Close Knit by Jenny Colgan
Author:Jenny Colgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-05-16T00:00:00+00:00
Chapter 22
There was one thing Jean Mooney knew. Gertie had been perfectly happy, until sheâd spent the night with the staff of MacIntyre Air and come home furious and drunk. And now it was the next morning and Gertie wasnât answering her phone. Before she knew what she was doing, Jean got dressed and marched off to Ranaldâs to give him a piece of her mind for whatever was upsetting her darling daughter, whoâd been absolutely fine until sheâd started at this wretched airline of his. Those girls were bullying Gertieâshe knew it. And if the helicopter pilots had been giving her grief, sheâd move on to them next.
Ranald MacIntyre was working less these days, but he still enjoyed it immensely. Morag taking over had been the most wonderful thing, more than heâd ever dared hope for, even if sheâd moved out.
Jean Mooney, likewise, wasnât scared of much. She had been through, more or less, everything life could throw at her: a husband who hadnât worked out, raising a child alone, enduring poverty and cold, and always working. She was tough, deeply loyal, and up with much she did not put.
She had tried to raise Gertie the same, but her vulnerabilities sometimes seemed so on display, her face so scared-looking all the time. She was her dadâs absolute double.
Jean, on rare occasions, suspected that she smothered Gertie a little. But there had been times, Elspeth notwithstanding, that they felt they only had each other to love, to cling on to, a tiny island in the great sea of the world. That was why the KCs were so important. Both of her sisters lived far awayâone in London, one in Korea of all places, somewhere Jean had trouble even imaginingâand rarely got home.
She had never expected her family to be so small; never hoped for it, the day she was wandering over Ben Eiris, and the sun was low and golden in the sky, lighting the amber fields with the heavy colors of a tired summer, and she had seen him, tumbling down from his parentsâ croft, in his old patched cords and his untidy hair and a shy smile he could not hide in the glorious evening of the beautiful day. He asked her if he might walk her into the village if she was going that way and she said she was, and he pretended he hadnât been waiting for her to walk that way with a basket full of gorse and she pretended not to know exactly what he was doing as they walked over the old stone arched bridge at the foot of the town, past the field of Highland coos with their elaborate hairdos, keeping the flies off them in the sweet air of harvest season.
They went to the Young Farmersâ dance, which was so loud and sweaty that they could barely speak to one another, which suited Robert absolutely fine, but, had Jean only realized, should have been a warning sign that sitting and having long conversations and joining in might not be the kind of thing the lad did best.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
In Control (The City Series) by Crystal Serowka(35776)
The Wolf Sea (The Oathsworn Series, Book 2) by Low Robert(34667)
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry(33980)
Crowbone (The Oathsworn Series, Book 5) by Low Robert(33034)
The Book of Dreams (Saxon Series) by Severin Tim(32892)
The Daughters of Foxcote Manor by Eve Chase(23012)
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh(20971)
Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman(19871)
Shot Through The Heart (Supernature Book 1) by Edwin James(18413)
The Secret History by Donna Tartt(18087)
The Girl from the Opera House by Nancy Carson(15369)
American King (New Camelot #3) by Sierra Simone(14757)
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda(14601)
Sad Girls by Lang Leav(13880)
Pimp by Iceberg Slim(13718)
The Betrayed by Graham Heather(12277)
The Betrayed by David Hosp(12187)
4 3 2 1: A Novel by Paul Auster(11761)
Still Me by Jojo Moyes(10747)
