How To Keep A Secret: A fantastic and brilliant feel-good summer read that you won’t want to end!. Sarah Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ He rattled the handle. “I know you’re not okay, so open the door and we can talk.”

      What was there to talk about?

      She was desperate for a baby and talking wasn’t going to fix that.

      She opened the door. She was Jolly Jenna. The girl who always smiled. The girl who had always tried to accept things she couldn’t change. She had freckles on her nose, hair that curled no matter what she did to it and a body that refused to make babies.

      Greg stood there, wearing what she thought of as his listening face. “Negative?”

      She nodded and pressed her face against his chest. He smelled good. Like lemons and fresh air. “Don’t say anything.” Greg was a therapist. He’d always been good with people, but right now there was nothing he could say that would make her feel better and she was afraid sympathy might tip her over the edge.

      She felt his arms come round her.

      “How about ‘I love you.’”

      “That always works.” She loved the way he hugged. Tightly, holding her close, as if he meant it. As if nothing was ever going to come between them.

      “We’re young and we haven’t been trying that long, Jenna.”

      “Seventeen months, one week and two days. Don’t you think it’s time we talked to a doctor?”

      “We don’t need to do that.” He eased away. “Think of all the great sex we can have while we’re making this baby.”

       But it’s not working.

      “I’d like to talk to someone.”

      He sighed. “You’re very tense all the time.”

      She couldn’t get pregnant. What did he expect?

      “If you’re about to tell me to relax, I’ll injure you.”

      He pulled her back into his arms. “You work so hard. You give everything you have to those kids in your class—”

      “I love my job.”

      “Maybe you could go to yoga or something.”

      “I can’t sit still long enough to do yoga.”

      “Something else then. I don’t know—”

      This time she was the one who pulled away. “Don’t you dare buy me a book on mindfulness.”

      “Damn, there goes my Christmas gift.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently on the mouth. “Hang in there, honey.” The look in his eyes made her want to cry.

      “We’re going to be late for work.”

      Twenty hyperactive six-year-olds were waiting for her. Other people’s six-year-olds. She adjudicated arguments, mopped tears, educated them and tried not to imagine how it would be if one of those kids was hers.

      Every day at school she taught the children a new word. Definitions had a way of flashing through her head even when she didn’t want them to. Like now.

       Disappointed: saddened by the failing of an expectation.

       Frustrated: having feelings of dissatisfaction or lack of fulfilment.

      “It would be easier if people didn’t keep asking when we’re going to have a baby.”

      “They do that?”

      “All the time.” She grabbed her makeup from the bathroom. “It must be a woman thing. Maybe I should stop being evasive. Next time someone asks me I should tell them we’re having nonstop sex.”

      “They already know.”

      “How?”

      He grinned. “A couple of weeks ago you texted me at work.”

      “Plenty of wives text their husbands at work.”

      “But generally those texts don’t say Hey, hot stuff, I’m naked and ready for sex.”

      “What’s wrong with that?”

      “Nothing, except Pamela had my phone.”

      “No!” She felt a rush of mortification. “Why?”

      “She’s my receptionist. I was with a client. I left it with her in case someone had an emergency. I wasn’t to know you would be having a sex emergency.”

      “I don’t know whether to laugh or hide.” Jenna covered her mouth with her hand. “Pamela was my babysitter. She still treats me as if I’m six years old.”

      “We can rest assured she now knows you’re all grown up.”

      “What did she say?”

      “Nothing. She handed me my phone back, but I have no doubt that our sex life will be the topic of discussion at the knitting group, the book group and the conservation commission meeting. If we’re lucky, it might not be on the agenda for the annual town meeting.”

      “Do you think she’ll mention it to my mother?”

      “Given that your mother is a member of both the book group and the conservation commission, not to mention numerous other committees on this island, I think the answer to that is yes. But so what?”

      “It will be another transgression to add to a very long list.”

      Jenna had once overheard her mother say Lauren never gave me any trouble, but Jenna—She’d paused at that point, as if to confirm that there were no words to describe Jenna’s wayward nature.

      “Whenever I’m with my mother I still feel as if I should be sitting in the naughty corner.”

      Greg gave a slow smile. “What happens in this naughty corner? Is there room for two?”

      “She thinks you’re perfect. The only thing I’ve ever done that has won the approval of my mother is marry you! It drives me batshit crazy.”

      “Batshit—” Greg arched an eyebrow. “Is that today’s word?”

      “If you’re not careful I’ll tell her what a bad influence you are.”

      “We’re married, Jenna. We are allowed to have sex wherever and whenever we like as long as we don’t get arrested for public indecency.”

      “I know, but—you know my mother. She’ll sigh the way she does when she despairs of me. She’ll be wishing I was more like my sister.” Although Jenna adored Lauren, she had never wanted to be her. “My mother is the beating heart of this island. If anyone is in trouble she’s there with her flaky double-crusted pies and endless support. She’s closer to Betty at the store than she is to me.” And it was a never-ending source of frustration and hurt that she and her СКАЧАТЬ