The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) Read Online Free PDF

mobile phone. ‘She had a sticky time of it, though – fourteen hours in labour, ended up with forceps. God, who’d be a woman? But it was all worth it. She had a seven pound girl and she’s a little darling, as pretty as her mother. Here, have a dekko – ain’t she the cutest thing? We’re going to call her Roxie Jane.’
    ‘You must be thrilled,’ said Adam.
    As he looked at Barry’s child, he felt a sudden longing, and he imagined Maddy, sleepy-eyed and pregnant with the bump just visible, summer-brown and gorgeous in a white cotton dress.
    She’d be sitting on a terrace somewhere warm and Mediterranean, somewhere where the air was scented with wild thyme and lemon blossom, where the nights were velvet-soft and starry, made for love, and where—
    He forced himself to come back to reality.
    ‘These roof tiles are a find,’ he said, as Barry Chapman flicked through yet more pictures of his baby daughter, the image of a proud and happy father. ‘I’d rung and e-mailed all around the country, trying to track some down. Your place was my last resort.’
    ‘Whatever you need, give us a bell. If we haven’t got it, we can almost always find it and give you the best price.’
    ‘You only had three hundred in your yard,’ said Adam, glancing at the lorry. ‘Where did you find the rest?’
    ‘A mate of mine in Stroud, he had a few hundred going spare. I picked ’em up as I drove over here.’ Barry Chapman grinned and then he shoved his mobile back into his pocket. ‘Cash is fine,’ he added casually.
    As Adam checked then signed the paperwork and counted out the balance of what he owed in tens and twenties, Barry looked up at the house again. ‘What’s the set-up here, Mr Lawley? You’re the subcontractor, project manager or what?’
    ‘I’m the project manager,’ said Adam. He found a couple of his business cards and handed them to Barry.
    ‘So you’re a freelance, are you?’ Barry grinned again. ‘Do you do any of the actual work yourself?’
    ‘Yes, once in a while,’ Adam replied. ‘My father was a builder, and when I left school I did all my City and Guilds stuff while I worked for him. When he died I worked for English Heritage and the National Trust for several years. I set up on my own last summer. I specialise in Tudor, Jacobean and Georgian restoration nowadays.’
    ‘You go all round the country, do you?’
    ‘Yes, I get about. I’ve got two projects here in Gloucestershire, another down in Cornwall, some in Middlesex and one in Dorset. I’m going to spend a week or two in Italy next month. Then I’ll be off to Scotland in July.’
    ‘What’s in Scotland, then?’
    ‘A Victorian castle needing total restoration and it’ll be my biggest challenge yet. But it’ll be fantastic when it’s done.’
    ‘You’re obviously a very busy man.’
    ‘When you’re a freelance and you’re offered any work, you always take it. Or I do, anyway. I’m gradually getting better known, so these days I don’t have to bid for jobs or send in complicated estimates, which used to waste a lot of time.’
    ‘You see your bloke, you name your price.’
    ‘I do.’
    ‘Yeah, so do I – and I reckon that’s the only way to run a business.’ Barry Chapman nodded at the builders who were working on the roof. ‘Do you think your lads could lend a hand with all this stuff?’
    As he helped the men unload the tiles, Adam thought about the girl from Chapman’s yard, remembering how kind she’d been, how helpful, when he had been so surly.
    What was her name? Barry had mentioned it only a beat or two ago, but it had gone again. All the same, he could recall her face – sweet and heart-shaped, lightly freckled, with the most attractive jade-green eyes, all framed with dark blonde hair.
    A Celtic princess, he decided.
    If she had a prince, he was a very lucky man.

Thursday, 12 May

    The chirpy woman, whose name was Fanny Gregory, wanted Cat and Jack to go and meet the team from Supadoop