Keep You Safe: A tear-jerking and compelling story that will make you think from the international multi-million bestselling author. Melissa Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ Chapter 34

       Chapter 35

       Chapter 36

       Chapter 37

       Chapter 38

       Chapter 39

       Chapter 40

       Chapter 41

       Chapter 42

       Chapter 43

       Chapter 44

       Chapter 45

       Chapter 46

       Chapter 47

       Chapter 48

       Chapter 49

       Chapter 50

       Chapter 51

       Chapter 52

       Chapter 53

       Chapter 54

       EPILOGUE

       Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

      The bell rang out and on cue they started to approach all at once, like a stampeding herd.

      Standing back to let the first wave pass while shivering in late March wind and cold, I pulled my gloved hands out of my pockets and tugged my woolly hat a bit more firmly down over my ears, tucking my wispy dark hair underneath it. Another blast of wind hit me in the face, turning my cheeks an even brighter shade of pink.

      I knew that I could just stay in my car and keep warm while waiting for my five-year-old, Rosie, to emerge from Junior Infants class at Applewood Primary. However, she and I have a ritual of sorts and the typically inclement Irish weather wasn’t going to stand in the way of it.

      Each and every day after school, I wait for Rosie just outside the school building, a bit down the front path by the main hall. During the more temperate months we walk the half-mile home together to our two-bed cottage in Knockroe, a small satellite town about forty minutes’ drive from Dublin.

      I have never failed to meet Rosie in our chosen spot since she started school seven months ago. I was determined to never let her exit the class and not have me there – at least until my daughter told me that she wanted to walk home by herself or with friends. I wasn’t one of those helicopter parents or anything like that, but, come hell or high water, I would make sure I was there – especially since Rosie was still having nightmares about that one time after preschool.

      The day when no one was waiting.

      Hard to believe that fateful day was almost two years ago – it still felt like only yesterday. A chill worked its way up my spine – one that this time wasn’t triggered by the cold.

      In her preschool days, my husband Greg had been the one responsible for picking up Rosie. Working from home as a freelance software designer, it was he who had more flexibility and usually had the opportunity to step away from the office he kept in the spare bedroom, and head over to the preschool to pick up our daughter. Since I work as a nurse at a clinic in a nearby town, I generally keep more irregular hours.

      I had long been thankful that my husband could play such an active role in Rosie’s childhood, especially while my own commitments prevented me from being around as much as I would have liked.

      My commitments are different these days.

      Because there had been one time when Greg couldn’t make it to the preschool at the allotted time of 12.45 to pick Rosie up. Not because he didn’t want to, had forgotten or neglected to pay attention to the time, but because he had collapsed in our kitchen earlier that morning while making himself a cup of tea.

      Sudden Adult Death Syndrome had ended my beloved husband’s life in seconds; he likely didn’t even realise what was happening.

      I wasn’t aware that I’d been made a widow when the preschool teacher called me at work that afternoon to say that they couldn’t get in touch with Greg at home. That terrible realisation didn’t come until later.

      Calling our home phone as well as Greg’s mobile, trying to figure out what was going on, I remember feeling irritated that Rosie and her teacher had been left waiting. I was annoyed at Greg and wondered where he was, especially since I couldn’t get an answer on any phone. So I told my supervisor at the clinic that I needed to head out; pick up my child in Knockroe, drop her home to her dad and would then come back to finish my shift.

      It was only after I had sped the short distance there, apologised to the preschool teacher and hustled my daughter back to the house, that I realised my life was forever changed. If I could go back to that moment so I could enter the kitchen first in order to prevent Rosie from finding her father immobile on the floor, I would.

      As it was, there was no changing the past, but I would do my damnedest to make sure that I was always there at the end of the school day so that she didn’t fear the same thing happening to me. She’d already had a tough enough time of it for a five-and-a-half-year-old.

      My daughter was everything to me – all that I had these days.

      Rosie’s classmates started to appear, refocusing my thoughts and preventing me from once again going down that dark road of introspection as I examined our lives without Greg. Scanning the crowd of Junior Infants, I immediately picked out Rosie’s bright green winter hat, shaped like the head of a T. Rex. My little girl had never been the princess type. She adored dinosaurs, wolves, dragons – anything fierce and scary – perhaps even more so since her dad died, and I often wonder if in her own little way she finds comfort in their strength.

      ‘Mum!’ she called, waving a hand, as if I hadn’t spotted her yet, her dark curls СКАЧАТЬ