Cloudy With a Chance of Marriage by Kieran Kramer Read Free Book Online Page B

walked in, didn’t I?” She couldn’t help wondering if the lad got enough to eat. In fact, she was so charmed by Thomas’s cheeks turning pink with embarrassment she said, “Wait here. I’ve not only got scones ready at the moment, I’ve got something else.”
    She went to the rear of the store and opened a door between two bookshelves, which led onto a small corridor. On the right was her office and down from that, Otis’s bedchamber. To her left was the staircase leading to the living quarters above the shop: her bedchamber and a spacious front room she shared with Otis each evening.
    Picking up an orange sitting next to a ledger in her office, she brought it out to Thomas. “Here,” she said. “My friend Otis got this for me as a special treat, but I’d much rather give it to you.”
    Thomas’s eyes widened. “Thank you very much.”
    “You don’t have to do that, Miss Jones,” said Susan warmly.
    “Please call me Jilly.” She smiled again. “And it’s my pleasure. I hope Thomas and I will become fast friends.”
    Thomas clutched the orange in both hands and beamed up at her.
    “I can see you already are.” Susan sighed and looked shyly at Jilly. “I hope we can become friends, too. I’d love for you to call me Susan.”
    “Oh!” Jilly’s heart swelled with happiness and she squeezed her new friend’s hand. “I hope we can, as well.”
    Susan’s mouth thinned into almost a grimace. “I don’t know if you’ll want to, Miss Jones, once you realize”—she looked back at Thomas and then at her again—“Thomas doesn’t have a father. We’re alone in the world, you see. I never married.” She swallowed. “I would have if—”
    She broke off and hung her head. “My family won’t talk to me. I—I’m trying to make it on my own as a seamstress. I tell everyone I’m widowed, but it’s not true.” When she looked back up, her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “I don’t know why I told you the truth. Maybe it’s because you’re the first woman on the street to show me any kindness. Bringing us scones like that.”
    Jilly sighed and shook her head. “Women can be hard on their own sex, can’t they?”
    “Yes, they can,” Susan agreed.
    “It’s all right,” Jilly soothed her. “Of course we can be friends. I’m a woman alone, too, if you don’t count Otis, an old family friend who’s more like an uncle to me. He’d protect me from harm if he could, but somehow … I think I might protect him more.”
    They both chuckled together again.
    Susan wiped at her eyes. “It’s a relief to be honest with someone, I can tell you that.”
    Jilly felt a pang of guilt. She wished she could be honest, but it was simply too dangerous for her to do so.
    Thomas tugged on his mother’s skirts. “When can we go, Mummy? I want to see the tree with the new green leaves.”
    “Oh, yes,” Susan said. “Spring’s here, thank goodness.”
    “Yes, and more leaves will pop out soon, won’t they?” Jilly knelt before Thomas. “And have you noticed? The birds are singing.”
    Thomas leaned close to Jilly’s ear. “No one sings like Mummy at bedtime.”
    Jilly couldn’t help giving him a hug. “I’m sure she’s the best singer in the world.”
    Thomas nodded solemnly. “She is.”
    Susan glowed with the contentment of a happy mother. “We’ll come again,” she said at the door.
    “Please do.” Jilly dared to give Susan a tentative hug, which her new friend returned unequivocally.
    “See you soon,” Susan said, beaming.
    When mother and son left hand in hand, Jilly looked after them with a twinge of envy. She’d wanted a child. But Hector … Hector hadn’t been able to father one. She guessed it was probably the main reason he’d been angry at her all the time.
    It wasn’t meant to be, that stalwart voice in her head reminded her.
    And a good thing, too, because Hector shouldn’t have had any children. He’d have been an awful father.
    She gulped, banished all