Happy Ever After Read Free Page A

reflected as she boiled the kettle, buttered a slice of brown bread and cut a wedge of red cheddar. She was trying to get her finances back on track after the expense of the wedding and her cash gift to Debbie and Bryan. And she didn’t want to be scrimping and saving on her trip to Spain.
    Once, working seven days straight had been no problem to her, but her energy levels weren’t as good as they used to be, hard as it was to accept it. ‘Ah, stop acting like an ould wan, you’re in your prime,’ she muttered, dipping her teabag up and down in her mug. ‘Even if you are talking to yourself and sending off ratty emails.’ She grinned.
    She headed out to the deck with the mug of much-needed tea and sat down gratefully at the table, kicking off her shoes. Her mobile rang, and she frowned. Was ten minutes’ peace too much to ask, she wondered crossly as she took it out of her pocket. She was surprised to see her ex-husband’s phone number come up.
    What did he want? The wedding was over, and she wasn’t too anxious to be in constant contact with Barry. She didn’t want to be reminded of their night of passion. She didn’t exactly regret it, but it was a one-off, and he didn’t seem to realize that. Both of them had been shattered after Debbie’s showdown with him about her feelings towards him. Connie had been very shocked that she’d not realized how deep Debbie’s hurt went. Their kiss of comfort had turned into much more than a kiss, but it was emphatically not going to happen again.
    ‘Yes, Barry,’ she said briskly, wishing the sun would come out from behind a bank of cloud which was casting shadows over her back garden.
    ‘Hi Connie,’ he said cheerfully. ‘How are things?’
    ‘Things are good. Off to Spain next week with Karen. I’m looking forward to it.’ She kept her tone light, offhand almost. Barry seemed to think that, because they’d had a quick shag, in a moment of weakness for her, prior to the wedding, he was now her best friend and confidant. It was an assumption Connie was eager to dispel.
    ‘Yeah, so I heard. I bumped into her the other day. My sister told me she plans to sleep, eat, drink and read. Sounds deadly boring to me.’
    ‘Sounds perfect to me,’ Connie riposted.
    ‘If that’s what you want, enjoy it. You deserve it, that’s for sure.’
    ‘Thanks,’ she murmured. Barry had just made her forthcoming holiday sound dull and dreary.
    ‘Listen, I hope you don’t think I’m being pushy, but I’d really like to build on the momentum of the progress myself, Debbie and Melissa made coming up to the wedding. I don’t want to let things drift.’
    ‘Sure, I understand,’ Connie agreed with a hint of warmth. She’d been so happy that Debbie and her father had finally, after years of bitterness, reconciled, and it had given her great joy to see the two half-sisters take those first faltering steps towards real sisterhood.
    ‘I was thinking it would be nice if we could get together for a coffee or a brunch or something but . . . er . . . I know you and Debbie and Aimee aren’t exactly hitting it off, so that would be awkward. And I don’t want Melissa picking up on it. She’s very loyal to her mother, so I was wondering if we could sort of “bump” into you?’
    ‘That would be nice, Barry,’ Connie approved, ashamed of her earlier irritability at his call. Barry had become a good father over the years, she’d give him that. Her ex-husband was right: these new, unprecedented relationships should be nurtured. It was just such a nuisance that Aimee and her bad behaviour was now the cause of awkwardness and had to be pussyfooted around. Until the wedding, Connie had got on reasonably well with Barry’s second wife, but after Aimee’s strop outside the church, when she’d complained about the cost and said that it was her hard-earned money that was paying for it, relations were at an all-time low.
    ‘Melissa and I often go for coffee and a Danish on