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“You, on the other hand, look exhausted. Have you been running around after your sisters?”
“No. They’re helping out.”
“Even Hannah?”
“Especially Hannah, and here’s the proof.” Posy settled the tray on her mother’s lap. “Roasted tomato and red pepper soup. Hannah made it for you.”
“I didn’t know she could cook.”
“It came as a shock to her, too.” Posy wondered what her mother was going to say when she found out Hannah was pregnant. To the best of her knowledge, she was the only one who knew, which increased her feeling of responsibility. She wasn’t sure she was being much help. “Can I borrow your water jug? While Hannah’s in the shower, I’m going to nip into her room and water Eric. Back in a minute.”
She pulled the bedroom door closed behind her and pressed her ear to the bathroom door again.
The shower was still running.
“Hannah?” She tapped gently on the door. “Are you all right?”
There was no answer, and short of breaking the door down, there didn’t seem much she could do, so she carried the water jug into Hannah’s room.
The first thing that struck her was how tidy the place was. Posy’s loft occasionally looked as if it had been raided, but everything in Hannah’s room was neat and in its place. There were no clothes strewn on chairs, no shoes scattered on the floor. Even the books on the nightstand were stacked with their edges aligned.
A laptop was open on the desk, showing a spreadsheet so complicated it made Posy’s eyes cross to look at it. She stared at it for a moment, remembering what Hannah had said about their parents valuing only athletic ability.
Then she turned her attention to the Christmas tree. “Hello, Eric.” She checked the moisture in the soil with the backs of her fingers and then slowly added water. “Who’s a thirsty boy, then?”
She was clearing up a few fallen needles when Hannah’s phone rang.
Posy almost dropped the jug. It was rare to get a signal in this part of the house. Typical that the call should come in when Hannah was in the bathroom.
Should she ignore it? No, Hannah was always saying how important her work was. Posy might not be able to rub her sister’s back while she threw up in the toilet, but at least she could take a message.
Deciding that she was quite enjoying this new role of supportive sibling, she grabbed the phone and answered it. “Hello?”
“Hi there, is that dancing pizza girl?”
Posy opened her mouth to say wrong number, but the man kept talking, and because he had a velvet smooth, deep voice that made you feel as if you were being stroked with a fur glove, she kept listening.
“Angie told me she’d spoken to you, and that before you were cut off, you screamed. So naturally, we’re all wondering what happened. Have you been kidnapped by Highland warriors? Carried away by a man wearing a kilt?”
“Er—”
“You’re not answering my emails and I’m worried. I love you, remember? How is Posy? Is she still sick? It must have been something serious to make you drop everything and sprint back to Scotland.”
Sick?
Posy sat down hard on the bed. “Who is this?” And who, she thought, is dancing pizza girl?
“Who is this?”
“Hannah doesn’t eat pizza. She doesn’t touch carbs.”
There was a long silence. “Which one of her sisters are you? Beth or Posy?”
“Posy.”
“Are you better? Hannah was worried about you. She jumped straight on a flight.”
Posy knew she couldn’t possibly have been the reason Hannah had jumped on a flight. “I’m feeling a lot better, thanks for asking.”
