Hannah McKinnon - Time After Time - A heart-warming novel about love, loss and second chances

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by Avon

An imprint of HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd

The News Building

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2016

Copyright © Hannah McKinnon 2016

Hannah McKinnon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of 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, down-loaded, 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.

Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008191849

Version 2017-11-14

To Robert, Leo, Matt & Lex – with love, always

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page HANNAH MCKINNON Time After Time A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright Published by Avon An imprint of HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd The News Building 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2016 Copyright © Hannah McKinnon 2016 Hannah McKinnon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of 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, down-loaded, 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. Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008191849 Version 2017-11-14

Dedication To Robert, Leo, Matt & Lex – with love, always

Chapter 1: A Blast From The Past

Chapter 2: Going Nowhere

Chapter 3: Let’s Play Pretend

Chapter 4: Any Second Now

Chapter 5: 1988 It Was Genius

Chapter 6: A Different Life

Chapter 7: 1988 Here Goes Nothing

Chapter 8: Smoke And Mirrors

Chapter 9: 1990 Got to Keep Control

Chapter 10: Long Way Home

Chapter 11: 1990 My Girl

Chapter 12: Some Things Never Change

Chapter 13: 1993 a New Chapter

Chapter 14: Anywhere But … Where?

Chapter 15: 1993 New York, New York

Chapter 16: Mind Games

Chapter 17: 1993 Smooth Operator

Chapter 18: Living The Dream

Chapter 19: 1993 Sweet Little Lies

Chapter 20: How The Other Half Live

Chapter 21: 1995 Moving on Up

Chapter 22: Nothing But The Truth

Chapter 23: 1995 All That Glitters

Chapter 24: A Perfect Lie

Chapter 25: 1996 Definitely Not, Baby

Chapter 26: Freefalling

Chapter 27: 1996 Everything I Do

Chapter 28: I Wonder …

Chapter 29: 1997 Same Old, Same Old

Chapter 30: Hold Me (Back)

Chapter 31: 1997 It’s So Easy

Chapter 32: Round Two

Chapter 33: 1998 Single White Female

Chapter 34: The One Who Got Away

Chapter 35: 1998 Sláinte

Chapter 36: Happy Families

Chapter 37: 1998 It’s Their Party …

Chapter 38: The Wake-Up Call

Chapter 39: 1998 Fly Away

Chapter 40: Daddy’s Girl

Chapter 41: I Want to Go Home

Chapter 42: 1998 – 2000 Kid in America

Chapter 43: 2000 Head Over Heels

Chapter 44: One Way Ticket

Chapter 45: 2000 Hung Up on You

Chapter 46: Crisis Central

Chapter 47: 2000 The Glory Days

Chapter 48: Mirror, Mirror

Chapter 49: 2003 The Slippery Slope

Chapter 50: No Going Back

Chapter 51: Begin Again

Chapter 52: Dragon’s Den

Chapter 53: Finding Chris

Chapter 54: Finding Ian

Chapter 55: Finding Matthew

Chapter 56: Finding Sean

Chapter 57: Finding Home

Author q&a

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

It was the odd silence that woke her.

Where are the kids?

Hayley tried to burrow back into Sleepland. Fat chance. She’d become too much aware of her tongue that was stuck to the roof of her mouth. It felt like she’d been chewing on a ball of fuzzy felt rolled in a slice of Gouda.

‘Ugh,’ Hayley groaned, her eyes still tightly shut.

She remembered getting a taxi back from Ellen’s but her throbbing head didn’t make sense. They hadn’t had that much wine, surely? Hayley briefly wondered if her best friend felt equally queasy. Then her stomach rumbled, a sure indication of how late it might be.

Breakfast is going to be fun. Serves me right for getting back so late.

Hayley squinted, barely able to make anything out in the dimly lit room. She looked at her old-fashioned Mickey Mouse alarm clock that ticked loudly. Her parents had bought it for her fifteenth birthday as a joke because nothing short of a sledgehammer ever seemed to wake her. She’d used it ever since.

Mickey’s glow-in-the dark gloves showed five minutes to nine.

Where are the kids?

She couldn’t believe they weren’t up yet. It was total bliss that she’d got an extra hour and a half of much-needed sleep. As she rubbed her head again she heard Rick’s gentle breathing next to her. Her husband had always been a quiet sleeper. She was the snorer – he’d even recorded it once on his phone and played a frighteningly realistic warthog impression back to her with a grin on his face.

It’s not like him to be in bed this late on a Saturday morning.

He usually went out for a run and did push-ups at the park while she got the kids up and made breakfast. He reckoned it was the reason he could still eat Fish and Chips and not turn into a lard-arse.

Hayley thought about Rick’s firm legs and trim waist. She briefly considered slipping her hand down his boxer shorts – they hadn’t had morning sex in months, probably years, even – but that pint of water she’d downed just before she left Ellen’s had turned her bladder into a bouncy castle. She was busting for a pee and wanted to move her legs but they felt like lead-filled sausages. Slowly she started to drift off to sleep again.

‘Yougonnagedup? Gedsumbrukfast?’

God, he sounds rough. I bet he’s coming down with a cold. Oh joy. Man-flu alert.

‘In a minute,’ she mumbled, then remembered their row from the night before. At least an eight and a half on the Richter scale of arguments. Maybe even a nine. Bad enough for her to walk out, fleeing to Ellen’s for wine and moral support. It wasn’t the first time she’d speculated if Rick had found someone else. Wondered if he wanted to leave, then wondered if she wanted him to.