One Chance At Love. Кэрол Мортимер

she was alone, which wasn’t very often. If having two cats and a dog constantly underfoot could be classed as being alone now! She jealously guarded her dinner as all three animals tried to steal it from her plate as she ate; she really would have to have a word with Christi about the deplorable manners of her pets.

      She looked around the flat appreciatively, loving the mellow décor and comfortable furniture, mentally thanking Christi for inviting her to stay and care for her pets for her while she was away. If only Gladys would stop trying to steal her pilchards, she grumbled under her breath, even as she tapped a sneaking paw away from her plate.

      Feeling grateful that she wasn’t subjected to Christi’s enforced early nights, she pulled a tattered and dog-eared book from her capacious shoulder-bag, opening it to the page she had marked half-way through the seven hundred pages, instantly losing herself in the page-turning historical adventure by one of her favourite authors. She had read the book many times before, but Claudia Laurence knew how to write a book so that it was possible to gain something new from it every time it was read. A reader’s delight!

      Two hundred pages—and five hours—later, Dizzy decided it was time to go to bed. She felt as if she had barely fallen asleep when the telephone beside the bed began to ring, and she shot upright in the bed, completely and suddenly awake. She felt half drunk with tiredness as she picked up the receiver.

      ‘I’ve got it!’ came the eagerly disorientated whisper of a voice.

      An obscene telephone call, Dizzy acknowledged disgustedly. ‘Well, now that you’ve got it, you know what you can do with it, don’t you?’ She reached out to replace the receiver.

      ‘Dizzy!’ came the distressed cry down the telephone line, halting her action. ‘Dizzy, don’t you dare hang up on me!’

      She blinked; obscene telephone callers didn’t usually know their victims’ names, did they? Not that she was an expert on the subject—heaven forbid!—but she didn’t think they did. And now that the voice had been raised slightly from that eerie whisper, it did sound vaguely familiar—in fact, it sounded a little like Christi. But why on earth would Christi be calling her at—a quarter past six in the morning? she wondered, as she glanced at the bedside clock. Christi hadn’t been known to surface before at least eight o’clock before—but then, she had never been known to go to bed at nine-thirty before, either!

      Dizzy leant up on her elbow, pushing her long hair back from her face. ‘Christi, is that you?’ she yawned.

      ‘Of course it’s me,’ her friend hissed. ‘Who else would be calling you at this time of the morning?’

      The answer to that was so obvious that Dizzy didn’t even attempt to make it. ‘Why are you whispering?’ she asked curiously, still attempting to clear the fog of sleep from her brain.

      ‘So that no one can hear me!’ came the explosive reply.

      Logical, she thought as she yawned again, very logical. ‘Why don’t you want anyone to hear you?’ she asked uninterestedly.

      ‘Because it’s only six o’clock in the morning!’ Christi said exasperatedly, forgetting to whisper, then muttering self-disgustedly as she realised what she had done.

      Dizzy ignored the mutterings; she thought it was best to do so. ‘Why are you telephoning at six o’clock in the morning if it’s going to disturb people?’ she urged sleepily, wishing she hadn’t been one of the people disturbed.

      ‘Because I’ve come up with a way of getting me out of this place!’ Christi announced triumphantly.

      ‘Congratulations,’ drawled Dizzy drily. ‘But couldn’t you have waited until a decent hour to let me in on the secret?’

      ‘No—because you’re going to help get me out!’ her friend said with satisfaction.

      ‘You want me to bake you a cake with a metal file in it, and send it to you?’ she derided.

      Christi groaned at her levity. ‘Can’t you even be serious when you know what trouble I’m in?’

      ‘Sorry.’ Dizzy sobered. ‘What do you want me to do that will help you escape from the fusty, dusty Zachariah? Sorry,’ she grimaced, as she could sense Christi’s rising anger at her teasing. ‘Go ahead, you have my full attention,’ she encouraged interestedly.

      Christi gave a snort that clearly said she doubted that, but she launched into her explanation anyway. ‘It was something you said that gave me the idea, actually,’ she told Dizzy excitedly, hastily lowering her voice as she realised that, in her enthusiasm, she had once again forgotten to whisper. ‘I mean, how can I be considered irresponsible when I’m training for a career, have lived in the same apartment for years, have pets that are well cared for, have—–’

      ‘I get the picture—you sober citizen, you,’ Dizzy drawled. ‘And, as it is now almost six-thirty in the morning, and I’ve barely had any sleep, do you think you could get to the point?’

      ‘Oh, yes.’ Christi gave a dismissive sigh as she realised she had been going on a bit. ‘The answer isn’t to show my uncle how responsible I am—–’

      ‘It isn’t?’ Dizzy frowned; she must have dozed off in the middle of this conversation somewhere, for she had thought Christi’s proving to her uncle that she was more than capable of managing her own monetary affairs was exactly the point!

      ‘No,’ Christi confirmed impatiently. ‘It’s showing him how irresponsible I’m not!’

      From her friend’s triumphant tone as she made the announcement, Dizzy knew this was the place she was supposed to come in and tell her how clever she was being, but so far this still didn’t make a lot of sense to her.

      ‘Dizzy, you haven’t fallen asleep on me, have you?’ Christi snapped suspiciously at her prolonged silence.

      She roused herself wearily. ‘Of course not. And don’t shout, you’ll wake up the household,’ she reminded tiredly.

      ‘It could do with waking up,’ Christi muttered with feeling.

      ‘We’ve been through all that,’ Dizzy said drily. ‘I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic, love, but I really can’t understand what’s so terrible about staying with your uncle for a few weeks. And—–’

      ‘You soon will,’ her friend said with satisfaction.

      ‘—surely a few early nights aren’t going to—– What do you mean, I soon will?’ Suddenly, sleep didn’t seem so important any more. ‘Christi, what are you up to?’ she prompted sharply, knowing that whatever it was, she probably wasn’t going to like it!

      ‘Who is letting you make free use of her apartment while she’s out of town?’ Christi prompted calmly.

      ‘Who is baby-sitting your pets—at the cost of pilchards and solitude!—while you are out of town?’ she instantly returned.

      ‘Who got up in the middle of the night to open the school dormitory window so that you could climb in off the roof—–’

      ‘Who forgot to come down to unlock the door and fell asleep until I climbed up and knocked on the window?’ she reminded pointedly.

      ‘Oh, all right,’ Christi acknowledged impatiently. ‘Maybe that was my fault. But who helped get you out of spending the night in prison the time the police raided that illegal gambling—–’

      ‘You know very well that I had gone there with a reporter who was doing research for an article,’ she protested.

      ‘But who came to the police station and managed to convince the police of that? Who got you away from there before it became public knowledge, and your picture appeared on the front page of all the tabloids?’ Christi pounced triumphantly.

      ‘You did,’ Dizzy conceded heavily. ‘And now I owe you one, right?’

      ‘Oh,