Read Tempting Fate Page 29


  She will go to college provided, Gabby thinks wryly, she isn’t derailed by a potential modelling career. Oh God, please let that not happen. Gabby has had to handle too much in the past two years but that might actually derail her. She smiles.

  Matt appears, holding Henry up for Gabby to plant a kiss on his cheek. How could she ever have contemplated a life without Henry? No matter how her life is going to turn out, Henry will never have been a mistake. She fell in love with her daughters the moment they were born, but the love she has for Henry, a mother’s love for a son, is unlike anything she has ever known. She can’t bear to think she might have missed out on this.

  Claire and Tim are in the other room. It is a slow journey back for Gabby. Things are not the same with her and Claire, and may never be exactly the same, but they are trying. The four of them have had dinner together once or twice, and those evenings go a long way to healing the rift. More than anything, Gabby has perhaps learned not to rely on friends in the way she once did, and that saddens her. When she had problems in the old days she would turn to Claire. Nowadays, she turns to her mother.

  Her mother, who was always so busy sorting out the problems of the world that she never had time for her own daughter, is now the one person Gabby trusts to advise her, listen to her problems, offer a shoulder to cry on if need be.

  Gabby carries the last of her plates herself, one for her mother, one for herself. She sits on the sofa next to Natasha and leans her head briefly on her mother’s shoulder as her mother smiles and strokes her hair.

  It feels natural now to allow herself to be held in her mother’s arms, to have her hair stroked, to be kissed. She wonders if her mother has changed, has softened in her old age, but suspects that it is she herself who has changed. The fiery resistance Gabby used as her armour when she was young has vanished. Life is too hard to get through alone, and it was her mother who stepped up when everyone else had gone.

  Alanna squeezes up on her other side, the three of them looking around: at Elliott pouring out the Scotch for a toast, at Olivia and Monroe chatting, at Matt sitting cross-legged on the floor while Henry zips around him in circles, huge smiles on both their faces.

  Natasha turned out to be a good mother, after all. Gabby watches her son and her elder daughter, as her younger daughter entwines her fingers with her own. I hope, she thinks, watching all the hope and possibility in Henry’s smile, I hope I turn out to be a good mother for my children. I hope I can give them everything they need. I hope I can raise them to make good choices, to be good people, to go into the world treating others with kindness and respect.

  I hope our year of insanity – for this is how she and Elliott have come to refer to their separation, in terms thinly veiled with humour – I hope our year of insanity hasn’t damaged them, or destroyed their belief in the power of a strong relationship.

  She looks up then, aware that she is being stared at, and Elliott, standing by the fireplace, gazes at her, his eyes filled with love. He just smiles, and she knows it’s all going to be fine.

  Somehow, what they least expected – what they least wanted – has brought them full circle. A little family. Her little family.

  Acknowledgements

  As always, my extraordinary publishing team and home at St Martin’s Press, and my family at Penguin in the UK. Louise Moore for so much love and support over all these years together, and Jen Enderlin, who has swept into my life and dusted out all the corners, with so much wisdom, brilliance and talent.

  My agents – Anthony Goff, who has blessed me with sage advice and true friendship for such a very long time, and the incomparable Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, for whom I am truly grateful.

  My friends – you know who you are.

  Michael Palmer, who so graciously and kindly offered up his wonderful old farm in New Hampshire for me to use as a writing retreat. Without Michael, this book would not have been written, and that’s no exaggeration.

  The friends who helped enormously in coming up with the story, and those that supported me throughout.

  Glenn Ferrari, Alberto Hamonet, Dusty Thomason, Randy Zuckerman.

  To the many people who were open and honest enough to share their heartbreak and their stories with me.

  Finally, my husband, Ian. Who is truly the only man I want to walk with, side by side, as we continue the journey.

  THE BEGINNING

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  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published 2013

  Copyright © Jane Green, 2013

  Cover images: window © Philip Lee Harvey/Getty Images; crouching woman © BJ Formento/Getty Images; bedsheets © PhotoAlto/Frederic Cirou/Getty Image; rocking chair©Blasius Erlinger/Getty Images; other chair © Andreas von Einsiedel /Alamy

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes

  ISBN: 978-0-141-96731-8

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  PART TWO

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

 


 

  Jane Green, Tempting Fate

 


 

 
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