Kerry Barrett - I'll Be There For You

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Title Page I’ll Be There For You Kerry Barrett

Copyright Copyright Copyright Author Bio Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Excerpt Endpages About the Publisher HQ An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015 Copyright © Kerry Barrett 2015 Kerry Barrett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. E-book Edition © April 2015 ISBN: 9781474032001 Version date: 2018-07-02

Author Bio KERRY BARRETT was a bookworm from a very early age, devouring Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfeild, before moving on to Sweet Valley High and 1980s bonkbusters. She did a degree in English Literature, then trained as a journalist, writing about everything from pub grub to EastEnders . Her first novel, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered , took six years to finish and was mostly written in longhand on her commute to work, giving her a very good reason to buy beautiful notebooks. Kerry lives in London with her husband and two sons, and Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes is still her favourite novel.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Excerpt

Endpages

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

If you’d asked me when I was a student, where I saw myself in twenty years’ time, I’d probably have said living in Manhattan, running my own wildly successful business, with a wardrobe full of fabulous clothes.

But instead here I was. Trying to ice spots on to a ladybird birthday cake, my hair scraped off my face with a crocodile clip I’d had since the 1980s and wearing an old university T-shirt I used to sleep in. Back in the days when I got some sleep that was.

But I wouldn’t have changed a single thing.

‘How’s it going?’ My wife, Louise, wandered into the kitchen, looking pretty much as rough as I did. She was wearing running shorts and a black T-shirt that was speckled with what looked like snot, and her short blonde hair was sticking straight up like a washing-up brush.

‘It’s actually nearly finished,’ I said, dabbing on one final spot and turning it round so she could see. ‘Ta-dah.’

‘It’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘Fiona will adore it.’

‘Fiona won’t give two hoots,’ I said with a grin. ‘Just like Finlay won’t care about the caterpillar cake I spent most of this morning lovingly icing. But it’s not every day our children turn one.’

Lou slid her arm round my waist and rested her head on my shoulder.

‘Thank god,’ she said. ‘I’m dead on my feet.’

‘Are they asleep?’ I asked.

She nodded.

‘Finally,’ she said. ‘Hopefully they’ll sleep for a good while now and then they’ll be on top form when everyone arrives.’

Everyone meant our families, who were coming over to celebrate the twins’ first birthday with us. My mum was coming down from the Highlands, with my Aunt Tess and her new husband, Doug. My cousin Esme, her husband Jamie and their baby Clemmie were coming, and so were Lou’s parents and her brother, Hugh, his wife and their two angelic sons. My half-brother was in Thailand on holiday so he couldn’t come, but he’d sent the twins an enormous card and promised to spoil them rotten when he returned.

‘Can you believe this?’ I said to Lou, who seemed to have fallen asleep where she stood.’

‘This time last year we’d just sold our flat and we were waiting to hear if we’d been matched with a child. Now look at us.’

We’d adopted the twins when they were just eight weeks old and in the space of a couple of months we’d gone from being sassy professional women in our swanky Edinburgh New Town flat, to being bewildered new mums, in a house where the only room with furniture was the nursery.

Lou lifted her head.

‘It’s been a whirlwind,’ she said. ‘But a good one.’

We stood there, arms round each other for a minute, gazing out into the garden. From the street our house looked like a run-of-the-mill new-build town house, with a garage, loo, and general junk room on the ground floor, the kitchen and lounge upstairs and the bedrooms up another floor from there. But we lived in Dean Village, one of Edinburgh’s strange places where streets ran above streets, huddled in the valley made by a pretty river. So at the back of the house, the open-plan lounge and kitchen were at ground level with a huge conservatory at the end of the room, opening out on to the small garden. The river ran along the end of the garden, though thankfully it was behind a sturdy fence with a lockable gate ‒ I didn’t want the twins wandering out there when they were older.

‘It’s a glorious day,’ I said. ‘It really feels like spring has arrived. We could open the doors when everyone gets here, and people can go outside if they like.’

Lou nodded.

‘Good plan,’ she said. ‘In fact, they’re going to be here very soon and we look like … well, like we always do.’

She grinned and ran a hand through her messy hair.

‘Shall we sort ourselves out before the troublemakers wake up?’

We dashed upstairs and made ourselves look presentable. I pulled on some jeans that didn’t have yogurty fingerprints on and a silky black T-shirt, and I was just twisting my long dark hair into a knot at the nape of my neck when the doorbell rang. I padded down to the door in bare feet to welcome our first guests.

‘God, H, you always look so bloody glamorous,’ my cousin Esme said. She handed me a bunch of flowers and kissed me on the cheek.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘You look nice too.’

Esme looked nothing like me. She was petite and naturally pretty with wavy blonde hair and a lovely smile. She was wearing a cute dress with butterflies on it and looked fresh and spring-like.