One Minute Later: Behind every secret is a story, the emotionally gripping new book from the bestselling author. Susan Lewis

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       CHAPTER SIX

       SHELLEY

       Midsummer 1989

      The night was warm and still, richly scented by livestock and wet grass, and lit by a near full moon. Shelley was carrying a torch in one hand and a basket in the other, feeling not unlike a nocturnal Red Riding Hood as she traipsed through the small copse next to the riverbank on the far western edge of their land. Though the way was mostly clear, the darkness over the fields was faintly unnerving, as was the occasional glimpse of amber eyes watching her from the undergrowth, and the birds that suddenly fluttered or squawked in the trees. She felt sure a thousand ghosts were following her, and as for the big bad wolf who might eat Red Riding Hood all up …

      Smiling as she thought of the girls squealing and ducking under the covers whenever Jack told them that story, she pushed aside a leggy bramble and trudged on through the silvery darkness.

      At last she reached the riverbank and there, just where she’d expected to find it, was the home-made tent that Jack and Josh used for their moonlight vigils. Josh had been particularly excited about this one, for their mission tonight was to spot an otter, in spite of none having been seen in this county since the 1950s. However, Josh was determined to find one, and if he didn’t, well, there would be lots of other things to spot instead.

      Choking back a laugh as she found them fast asleep in their hideout with Jack leaning against a backrest and Josh lying across his lap, she quietly put down her basket and stood watching them, loving how peaceful and alike they were. Both had thick dark hair that curled and waved in no particular style, and when he was older Josh was clearly going to have his father’s strong jaw and large nose.

      She smiled as her precious boy opened his eyes and put a finger to his lips. He moved carefully away from his father and crawled out of the tent. ‘Dad’s asleep,’ he whispered as he reached his mother. ‘He’s missed some really good stuff. I’ve seen everything.’

      ‘An otter?’ Shelley asked, sitting down next to him.

      ‘No, but there was a hippopotamus.’ Josh’s eyes were round with awe, as though he truly believed it. ‘It was enormous,’ he confided. ‘You should have seen it. It could have eaten us all up if it had spotted us.’

      Shelley said gravely, ‘Lucky it didn’t.’

      ‘Yes, very lucky. There was a deer with two fawns who came to have a drink,’ he went on, still whispering. ‘I was scared for them, but the hippo didn’t see them.’

      ‘Wow,’ Shelley murmured. ‘Where is it now, do you know?’

      ‘I think it swam away, but it might still be somewhere, you never know.’

      ‘Well, you’d better make sure it doesn’t spot you.’

      ‘I will. We’re being very quiet.’ He was digging into the basket now, bringing out apples and cake and two thick-cut sandwiches filled with cheese and pickle. ‘I’ll save one of these for Dad,’ he said softly. ‘He might be hungry when he wakes up. Oh! Did you hear that?’

      ‘What?’ Shelley whispered, all ears and intrigue. After all, it might be the hippo.

      ‘It was an owl,’ he told her. ‘Ha! There it is again. I think it’s the one that lives in our barn. I’ll tell Dad about it when he wakes up.’

      Shelley glanced over her shoulder, and seeing that Jack was watching them through narrowly opened eyes she had to swallow the surge of love that tightened her throat. Of course she’d known that he wouldn’t fall asleep while they were out on vigil, but she also knew that it made Josh feel brave and adventurous to think that he was in charge of keeping them safe.

      ‘You can go now if you like,’ Josh told her, biting into his sandwich.

      ‘OK, thanks,’ she replied. ‘There’s some squash in the basket and a bar of chocolate. Don’t let the hippo get Dad, will you?’

      ‘No, don’t worry, I won’t.’

      Hearing Jack turn a laugh into a snore, she pressed a kiss to Josh’s forehead and obediently started back to the farmhouse.

      A couple of days later Shelley was enjoying a rare few moments alone in the kitchen sorting through the mail, a small stack for her, one each for Jack and David, and another for issues requiring some sort of joint attention.

      Opening an invitation to a friend’s wedding, she popped it onto her own pile as a reminder to RSVP with a definite yes – how long had it been since they were last in London? It seemed like another lifetime, another world, and actually it was. She made a mental note to ensure the event got marked up on the family calendar. This magnificent creation (the calendar, not the invitation) was half as tall and as wide as Jack, made by the children and hanging on its own space of wall in the kitchen. It was bordered in dried wild flowers, sketches of moles, rabbits, lambs and chickens; a Polaroid shot of Josh with his piglets, Wonka and Bucket; a photo of Hanna and Zoe under the weeping willow with Milady and Petunia; a blurred image of Jack and Shelley aboard Jack’s new tractor, and another of David dressed up as Father Christmas.

      There was no other calendar like it in the world. It was theirs and they loved it as if it were the beating heart of their family.

      Checking the time, and satisfied she didn’t yet have to drive Hanna back to the village for a piano lesson, or remind Josh that he was on lawn-cleaning duty today (meaning collection of sheep droppings), Shelley took another refreshing sip of iced lemonade and opened a handwritten envelope addressed to her and Jack. Guessing from the crest on the seal what this little missive was going to be about, she unfolded the single sheet and discovered that she wasn’t wrong.

      However, she was surprised, for the night of the tents, as they now called the inglorious fracas in the field with the Bleasdale twins and their yobby friends, followed by the dumping of all that was unsavoury at the manor’s gates, was only two months behind them. So a request from Sir Humphrey to run the hunt across their land this coming winter seemed a bit rum.

      She put it on Jack’s pile with a smile. She knew already what he was going to say when he saw it, but as he enjoyed sounding off about the local hunt and those he truly objected to, she wasn’t going to deprive him of this golden opportunity.

      ‘Ma, where’s Pop?’ Hanna demanded, running in through the door with plaits flying out of their bands and a very Jack-like grin on her face. As a family they often read a book together in the evenings, and recently they’d become enchanted by H. E. Bates’s The Darling Buds of May. Jack performed rather than read it, making it even more engaging, and exactly, the children insisted with unbridled delight, like them, for the story’s Larkin family lived in a countrified Utopia just like Deerwood.

      Ma Larkin, Shelley was often heard to protest, was nothing like her, since she wasn’t fat, not even close, nor was she a saucy СКАЧАТЬ