Page 1 of A Colourful Country Escape
Chapter 1
If Lexie Summers was going to dress like a duck, it may as well be raining.
Anyway, what was so bad about a full-scale downpour? She wasn’t going to fuss. As rain hammered down on her cheeks and sent shoppers scurrying into the gleaming stores along Manchester’s King Street, she decided to push towards home. After what she’d just done, she needed a calming cuppa.
Of course, it would have been handy if her yellow-duckling rain mac had had a hood, but it had been such a bargain. Her rain-drenched pixie hair, which was sticking to her forehead like an unfortunate bowl cut, did not seem grateful for the scrimping. In hindsight, venturing out in April without her brolly had been a tad optimistic (even if two of the spindly arm bits were dangerously droopy).
Yet, somehow, the cold water against her skin seemed fitting; like she deserved this deluge. Because Lexie believed in karma. And guilt was a wriggly thing.
A clap of thunder from above made her jump, and, as the sky became white, a memory cut in: a dark, mothy shop with bars on the windows, and a carpet that smelt like soggy socks. Cash in a Flash.
She shook her head and hunched forwards, trying to move through the sea of dripping umbrellas. This was silly; she would get her stuff back from the pawnbrokers. It was all just temporary. A sort of swap, to get her out of bother. She’d handed over the jewellery, they’d lent her the rent money that was getting desperate, then, when she’d sorted herself out, she would switch everything back, and no one would be any the wiser.
‘No one’ being her boyfriend, Drew.
As an expensive, black tour bus rumbled past and sprayed her with puddle mud, an image of his floppy-haired face popped up. She swatted it away, along with the sludge from her mac. Feeling terrible wouldn’t change anything, and Drew probably wouldn’t notice. She’d never really felt worthy of wearing the funny Downton Abbey pearls he’d bought for her, as sweet as the gesture was. She’d have been happier with something cut-price and quirky.
Anyway, Drew would surely prefer her to keep her scary landlord off her back. And now she had some cash she’d make it up to him.
As her heavy shopping bag bashed against her knee, she tried on a smile. They’d have a cosy night in watchingDinner Date. She would touch up her chipped polka-dot nails; he’d play his guitar. All his favourite snacks were right there in the bag. Looking after him made her feel fuzzy.
Plus, she’d just put extra coins in the collection box at Tesco. Who didn’t love a donkey sanctuary? So there. The angels weren’t crying tears of punishment on her head. Perhaps the rain was just a coincidence.
‘Oi!’
Lexie whipped around. There was some sort of commotion across the other side of the street, outside the new jewellery shop. A shop owner dressed like a bouncer was shoving a homeless girl out of his doorway. It looked like she’d been sheltering from the rain.
‘Hey!’ Lexie heard herself shout. How could he treat someone like that? Before Lexie knew it, she was darting out into the road towards the fracas.
Screeeeech.
Lexie heard the car before she saw it – all two tonnes of it as it careered towards her like a ginormous black cloud. The rain seemed to swallow her scream, her bag dropping to the floor like a dying wet fish. Her heart leapt into her mouth but, by the miracle of lucky angel tears, it didn’t hit the SUV’s windscreen. The car stopped just short of her quaking legs.
She caught her breath.She was alive!Although the driver didn’t seem that chuffed about it.
The angry beep of his horn filled her ears.Mooooove. You don’t belong.
Lexie held up an apologetic hand, sorry that she’d chosen to cut through this designer part of town. She backed away from the car and rescued her bag from a puddle. Drew’s wontons would be considerably less crispy – maybe she’d get him some consolatory beers.
This time checking for traffic, Lexie waved anothersorryat the angry driver and continued across the road until she reached the homeless girl. The gaunt youngster was trying to save her cardboard bedding from the downpour as Shop Man manhandled her onto the pavement. When he was finished, he swept his hands together with a flourish and retreated into the luxurious glow of Le Grand Bijou.
Lexie let out a huff. ‘Here, lovely, take this.’ She dropped her bag and tugged off her favourite ducky raincoat. The young girl with the threadbare jersey needed it more than she did.
As the stranger gave a grateful nod and shivered into it, they heard a loud honking of horns. SUV Man, clearly not satisfied with Lexie’s meek apology, had done a U-turn to yell abuse through his window. As he veered towards the pavement to treat them to his full obscenity back catalogue, his oversized wheels hit a lake of gutter water and sent a monsoon towards Lexie and her companion. They yelped and turned away from the wave, wobbling face first like jellied eels towards the window of the jewellery shop.
And that was when Lexie saw it.
An ‘it’ that was about five foot nine with floppy ‘I’m in a band’ hair and a mouth shocked into an ‘O’.
All of which were meant to be practising for a gig, not pondering platinum solitaires in a jewellery-shop window with Tabby Sidebottom.
Lexie froze, arms and legs suspended in motion like a puppet on strings. Something gripped her throat, yet there was nothing there. Why couldn’t she breathe? And what was he doing here? Drew Chadwick. Picking out rings with the girl he’d sworn was just a fan.
Holy matrimony? Holy bloody crap.
‘That’s my b-boyfriend,’ Lexie heard herself stutter, as the moment stretched out before her like a lazy cat.
As Lexie and the street girl stared into the glass, the awkward couple inside ogled right back. It was the most unlikely of mirrors: a rags-reflecting-riches not-so-funhouse. At least Drew had the decency to emulate Lexie’s astonishment. Tabby’s thoroughbred face was beginning to look overly pleased with itself beneath its luxury blow-dry. And what was that glinting around her neck? Lexie’s stomach gave a lurch. The sapphire Tiffany necklace worth more than Lexie’s entire world, which Lexie had picked out herself. Drew had said it was for his mother.
