Secrets Read Online Free PDF

A whole room devoted to a washing machine and tumble dryer and ceiling-mounted airer with its pulley system. Off that was the boot room – just for footwear and coats. Imagine that. The lap of luxury. A house that had everything. Buckingham Palace had nothing on this. Bounds Green was far far away. This wasn't running away! This was a new start – a sensible thing to do. An excellent idea! Brave, too. Tess felt utterly liberated.
Joe went to bed stiff and tired. He'd worked until two in the morning. He climbed halfway up to the second floor, observed how the doors were closed on the rooms that were empty, but were ajar on the rooms now occupied. He liked that. Usually house-sitters barricaded themselves in at night. This woman was open. Then he told himself to stop being soft – the baby hadn't slept on her own before and the mother would need to hear her in an instant. And as he tucked down on the floor below, he thought, where there's a baby and a mother – then there's most usually a father, isn't there? And he wondered, for a moment, who he was. And where. And why wasn't he here with them? Was he on the scene? Or was he the reason Tess had suddenly turned up on his doorstep, babe in arms?
A girl and her tot in his house was one thing, a whole bloody family unit would be quite another. Boyfriends lounging around and playing man of the house were not on the job description. And then he touched upon the fact that little over twenty-four hours ago, he had not known this woman at all. And he still didn't. Yet here she was, without references, without even giving him her surname. Here she was in his house having brought her life into his home.
She can make changes to a couple of the rooms, he thought, but that's it.

Chapter Three
Joe came into the kitchen, still fugged from a heavy sleep. He was wearing pastel-striped pyjama bottoms, the same woollen socks from yesterday, and a T-shirt. Tess glanced at his arms and thought, he has a tan – in March.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Been up long?’
‘Since the crack of dawn,’ Tess answered curtly. ‘I'm not used to everything being so quiet everywhere. The dog's been sick – does it happen often?’
He looked at her, standing there with her hands on her hips and a tea towel he knew wasn't his slung over her shoulder, her sleeves rolled up as if she was ready to fight.
‘Where?’
‘I've cleaned it up,’ she said. ‘I wasn't going to leave it there.’ She folded her arms. She looked peculiarly defiant and Joe found he didn't know what he was meant to say but felt she was waiting for an apology and fast.
He glanced at the clock and then regarded Wolf who didn't look like a dog that'd just been sick. The dog was engrossed in a hearty lick of his nether region, his tail spread across the kitchen floor like a length of old frayed rope. ‘Sorry – I overslept. I don't usually. And no, Wolf isn't sick often. You should have left it for me to deal with.’
‘What – with Em around?’
Now he felt guilty – as if he'd brought a lack of hygiene into the home of a child. Ridiculous – this was his house, wasn't it! And only her first day. He looked over at her sternly but she shrugged and popped her hair into a pony-tail. He'd quite liked her spirit yesterday – but not this morning when he'd just woken up.
‘It's not a problem,’ she said as if she sensed his reservation. ‘I just thought you needed to know.’ Now her equanimity made Joe feel a different sort of guilt, which was just as unnerving. All the more so when Tess then handed him a cup of tea in the china cup and saucer she'd left outside his study last night and he'd left, unwashed, in the sink. He sipped, giving himself time to think, but he was distracted as much by the unblinking attention of the infant as by the very good cup of tea.
‘So, you haven't done this job before?’
‘No – it's a brand new adventure.’
He thought she must mean venture . ‘What did you do in