The Accidental Romeo by Carol Marinelli Read Free Book Online

the bay, in the late sunlight.
    Ronan, who was permanently hungry, dived into a huge steak while Marnie had prawns and a mango salad and enjoyed just sitting back and relaxing in front of the view, as she had promised herself she would of an evening. She wouldn’t trade places with anyone. Watching a family on the next table, the mother spooning puréed pumpkin into a hungry baby’s mouth as the father tried to amuse an overtired toddler, Marnie was very glad to be able to simply linger over her meal with her brother. She listened as Ronan told her about his work, and then got to, perhaps, the real reason he had asked to visit.
    ‘You know what Mum’s like,’ Ronan said. ‘I’m just warning you that she was upset you didn’t come and visit at the weekend, or the last.’
    ‘She surely knows how busy I am with work,’ Marnie said. ‘And moving! She could’ve come and helped with the move, like you did—she knows she doesn’t need a written invitation to come and see me.’
    ‘I think that she’s just upset that you’ve moved so far.’
    ‘It’s not as if I’ve gone back home to Ireland.’ Marnie sighed. ‘I’m an hour’s drive away.’
    ‘She thinks you’re punishing her for us emigrating...’ Ronan attempted to make light of it but it was a bit of a dark subject and Marnie had to push out a smile.
    ‘I’ll try and get over one evening, but...’ Marnie shook her head; maybe she was avoiding her parents a bit at the moment but she just didn’t want to discuss it with Ronan. Or rather she simply couldn’t discuss it with anyone in her family. That time of the year was coming up. The time of year that no one in her family ever spoke about because no one in her family knew what to say.
    Declan would soon have been thirteen.
    She looked over to the little family at the next table—the toddler was eating ice cream now, the baby falling asleep on its mother’s lap, and sometimes, just sometimes, she would like to trade places.
    Marnie took a long sip of her iced water and couldn’t come up with a suitable line as to why she had been avoiding her mother, so she settled for the usual instead. ‘I’m just busy, Ronan.’
    * * *
    So too was Harry.
    After an evening spent trying to find vaccination certificates, as well as asking his parents if they could have the twins for a couple of days, Harry was in no mood for a very groomed Marnie the next day. She was busily writing on the white board while telling Kelly, who was frantically fishing to find out more about the elusive new manager, that the prawns she had had last night at Peninsular Pub were the best she had tasted.
    He doubted Marnie would have been eating alone.
    Yes, his response was terse when Marnie had the gall to ask him how Adam was.
    ‘He’s at my parents’,’ Harry said. ‘Along with Charlotte.’
    ‘Is she sick as well?’
    ‘Neither is sick. Well, Adam’s got a bit of a temperature,’ Harry said. ‘But my babysitter has shingles and I can hardly send them to day care knowing that any minute now they could break out in spots.’
    ‘Weren’t they immunised?’ She was so annoyingly practical; she might just as well have been asking if the puppies’ shots were up to date.
    ‘You’d have to ask my late wife,’ Harry snapped. ‘I can’t find the records.’
    Ooh, they bristled and they snapped their way through the day, though the animosity was put on hold when a worried-looking Kelly came over and had a word with Harry, just as Marnie was finishing checking and ordering the scheduled drugs.
    ‘I’ve got a seventeen-year-old girl in who’s pregnant and bleeding. Sheldon estimates her to be around twenty-four weeks. The thing is, her parents are with her and Emily keeps insisting that she doesn’t want them to know that she’s pregnant. They keep asking for updates and are getting really angry that I won’t let them in to be with her and that the doctor hasn’t been in to speak with them. I’m just not sure how to