Read Online The Birds and the Bees by Milly Johnson - Free Book Online Page A

airport just before midday. Allowing time for luggage and motorway delays, she reckoned he would be home between two and three o’clock. It felt like an eternity between now and then, and the anticipation filled her veins with a very unpleasant anxious sensation.
    She prayed that there wouldn’t be two people in his car when he drew up outside their house because she wasn’t quite sure what her reaction would be. She didn’t think she could be quite as level-headed as planned, in those circumstances. She just hoped Jo went straight home and was murdered by Adam MacLean. She presumed that was what part of his so-called ‘plan’ entailed–and for a split second she was dangerously on his side. Then she remembered how his cruelty had driven Jo into Matthew’s arms. Jo, who had cuddled Danny on her knee and read him stories in her soft voice. Jo, who had cried on her shoulder and brought her flowers to say thank you for listening. Jo, with whom she had traded private stories of her life. Jo, who hadhelped her plan her wedding. Jo, who had ruined her son’s first chance of a proper family with a proper dad. Jo, who had been so desperate for love and attention that she had chased her out of Matthew’s heart without a second thought. It truly was a dog-eat-dog world.
     
    Matthew’s eyes darted madly around the airport from left to right, then up and down as if it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that Adam MacLean might swing down from a rope SAS style, dressed in black and carrying a machine gun. Or even explode up through the floor like a force from hell. Jo, on the other hand, didn’t seem half as perturbed as he expected her to be in the circumstances.
    ‘Relax,’ she said, when she spotted that his head was jerking everywhere like a lunatic in an asylum hunting imaginary flies. ‘If Adam was here, there are plenty of security men to overpower him and he would only end up in prison again.’
    Which would be small comfort on the mortuary slab, thought Matthew, although he didn’t voice it. He did not want to admit being frightened. After all the brownie points he had earned being Jo’s Sir Lancelot, he didn’t want to lose them all by being Wimp Boy.
    They picked up their luggage from the carousel and then made their way to the Leeds/Bradford long-stay car park. Matthew did a thorough check that there was nothing ticking under the car wheels and as he slid into the driver’s seat, perspiration ran in rivers down his forehead. He made Jo stand well back until he had twisted on the ignition, then felt almost like crying with relief when all he heard was theengine and not a boo-boom and St Michael’s voice asking him to wait in the queue at the Pearly Gates.
    They both looked very healthy and brown–too much so for it to be attributed to a sun-bed, plus they were both far too blissed out to have been exercising on a Welsh treadmill or crammed up in an Aberdeen conference centre. Matthew was wondering if this really was going to be worth the fall-out to come, when Jo’s long fingers came out and squeezed his inner thigh.
    ‘Drop me around the corner when we get there, usual place.’
    ‘I thought you said he wouldn’t be at home!’
    ‘He shouldn’t be, but his shift pattern might have changed. Anyway, I have to see him some time, it’s better that it’s now.’ She gave him a big brave smile.
    ‘I’m scared for you, sweetie.’
    ‘Don’t be,’ she said. ‘But…’ She left a long dramatic pause, which made his sweat glands crank up again. ‘If you haven’t heard from me by six o’clock, call the police, just to be on the safe side.’
    ‘God, now you really are scaring me!’
    ‘He threatened his first wife with a chainsaw.’
    ‘Chuffing hell!’
    Jo shook her head. ‘He won’t get the better of me, though. Not this time, I promise.’
    She looked so determined that Matthew found himself smiling proudly. What a remarkable woman. She had come so far since they had first got