Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 2: The House on Willow Street, The Honey Queen, Christmas Magic, plus bonus short story: The Perfect Holiday

‘Goodie,’ said Kitty happily. ‘Do you think Claire will have hot chocolate too? The baby might like it.’ Despite Tess’ horror at having to tell Kitty about the baby, Kitty was delighted with the news and told everyone.

‘That’s a very good idea,’ Tess said evenly. ‘Milk is good for babies. I drank lots when you were in my tummy.’

She managed a smile. It hurt like hell even to think about it, but this baby would be Kitty’s half brother or sister.

Which made her feel mean and nasty. She wasn’t the sort of person who felt anger towards an unborn child, was she?

Yet somehow, she did feel upset about it all in ways she didn’t even want to think about.

She quashed those feelings. Today wasn’t about her, it was about Kitty and Zach.

It fell on Tess’s shoulders to make sure Kitty and Zach saw the baby as a good thing and not as a child who could conceivably get more of their father’s love because he would be living with the baby’s mother.

On the Internet, she had read scads of information on blended families and on welcoming new brothers or sisters into a complex mix. She was determined she wouldn’t wreck it all with bitterness. She had separated from Kevin. She could not blame him for finding someone else or having a baby with that person. Exactly how she was to achieve all this was another matter entirely.

She checked her watch. It was a quarter to five. They should be leaving.

‘Zach,’ she yelled up the stairs. ‘It’s time to go.’

Zach, Kitty and Tess were to meet Kevin and Claire in the hotel coffee shop at five.

She put the white knitted hat on Kitty’s head.

‘Coming,’ mumbled Zach, taking the stairs two at a time.

Antiques were easier than people and relationships. Antiques never asked personal questions or said, ‘Surely you can’t expect me to pay a hundred euros for this bit of old junk?’ whereas people did. Sadly, antiques were harder to sell these days.

Thankfully, Zach was now speaking to her again. Tess suspected it had something to do with his new girlfriend, a tiny sprite of a thing from his class in school who was named Pixie and lived up to the name. Pixie had short, dark hair, wore boyish clothes and slightly Goth make-up and was both beautiful and very nice.

The final plus was that Pixie’s parents were divorced and she had two sets of new siblings from each side, something she treated as entirely normal.

Tess could imagine Pixie telling Zach that his mother must be going through hell right now and it wasn’t her fault his dad had a pregnant girlfriend.

Tess wanted to get down on her knees to thank Pixie for whatever it was she’d said to Zach, because he was being his normal sweet self again.

‘Sorry about, you know, earlier, Ma,’ was all he’d said. ‘It’s been kinda tough.’

Tess had hugged him. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘It’s been tough on me, too, love.’

Now, she walked into the plush surroundings of the hotel lounge bar where afternoon tea was being served and looked around, feeling a tight knot of anxiety inside her. The place was busy and she couldn’t see Kevin. Perhaps he’d chickened out. Perhaps she should have chickened out.

‘Mum, it’s Dad!’

Kitty’s small, warm hand pulled away from her mother’s as she raced across the busy room to her father. He was sitting at a prime corner table with a girl who looked both nervous and incredibly young. Very slim, Tess could see, and with no sign of any pregnancy bump under a pink mohair jumper with sequins on the outside. Claire was pretty; that lovely combination of fair hair, blue eyes and skin that tanned easily. As she rose to her feet to greet Kitty and Zach, who’d moved on ahead of his mother, Tess decided that Claire looked like a radio station’s music festival DJ.

It was easy to imagine her with tanned legs emerging from denim cut-off shorts and a floppy hat on her head at any festival.

Beside her sat Kevin, who was hugging his daughter and then Zach.

‘Tess, you’re here.’

Tess knew she’d walked over towards the table, but it was as if her body had moved of its own volition. The whole scene felt a little unreal. This girl was going to be Kitty and Zach’s step-mother.

Be strong, Tess said to herself. Be a grown-up.

‘Hello, Claire,’ she said with steely calm, and held out her hand. ‘I’m Tess.’

‘It’s so lovely to meet you,’ said Claire, getting to her feet and knocking over her glass of juice. ‘Oh no, shit. Oh, sorry!’

Hand clamped over her mouth at having used bad language in front of a child, Claire went pink.

‘It’s fine,’ said Kitty, settling in beside Claire and looking at her jumper with interest. ‘Mum says that all the time, don’t you, Mum? I have,’ Kitty added in conspiratorial tones, ‘heard her use the f-word.’

Zach laughed, while Tess wondered whether to laugh or cry.

‘Kitty,’ she said, ‘behave yourself.’

While Kevin, also red-faced, tried to mop up the juice, Tess sat down in a seat across the table. She could do this.

‘So,’ she said brightly, with a hint of Montessori teacher talking to her new class, ‘now that you’ve met Zach and Kitty, tell us all about the pregnancy. You must be so excited.’

It wasn’t the way she’d planned to play it, but now that she was here, it seemed like the only way to go. Straight and up front.

‘… er, we don’t have to talk about that now,’ said Kevin, who was just entering the puce-faced stage of embarrassment.

Tess looked at her husband and felt terribly annoyed with him. He was responsible for this – she might have wanted the separation, but the pregnant girlfriend was all his doing. The least he could do was act a bit more mature over it all.

‘Kevin,’ she said, ‘let’s keep this simple and honest. It’s hard enough as it is.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ blurted out Claire, ‘I never meant all this to happen. I didn’t know, really …’ Her lovely blue eyes filled with tears.

Pregnancy hormones, Tess decided.

‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ Tess said, with emphasis on the word you. Kevin, on the other hand, she wasn’t so sure about. Did she or didn’t she have an old ceremonial sword in the back room of the shop? She might skewer him with it one day soon.

‘Drinks?’ said a waitress, arriving pad in hand.

‘Yes, thank you. We’re all thirsty,’ said Tess brightly to the waitress.

‘Hot chocolate with marshmallows,’ piped up Kitty.

‘Tea,’ for me said Tess. ‘No, strike that, I’ll have a glass of red wine.’ They could walk up the hill home. A glass of a nice red might help.

‘Me too,’ said Kevin hastily.

‘Sweetie –’ began Claire, big eyes turned towards him. ‘You said …’

‘Make that a mineral water,’ Kevin amended.