That's What Friends Are For Read online

  Long before Sam was born – even before her parents, too – the indoor market used to be situated next to the town hall and was the cornerstone of Hedworth. When the new shopping centre had been built in the late eighties, the market had been relocated. This latest place was perfect for browsing trade or for people who knew exactly what they were after. Good quality, locally produced food and fresh items were all found there.

  In front of the modern red brick building a pedestrianised cobblestone walkway ran its length, large stone plant pots dotted here and there for extra colour. In summer, when the flowers were in bloom it was a beautiful place to relax and have a sandwich at lunchtime. In winter, its shadows were long but it never looked dull in the dim light.

  Monday mornings were always manic in Hedworth. The doors to the market were only closed at five thirty on a Saturday evening but by the time Monday came around, it was as if they’d been shut for a month.

  Sam loved the hustle and bustle of the place. Bang on the dot of eight, her delivery would arrive and they’d start to stock the stall. She had a walk-in booth, twice the size of the original one that she’d inherited from her dad. Back then, the stall had been one tiny table in the far corner. Over the years, she had expanded and now stocked organic food and exotic fruit as well as her normal range. A framed photo of her parents took pride of place on the back wall, moving with her several times as she had relocated to larger stalls. Now, this one was in the middle of an aisle, in prime position, and she had two full-time staff, Louise, and Louise’s younger sister, Nicci.

  ‘Morning, Sam. Grand day again,’ Duncan Tamworth greeted her, as he carried in trays full of bananas. He placed them carefully on the floor before standing up and rubbing his back. His small and portly frame wasn’t really meant for lugging heavy items around.

  ‘You need to get that seen to, Duncan,’ Sam told him as she pulled back the tissue paper to inspect her merchandise. ‘It’ll only get worse lugging all this about. Louise, give Duncan a hand, will you?’

  Louise, who was making a hot drink, put down the coffee jar with a sigh. ‘I’m coming, Mrs slave driver. Since when did anyone start the day before drinking at least three mugs of coffee?’

  Sam ignored the comment. Louise always had some excuse not to start the minute she walked through the door. Even though she’d been working on the stall for the past seven years, she never failed to realise that if she got all the sorting finished for eight thirty, they could sit down for a coffee in peace. Sam needed everything shipshape for when the first customer was let in. From nine a.m. every Monday morning, it would be manic until around two o’clock when it would start to die down a little. At least, she reminded herself now, the morning rush gave her no time to think about Reece – or Dan Wilshaw.

  Once Duncan had gone and apples and oranges and bananas were on the shelves, along with sacks of potatoes and carrots, and every imaginable salad vegetable had been placed in their baskets, Sam finally felt herself relax. She checked her watch. Now it was time for coffee.

  ‘Tell me more about Saturday night,’ she encouraged Louise, as she flicked on the kettle and grabbed three mugs from the wooden rack Reece had put up in the tiny partitioned room he’d created at the back of the unit. ‘Why get down and dirty with Rob again?’

  Louise pulled her hair into a ponytail and fastened it back with a covered elastic band. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘It must be the booze. I always feel like that when I go on the vodka.’

  ‘Then stay on lager.’ Sam passed a coffee to her.

  ‘Good morning, lovelies.’ Nicci Pellington beamed as she squeezed herself into the room. ‘How goes it on this fine day?’

  ‘At least I see one of us had a good weekend,’ Louise muttered.

  After she’d taken off her coat, Sam passed Nicci a mug too.

  ‘Yes, I did.’ Nicci grinned. ‘We had a cosy night in on Saturday, if you catch my drift. Then a long lie-in on Sunday morning—’

  ‘Oh please,’ Louise complained with a grimace. ‘You’re my baby sister. That’s too much information.’

  ‘Jealousy will get you nowhere.’ Nicci wagged a finger at her. ‘Anyway, I’m not sad and single, nor married, so I get lots of loving.’

  ‘Well, that puts me in my place, too,’ Sam laughed. She picked up her drink and moved past her, leaving the sisters to it. For all their bantering, they got on really well most of the time. Louise was the middle child of three. Her brother, Ryan, was thirty-six. Nicci was twenty-seven and often told everyone that her mum said she was the best mistake she’d ever made. Louise had been seven when Nicci was born and her status of youngest child disappeared overnight. She couldn’t even say that she was the only girl. From the first day Nicola Pellington arrived home from the hospital, Louise seemed to develop middle child syndrome. To this day, Sam didn’t think it had ever left her.

  Nicci was practically a double of her older sister, which unfortunately for Louise was a nightmare. The years between them only showed up her wrinkles. Both women naturally had dirty brown hair like their dad: both of them had it dyed chocolate brown every few weeks. They were the same height at five foot six apiece and apart from a stone in weight could hardly be told apart when seen from the back view. Many customers mixed their names up – much to Louise’s delight, and Nicci’s dismay, over the years.

  While Nicci checked her make-up in the small mirror above the sink, Sam pulled the final few boxes out into the aisle.

  ‘Morning, Sam. Good weekend?’ Melissa Harper shouted across to her. A small and curvy brunette in her early forties, Melissa sold make-up and accessories. Her stall was always a riot of colour. She was busy at the front of it, throwing items into the bargain basket.

  ‘Good, thanks,’ Sam fibbed and feigned a smile. ‘You?’

  ‘Not too bad, but it’s all over so quickly, isn’t it? One minute we’re leaving here, the next it’s Monday morning again. It’s like groundhog day.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Sam waved to Clara over on the shoe stall at the end of the aisle. She was hauling a trolley piled high with boxes, no doubt full of the latest designs in footwear. Clara sold cheap and cheerful shoes but she always went to great lengths to give the women of Hedworth something good for their money. For Sam’s mind, Hedworth was definitely short on good shoe shops. There was Chandlers on the high street but they weren’t as fashionable, and only a few collections could be found upstairs in the larger shops.

  Sam threw out her hand and caught an apple as it tried to escape her stall. She carefully put it back in its place before glancing around at the place she knew so well that it could be her second home. Sam had grown up with most of the stall holders. Many of them had known her since she’d been born and had tales to tell of how she’d sat in her pushchair while her parents worked around her. How her mum worked part-time until Sam started school. How shocked they were when Angela passed away so young. How devastated they were when Martin died suddenly.

  There were twenty-eight stalls in total, fourteen stalls in their aisle, seven each side. Along with Melissa selling make-up and Clara selling shoes, there were stalls for most occasions and needs. Haberdashery, knitting, clothing, underwear and car accessories. Cupcake Delights sold the most heavenly cakes that none of them could resist come three p.m.

  Geoff Adams sold the best home baked scones and flat breads she’d ever tasted. Then there were greetings cards, a fancy dress stall and a T-shirt printing stand. At the back of the market were all the meat and cheese counters. Across the way, Ryan and Matt sold mobile phone accessories. Ryan was Louise and Nicci’s brother and they all knew Matt as a friend from school.

  Just to her right, Sam caught Malcolm Worthington out of the corner of her eye. A tall and thin man with short grey hair, Malcolm and his wife, Maureen, sold sweets. Sam knew that Nicci hoped that some day in the future they’d be her in-laws when she married their son, Jay.

  Today there was some kind of commotion going on in front of the stall. Lou
ise noticed it too when she joined Sam a few moments later.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Sam asked, spotting Ryan and Matt talking to a young woman. ‘Does she look familiar to you?’

  Sam turned to look again. She did recognise her vaguely but she couldn’t think who she was.

  ‘Oh, no. Please tell me it isn’t.’

  Both Sam and Louise turned as Nicci joined them with a groan. ‘It’s Jay’s sister, Jess,’ she explained. ‘She must be back from London.’

  ‘Ah, the prodigal one,’ said Sam, understanding the groan immediately.

  ‘Yes, she’s a bit of a black sheep,’ said Nicci. ‘She moved to London a few years ago after being caught having an affair with a man she was working for.’

  ‘Didn’t you know she was here?’ Louise asked.

  Nicci shook her head. ‘Jay told me she was thinking of coming back, but we had nothing more concrete than that.’

  All three women stood in a line watching Jess Worthington busy flirting and pouting at Ryan and Matt.

  Jess was tall like her father, and skinny like her mother. Her dark hair hung down in waves, the expensive cut of her jeans accentuating her long legs. Above them, a thick Aran jumper and a multi-coloured scarf with fingerless gloves to keep her hands warm and her fingers free to work.

  Louise puffed and folded her arms to show her disgust. ‘If she pushes her chest out any further, we’ll be able to have a feel from here.’

  ‘She’s really pretty, though, isn’t she?’ said Sam, still looking over at them.

  ‘Well, she looks pretty desperate, if you ask me.’

  Sam laughed and nudged her friend playfully. ‘Like you, you mean?’

  Louise grinned back at her, realising how patronising she sounded.

  Nicci frowned before catching the gist of the conversation. ‘Oh, Louise.’ She shook her head. ‘Please don’t tell me that you ended up with Rob Masters again!’

  Although Jess loved all the attention she was getting that morning at the market, she would much rather have been in London. At eight forty-five, she would just be coming up from the tube at Paddington station and grabbing her daily coffee and blueberry muffin. She would be making her way to the offices she worked at, to the desk where she would open her emails and check Laurie Porter’s appointments for the day.

  Well, she would have been doing all that – if Laurie hadn’t decided to finish things with her the minute she told him her news.

  Jess had worked at Porter’s Finance as Laurie’s personal assistant for the past four years; and for three and a half of those years, she’d been sleeping with the boss. It was the reason she’d wanted to stay in the job for so long. The pay wasn’t much but the joy she received as his bit on the side had been worth it. She’d played the game well, or so she’d thought.

  Now she found herself back in the godforsaken place of Hedworth, although she was trying to keep a low profile this morning. Attention to the stall would bring Nicci across to question her and that was another thing she was dreading. Nicci and Jess had been in the same year at high school. They hadn’t liked each other then and the bad feelings had escalated even more since Nicci became an item with her brother, Jay.

  She lifted her head as she heard laughter. Although she hadn’t seen either of her brother’s friends, Ryan Pellington or Matt Goodridge in a while, Jess knew them well. They had often been round her house when she was younger. Now they reminded her of the Mitchell brothers from Eastenders – all clean shaven and muscly, with hardly a hair on their heads between them. Ryan oozed a raw sex appeal like Ross Kemp. Matt wasn’t too far behind either.

  ‘Hiya, Jess.’ Sam came up behind her, closely followed by Louise.

  Jess smiled widely at her, ignoring Louise. She’d always got on well with Sam when she’d seen her out with her husband. But she had never been much for Louise, and she was glad that Nicci hadn’t come across too.

  ‘Hi, Sam,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good, thanks. What brings you back to Hedworth? I thought you were settled in London?’

  ‘Got another guilty secret?’ Louise asked snidely, before Jess could reply.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Jess chided. ‘Actually, I needed a bit of space so I thought I’d help out on the stall. Besides, it gives Mum and Dad some spare time if I’m here, doesn’t it, Dad?’

  Malcolm Worthington beamed at his daughter. ‘It certainly does, love. We could always do with an extra pair of hands.’

  ‘If you need any help,’ Sam pointed down the aisle, ‘we’re not far away. You know us all, and I’m sure Nicci will be across to say hello soon.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt that very much.’ Jess pulled her face at the impending argument. Later that morning she was going to ask her dad if he would speak to her brother and see if she could stay with him and Nicci for a while. For the past few nights, she’d been at her parents, but just recently, they’d downsized to a bungalow and there was hardly room for the two of them, never mind Jess and all her belongings.

  Sam had seen the same expression on Nicci’s face when she’d suggested that she said hello to Jess. But before she could question Jess any further, Louise butted in.

  ‘Why’s that then?’ she asked. ‘Got something to hide?’

  ‘Mind your own business.’ Jess gave her a filthy look. ‘You’re only after finding the gossip and I’m not going to give it to you.’

  Louise shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’ll all come out in the wash. Nothing stays secret around here for long. You should know that after the last time you left.’

  ‘That has nothing to do –’

  ‘Blimey, is that the time?’ Malcolm Worthington pushed past them with an armful of boxes. ‘Don’t you lot have anything to do before we open? Come on, away with you.’

  Once the morning rush was underway, by ten thirty all thoughts of the weekend had long since been forgotten. Sam waited for a lull in trade before heading out to pick up a few items they had run short of.

  ‘We need some plastic bags,’ she said, ticking off things with her fingers. ‘And some yellow stickers. Oh, and a roll of Sellotape. Anything else while I’m there?’

  Louise and Nicci couldn’t think of anything, so she set off for the stock room at the bottom of the market.

  Sam located the items she required, plonked one box on top of the other and headed back. She was nearly at the door when she spotted Dan Wilshaw walking right towards her. She felt her heart quickening at the sight of him. He wore a long black coat over tailored, pin-striped trousers, slick square-toe boots and a pale blue shirt, open at the neck to reveal a few black hairs curled tightly on his chest. Immediately Sam cursed the fact she hadn’t made more of an effort to conceal her lack of sleep. But with no mirror she didn’t have time to check her appearance. Deliberately, she pushed the boxes further up so that he couldn’t see too much of her face.

  ‘Hi,’ she managed to say, feeling the heat of an emerging blush. ‘This is staff only. You really shoudn’t be in here.’

  Dan smiled warmly. ‘I was just passing …’ He removed the top box and placed it on the window ledge next to them. Then he grabbed the other box but, instead of taking it from her, pushed Sam gently back until she felt the wall behind her. His face was inches away from hers, only the box now separating them, he gazed into her eyes.

  ‘I want to be with you, Sam Wheldon,’ he spoke softly.

  Sam gulped. It was hard to do anything else in close proximity to the man of her fantasies when he was staring at her intensely.

  ‘I’m married, Dan,’ she stuttered a few moments later.

  ‘But we shouldn’t let that stop us.’

  ‘St— stop us?’

  Before she could protest, he leaned closer and kissed her. Afterwards he pulled away, gazed into her eyes for a long second. Then he kissed her again, just enough for her lips to ache for more.

  ‘Dan, stop,’ she whispered without meaning. ‘Someone might see.’

  But Dan just pushed his chest f
orward. The flimsy cardboard box between them began to shudder. At least it was covering her breasts, thought Sam, feeling no less safe as the box began to collapse in on itself.

  She prayed that the exit door leading to the public would stay closed for ever as Dan kissed her again. This time he kissed her properly. Tenderly, he nibbled her bottom lip before easing her mouth open again with his tongue.

  Eventually they broke free.

  ‘You are one sexy woman, Sam Wheldon,’ he told her, looking from her eyes to her chest and back to her eyes again. ‘What’s a man got to do to get some time with you?’

  ‘I can’t be with you. You know that I’m –’

  ‘I have to see you.’ Dan’s hand moved to cup her chin and he gazed into her eyes again. She swallowed down the feelings erupting inside her. She hadn’t felt this way in a long time with Reece. This was so wrong, yet … so right.

  Suddenly, the door crashed open and Mike Sharpe pushed a trolley full of rubbish through it, cursing loudly. As if burned, Dan moved away and Sam stooped to pick up the box and its contents strewn across the floor.

  ‘Bleeding trolley,’ Mike grimaced as he walked past them. ‘Wonky wheel, if you ask me but will the council shell out for a new one? I don’t think so. Oh, Sam, Louise told me to tell you to hurry up and get your arse back to the stall.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’ Sam reached up for the box on the window ledge and piled it on top of the other one, hoping to hide her blushes. Once Mike had disappeared, she looked at Dan. They burst out laughing, Sam with relief that they hadn’t been caught.

  ‘I feel like a love struck teenager,’ Dan said, grabbing Sam’s bottom as they walked back towards the door.

  Sam took a step away from him. ‘Don’t do that.’

  Dan raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘I can’t help it.’

  ‘Well you’d better stop because that will have to be your lot.’ Sam tried to talk with her head and not her heart. ‘I’ve told you, I’m married. You shouldn’t have kissed me and I shouldn’t have kissed you back. I don’t think we—’