The Accidental Mother Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sophie had said. “You must have some very irresponsible friends.”
    “Well, yes, I have,” Carrie had replied, only half-joking.
    The two women had laughed, and Sophie felt a rush of their old friendship flood back. She had been touched and warmed by the request. It showed that they were still close, even all those miles apart. She had been flattered. Sophie didn’t know if it was the wine, the nostalgia, or echoes of a hundred promises that they had made unthinkingly to each other over the years, but in that moment she’d been uncharacteristically impulsive and accepted what she assumed was a kind of token gesture of commitment from Carrie.
    “Of course!” she’d said without hesitation. “Of course I will. If anything ever happens to you and Louis, which it won’t, I’m your girl.”

    Sophie shook her head. Her patience with Tess Andrew was draining rapidly away. It was bad enough to find out that Carrie was gone, but worse still for the news to be mangled by so much ill planning and incompetence.
    “Miss Andrew,” she said scathingly. “Obviously I do remember that agreement. But that was in the event of both parents dying. You didn’t mention Louis. He wasn’t in the crash, I presume? He is the children’s guardian. He’s their father. I would have thought that was obvious.”
    Tess puffed out her chest at Sophie’s tone and suddenly looked a lot more formidable. “Yes, technically that is correct, and we’re doing our best to track him down, but—”
    Sophie cut her off. “Track him down? What do you mean, track him down?” She asked incredulously.
    Tess pushed the chair she was sitting in a couple of inches away from Sophie’s desk and took a breath. “Louis Gregory left the family home some time ago. We can’t trace him. We think he’s overseas.”
    Sophie rubbed her temples with her thumb and forefinger. “Carrie was on her own?” she asked, trying to force her mind to absorb all the information that was being thrown at her.
    “Yes, since the little once was a baby apparently,” Tess said, looking slightly thrown. “I thought you would have known.”
    Sophie thought of all the Christmas cards with Louis’s name that she had sent, and the cards she had received. To be honest, she’d probably never read them that closely, but now that she thought about it, she was fairly sure Carrie always signed any cards or letters either just from herself or, sometimes, “From us all.” Sophie had spoken to Carrie a few weeks after the christening and then a few months after that. Neither time did Carrie mention that Louis had left her, and it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing one asked in a casual conversation. After that, they hadn’t spoken. Sophie had just always assumed, like she supposed Carrie had, that they would speak at some point. But neither one of them had got around to making that call, and Carrie, her life, and her family had slipped further away from Sophie’s life until they were almost entirely separated. Until now.
    Louis must have left Carrie alone with a new baby. Sophie had known from the moment she set eyes on him that he wasn’t the kind of guy to settle into marriage and fatherhood. She’d thought she had been proved wrong—but she hadn’t.
    Even so, it didn’t make her the children’s guardian.
    “Their grandmother surely—” Sophie began, watching the second hand of her watch. She wondered if Jake was outside now, talking to Cal and Lisa.
    “Oh yes.” Tess nodded. “Mrs. Stiles brought them home with her right after the funeral. They’re here in London now. But two small children are a lot for an old lady to cope with; they can’t seem to settle. Bella has missed a lot of school. And Mrs. Stiles is very frail, you know. High blood pressure, angina. She tried her best, but there came a point when she had to call us in to help her just before everything stopped for the holidays. We’ve only been onboard for the last few weeks. Anyway, she’s moving