Charlie (73 page)
Andrew cuddled her tighter. ‘Thinking about finding family?’ he asked.
‘Umm,’ she said, remembering too that she hadn’t yet told him about Hughes’s visit. ‘Maybe there won’t be any.’
‘Will that make you sad?’
She thought for a moment. ‘A bit, I expect, but if I do feel dejected I’ll just remind myself how much I’ve already got.’
‘You mean your outstandingly brilliant husband, your luxurious home and a few bob stashed away in the bank?’ he said, leaning up on his elbow to grin down at her.
‘Well yes, I appreciate all those good things,’ she laughed. ‘But just having them isn’t what makes me happy. Mum had them too, remember, and it didn’t make her happy, did it? I’m just so lucky I feel secure enough inside that if anything bad should happen again in the future and we lost the house and the money, as long as I still had you, it wouldn’t break me.’
‘I’m relieved to hear that,’ he grinned. ‘I’d need someone to cling to if we lost everything else.’
‘That’s it in a nutshell,’ she laughed. ‘We know because of all we’ve been through to arrive here that we’ll always have each other. The wind can blow, evil people can come along and foul things up, but at the heart of it all is us two, clinging together. Nothing and no one can tear us apart.’
‘Unless of course it’s hunger,’ he said, wriggling away from her. ‘I cling much better on a full stomach, and right now a fillet steak, chips and mushrooms is luring me away.’
Charlie leapt out of bed and ran towards the bathroom. ‘Five minutes and I’ll be with you,’ she shouted back at him. ‘I can stand a steak coming between us, as long as it’s big enough for two.’
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First published 1998
Published simultaneously by Michael Joseph
Copyright © Lesley Pearse, 1999
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ISBN: 978-0-14-190373-6