One More for Christmas(120)

“Do you think I should have locked our bedroom? And the study?”

“Why? If someone breaks into our house they’ll simply kick the doors down if they’re locked. Makes more mess.”

“I wasn’t thinking of burglars. I was thinking about the twins.”

“Why would the twins go into our bedroom? Or the study? They have perfectly good rooms of their own.”

What did it say about her that she didn’t entirely trust her own children? They’d been suitably horrified when they’d discovered that their elderly grandmother had been assaulted, and sweet when Liza had explained that she and Sean were going away for the weekend, but had flat-out resisted her attempts to persuade them to come, too.

“There’s nothing to do at Granny’s,” Alice had said, exchanging looks with her sister.

“Besides, we have work to do.” Caitlin had pulled out her laptop and a stack of textbooks. “History exam on Monday. I’ll be studying. Probably won’t even have time to order in pizza.”

It had been a perfectly reasonable response. So why did Liza feel nervous?

She’d call later and check on them. Insist on video-calling, so that she could see what was going on in the background.

The traffic finally cleared and they headed west toward Cornwall.

By the time they turned into the country lane that led to her mother’s house it was late afternoon, and the sun sent a rosy glow over the fields and hedges.

She was just allowing herself a rare moment of appreciating the scenery when a bright red sports car sped round the bend, causing her almost to swerve into a ditch.

“For—” She leaned on her horn and caught a brief glimpse of a pair of laughing blue eyes as the car roared past. “Did you see that?”

“Yes. Stunning, isn’t it? V8 engine.” Sean turned his head, almost drooling, but the car was long gone. “Nought to sixty in—”

“He almost killed us!”

“Well, he didn’t. So that’s good.”

“It was that wretched rock star who moved here last year.”

“Ah, yes. That makes sense. I read an article in one of the Sunday papers about his six sports cars.”

“I was about to say I don’t understand why one man would need six cars, but if he drives like that then I suppose that’s the explanation right there. He probably gets through one a day.”

Liza turned the wheel and Sean winced as branches scraped the paintwork.

“You’re a bit close on my side, Liza.”

“It was the hedge or a head-on collision.” She was shaken by what had been a close shave, her emotions heightened by the fact that Finn Cool had been laughing. “He laughed—did you see that? He actually smiled as he passed us. Would he have been laughing if he’d had to haul my mangled body out of the twisted wreckage of this car?”

“Relax. He seemed like a pretty skilled driver.”

“It wasn’t his skill that saved us. It was me driving into the hedge. It isn’t safe to drive like that down these roads.”

Liza breathed out and drove slowly down the lane, half expecting another irresponsible rock star to come zooming round the corner. Fortunately she reached her mother’s house without further mishap, her pulse-rate slowing as she pulled into the drive.

Aubretia clung to the low wall that bordered the property, and lobelia and geraniums tumbled from baskets hung next to the front door. Her mother loved the garden and spent hours in the sunshine, tending her plants.

“This place is a gem. She’d make a fortune if she ever did decide to sell it, leaking roof or not. Do you think she will have made her chocolate cake?” Sean was ever hopeful.

“You mean before or after she was assaulted?”

Liza parked in front of the house. She probably should have baked a cake, but she’d decided that getting on the road as soon as possible was the priority. She had stuffed the contents of the fridge into a bag, along with some basic grocery items and a loaf of bread, because she had no idea what her mother would have in the house.

“Can you call the kids quickly?”

“What for?” Sean uncoiled himself from the front of the car and stretched. “We only left them four hours ago.”

“I want to check on them.”

He unloaded their luggage. “I’ll call if it will make you feel better. But first take a deep breath. I haven’t seen you like this before. You’re amazing, Liza. A real coper. We’ll get through this.”

She didn’t feel like a coper. She felt like a piece of elastic that was about to snap. She was coping because if she didn’t what would happen to them? She knew, even if her family didn’t, that they wouldn’t be able to manage without her. The twins would die of malnutrition or lie buried under their own mess, because they were incapable of putting away a single thing they owned or cooking anything other than pizza, the laundry would stay unwashed, the cupboards would be bare. Caitlin would yell, Has anyone seen my blue strap top? and no one would answer because no one would know.

The front door opened and all thought of the twins left her mind. Because there was her mother, her palm pressed hard against the door frame for support. There was a bandage wrapped around the top of her head, and Liza felt her stomach drop to her feet. She’d always considered her mother to be invincible, and here she was looking frail, tired, and all too human. For all their differences—and there were many—she loved her mother dearly.