Free Molly's Millions by Victoria Connelly

arrowed prettily over her nose.
    ‘I don’t know, Moll. I wish you were here.’
    ‘Where’s Marty?’
    ‘Out. He went out. I don’t know where.’
    ‘Did you fight? What happened?’ Molly asked, knowing Carolyn had slipped away into herself and that she’d take some prodding before she revealed anything.
    ‘Oh, it’s the usual things,’ she said in a voice which sounded strangely muted.
    ‘Money?’ Molly suggested. ‘Or the time he spends with you?’
    Molly felt her brain filling with images like an overactive kaleidoscope. It was happening again, wasn’t it? The past had found a route into the present and was in grave danger of repeating itself.
    ‘I can’t let this happen,’ Molly said, the words fleeing the safety of her mouth with little intervention from her brain.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Caro! You’ve got to try and sort this out. Marty isn’t a bad man.’
    ‘I know. I know !’
    ‘He can just be a bit of an idiot sometimes but he’s not beyond redemption, is he? You don’t seriously believe that he can’t be saved – that you’ve given up on him?’ Molly’s voice was beginning to sound anxious, overdramatic even, but she and Carolyn had had this conversation a hundred times before. At first, it had all been a big joke.
    ‘Marty’s turning into his father,’ Molly would tease.
    ‘He’s a real Scrooge!’ Carolyn would laugh.
    ‘He wouldn’t be able to spend money recklessly if you paid him.’
    And on it would go but, as the years went on, Marty’s character had intensified until he’d slowly turned into the man Molly and Carolyn had dreaded and it was no laughing matter anymore.
    ‘You haven’t really given up on him, have you?’ Molly tried again after an ominous silence.
    ‘I really don’t know what to do. He just doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t even try to understand what I want.’
    Molly sighed. It was tough to hear such words said against your own brother. ‘Caro, listen. Don’t do anything drastic. You haven’t, have you?’
    ‘Well, we argued but that’s normal. And now he’s gone out in a huff.’
    ‘OK,’ Molly said, trying to sound in control. ‘That will give you both time to cool down a bit.’
    ‘And then what?’ Carolyn asked as if genuinely expecting Molly to hold the answer.
    Wait for a miracle, Molly wanted to suggest.
    ‘Just—’ Molly wasn’t sure what she was going to say but she suddenly heard pips. ‘Caro! Just a minute.’ She plunged her hand into her pocket but there was nothing in it but a tatty fiver. ‘I’ve run out of change, Caro. Listen – I’ll ring you soon.’
    ‘Moll?’
    The phone went dead. Molly stood looking at it for a moment, wondering if Carolyn would press 1471 and call her back. She hadn’t had time to suggest that. It was ridiculous. She had over four million pounds in the bank but she didn’t have any change, and that meant she’d left Carolyn in one of her peculiar moods. She’d seen them before. Carolyn might look as serene as the Venus de Milo but Molly knew that it was all a front.
    With a frown you could plant potatoes in, Molly left the phone box determining two things: that she couldn’t let Marty and Carolyn’s marriage go the same way as herparents’, and that she really should get a mobile phone.
     
    Down by the River Eden, Tom decided that he should find a florist’s before he did anything else. Like the farmer, he wasn’t terribly good when it came to flowers and thought it would probably be best to try and identify the sunshine daisy before he forgot what it looked like.
    Packing up their picnic, Tom and Flora took the road back towards Penrith. They hadn’t gone far when Flora spotted a florist’s.
    ‘Excellent,’ Tom said, pulling up and getting out of the car.
    The shop was sandwiched between two old stone cottages. Trays of colourful bedding plants littered the paving and Tom had to walk in sideways to avoid knocking over a variety of gaudy displays.
    A quick scan round the shop