Free Best Laid Plans by Patricia Fawcett

physical looks and the winning way he seemed to have with the older ladies. Increasingly, she was beginning to doubt her judgement when it came to Brian and she wondered sometimes just what his hold on her was and how long she would put up with it.
    Too late now, for they were here now and she would have to make the best of it.
    She aimed the remote at the car, clicked it. ‘There’s Mum. Come and meet her.’

Chapter Five
    C hristine was pinning a lot of hope on Brian.
    It had been a big surprise, a shock even, when Amy had phoned and asked if she could bring a friend along for Christmas. She could sense her daughter’s anxiety and was quick to reassure her that they would be delighted to meet the friend, a man called Brian.
    She knew nothing about Brian yet but she determined that over the course of the next few days she would find out the lot. Amy had had only a few boyfriends over the years, was never one for flitting between men, thoroughly focused as she was both at school and university, although of course Christine was not privy to what might have gone on there. It is a funny time when you send your children off to university, grown up kids in theory, but there was that pang in letting them go into that big bad world. It was a disappointment but also a relief when Mike did not get good enough grades because she felt he was the kind of person to be more easily led than Amy whom she was confident could stand her ground with the best of them. Amy was a bright young lady and not easily intimidated, as had been proved. She was proud of her but she worried that her daughter was missing out on the things that mattered in life and that one day, when it was much too late, she would finally cotton on to that and look back with regret.
    Amy was late arriving and those familiar mother-nerveskicked in, her imagination on overdrive as the minutes passed with no answer from Amy’s phone. So the relief was great as she saw the little yellow car coming up the drive at last. She waited a moment, hidden behind the curtain in the dining room as the two of them got out, retrieving bags and wrapped presents from the boot. The first thing she noticed was that Amy had had her dark brown hair cut short; the elfin style suited her. She was a striking girl who had always had unfounded doubts about her appearance, tall and strong-looking, very much her father’s daughter with her light brown wide-set eyes and, not visible but there all the same, his steely determination to succeed.
    She saw at once that Brian was an attractive-looking man, about the same height as Amy with fairish hair, wearing jeans over tan boots and a leather biker-style jacket, an outfit that seemed altogether too young for him, for at first glance she saw he was older than Amy by maybe as much as ten years. She saw him leaning in towards her, caught the smiles they exchanged, which confirmed what she had expected – that the two of them were very close.
     
    Frank was less happy than she was about the unexpected guest.
    ‘What do we know about this guy?’ he asked when she informed him, going straight into overprotective father mode.
    ‘Nothing, yet.’
    ‘She must be serious about him if she’s bringing him to meet us. She’s never brought anybody home before, has she?’
    ‘Yes she has. There was that lovely boy at school,’ Christine said, recalling that, like her own parents, she had hoped something might come of that one. He was from such a nice family and because she liked him and his family so much she had kept track of him over the years. He became a doctor and was married now with three children livingaway from his home town. Occasionally she met his mother and they chatted about him and Amy, never quite saying what they were both thinking.
    ‘What boy?’
    Clearly Frank’s memory was not as good as hers or maybe he had never seen the potential there.
    ‘Never mind.’ She shrugged it off.
    ‘What does this man do? How long has she known