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Her phone vibrated in her coat pocket and she stopped playing. She had a WhatsApp message from Beth, accompanied by two photos.
Instagram Megan vs Reality Megan.
In the first photo, Megan looked gorgeous in a fitted black dress, showing off her baby bump. Her red lips were pouting at the camera, and her smoky dark eyes were sultry and smouldering. The second photo was a shot of her kneeling on the bathroom floor, with her head over the toilet.
Poor Megan. But feeling sorry for her cousin didn’t stop the tears surfacing, and for a moment Kate held her breath, tying to stem the onset. Crying was one thing, giving into a full-blown panic attack was another.
Wiping her eyes, she placed the guitar on its stand, the desire to play eradicated by a wave of sadness. She wasn’t sure whether it was missing her dad, thinking about Calvin or the images ofMegan’s pregnancy that had unsettled her. Either way, she’d lost her battle to remain composed.
Collecting her things, she scurried from the music shop. So much for a nice festive day of shopping and not dwelling. She’d failed spectacularly.
She stepped onto the street and it took her a moment to realise that the wet on her face wasn’t just from tears, but from falling snow.
Glancing up, she was met with a darkening sky and a flurry of flakes floating through the air. She’d only been inside the shop a short while, but daylight had faded into dusk.
Shivering, she pulled up the hood on her coat and headed for the train station, her feet aching from a long day wandering around the shops. It hadn’t taken long to complete her shopping, but she’d been in no hurry to return to Rose Court.
If facing Calvin yesterday hadn’t been excruciating enough, she’d been forced to spend the rest of the afternoon with him, baking mince pies and brewing a huge vat of mulled wine for last night’s village lantern parade. Even though deep inside she’d known the kiss was a one-off, a moment of madness that hadn’t meant anything, a small part of her had clung on to the idea that just maybe it was the start of something magical between them. But it was just another disappointment in a long line of disappointments. He’d been extraordinarily kind and let her down gently, but the rejection still stung.
Of course, she hadn’t let him see that. She had some pride, and there was no way she was going to embarrass herself further by admitting she was hoping for a repeat performance. Instead, she’d reverted to business mode, put Christmas music on the kitchen radio and busied herself cooking, so she wouldn’t have to keep looking at his tantalisingly inviting lips and wishing they were still attached to hers.
It was a sound plan, almost flawless, and it did a pretty decent job of keeping her emotions in check… until he’d encountered a large spider in the larder and reacted as though the entire inhabitants of Jurassic Park had escaped their pens and were chasing him around the kitchen.
In their efforts to trap the spider, a bag of flour had been upturned, covering them both in white dust, and resulting in uncontrollable laughter and flawed attempts to clean each other up.
It was at this point she’d decided her resolve had been stretched to breaking point, and if she didn’t escape soon, she’d be in danger of grabbing him, pushing him onto the kitchen table and straddling him. Something that, although highly appealing, would only exacerbate the awkwardness between them. So she did the sensible thing and ran to her room, where she’d been hiding ever since, counting down the hours until she could escape back to her family in Surrey.
Not that she had anything to go back to. With a groan, she recalled Beth’s phone call and stumbled to a halt. Hearing the news that her Christmas plans had been scuppered had only added to her gloom. She was not destined to have a ‘Happy Christmas’ this year.
Checking the road for cars, she was about to cross when she saw a sign for Ashford’s Legal Clinic. The sign directed her towards the station, so she followed it, figuring she had a few minutes to spare before her train was due.
The clinic was a generic office space squashed between a bakery and a hardware shop.
Intrigued, she pushed open the door and was greeted by a woman sitting behind a desk.
The woman removed her glasses. ‘Good afternoon. Do you have an appointment to see one of our solicitors?’
Kate pushed the hood of her coat down. ‘I was just passing and saw the sign. I didn’t realise there was a legal clinic in Ashford.’
‘We haven’t been here that long. The place was set up by local family law solicitor Yvette Bond,’ the woman said, handing Kate a business card. ‘Four solicitors are now regularly using the facilities.’
Kate glanced around. ‘Using the facilities? In what way?’
‘We run a rent-a-chair scheme. You know, like the hair salons do. Although in our case, it’s rent an office. The solicitors work from home on a self-employed basis, but they book an office when they need to see a client. It keeps the costs down and saves them having to rent permanent office space.’
Kate placed her bags on the floor. ‘I’ve never heard of solicitors renting an office before.’
‘Are you in the legal profession?’
‘I’m a wills and probate solicitor.’ Even though she didn’t feel particularly professional, standing there in her thick coat, woollen scarf and fluffy Ugg boots.
‘Then you might be interested in our Wishing Will scheme.’ The woman reached across for a flyer. ‘Yvette has been struggling to find a local solicitor willing to cover the Ashford area. It’s a scheme to enable people without means to draft a will.’
Kate took the flyer. ‘Pro bono, you mean?’
‘Not exactly. The solicitor drafts the will free of charge, but the fee is included in the document, so it forms part of the estate when the person dies. Of course, most of our clients don’t have large estates, so invariably the bill never gets paid, which is why it doesn’t appeal to most solicitors. No money to be made. Or not much, anyway.’
‘I can see that. But it sounds like a great scheme.’ Kate could think of several people who had enquired about making a willwhen she’d worked for Blandy & Kite but who couldn’t afford the fees upfront.
