I'll Be There For You. Kerry Barrett

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Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Chapter 33

       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

       Excerpt

       Endpages

       About the Publisher

       Chapter 1

      If you’d asked me when I was a student, where I saw myself in twenty years’ time, I’d probably have said living in Manhattan, running my own wildly successful business, with a wardrobe full of fabulous clothes.

      But instead here I was. Trying to ice spots on to a ladybird birthday cake, my hair scraped off my face with a crocodile clip I’d had since the 1980s and wearing an old university T-shirt I used to sleep in. Back in the days when I got some sleep that was.

      But I wouldn’t have changed a single thing.

      ‘How’s it going?’ My wife, Louise, wandered into the kitchen, looking pretty much as rough as I did. She was wearing running shorts and a black T-shirt that was speckled with what looked like snot, and her short blonde hair was sticking straight up like a washing-up brush.

      ‘It’s actually nearly finished,’ I said, dabbing on one final spot and turning it round so she could see. ‘Ta-dah.’

      ‘It’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘Fiona will adore it.’

      ‘Fiona won’t give two hoots,’ I said with a grin. ‘Just like Finlay won’t care about the caterpillar cake I spent most of this morning lovingly icing. But it’s not every day our children turn one.’

      Lou slid her arm round my waist and rested her head on my shoulder.

      ‘Thank god,’ she said. ‘I’m dead on my feet.’

      ‘Are they asleep?’ I asked.

      She nodded.

      ‘Finally,’ she said. ‘Hopefully they’ll sleep for a good while now and then they’ll be on top form when everyone arrives.’

      Everyone meant our families, who were coming over to celebrate the twins’ first birthday with us. My mum was coming down from the Highlands, with my Aunt Tess and her new husband, Doug. My cousin Esme, her husband Jamie and their baby Clemmie were coming, and so were Lou’s parents and her brother, Hugh, his wife and their two angelic sons. My half-brother was in Thailand on holiday so he couldn’t come, but he’d sent the twins an enormous card and promised to spoil them rotten when he returned.

      ‘Can you believe this?’ I said to Lou, who seemed to have fallen asleep where she stood.’

      ‘This time last year we’d just sold our flat and we were waiting to hear if we’d been matched with a child. Now look at us.’

      We’d adopted the twins when they were just eight weeks old and in the space of a couple of months we’d gone from being sassy professional women in our swanky Edinburgh New Town flat, to being bewildered new mums, in a house where the only room with furniture was the nursery.

      Lou lifted her head.

      ‘It’s been a whirlwind,’ she said. ‘But a good one.’

      We stood there, arms round each other for a minute, gazing out into the garden. From the street our house looked like a run-of-the-mill new-build town house, with a garage, loo, and general junk room on the ground floor, the kitchen and lounge upstairs and the bedrooms up another floor from there. But we lived in Dean Village, one of Edinburgh’s strange places where streets ran above streets, huddled in the valley made by a pretty river. So at the back of the house, the open-plan lounge and kitchen were at ground level with a huge conservatory at the end of the room, opening out on to the small garden. The river ran along the end of the garden, though thankfully it was behind a sturdy fence with a lockable gate ‒ I didn’t want the twins wandering out there when they were older.

      ‘It’s a glorious day,’ I said. ‘It really feels like spring has arrived. We could open the doors when everyone gets here, and people can go outside if they like.’

      Lou nodded.

      ‘Good plan,’ she said. ‘In fact, they’re going to be here very soon and we look like … well, like we always do.’

      She grinned and ran a hand through her messy hair.

      ‘Shall we sort ourselves out before the troublemakers wake up?’

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