leather boots, stubbled chin, windswept, muddy-blonde hair with rifle slung across his shoulder – had taken pride of place on the mantelpiece. Drew had soon learnt that to love Lottie was to accept her borderline obsession with her heartthrob.

‘Oh dear, things must be bad if you’re sitting there fantasising about him,’ said Jack, following Lottie’s gaze. ‘You can forget Tom Thorpe knocking on the door with his gritty Northern accent saying, ‘Run away with me Charlotte’. You need to face up to facts, Lottie.’ 

Lottie shook herself from her reverie and took a sip of Jack’s builder-strength tea.  It was enough to knock anyone back to reality. 

‘It’s fine.’ Lottie looked Jack directly in the eye, trying to sound more confident than she felt. ‘I’ve got a life of my own.  I’m sure Pamela will want to make friends; she won’t have time for me.’ Oh, heck, even she didn’t believe that. When the children had been babies Pamela had made the forty-mile round trip from Oxford to Bath twice a week and outstayed her welcome, way past the children’s bedtime, as if she didn’t have a home to go to. And, of course, Drew would never show her the door for fear of remonstration.

‘And what about working for Hardwickes? I thought you said Edward didn’t want you involved?’

‘He didn’t exactly say that.’ Although when Lottie had come home in a rage on Saturday and let off steam to Jack she might have suggested something along those lines.  Edward’s stinging dismissal of her career had left Lottie feeling very much an outsider in her own family. ‘He implied I should be concentrating on the children and supporting Drew with his career, not trying to sustain one of my own.’

Jack leaned in. ‘How do you feel about that?’ 

Lottie shrugged. ‘Guess I’m going to have to prove him wrong.’

‘And how do you intend to do that? After all, there are the children to consider.’

Lottie bit her tongue and glanced up at dashing Daniel Faulkes again. If he could carry on fighting with no-one on his side, then so could she. She would prove Edward – and not to mention her dad now by the sounds of things – that she could have a career, look after the children and be an all-round Nigella-like-Domestic-Goddess. Although it might take a while to figure out how.

The door knocked, relieving Lottie from any further interrogation by Jack.

‘That’ll be Jude,’ Lottie said, jumping up a bit too eagerly to answer it.

‘So how many babies did you get to cuddle today?’ Lottie asked, opening the front door to let Jude in from the wet and windy afternoon. Lottie and Drew had agreed that three children was their limit but it didn’t stop Lottie getting that broody pang at the mere thought of a wriggly, smooth-skinned, new-born.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Jude, plonking herself down on the mahogany blanket box Lottie kept in the entrance hall to house the endless footwear of all five Hardwickes. 

‘Why, what’s happened?’

Jude rested her head on the grandfather clock standing next to the blanket box, her face crumpling as she buried her head in her hands.

‘Oh goodness, don’t tell me something awful happened at work?’ Hearing giggles escape from the snug Lottie walked past the stairs and gently closed the playroom door. 

‘No, it’s not work,’ said Jude, stifling a sob. ‘Well it is. Sort of. Oh, Lottie I don’t know where to start!’  Jude’s head fell forward and her long dark ponytail slumped over her shoulder as she dissolved into tears.

‘Come into the kitchen,’ said Lottie, hooking her arm through Jude’s navy fleeced one. ‘Dad’s here, he’ll put things in perspective for you.’ Or tell you his woes until life doesn’t seem so bad, Lottie silently added.

‘Afternoon Jude, bad day, was it?’ Jack – evidently having already heard Jude’s sobbing – was standing up shrugging his jacket back on.

Lottie threw Jack a reproachful look.

‘Sorry Lotts, but look at me! I need a shower; I’ve got to be at Mrs Adlard’s within the hour.’ 

‘Starfish!’ Emily giggled and pointed at Jack who was posing to make sure Lottie could take in the full effect of his mud-spattered look.

‘Emily, careful,’ Jude reached out for a tea towel and in automatic-mummy-fashion began mopping the pool of water under the pull-out steps where Emily was playing.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Lottie, taking the cloth from Jude’s hand and guiding her to a chair. ‘What’s happened?’

‘C’mon Sky,’ said Jack, padding past the long stretch of kitchen units towards the utility room where his escape route was in sight. Reluctantly Sky stood up and stretched the arc of her back.

‘It’s Phil.’ Jude’s hand flew to her mouth stifling a sob.

What a surprise, thought Lottie, reaching across to the kitchen windowsill for a box of tissues. ‘What’s he done now? Don’t tell me, his latest bit of crumpet’s pregnant?’ The affair Philandering Phil had left Jude for hadn’t lasted long. Unsurprisingly there had been a string of women since. As far as Lottie was concerned if Phil announced he was moving to New Zealand it wouldn’t be far enough away for him to still cause problems in Jude’s life.

‘Ha, no,’ Jude said flatly, managing a brief smile. She shook her head.  ‘Nothing like that. I could probably cope with that.  No, it’s worse.’ Jude looked up at Lottie. ‘He’s lost his job.’

‘He’s done what?’ Jack dropped the Wellington boot he had yet to connect with his foot because he was too busy eavesdropping. ‘Sky, stay,’ he said, stomping back across the floor and sitting down.

Lottie took Jude’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Oh, Jude my love, what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know!’ Jude sobbed, dabbing underneath her eyelids with an already soggy tissue to suppress her overflowing tears. ‘I’ve got my tax credits, but I’m already committed to the midwifery training and the money’s crap.’ Jude had trained to be a nurse when she had left school at eighteen. In her lighter moments, when she reflected upon her marriage to Phil, she maintained she had no regrets otherwise she wouldn’t have two beautiful children. She also said it was fate that had made her choose a profession where she’d had to return to work after having Jacob, then Emily, to keep her nursing qualifications up together. Otherwise where would she be now? No husband, no job.

Although an ex-husband with no job was just as bleak. 

‘I’m a firm believer in happy coincidences,’ said Jack, as the weekly newspaper dropped through the letter box.

‘Oh, what am I going to do, Lottie?’ whispered Jude while Jack wandered out to the hall. ‘I can’t afford to pay the mortgage if Phil can’t keep up his maintenance payments; not that he’s ever very regular about paying them.’

‘We’ll think of something,’ Lottie said, with more conviction than she felt. ‘We can’t have you and the children homeless and anyway, surely Phil has to keep up his payments, job or no job?’

Jude shrugged. ‘I doubt it.  Plus, if he’s got no money coming in, he can hardly pay me any out.’

Lottie seriously doubted Phil would go without. He was an IT contractor and doomed to perpetual failure as far as Lottie could see. Last year his business – running outsourced IT support – had gone under which Lottie suspected was due to poor management more than anything to do with hard economic times.

Jack returned and slung the paper across the table. ‘Have a look through that; bound to be somewhere Jude can earn a few extra pennies.’

Lottie stared at Jack incredulously. ‘And where is she meant to find the time? If you haven’t noticed she’s already got a job, she’s studying to be a midwife and she’s got two little ones to care for single-handedly!’ As the words tumbled out, it dawned on Lottie that proving she could be a career-girl and a mother seemed rather trivial.

Jude let out a deep breath, picked up the paper and turned straight to ‘situations vacant’. Lottie pulled the paper at an angle so they could both read.

‘Perhaps I should change from midwifery to plumbing,’ said Jude, trailing her finger quickly down a long list of what looked like particularly crummy jobs from where Lottie was sitting. ‘At least I could start charging a fortune for call-outs!’

Lottie leaned back, relieved to find that Jude still had a sense of humour. 

‘What about that one?’ Lottie said, reaching forward and pointing at a particularly regal looking advert with swirly type face, bordered by a silhouette of spiky grass, trees, flowers and butterflies. 

Jude wrinkled her nose. ‘Who’s going to look after the children if I’m working in a retirement home three evenings a week and alternate weekend shifts?’ 

Lottie looked at her best friend. Her normally glowing, olive skin had lost its shine and her eyes looked heavy, brought down by the dark circles underneath.  Poor Jude. Now wasn’t the time to be putting more pressure on her.

‘Why not send in your CV and see what happens?’ Jack said gently, leaning on the back of a kitchen chair.

Jude’s head shot up with a worried expression. ‘But what about the children?’

‘I’m not saying take the job, just see if you get an interview.’ Jack had spent most of his working life in training and personnel. Lottie knew where he was going and although she hated to admit it, she knew he was right.

‘I’ll be here for you Jude, you know that, and your mum will help too,’ Lottie squeezed Jude’s arm.

‘This is beginning to sound like a fait accompli.’ Jude rested her head in her hand.

‘No, it’s not,’ Jack said firmly, meeting Jude’s eyes. ‘It’s called covering your back. It’ll tide you over until something better comes up.’

‘Right, let’s seize the moment,’ said Lottie, standing up and reaching for the phone on the wall. ‘I’ll call Drew and get him to bring fish and chips home for all of us and we can boot up my laptop and email your application over right now.’

‘I’ll be off. Hang in there girl; things can only get better,’ said Jack.

‘Thanks,’ said Jude, wiping more brimming tears from the corner of her eyes, ‘they couldn’t get much worse, could they?’

Jack patted Jude’s shoulder but said nothing.

Lottie stood listening to the dialling tone waiting for her call to connect to Drew. She wished she could have her father’s optimism. But, if Jude got this job on top of juggling her present job, the children and then working nightshifts, how could life get much worse? 

Not for the first time this afternoon Lottie realised she needed to count herself lucky. If Jude could cope with nursing elderly people, then Lottie could embrace tolerating her mother-in-law for a bi-weekly cup of coffee. 

Chapter Three

Jude shifted in the chair again. Its firm leather padding was harder than concrete and in the time she’d been waiting most of her bottom had gone numb. She anxiously thumbed through the job specification again, mentally making notes of why her qualifications and experience made her perfect for the job.

If only they didn’t.

Taking another look around the sparsely furnished waiting area – threadbare oriental rug, mishmash collection of battered antique and armchairs, several overgrown indoor plants and a curved, teak reception desk – Jude wondered on what basis someone had deigned to call this place the Countryside Living retirement home.  Originally a row of Edwardian town houses, at some point they had been interconnected and several extensions added, all with flat roofs,