Page 60 of Perfect

“Mrs Williams?” a deep, scratchy male voice questioned. I winkled my nose as I realised he meant Rachel, andnotmy mother.

“No sorry, she isn’t here right now, can I help?” I questioned, tucking the phone into the crook of my neck as I pulled a bit of paper towards me.

“Sorry, who am I speaking to? Are you a relation to Mrs Williams?”

I checked the pen worked by starting to doodle my version of a plant pot on the corner of the notepaper.

“I suppose, I’m her stepdaughter,” I replied.

I was greeted with another silence and I exhaled, partly wishing I’d ignored the call, get on with it!

“I see. Look, I can only speak to members of the family. My name is David Smith and I’m calling from the bank. I have an urgent message for Mrs Williams. Could you just confirm your address, so I can check it against my system?”

I pursed my lips, already weary of the call and was just about to say that I didn’t actually know the full address, but I spotted one of Dad’s unopened letters on the desk and pulled it towards me.

I reeled off the details, including the postcode and then waited with my pen poised; concerned that a call from the bank may be quite important.

Then the line went dead.

Odd.

My brow furrowed and I replaced the receiver. We’d obviously been cut off. The farmwasin the middle of nowhere. I waited a minute or two for him to call back but when no call came, I wrote a quick message to say that the bank had called and took it into the kitchen. The chance of Rachel or my dad seeing it was more likely there and I popped it under one of the magnets on the fridge. Better than it being buried by papers in Dad’s office.

As I turned to leave the kitchen, Rachel came in through the front door holding something.

“Harlow, is this yours?” she began, approaching me with a peculiar expression.

I dipped my head to see what she was holding and then panic burst from my chest. What the actual F!

My stepmother was clutching my robe. My silky little number; the one I had worn that had been personally peeled away during an encounter with her son the previous night. If ‘encounter’ was the right word, it felt like such adullway to describe that amazing heated moment between us.

Rachel gave me a guarded look, as you would do I suppose if you found part of someone’s sexy nightwear in the fricking barn of all places. Why the hell hadn’t Connor picked it up? He must have been as lost in the moment as I was to have missed it.

I was sure my eyes were bulging from their sockets and I gave myself a mental kick, speak!

“Oh, yes. Thanks. Been looking for that,” I spluttered on a semi-stutter.

She then shot me what I took to be one of those ‘woman-to-woman’ looks. A knowing, ‘I know that there is more to this that you are letting on’ type of vibe. And of course, she was right. I can just imagine her face if she was aware of the whole truth and who was actually involved in my loss of attire. I could have been out there sneaking around with any of the farmhands. Gross but true. Either that or one of the other boys from the village, as far as Rachel knew, Connor and I didn’t get along.

I took it, thanked her again, and redirected her thoughts by saying. “Oh, you had a call from the bank.”

Her brow furrowed before she replied.

“Really?When?”

I pointed towards the fridge. “Just now, I made a note, but they didn’t leave a number.”

She pursed her lips, as if suddenly in deep contemplation.

“That’s odd. I didn’t even realise they had this number. They called on the landline?” she questioned, looking thoroughly confused.

I nodded my head.

“Yes,” also feeling perplexed.

After a moment of silence where it just felt plain weird, Rachel smiled, tightly. “OK, thank you. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.”

As she drifted past me into the kitchen, her body language said the complete opposite.

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