Free Stand-In Wife by Karina Bliss Page B

around.”
    “I won’t.” Viv was starting to regret lending Merry her new laptop. With nothing to do but lie in a hospital bed her sister’s organizing brain had gone into overdrive. Worse, she’d latched on to Charlie’s slight warming as though it heralded the end of the Ice Age. It made Viv nervous. As if there wasn’t enough pressure.
    “Have you dropped the kids off yet?”
    “Just leaving. I hadn’t allowed for Princess Dawdle.”
    “You did get up at six like I told you?”
    “Yes.” Bleary-eyed and jet-lagged she’d given Harry a bottle and taken him back to bed with her. Woke thirty minutes later to find him trying to crawl through the cat doorin the kitchen. Her brain threw up a factoid from Merry’s tutoring. Pickles, died aged fifteen, buried in the garden.
    The baby banged on the passenger window. “Uh-oh, Harry’s spotted the cell. I’ll call when I’ve dropped off the kids.” Merry had already given her instructions on location, teachers, mums she might meet and Viv’s brain was full to bursting. Had she really only been in the country three days?
    “One day at a time,” she kept telling her sister. “That’s all we have to do.” Even if that day felt as long as a week. “I’ll call you when I have privacy, Merry.” If she could costume all of Henry the VIII’s wives, getting two kids to school and day care should be a cinch.
    As long as she remembered to stay on the left-hand side of the road. It had been that long.
    Flipping her cell shut, Viv turned to see Tilly hanging out the open car window, holding her nose. Her eyes were as wide as saucers.
    “Hey,” she said weakly. “Guess you heard Mom— Mummy talking to her friend, Merry. Real funny that we have the same name, huh?”
    With a gasp, Tilly released her nose. “I’m so gonna tell on you, Auntie Viv.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    “W HERE is MUM ?”
    Viv switched on the indicators to signal a right turn and the wipers squealed across the dry windshield. “In hospital in Hamilton…she went to an appointment there and broke her leg but she’s fine. She just can’t come home for a few days and while she’s away I’m looking after you.”
    “Why are you pretending to be her?”
    The traffic lights at Fendleton turned red. Viv braked and turned to the passenger seat.
    “It’s kinda a game.” She tried to win her suspicious niece over with a big smile. “Can you see it could be fun having an identical twin you can swap with?” Oh, yeah. Fun, fun, fun.
    “No,” said Tilly flatly. “I like to be just me. When Harry came things got badder and Dad went to live with Nana Lin.”
    “Harry has nothing to do with your parents’ separation, Tilly. Really, it’s not his fault. It’s a coincidence.”
    She didn’t look convinced. “Anyway, you hate being a twin.”
    Viv was shocked. “What makes you say that?”
    The small shoulders shrugged. “Everyone says it—Uncle Dan, Nana, Pops…Auntie Jo, Cousin—”
    “Okay, you’ve made your point.”
    “And Mum,” said Tilly.
    Viv broke that disconcerting gaze. “Well, we’re doing the twin thing now.” Whether we want to or not.
    A car honked impatiently behind her, the lights had changed. She concentrated on the busy morning traffic.
    “Would Daddy be mad if he finds out?”
    “Yes,” said Viv because Tilly had to understand the gravity of telling. Except how did you explain adult screw-ups to a child? Tell her that Daddy might try to take her and her brother away from Mummy out of fear and anger. Tell her that things could get worse, when to her child’s mind they were already as bad as they could be.
    “Your mum and I made a couple of poor decisions and now we’re trying to reverse them, Tilly, without making things worse. Keeping this secret is best for everybody—you, Harry, your mum and your dad. Which is why you can’t tell anyone. Not Uncle Ross, not even your friends.”
    The little girl was silent a moment. “Mum wants Dad to come home and live