Read Online Watch Over Me by Daniela Sacerdoti - Free Book Online Page B

Suitable ones, yes – ones that should have been perfect, the perfect choice for both our families. But I always found myself wanting more. I wanted to fall in love, and truly, truly feel that the person you love is the one who’s meant for you. I believed you fall in love once and that’s it – that there’s only one person out there, one person that we can call ‘soulmate’, that when you meet her, you just can’t be away from her ever again.
    Then Janet came. Then Janet went away.
    And now I ask myself, do we really only fall in love once? Because I did, and now that she’s gone, I wonder if I’ll be alone forever. I hope I’m wrong, that you can love more than once, that there is more than one person out there for us.
    And now there’s Gail.
    I truly don’t know what to do. Last night, after we came back from the play park, she came in for a while. We were having dinner and I pulled up a chair for her. It was … nice.
    Yes, it was really nice. She chatted with Maisie and we all watched Charlie and Lola together, then the time came to put Maisie to bed and she said she’d wait for me downstairs, make me a cup of tea.
    I said I had some paperwork to do, some orders had come in and I had to look them over. Which was nearly true but not quite. She looked hurt, disappointed. I felt so guilty.
    I am going to speak to her on Friday night, no more delay. I can’t have Sunday lunch with her family and Shona. By Sunday, I want it to be sorted.
    I met Eilidh Lawson at the play park the other day. I can’t believe she’s back. I never thought she would return. Probably she’s just here temporarily, until she gets things sorted in her life, and then she’ll go back south.
    Funny, when I saw her, this memory came into my head: opening the door of my family home and her standing there with a basket of red apples for my mum. Flora had sent her to bring apples in exchange for eggs. I remember her wavy hair falling around her face like a halo and those startling blue eyes. I had gone to school with her for years but it was like I’d seen her for the first time. When she told me she was moving down south with her family, I was gutted. I went fishing every day for two weeks so I could be on my own and not talk to anyone.
    She hasn’t changed much, the same brown hair, now down to her shoulders, the same beautiful eyes. But she’s so thin and she looks like she’s been crying a lot. I know she lost a baby and that she’d been in hospital. My mum told me years ago that she was having a hard time, that she was struggling to have children and that her marriage wasn’t so good. It seems impossible, that Eilidh couldn’t have children, because I can’t remember her wanting anything else. It even came up in school once. We were asked to write a short piece on ‘What I want to be when I grow up’. She wrote that she wanted to have three children and to work in a nursery. I wrote that I wanted to be a fisherman – John and I were going through a stage where we went fishing all the time.
    Maisie took to her immediately – she kept talking about Eilidh on the way home and how Eilidh would take her riding. Eilidh and her sister used to go riding a lot, up at the Ramsay estate, because the owners are cousins of theirs.
    Anyway, can’t think about all that now. I have to decide what to say to Gail.
    But Eilidh was a natural with Maisie, anybody could see that she’s been working with nursery children. I hope I haven’t embarrassed her by asking too many questions, I hope I haven’t put her on the spot. I wonder if she and Peggy will go to the pub for lunch on Sunday. I’ll probably see them there. Eilidh will want to catch up a bit and Shona will be there, so she can see her as well.
    To go back to Gail, I must talk to her in person. A letter just won’t do. Oh, look, it started raining. I hope Eilidh is not out on her bike. She used to love cycling, we’d been everywhere on our bikes when she lived here.
    I just