Gorgeous Reads for Christmas (Choc Lit)

by Sue Moorcroft

  However, when they discover that the past is more difficult to forget than they could have ever imagined, Emma continues to be haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding her family and Seth is hounded by a jealous ex-lover set on revenge.

  Seth plans for their escape to Canada, but when the charismatic Matthew Caunter returns to Devon, Emma finds herself uncertain of whether a move to Canada is really what she wants …

  Pre-order Emma in paperback today ebook available December 2013.

  Darcie’s Dilemma

  Sue Moorcroft

  Copyright © 2012 Sue Moorcroft

  First published as an ebook in 2012 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choclitpublishing.com

  The right of Sue Moorcroft to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE

  ISBN-978-1-78189-023-3

  Chapter One

  Darcie didn’t scream when figures ran across her garden in the inky evening and one pressed his face against the kitchen window, puffing out his cheeks like a bug-eyed, fish-faced monster. She just went on stirring the curry on the hob. ‘Yes, Ross, you’re so pretty.’

  The monster burst through the back door and into the brightness of the kitchen, hands plugged into the kangaroo pocket of his hoodie. ‘Dinner smells great.’

  The sauce was thick and bubbling, the rice almost at its peak of fluffy perfection. ‘It’s nearly ready. Hi, Amy,’ Darcie called to the smaller figure hovering behind Ross in the doorway. Ross had been ‘with’ Amy for the last few weeks and, mega commitment in the lives of fifteen-year-olds, had asked if it was OK if he brought her home to share Darcie’s signature dish of Thai curry.

  Flicking his hair from his eyes, Ross pulled the small figure into the light. ‘It’s not Amy. She went off in a stress, so I brought Casey McClare. This is my big sister, Darcie, Case.’

  ‘Oops, hi, Casey.’ Darcie shot Casey an apologetic smile. Casey looked back through black make-up and quills of long, dyed-black hair striped with cobalt blue. Three rings glittered from her eyebrow and her stretchy black dress was a second skin. From Ross’s hungry expression, Darcie had a good idea what might be stressing Amy.

  Ross dragged his attention back to Darcie. ‘Why four places at the table? Who’s coming?’

  ‘Just Kelly.’

  Ross pulled out a chair for Casey. ‘Kelly’s been Darcie’s bezzy mate since school.’ He pulled a soppy face.

  ‘And here she is,’ Darcie observed as her friend, after a perfunctory knock, breezed in in her usual flurry, discarding her jacket, smoothing her flyaway hair, plonking a bottle of red wine in the middle of the kitchen table. ‘Sorry I’m late. An email from Jake dropped into my inbox just as I was coming out and I couldn’t resist reading it.’

  ‘That’s nice. You’re not late, you’re bang on time.’ Darcie dropped her eyes to the steaming colander of rice as Kelly said hi to Ross and was introduced to Casey. She would not blush just because Jake’s name was in the room. He was Kelly’s brother and she talked about him a lot. Darcie had had two years to perfect appropriate, politely interested responses. She’d never told Kelly about what had happened because she didn’t want to put Kelly in the position of having to take sides or feeling awkward and, anyway, what hadn’t happened had rendered confession pointless.

  Kelly reached down wine glasses from a cupboard. ‘Quite chatty, for Jake. Sounds a bit jaundiced about that posh spa he works at in the Black Forest, and the celebrities who slink off there when they need to be slathered in mud or wrapped in seaweed to cope with fame and fortune.’

  Ross looked up. ‘Does he really meet celebrities, your brother? I don’t remember him much. He hasn’t lived in Bettsbrough since Darcie moved back in here, has he?’ A shadow flickered across his face.

  ‘No, he lives in Germany.’ Dropping into a chair, Kelly picked at the seal on the wine bottle. ‘He certainly does meet celebs, at the spa, but he’ll never tell you which ones. Anyway, you can renew your acquaintance, next week. He’s coming home for a couple of weeks and I’ve invited him to Darcie’s party.’

  Darcie dropped the colander. Steaming rice poured into the sink and over the worktop. ‘Oh, shit!’ she muttered.

  Ross loved his sister, he really did. Living with her was cool. But the way that Darcie’s assessing blue eyes kept resting on Casey during dinner made him uncomfortable. It didn’t help that Casey had gone all quiet as if Darcie was the enemy, even though Darcie had spoken normally to her and most of Ross’s friends thought she was pretty cool. ‘I’m going to walk Casey home,’ he said, when he’d eaten a vast portion of curry, plus seconds, and Casey seemed to have finished with the modest portion she’d eaten about half of.

  Darcie just smiled, ‘OK.’ It was Kelly who wagged a mock-admonishing finger behind Casey’s back. She’d known him since he’d made his entrance into the world when she and Darcie were already in senior school, and had no hesitation in embarrassing him.

  Ross just opened the back door to let Casey through, grinning at her. She smiled back. Her lips seemed somehow to draw together in the centre, even as they curled up at the corners. He wondered how Casey would react if he took her hand. As if in answer, she folded her arms as they strolled through the early summer evening towards her estate, Blossom End, and Ross had to content himself with letting his arm brush against her shoulder as they walked.

  Darcie’s house and Blossom End stood on the crest of opposing rises. The route between lay along Queen’s Road, bisecting Peterborough Road at a busy intersection in the dip, and becoming King’s Road.

  They crossed the intersection, not waiting for the pedestrian lights but dodging the traffic, laughing when a small blue van beeped angrily. Halfway up the King’s Road hill, Casey halted. ‘See you, then.’

  Surprised, Ross halted, too. ‘Don’t you want me to walk you the rest of the way?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Oh. OK.’ He shuffled his feet, taking out his phone to check the on-screen clock. If he’d known he was going to be blown off by half eight, he wouldn’t have suggested they left Darcie’s so soon after dinner.

  ‘Your Darcie doesn’t like me.’ Her dark eyes were speculative.

  Ross switched his gaze to Casey. From his vantage point he could see about five millimetres of hair either side of her parting was brown instead of black. Her words prickled. Somehow, it would’ve been OK if he’d still been living with Mum and Dad and Casey had been negative about his mum. He supposed he’d treated mother love pretty casually – though he wouldn’t now, given the chance. But big sisters? Well, they didn’t have to change their whole lives, to sell their own place and move back into the family home when your parents died. But Darcie had.

  He made his voice bored. ‘Is this where I’m supposed to reassure you that Darcie, and everyone else on the planet, adores you?’

  She ducked her head to peep at him through her hair. Then grinned. ‘Good. You get me.’

  Congratulating himself that he hadn’t let her wind him up, he grinned back. ‘Darcie’s cool. She likes pretty much everybody.’

  Kelly had already gone home and Darcie was sprawled on the sofa enjoying the last of the red wine when Ross slouched in. She put down her book and he took the vacant space on the sofa beside her with his usual ungentle bounce landing. ‘You�
��re soon home. Doesn’t Casey live far away?’

  Ross took his phone out of his pocket and checked the screen, something he did every few minutes, like a nervous twitch. ‘Blossom End.’

  Darcie felt her eyes narrow. Blossom End was a notorious warren of houses and walkways built in the sixties, generally considered a no go area for non-residents of its forbidding streets. ‘You’ve been walking around that place on your own?’

  Ross shrugged. ‘She lives on the edge, near King’s Road, it’s not too bad.’

  Darcie felt one of those bumps in her chest that came when Ross said or did something to worry about. Blossom End. Market towns weren’t meant to have sink estates but Blossom End pretty much fit the profile.

  He withdrew one hand from his pocket, holding a stick of chewing gum. ‘Share a chewy?’

  ‘You have it.’ But Darcie smiled, aware that the offer was a gesture of deep affection.

  He examined the wrapper as he peeled it off. ‘I think Casey’s family’s a bit whatitsname – dysfunctional. She just lives with her mum. Like I live with my sister.’ Ross grinned.

  Darcie’s heart contracted. ‘Do you feel different to your friends?’

  He folded the gum into his mouth. ‘How do I know how everyone else feels?’ He tried, with several movements of his head, to flick his hair out of his eyes. When this failed, he turned his forehead against the back of the settee and used it to wipe the hair back. ‘Being different doesn’t matter, does it?’ He frowned, his chewing becoming faster, jerkier. ‘You’re still cool about me?’

  Eyes prickling, she touched his hand. ‘Absolutely. Completely. When we lost Mum and Dad I didn’t want anything more than for us to make our home together. I would have fought the system like a superhero if some well-meaning social worker had wanted to put you with a foster family.’

  Sweat formed a lustre on his cheeks. ‘I dreamt about it the other night, the police coming,’ he said. ‘Fetching you. I knew it was bad when they wouldn’t tell me till you came.’ He wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

  ‘It was a nightmare. No wonder you dream about it.’

  ‘You know—’ He paused, cleared his throat. ‘You know when you and Dean broke up, that was because of me, wasn’t it?’

  She was shaking her head even before he ended his sentence. ‘I’ve told you a hundred times. My relationship with Dean was on its last legs and when Mum and Dad died and my universe had to revolve around us instead of him it just brought the end on.’ It was a half-truth, but it wouldn’t help Ross to go into the more complicated full version.

  He stepped back a conversational subject. ‘Anyway, having your parents around doesn’t guarantee you a good deal. Casey’s dad used to hit her, and her mum didn’t do anything about it.’ Then, before Darcie could formulate a response, he grasshoppered to another subject. ‘Why did you act weird when Kelly said her brother will be at your party?’

  She picked up her wine glass and took a sip, to make sure her voice wouldn’t betray her. ‘Did I? Jake and I have a bit of an up and down relationship. He isn’t sweet and cheerful, like Kelly. Or, at least, not to me. He can be difficult.’

  And he could be heartstoppingly fabulous. Exciting. He could set her on fire and shake her world like a kaleidoscope so that all she saw was colour.

  Then he could act like a bastard. ‘I assumed what we did meant something and that’s why you said you’d tell Dean that it was over. So why haven’t you?’

  Her next words hadn’t been well chosen. ‘I’m sorry. I found that I care too much to—’

  ‘Cared too much! Caring too much for him didn’t stop you having sex with me. If I’d realised you were available for hot one-night stands, I would’ve been all over you long before this. I suppose I just hadn’t noticed your slutty side—’

  That’s when she’d tipped a cup of coffee in his lap and he and his wounded pride had stalked off to take a job abroad. Gone in a week. And when her parents died, two days after he left, and he rang, ‘Darcie, Kelly just told me. I’ll come back and help you—’ she’d just about had her fill of men, what with Dean dumping her as soon as he knew she’d be looking after Ross. And hadn’t that been galling, when it was her being reluctant to end things with him when he was in trouble that had messed everything up with Jake!

  ‘It’s OK, Jake. I can cope,’ she’d said.

  Chapter Two

  Three-oh. Thirty. Bleugh. Why had she let herself be persuaded by Ross and Kelly that Mum and Dad would have thought a party a good way to spend a bit of the money they’d left her? With the DJ, the canapés, the room hire and a few free drinks, it was costing hundreds, and Darcie got a crawly sensation between her shoulder blades every time she thought about it. Since Kelly had dropped the Jake-bomb, anyway.

  Darcie stared in the mirror at the willowy collection of hollows and ridges that was her. The hem of her misty blue party dress zigzagged between knee and thigh – it would have been well below the knee on most women. Her fair hair twirled unsatisfactorily down onto her collarbones. Perhaps she ought to get a good cut instead of just leaving it twiddling there. It had scarcely changed since senior school, when she’d spent her time waiting for boys her age to grow tall enough to ask her out.

  Jake. His lanky frame, curling lip and contemptuous pewter eyes as unlike his sweet, roundy, pink, freckled, beaming sister as could be. He’d been tall enough—

  She raked her hair with her fingers and thrust it up behind her head. One lock snaked loose at the front and one at her nape, which at least looked a bit sophisticated and less gauche-small-town girl. Clutching the knot of hair, she scrabbled through a drawer for a big silver clasp and secured the mass just as Ross shouted, ‘Kelly’s outside in the taxi.’

  ‘Coming.’ Darcie took a last look, narrowing her eyes at herself and drawing her mouth up into a sultry smile. It was her birthday; Ross had given her her favourite body lotion, the artisans from Wellbourne Workshops had made her mugs and keyrings and cards with 30 on, and Kelly had taken her to see the Dirty Dancing stage show last week. Now she was going to her party. A party was fun. She refused to allow crawly feelings or Jake Belfast to spoil it.

  A couple of hours later, the Anglian Room of The Bettsbrough Arms Hotel vibrated with music and the floor seemed to bounce beneath Darcie’s feet. Laughing yelling faces flickered dizzyingly in the red-blue-green lights. She couldn’t get to the bar without being sidetracked by one of the legion of friends she’d made in her thirty years living in the same town, from school, from Wellbourne Workshops, from just about everywhere.

  At the side of the room hung a four-foot-high cardboard 30, painted red and edged in silver foil. Ross was standing on the edge of the dance floor. She’d said he could bring three friends and he’d chosen Ben and Amy. And Casey. Ross, drinking a pint of what Darcie hoped was shandy, was stooped over listening to Casey. Amy, her back to Casey, talked animatedly to Ben.

  Darcie paused beside them. ‘How’s the footie, Ben?’ Ross and Ben had been friends since year five. Ben’s parents were taking Ross on holiday with them this year; they’d be off to the Algarve in less than two weeks.

  Ben, with the pale lashes and numerous freckles that went with sandy hair, smirked bashfully. ‘Got Man of the Match, today. Um, Happy Birthday.’

  ‘Happy Birthday,’ echoed Amy.

  ‘Thanks.’ Darcie turned to Casey. ‘Enjoying yourself?’

  Casey looked up at her with her small, dark eyes, and nodded.

  Obviously, Casey was disguising her enjoyment well. Darcie moved on, finally reaching the bar to order a bottle of water and a glass of wine. She was taking her first, thirsty gulps from the water, eyes closed at the pleasure of satisfying a thirst born of a hundred half-shouted conversations, when Kelly’s voice came from behind. ‘Here she is! Darcie, Jake’s here.’

  Slowly, Darcie took a last swallow. Turned.

  Jake.

  Simple white shirt and black jeans, corn-coloured hair gleaming under the lights; his clean-shaven
jaw line was an elegant angle. But she’d prepared for this moment; had known all evening it would come. She had her smile all ready. ‘Hello, Jake.’

  ‘Happy birthday, Darcie.’ He stepped forward to brush his lips across her cheekbone. The touch was warm and soft. Tingly. ‘Kel said you wouldn’t mind her inviting me to your party. I told her you probably would.’ His smile was mocking, probably trying to prompt her into protesting that of course he was welcome. His abrasive personality hadn’t. And he was still hot, with his one-sided smile. That was how he’d smiled at her after—

  ‘Kelly’s invitation was “plus one”. It doesn’t make any difference to me who she brings.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Ah. I’d forgotten that you’re indiscriminate.’

  Darcie tamped down hissing fury at the barb designed to be understood only by her, and managed a smile. ‘You only think that you know me.’

  Kelly laughed but groaned. ‘Come on, you two, don’t dig at each other every time you meet. Jake’s driven from Garmisch-Partenkirchen in his BMW Z4.’

  ‘But I don’t think it was just for my party. Let’s dance with your Auntie Chrissy, shall we, Kelly?’ Auntie Chrissy ran the gallery shops at Wellbourne Workshops and Darcie had known her so well and for so long that she had pretty much forgotten Chrissy wasn’t her own aunt. She slung her arm around her friend and swung away onto the dance floor, bumping shoulders and laughing. And not looking at Jake.

  After midnight, the music had slowed and mellowed, and so had the atmosphere, as the lights pulsed gently. Despite feeling Jake’s presence like a brooding gargoyle all evening, though he’d turned his back to the room, propping up the bar with all his old Bettsbrough mates, Darcie had thrown herself into enjoying her party, dancing and circulating – with a little drinking thrown in.