‘You know that’s never going to happen, don’t you?’

His smile widened. ‘It was worth a try.’

‘I love you so much, Tom. Please don’t ever doubt that when I’m being such a bitch.’

‘I love the whole of you,’ he said. ‘Which means I accept at times you’re not at your best. Just as I hope you love me, faults and all.’

She sank into his arms again and resting her head against his chest, she absorbed the slow and steady rhythmic beat of his heart. It had the soothing effect of slowing her own, which until then had been beating as though she were running fast.

His chin resting on the top of her head, he said, ‘Did Rick sound happy about the baby?’

‘Yes,’ she said, recalling the sound of his laughter and how it had grated on her nerves. ‘He claimed they were both in shock, but he didn’t give me the impression that he was. It was almost as if he were bragging. But to be fair, my opinion might be clouded by envy,’ she added. She kept to herself that her opinion of Rick was also affected by the way he had spoken to her, as though she were a naughty child who needed to be reprimanded and put in her place. Just who the hell did he think he was?

‘They’ve been together for so little time,’ Tom said. ‘It will test their relationship beyond anything they can imagine. I know this is going to sound unkind of me, but do you think Willow might have done it deliberately?’

Martha tilted her head back. ‘Done what deliberately?’

‘Got herself pregnant to—’

‘To trap Rick?’ she finished for him when he hesitated.

‘Yes. You and your mother have joked before about him being a keeper, that he was the first boyfriend Willow had had who was reliable and financially secure. What if she thought the same and decided a baby would be her ticket to a better life?’

Martha was shocked by Tom’s suggesting something so cynical, it was so unlike him. She rushed to defend her sister. ‘Willow doesn’t have a devious bone in her body. I can’t believe you’d even think such a thing.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but the whole set-up just seems so improbable. The funny thing is,’ he went on, ‘that last time we were driving back from Anchor House, there was something about Willow that was different. I noticed several times her putting a hand to her stomach while she was talking. At the time I just thought she was feeling a bit unwell, but now it makes sense what she was really doing.’

Martha knew precisely what he meant. She too had seen friends who were pregnant do the very same thing – a hand unconsciously placed to protect their unborn child. She had even done it herself when she had hoped that she was pregnant.

Thinking back to that day at Anchor House, Martha couldn’t remember there being anything particularly different about her sister, apart from her apparent change of mind when they were driving home about the possibility of their mother moving nearer to them. Willow had couched her U-turn in the context that if Mum and Ellis married, it would be better for them not to live in Dad’s shadow at Anchor House.