simply hated Christmas.
***
Upstairs, Hayley Cutler replaced the receiver with a grimace. She couldn’t quite believe she was stooping this low; doing the dirty on a friend, behaving like...Well, she wasn’t going to figure out that side of it too closely.
Lizzie might be a sweet girl, but she wasn’t exciting, and Hayley had always been coolly aware of her own attractions. Piers McEvoy just couldn’t believe his luck, and he couldn’t keep his hands off her, either. Surely she could convince him that he owed it to himself to have a wife who could really make things swing.
Not that her idea of a dream lover was someone who looked and tended to behave like Toad of Toad Hall, but time was moving on. Too many men had treated her badly of late, and she could almost hear that clock ticking. It was time for a long-term solution.
And as far as Lizzie was concerned, if she got a good settlement and custody of the kids, she’d probably end up happier. Being weak, she brought out the worst in Piers, whereas Hayley had no doubt at all about her ability to put him in his place once the ring was on her finger. It would be good to ease off, face the future without this corrosive worry.
Downstairs she could hear the children moving about. Just for a moment the old Norman Rockwell pictures rose in her mind; the family gathered round the fire below the laden tree, the mother reading ‘The Night Before Christmas’...
A lump rose in her throat. She had lost them, somewhere a long way back; after the divorce, perhaps, when Chaz Cutler had removed his worthless self from their lives and even the CSA had given up trying to get money out of him. She had had to be tough then, and the children had stopped expecting cuddles and home-baked cookies from a mother who was permanently stressed-out. She tried to think of the last time she’d hugged one of them, and couldn’t. Tears spilled over, slid down her cheeks.
She dashed them away. She couldn’t afford the sort of weakness that candles and carols and too much champagne produced, which was one of several reasons why she hated Christmas. But this Christmas was bleaker than ever.
Beside her bed lay the letter from her bank manager about the future of the employment agency, which she had read so often in the hope that this time she could make it mean something different that it was dog-eared and curled. All those readings told her only one thing; at whatever cost of self-loathing, there was no way but to follow her reluctantly-chosen course, or lose everything.
She had borrowed in the belief that the recession was at an end, but somehow there still weren’t the jobs available, and if there were no clients, there was no commission. If she lost that, all of the sacrifices – of close, warm family relationships and the right to act feeble and pathetic when you felt that way – would have been for nothing. She hadn’t been able to loll around the place being a homemaker and learning gourmet cuisine, she had gone out and hustled for herself and her family instead of sitting on her butt with her hand out, and this was her reward.
And she had made an enemy. She tried not to think about it because it made her feel sick to her stomach. She had always, somehow, been an outsider, and this forced her to admit that she didn’t even know which of the people who disliked her hated her this much. The anonymous letters were bad enough of themselves – three of them, bitchy and poisonous. But this last one; that had really scared her.
This one had been threatening, talking about striking at her heart in the best melodramatic style. She had torn it up and burned it, of course, told herself that nutters who were perfectly harmless acted this way, and tried, unsuccessfully, to put it from her mind.
Then she had come downstairs the other morning to find a pretty, polished red apple sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, with one of her kitchen knives stuck through its core.
When she had
***
Upstairs, Hayley Cutler replaced the receiver with a grimace. She couldn’t quite believe she was stooping this low; doing the dirty on a friend, behaving like...Well, she wasn’t going to figure out that side of it too closely.
Lizzie might be a sweet girl, but she wasn’t exciting, and Hayley had always been coolly aware of her own attractions. Piers McEvoy just couldn’t believe his luck, and he couldn’t keep his hands off her, either. Surely she could convince him that he owed it to himself to have a wife who could really make things swing.
Not that her idea of a dream lover was someone who looked and tended to behave like Toad of Toad Hall, but time was moving on. Too many men had treated her badly of late, and she could almost hear that clock ticking. It was time for a long-term solution.
And as far as Lizzie was concerned, if she got a good settlement and custody of the kids, she’d probably end up happier. Being weak, she brought out the worst in Piers, whereas Hayley had no doubt at all about her ability to put him in his place once the ring was on her finger. It would be good to ease off, face the future without this corrosive worry.
Downstairs she could hear the children moving about. Just for a moment the old Norman Rockwell pictures rose in her mind; the family gathered round the fire below the laden tree, the mother reading ‘The Night Before Christmas’...
A lump rose in her throat. She had lost them, somewhere a long way back; after the divorce, perhaps, when Chaz Cutler had removed his worthless self from their lives and even the CSA had given up trying to get money out of him. She had had to be tough then, and the children had stopped expecting cuddles and home-baked cookies from a mother who was permanently stressed-out. She tried to think of the last time she’d hugged one of them, and couldn’t. Tears spilled over, slid down her cheeks.
She dashed them away. She couldn’t afford the sort of weakness that candles and carols and too much champagne produced, which was one of several reasons why she hated Christmas. But this Christmas was bleaker than ever.
Beside her bed lay the letter from her bank manager about the future of the employment agency, which she had read so often in the hope that this time she could make it mean something different that it was dog-eared and curled. All those readings told her only one thing; at whatever cost of self-loathing, there was no way but to follow her reluctantly-chosen course, or lose everything.
She had borrowed in the belief that the recession was at an end, but somehow there still weren’t the jobs available, and if there were no clients, there was no commission. If she lost that, all of the sacrifices – of close, warm family relationships and the right to act feeble and pathetic when you felt that way – would have been for nothing. She hadn’t been able to loll around the place being a homemaker and learning gourmet cuisine, she had gone out and hustled for herself and her family instead of sitting on her butt with her hand out, and this was her reward.
And she had made an enemy. She tried not to think about it because it made her feel sick to her stomach. She had always, somehow, been an outsider, and this forced her to admit that she didn’t even know which of the people who disliked her hated her this much. The anonymous letters were bad enough of themselves – three of them, bitchy and poisonous. But this last one; that had really scared her.
This one had been threatening, talking about striking at her heart in the best melodramatic style. She had torn it up and burned it, of course, told herself that nutters who were perfectly harmless acted this way, and tried, unsuccessfully, to put it from her mind.
Then she had come downstairs the other morning to find a pretty, polished red apple sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, with one of her kitchen knives stuck through its core.
When she had
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