Best Laid Plans Read Online Free PDF Page A

finally managing the smallest of smiles as if he could read her thoughts. ‘Sorry if I’ve been a bit snappy lately but I’m worried about the business.’
    ‘I know.’ She sighed and wished there was something she could do to help him. ‘Everything will be fine, you’ll see.’
    He nodded. ‘I’m looking forward to a few days off. Just the two of us and the kids and we know Monique well enough by now not to be too concerned if the carrots burn.’
    ‘I’m not worried about that. It’s Amy.…’ She adjusted the cushions behind her back and sighed, remembering the last painful phone call. Amy was not good on the phone, always sounding as if she was looking at her watch, just about to go out somewhere terribly important with no time for a chat. ‘I’m not even absolutely sure that she’ll be here. She has a big presentation to prepare for early in the NewYear in Manchester and she sounded as if she was using that as an excuse for maybe not making it.’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ For a moment he seemed in a genuine panic. ‘Of course she will. She’s never missed it yet. And what the hell would she do if she didn’t come here? Spend it all alone in that miserable little flat eating a ready meal or beans on toast? You know she can’t cook for toffee.’
    ‘It’s not a miserable little flat,’ she said, remembering how nice she had made it sound in the Christmas note.
    ‘It’s not great, either. I told her I would pay the extra rent if she went for that bigger place but she wouldn’t hear of it. But then, that’s my girl,’ he added proudly. ‘Too bloody independent for her own good.’
    ‘I wish she had some friends,’ Christine continued, watching Frank closely. She knew the cause of some of the agitation; the no smoking and low-fat diet regime was hell for him. She suspected he was still smoking occasionally on the sly because she could smell it on him but she had yet to catch him in the act.
    Amy was work-obsessed just like her father and it was no surprise that she was doing so well. She knew in her heart that their daughter would have made a much better job of taking over the family business than Mike, the son who was being groomed to do just that whether he liked it or not. ‘Doomed to take over’ might be a better description of his fate and she really ought not to have said in the Christmas note that he was enjoying shadowing his father when the opposite was the case. He had little interest in the business but, when he failed at school so spectacularly with any hopes of going to university down the pan, going into the family business had been the only option. Frank loved the job and had built things up considerably and being a local firm, Fletcher’s Removals & Storage was often the first choice for people in the area. As for Mike, Christine suspected he was just sticking with it because he did not wish to disappoint his father and that, if he had a freechoice, he would prefer to be somewhere else, doing his own thing, doing what
he
wanted. Sometimes she even wished he would show them what he was made of and simply tell his dad to stuff the job. It would serve Frank right, for he treated him abominably and expected far more of him than anybody else. For some reason he had always had a short fuse where Mike was concerned. She had been present once when he had given his son a right bollocking for a mistake that had, admittedly, cost them dear but it was a mistake anybody could have made and she had seen the look on Mike’s face and had to fight back a desire to round on Frank there and then and tell him just what she thought of him for giving his son a dressing down in public.
    But then she had never known her son lose his cool in his life. Mike was laid back, easy going, and, although she loved his choice of girl, she could not help feeling that Frank was right in a way and it might have been better for him if he had chosen somebody with a bit more fire in her belly. Monique was a