Blind-Date Baby. Fiona Harper

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      To my editor, Kimberley Young,

      who urged me to dig deeper—somewhere else—

      and I found unexpected treasure.

      And to Jennie Adams and Melissa McClone—

      even the (very) early morning IM chats were a blast!

      CHAPTER ONE

      GRACE MARLOWE and six o’clock in the morning weren’t normally on speaking terms. But here she was, standing in the middle of her darkened kitchen, the clock ticking in time with her heartbeat. Pearly light seeped between the slats of the blind, draining all colour from her funky little kitchen. She wrinkled her nose. Everything was grey, even the lime green mugs and the pink toaster. This truly was a repulsive time of day.

      What was she doing here? Right about now she should be mumbling incoherently in her sleep, her left foot tucked over the top of the duvet to keep it nice and cool.

      In a sudden flurry of movement she turned and headed towards a cupboard—any cupboard—and opened the door. It didn’t matter which one. She just needed to be doing something. Because she refused to think about why her little flat seemed like a gaping black hole this morning.

      Bags of dried pasta and tins of tomato soup stared blankly at her from inside the cupboard. She shut the door carefully and tried the next one. Five boxes of breakfast cereal sat in a row, waiting for her to choose one of them. She closed that door too.

      The kettle was within easy reach and she absent-mindedly flicked the switch. It roared into life, unnaturally loud in the pre-dawn stillness. She really must get around to de-scaling it some time soon. It boiled so violently when limescale had furred up the insides. The curse of London hard water…

      Grace blinked. Just for a few seconds she’d forgotten to be miserable and lonely. That was good, wasn’t it?

      She reached for her favourite mug, the oversized baby-pink one with the words ‘Hot Mama’ spelled out in crimson glitter. A present from Daisy last Mother’s Day. Daisy shared Grace’s love of kitsch and had known her ‘hot mama’ would appreciate the sentiment of the slogan and the garish colours.

      Daisy had given the mug to her with a twinkle in her eye that had made Grace chuckle, pleased to see proof that her daughter had inherited her sarcastic genes. But when the laughter had subsided, she’d mourned. No more pigtails and scraped knees. Daisy was all grown up and ready to fly the nest.

      In fact, she’d already flown.

      It was Mother’s Day again in a couple of weeks and, for the first time ever, she wouldn’t spend it doing something totally fabulous with Daisy. Last year they’d gone to the ice rink and had spent the whole afternoon falling on their bottoms. Then they’d eaten a Chinese takeaway so huge it had gone down in family history as ‘the one that could never be surpassed’. But this year Daisy would be in Paris or Romania or Prague. She was going to be away for a whole year. And after backpacking there was university…

      Grace hugged the mug to her chest. She missed her daughter already and she’d only been gone eighteen hours. How completely pathetic.