Making Your Mind Up (24 page)

The following evening Nat did something that caused Lottie's heart to contract in alarm. He and Ruby were stretched out on their stomachs on the living room floor playing a fiercely contested game of Uno when Nat, pausing to study his cards, absently scratched behind his left ear.

Lottie stiffened, realizing belatedly that it wasn't the first time she'd seen him do it this evening, but until now the awful significance hadn't registered.

“Ow, Mum, geddoff.” Nat tried to wriggle free as she dropped to the floor and grabbed his head between her hands. “I'm winning.”

Lottie ignored his protests. Her mouth dry, she began frantically parting his dark hair, hoping against hope that the scratching didn't mean what she thought it…

Shit.

“Mum!” Delighted, Nat said, “You said the sh word!”

“Sorry, sorry, I thought I'd only said it in my head.” Still kneeling, Lottie leaned back on her heels and let out a wail of dismay. “Oh, Nat. You've got nits.”

Nat shrugged, concentrating on his hand of Uno cards. “Thought so.”

Lottie paled. “You
thought
so? Why didn't you
say
so!”

Another shrug. “Forgot. Some of the people in my class have nits. We had a letter about it from school last week.”

“Last week! You didn't give me any letter!”

Nat was indignant. “I found that squashed beetle on the playground, remember? I had to use the letter to wrap it up and bury it.”

“Have I got nits?” Eager not to be left out, Ruby crawled across the carpet and thrust her head into Lottie's lap. This time it took less than five seconds to confirm the worst.

“Yes.” Lottie wondered if bursting into tears would help.

“Great! Does that mean we don't have to go to school?”

“No, it does not. It just means hours and hours of combing.”

Helpfully Nat said, “Mummy, you might have nits too.”

Oh
God
.

Leaping to her feet, Lottie rushed upstairs. The old metal nit comb was in the back of the bathroom cabinet. Ten minutes of heart-in-the-mouth combing finally reassured her that her own hair was free of uninvited guests. But it wasn't that reassuring, because she still had to face up to the possibility that Seb might be another unwitting host.

Actually, it was less of a possibility and more of a likelihood. Lottie briefly closed her eyes, picturing him with Nat and Ruby last night at the fair. When they had been crammed together into the seats on the various rides. When Seb had been crouching beside Nat, showing him how to take aim and fire at the targets in the shooting gallery. When he had given Ruby a piggyback and Ruby, screaming with delight, had clung on to his neck, her long curly hair falling over his forehead.

Lottie flinched. She had to tell Seb. Oh hell, how was he going to react to this? He was a man, and a glamorous one at that. He would recoil in horror, be utterly repulsed, assume she and her nit-ridden children were dirty. He might never want to see her again. And frankly, who could blame him?

Two hours, three baths, and a family-size bottle of conditioner later, Lottie had combed everyone's hair so exhaustively that her arms were ready to drop off. But for tonight, at least, they were bug-free. Despite Nat having begged to be allowed to keep the captured head lice in a matchbox.

Now, with the children safely in bed with clean sheets and pillowcases, came the part she had really been dreading.
The necessary evil
, thought Lottie, feeling slightly sick but determined to go through with it. Tightening the belt of her white robe and curling up on the sofa, she called Seb's cell phone.

OK, here we go.

“Hello?”

The line was crackly and not particularly clear, but the voice definitely belonged to a female. For a split second Lottie wondered if Seb had been lying to her and was married. Then as the female chirruped distractedly, “Hello, hello, who is this?” she realized who had answered the phone.

“Oh, hi. Could I speak to Seb please?”

“Actually he's a bit busy right now. Is that Lottie?”

“It is.” Lottie felt ridiculously flattered that Seb's sister knew her name.

“Hi, Lottie! This is Tiffany! Is it urgent?”

“Well, yes, it is quite. Um…”

“The thing is, we're on our way down the M5 and Seb's driving. I won't let him speak on the phone while he's in charge of the car, you understand. Otherwise we'd be killed. So you just tell me what it is, Lottie, and I'll pass the message on.”

Lottie blanched at the prospect.

“It's OK, don't worry, nothing that won't keep.” She managed to inject a note of sangfroid into her voice. “Tell Seb I'll give him a call later, OK? Bye.”

With the connection broken, Lottie buried her hot face in her hands. How typical that something like this had to happen to her. After three long arid years of singledom she'd finally met a man she liked who not only appeared to like her in return but also, miraculously, got on brilliantly with Ruby and Nat. Last night they had all shared a memorable evening together at the fair and Seb had lavished them with money and affection.

And what had they given him in return?

Nits.

The phone was ringing.

“Oh ya, hi, me again. Seb says you can't keep him in suspense like this. You know how impatient he is. He says he needs to know what's so important
right
now
.”

For the life of her Lottie couldn't think of a convincing lie, a substitute reason for phoning him so urgently. Oh well, maybe it was easier telling him via a go-between, a kind of “my friend really fancies you, he wants to know if you'd go out with him” scenario.

“Hello? Hello? Are you still there?” warbled Tiffany.

“Yes, still here.” Lottie took a deep breath and plunged in. “The thing is, I'm really sorry, but my children have nits. Which means Seb may have them too, so he'll need to get himself…um, checked out.”

“Sorry? Hang on, just gone under a bridge. Say again?”

“NITS,” said Lottie.

“What's that? I don't know what that is.” Tiffany sounded baffled; she had evidently never heard the term before. Too posh, undoubtedly. Far too well brought up ever to have encountered such an undesirable accessory.

“Head lice,” Lottie reluctantly explained. Lice sounded so much worse than nits. Bigger and crawlier and—

“What? Are you SERIOUS? OH MY GOD, THAT IS DISGUSTING!” bellowed Tiffany, accompanied by a bashing sound as if she were shaking the phone in case hordes of head lice were at this very moment crawling out of the mouthpiece. “UGH, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? IF SEB'S CAUGHT THEM FROM YOU, DOES THAT MEAN I'VE CAUGHT THEM FROM HIM?”

In the background Lottie could hear Seb, mystified, saying, “What?
What?
”

“Please…let me speak to Seb.”

“No, you
can't
speak to Seb,” Tiffany yelled back. “I told you, he's driving the damn car! Oh God, I'm going to be sick. I feel so
dirty
. I can't bear it—”

“Lottie?” It was Seb's voice. “Bloody hell, what's going on here? Tiff's practically climbing out of the car. What in God's name have you just told her?”

“UGH, UGH,
UGH
,” Tiffany wailed in the background.

“Tiff,” Seb said sharply, “give it a rest.”

Lottie quavered. Was this how it felt when you had to tell a new boyfriend you'd accidentally given him syphilis? Or genital herpes? Or AIDS? “Look,” she blurted out, “I already said I'm sorry. Ruby and Nat have nits, which means you might have them too.”

“Nits?” said Seb.

“Not nits!” Tiffany bellowed.
“Head lice!”

Oh God, that hideous word again. Feeling terrible, Lottie said hurriedly, “Really, it's not that bad. You just need to—”

“Head lice?” Seb echoed in disbelief. “Oh, for fuck's sake.”

That was it then. Lottie, her palms slippery with humiliation, stammered, “I only found out tonight; otherwise, I'd never have let them near you.”

“I don't believe it. You mean to tell me all this fuss is over a few nits? Tiff, you have to get a grip here. It's not what's generally considered a calamity.”

Lottie, holding her breath, heard the irritation in Seb's voice and Tiffany in the background whimpering, “But I feel so
dirty
.”

“Lottie?” He was back. “I do apologize on behalf of my sister. Now, what time do you go to bed?”

* * *

Seb arrived at eleven thirty, having dropped Tiffany off first. Lottie opened the front door and there he was, wearing a sea-green linen shirt and jeans, all twinkly-eyed and grinning at her.

“Hey, gorgeous, I just happened to be passing and I wondered if you had a nit comb I could borrow.”

Lottie could have kissed him. “I'm so sorry.”

“Don't be daft. These things happen.” As he made his way through to the living room, Seb said, “I have had nits before, you know. So has Tiffany, for that matter. She was so traumatized by it, she's wiped it from her memory.”

“Why was she traumatized?” Lottie sat him down on the chair in the middle of the room and slung a white towel around his shoulders.

“Because I teased her for about a year. And told all her friends.”

“That was mean.” Lottie carefully parted his surfer's blond hair into sections and began combing each section through.

“I was ten. Besides, she was so easy to wind up. That's what being a brother's all about.”

She smiled. “I thought you'd never want to see me again.”

“Hey.” Seb slid a playful hand around her waist. “Takes more than a few creepy crawlies to get rid of me. Found any yet?”

“All clear so far.”

“You know, I'm quite enjoying this. It's like you're grooming me.”

Lottie, who was enjoying it too, took a step back and said, “It's like you're groping me.”

“Probably why I'm enjoying it so much.” Seb shifted his grip and drew her back to him, pulling her down onto his lap. “Do you realize I haven't even kissed you yet?”

Lottie experienced a delicious twizzle of anticipation; funnily enough, this small detail hadn't escaped her notice either.

Aloud she said, “That's because you've got nits.
Yuck
.”

“Have I?”

“Actually I haven't found any.” Lottie waggled the nit comb. “But you still need to buy one of these to be on the safe side. You have to—”

“Keep combing. I know.” Shaking his head, Seb said, “First you chuck ice cubes down my back. Then your children give me head lice. And still no kiss. I have to tell you, this isn't the most conventional relationship I've ever had.”

“And is that such a bad thing?” Lottie was unable to take her eyes off his mouth; he really did have the most mesmerizing smile.

“I'm enjoying it actually. Nobody could ever call you run-of-the-mill. But there is something I'd like to do…”

He kissed as expertly as Lottie had imagined he would. Winding her arms around his neck, still clutching the nit comb, she kissed him back. Oh yes, this was more like it. Maybe there wasn't quite the glorious adrenaline rush she'd experienced with Tyler, but you couldn't expect that to happen every time, could you? And at least they were alone together, completely unobserved, not like the other week when she and Tyler had been kissing outside Fox Cottage, blissfully unaware that they were being spied on by the two small Jenkins boys lurking in a nearby tree…

And look at the kerfuffle that had caused.

“You're beautiful.” As Seb murmured the words, his left hand began to wander. Lottie retrieved it just before it disappeared up inside the front of her lime-green sweatshirt.

“No?” He gave her a quizzical look.

“Not now.”

“Why not?”

Lottie wondered if she'd just lost him. Was he annoyed? Had he assumed he was here for the duration, that she was up for a night of torrid passion? Oh well, too bad.

Aloud she said, “Nat or Ruby might wake up.”

Seb did the Roger Moore thing with one of his eyebrows. “Is that a genuine excuse, or are you too polite to tell me you find me about as attractive as a bucket of sick?”

Smiling, Lottie smoothed his streaky blond hair back from his forehead and kissed him again. “My kids aren't used to finding strange men in my bed. I don't want to…alarm them. And I wouldn't be able to relax.”

“So no sex. Just nits.” Seb mournfully shook his head. “I bet Mick Jagger never has this happen to him.”

“Sorry.” Lottie hoped he wouldn't try to change her mind.

“Hey, not a problem.” He broke into a smile. “We'll take it slowly, let the kids get used to the idea of me being around.”

As she stood on the front doorstep waving him off, those words danced through Lottie's mind. Taking things slowly and letting the kids get used to the idea of Sebastian Gill being around.

That sounded as if he meant business.

It was a warm sunny Friday afternoon in late September, but as far as Cressida was concerned it felt like Christmas morning. Her stomach was jumping with excitement. This time nothing was going to go wrong. Robert and Sacha had been only too delighted to let Jojo come away with her for a weekend. In an hour Jojo would be back from school and they'd be rattling up the M5 together. She had even checked the air pressure in her tires and bought a special sachet of windshield wash by way of celebration. If the sight of her came as something of a disappointment to Tom, he could at least be impressed by her sparklingly clean windshield.

Just picturing seeing Tom again was enough to set off the pleasurable palpitations in Cressida's chest. With rising anticipation she consulted her watch for the fifteenth time in ten minutes, checked her reflection in the dressing table mirror, and fiddled with the lacy sleeves of her white shirt. Favorite shirt, new creamy-pink lipstick, new pink velvet tank. It was naughty, but she hadn't been able to help herself. And who knew, maybe at this very moment up in Newcastle, Tom was tearing around the shops frantically searching for a new sweater with which to impress her or a smart new pair of shoes.

Did men do that?

Anyway, concentrate. Things to do. Zipping up her weekend case and lugging it downstairs, Cressida parked it in the narrow hallway and consulted her trusty list. She still had to parcel up a consignment of cards and take them to the post office. The houseplants needed watering. And she and Jojo would need a selection of CDs to play on the journey, as well as a couple of packets of gummy bears to keep them going.

But first the concentrated windshield wash had to be mixed with water and poured into the reservoir under the hood. In the kitchen, Cressida filled a plastic jug from the tap and carefully snipped the corner off the sachet. Even more carefully she poured the bright turquoise liquid into the jug of water and stirred it in with a spoon. This was the kind of thing that had driven Robert crazy when they were married—if he were here now he'd be rolling his eyes in disbelief at the thought that anyone could be so stupid as to change into their best clothes
before
tackling a potentially messy task.

But he wasn't here now—ha!—so it didn't matter a bit. Feeling smug, Cressida picked up the jug with both hands and made her way over to the door.

The noise was as sudden as gunshot and almost as loud. Something hit the kitchen window with an almighty thud and Cressida let out a reflexive shriek of alarm. Her arms jerked and her brain leaped into action, yelling, “Not on the clothes,
not
on
the
clothes
,” so forcefully that the jug instantly toppled away from her body.

Turquoise water sloshed out of the somersaulting jug and cascaded over the kitchen table. Throwing out her hands in a desperate attempt to somehow catch it, Cressida screamed, “
Noooo
,” and saw it all happen in nightmarish slow motion in front of her. The white box containing the cards took the full force of the onslaught. The lid of the box was off because she hadn't yet printed out the invoice to be sent with the order. The order that had—absolutely
had—
to go out
this
afternoon
without
fail
.

The implications were so horrible that Cressida couldn't fully take them in. Gazing down at herself in a state of deep shock, she saw that not a single drop of turquoise water had landed on her clothes.

But the cards…oh,
the cards
…were ruined. Every last one of them. Her hands now trembling violently, Cressida pushed up her sleeves and picked out the first neatly stacked pile. Each one bore the words
Emily-Jane is here!
in silver script. Pale pink marabou feathers, silver beads, iridescent sequins, and glitter-strewn netting had been painstakingly glued into place. She had drawn a baby in a cot on the front of each card, and every edge was bordered with pink velvet ribbon.

Needless to say, they were the most intricate cards she had ever been commissioned to make. Each one had taken thirty minutes to complete, and there were eighty of them.

But it didn't end there. It wasn't only the most lucrative single order Cressida had ever taken, oh no. This order had been placed by the owner of a chain of upmarket card shops in the UK, a man who didn't take kindly to being let down in any shape or form. His wife, at the age of forty-two and after many heartbreaking attempts at IVF, had just given birth to their first baby, and Cressida had been both flattered and delighted when they had chosen her to make the cards announcing Emily-Jane's safe arrival into the world.

Which made pleasing them rather crucial, since she had no doubt whatsoever that failing to fulfill her part of the deal would result in him refusing to stock any of her cards forthwith.

This would result in an instant and dramatic loss of earnings and possibly kneecaps.

In a daze, knowing what this meant but still not able to face up to it, Cressida left the water drip-drip-dripping off the table and headed outside into the backyard to see what had caused the almighty crash that had prompted her to spill the water in the first place.

A starling lay on the stone path, quite dead. Its eyes were open, its head bent back at a horrible angle. Flying along happily, it had crashed into the kitchen window and been killed in an instant. One minute your neck wasn't broken, the next minute it was. Boom, gone.

Cressida bent down and picked up the limp, still-warm body. It had caused so much trouble she should resent it. On the other hand, if the bird were still capable of thought, it would undoubtedly resent her for having killed it. She had, after all, spent an hour at lunchtime cleaning her windows for the first time in a year. The starling, fooled by the lack of surface dirt, simply hadn't realized the glass was there.

She was a bird murderer, and there was a lesson to be learned from this. Cleaning windows—on either houses or cars—was asking for trouble.

Hot tears squeezed out of Cressida's eyes as she cradled the soft little body in her hands.

Bang
went her weekend.

Again.

* * *

Tom said at once, “Well how about if we come to you instead?”

“There's no point. It's going to take me all weekend to redo the cards. I'll be working nonstop.” Shaking her head, Cressida said, “I had to ring the man who placed the order and tell him he wouldn't be getting them before Tuesday and he wasn't thrilled, let me tell you.”

“If we came down to Hestacombe, couldn't we help you make the cards?” Tom sounded hopeful. “Then you'd be finished in less than half the time.”

Oh God, it was so nice of him to make the offer, but Cressida knew she couldn't say yes. People assumed it was so easy to glue a few bits and pieces onto a card. No skill required. Yet producing an end product that was of consistently professional quality and didn't look as if it had been made by a child was far more difficult than everyone imagined. Whenever Jojo offered to help her with an order, Cressida had to feign delight with the end results then quietly file them in the trash can after she'd left. But Tom wasn't twelve, and he wouldn't be so easy to fool.

“Tom, that's kind of you, but it wouldn't work. We're just going to have to forget it. I'm really sorry.”

“Don't worry.” Over the phone Tom sounded distant and cool, but that was probably because she'd called him at work. “No problem. Maybe some other time.”

“We were looking forward to seeing you.” Cressida hoped he knew she meant it.

“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat and said, “We were too.”

There was that offhand tone again. Was he cross with her for spoiling his plans? Feeling more miserable than ever, Cressida realized that for all her foolish fantasies, she didn't actually know Tom Turner well enough to be able to tell.

* * *

“Aunt Cress? It's me. Sorry to interrupt when you're busy.”

Cressida sat back and eased her aching spine. It was nine thirty on Friday evening, and so far she had completed eight cards. Only seventy-two to go.

“That's all right, darling. Where are you?”

“Up in my bedroom. Mum and Dad have friends around for dinner. Well, not real friends,” Jojo amended. “People from work. You know the kind.”

Poor Jojo, relegated to her room while the grown-ups sat downstairs earnestly discussing sales targets. Robert had sounded distinctly put out when Cressida had rung to let him know that she and Jojo wouldn't after all be away for the weekend.

“Have you eaten?” She knew it was ridiculous to worry about such a thing, but Robert and Sacha could be thoughtless sometimes.

“There wasn't enough dinner party food, so I had a pizza up here. Much better than what they had,” Jojo said cheerfully. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you that Tom was a bit worried in case you'd made up the story about the cards being ruined, but it's OK now because he knows it really happened.”

Cressida was stunned.
“What?”

“He thought you might be making an excuse, like, ‘Sorry I can't see you tonight; I'm washing my hair.' That kind of thing. Because you couldn't be bothered to drive up to Newcastle or you'd had a better offer or something. Men can be funny like that, can't they?”

“Hang on,” Cressida blurted out. “How do you know all this?”

“It says so in my new copy of
Phew!
There's a piece in it about how boys get nervous about—”

“No, no. I meant how do you know that's what Tom was thinking?”

“Oh, Donny told me.”

Bemused, Cressida said, “He called you?”

“Texted me. In his own grumpy way.” Jojo sounded amused, like a mother accustomed to indulging a truculent teenage son. “Said it was no skin off his nose, but was it true about the cards being wrecked. So I texted back and said of course it was true, was he calling you a liar, and he said no, it was just that his dad was gutted and wondering what was really going on. So I said you were pretty fed up too and when I came over to your place after school you'd been crying—”

“Oh, Jojo, you didn't!” Every muscle in Cressida's body contracted in horror like a slug doused in lemon juice.

“Why not? It's the truth, isn't it? You
had
been crying.”

Didn't it say anywhere in Jojo's wretched magazine that it wasn't the done thing to let members of the opposite sex know you'd wept over them? Sobbed helplessly at the thought of not seeing them?

“I was crying because the starling was dead,” Cressida floundered.

“Aunt Cress, you know that's not true. And you don't have to worry, because Donny's dad was really pleased when Donny told him. So that's all straightened out,” Jojo said briskly, “and we talked about fixing another date. Donny's got a boring school trip to Belgium next weekend, but the weekend after that should be OK.”

“Er…fine,” Cressida said faintly.

“Well, I'll leave you to get on with your cards. Oh, by the way,” Jojo remembered as an afterthought, “we thought maybe they should come down to us this time. Might be easier. I said you had plenty of room to put them up.”