Page 3 of Stolen Kiss

Jason’s grandmother, Victoria, had named all the cottages after the female ancestors, seeing as they named the Halls after the male ancestors.

He showered, changed and strolled along to Archer and Erica’s place and admired how quickly they had made it a home. All five cottages had been build designed identically. The furniture, although of different colours, was the same size, placed in the same places and had matching curtains. Erica hadn’t thrown her money around their cottage. She’d kept all the large furniture but had dressed every room with personal touches. The cottages were staff houses before but his aunt put a stop to that when her father died, saying the staff shouldn’t live in such luxury. The staff moved out and his aunt had them redecorated and had spent frivolously, so much so Archer had to fix the electrics.

If he was going to stay permanently in Victoria Lodge, then he needed to pick up some tips. Luke and Daisy joined them a few minutes later, and they crowded around Archer and Erica’s dining table, heaping mounds of chilli beef onto their plates. They passed all the dips and side dishes around. It was a farewell dinner for Daisy and Luke.

“How’s your charity thing going?” Jason asked Erica.

“Oh, it’s taking off. I’m going to need to find premises at this rate, otherwise I’m going to be a permanent postie,” she said.

Her eyes lit up talking about her latest project. Erica had run into one resident when she had to go back to the mainland to get her wedding dress. She brought over on her return flight stacks of goods for the charity to sell. After some thinking, she decided it would be better for the environment if the goods already came from the island. So she set up theSwap Shop.It wasn’t a physical shop, it was currently all online. People would take snapshots of their unwanted items and send them to Erica. She would then put them in her virtual shop. But many people wanted to remain anonymous, which meant the purchaser couldn’t go to the owner’s house to pick up the items. Erica was forever borrowing the buggy and was a mediator. This soon got out of hand, so now she had an assistant who lived in town to do the ferrying, and another virtual assistant to take care of the online side of things. Erica took care of communications.

“I’m sure we can find a place to build a small warehouse to hold the items. Everyone pays online, so it’s not like real money will need to be collected,” Archer said.

“There has to be some square footage Aunt Cynthia will give up,” Luke said.

“Are we talking about the same woman?” Daisy said, her eyes growing wide.

“I’ll ask her,” Jason said.

“Yeah, you ask her. She seems to like you at the moment,” Luke said.

“Christ knows what I did wrong to deserve that, but I’ll take one for the team,” Jason replied, grumbling.

“Thanks Jason,” Erica said, and blew him a kiss across the table.

Archer scowled and Jason then grinned.

Chapter Two

Heidi

Heidi rounded the home birthing tub in the middle of Patty Homer’s front room. Patty was breathing deeply while she clutched onto the side of the birthing pool. A sheet was over the pool to keep her naked body shielded, but the only people in the room were Heidi, another birthing nurse, Mr Homer, and the tropical fish. It wouldn’t be long before Patty would have any inhibitions about who saw what. She was going to have a baby.

Heidi had always known she wanted to be a midwife. Seeing the mothers through their pregnancy and be there when they gave birth was life affirming. She longed to be in Patty’s position one day. Although Heidi swore she would go to a hospital and take all the drugs available. The brave women that refused pain relief were goddesses, in her opinion.

“It’s nearly time, Patty, not long now,” Heidi said, rubbing her back.

Patty’s husband was biting the skin around his nails, looking like he was ready to chew his thumb right off. They had gonethrough a hell of a lot of heartache before this baby had grown to full term. Heidi had every faith they would have a screaming baby in their arms in the next half an hour, but there was nothing Heidi could say to stop both of them from worrying.

“Okay, here we go,” Heidi said. “Deep breaths.”

The nurse next to her gloved up. Heidi liked working with the same team so they could work seamlessly. But there were peak times when midwives flew in to help from time to time. Thankfully, this wasn’t one of those times. She was gloved up and looking between Patty’s legs. She gave Heidi the nod, and they went to work. Baby Homer popped out twenty minutes later and both mother and father bawled louder than their baby son.

Heidi sat on the edge of the dining room chair, looking at the happy family, hoping that would be her one day. Not that she had a boyfriend. Heidi was very much single. She smiled through tears of happiness and congratulated the parents.

A few hours later, Heidi arrived at her small two up-two down in a street three rows back from the quayside area and flipped on the light. It was September, and she couldn’t believe how fast the year had gone. The nights were already drawing in, and she looked forward to big jumpers and fluffy sock season. Heidi lived alone in her terraced house and that was the way she liked it. She wanted a family, but until then, living in her own space was good enough.

Her phone rang and Freya Riley’s name flashed up. Her best friend. Heidi may live alone, but she had a large circle of friends. She knew what this call was about.

“Girls’ night, one hour,” Freya said and hung up.

Heidi chuckled at her friend’s message, brokering no room for arguing or refusal. What also made her chuckle was that Freya lived next door. Also alone. The houses were too small to house share. So they waited for the right time and bought houses next to each other. It was fate that both the houses had come upfor sale at the same time. Heidi’s parents lived a few minutes’ drive away, and so did Freya’s. On the same road. There wasn’t a time when the two women didn’t live within shouting distance of each other.

It was Friday night, and as tradition, was the party night of the island. The night before the gig racing, there was a party in the local pub, The Anchor. It wasn’t the only pub, but it was where the younger generation gravitated. Those who wanted a quiet pint went elsewhere, leaving the rest of them to make as much noise as they wanted.

Showered, dressed in faded jeans, a white t-shirt and a jumper slung over her handbag, and no jewellery. She was good to go. One lash swish of her mascara brush in the downstairs hall mirror and she was just in time before Freya hammered on her front door, scaring the life out of her and avoiding poking herself in the eye. The downstairs hall light was much better than her bathroom one. She’d meant to go to Mr McKenzie’s store for weeks to get a better bulb.

Opening the door wide, she let in Freya.

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