Wildflower Park Series. Bella Osborne

clean their patio. C.

      It was a comedy text to a friend, a clever play on words, not a sexy text to a lover as she’d first thought. She was intrigued as to who this mystery texter was. Though she was keen to text straight back, she calmed herself down and went and put the kettle on and did a little bit of analysis. She really did need to get out more if this was the most excitement she’d had in her life since they’d added Peanut KitKats to the vending machine at work. Anna still didn’t know if the mystery texter was a man or a woman – or worse still, a teenager. Loads of kids had mobiles these days. She gave a little shiver; that was a creepy thought.

      Part of her mind had already wandered off in the opposite direction and conjured up a tall handsome stranger, sitting in a large glass-fronted office laughing at the text exchange. He had no wedding ring and bore a striking resemblance to Ryan Gosling – well, it was her fantasy after all.

      Anna was cupping her tea and thinking about whether she should reply when another much longer text appeared: Hi Tim, just did something funny – texted wrong number and got cute messages back. Worried it’s a big hairy bloke! See you at 10 tomorrow, mate. Text me postcode for your new place. I don’t know my way around Selly Oak. Did you get the festival tickets? C.

      It was as if he’d read her mind, as she could now safely assume he was male and clearly not ancient if he was going to a festival. And he’d called her cute – well, he’d called her texts cute. And he was most likely local if he was going to Selly Oak tomorrow. This was getting interesting. She had to reply to this message, because surely it would be rude not to. After all, she had to inform ‘C’ that Tim wouldn’t have received his text …

      Hi, C. Sorry, you got the wrong number again. Nice to text with you though, and enjoy the patio cleaning. A. There. That was okay – informative, and not too forward.

      By the time she’d brushed her teeth there was another message: Dear A. Once again, soooo sorry. I am clearly a sausage-fingered idiot. Apologies! I’ll let you know how the patio cleaning goes. C :-)

      Anna placed her phone on the bedside table and turned off the light. She quickly drifted off to sleep with the tiniest of smiles on her lips, a large cat on her feet, and just the faintest glimmer of something in her heart.

       Chapter Seven

      Anna had a spring in her step the following morning as she picked up her things and went in search of the room for her first meeting of the day. At least she wouldn’t be alone with Hudson; she was able to handle him better if other people were involved. Maybe she needed them there to help her keep her annoyance levels in check. She knew she sometimes overreacted but it was only because she was passionate about getting it right. She found the room and checked it was the right one because it was really small. She knew there were loads of people on the invite list. Her smugness blossomed at the thought of Hudson having to apologise to everyone for the tiny room as they all tried to cram inside. She was going to enjoy this meeting. She picked her spot on the far side of the table so she could see his reaction when he came in, and settled herself down.

      She was making some notes when Hudson arrived. ‘Hey, Anna. How’s your day going?’

      Why did Americans ask that? Nobody did in this country. At best you’d ask someone at the end of the day, but never earlier – and who was interested anyway?

      ‘Great thanks.’ About to get a whole lot better when everyone sees your room cock-up, she thought. ‘How about yours?’

      ‘Swell, thanks. Right, let’s get started.’

      Anna did a double take as Hudson started tapping on the large telephone in the middle of the table. Anna scrabbled through the meeting notes. It was a bloody conference call; she hadn’t spotted that. If she’d realised, she could have dialled in from her desk. Now she was stuck in a broom cupboard with Hudson for the next hour, but her resolute Britishness meant that she wasn’t going to leave. She’d have to stick it out. ‘Hudson and Anna,’ said Hudson, when the system prompted him for his name. As he was opening the call there was a rush of everyone’s name and Anna didn’t have time to tick everyone off the invite list.

      ‘Hey, everyone, thanks for joining us this morning. Is Todd on the call?’

      There was a very long pause where they could hear breathing, general office background noise and the odd cough. ‘Okay, no Todd, let’s—’

      ‘Yes. Hi, Hudson. I’m here,’ said Todd, rather belatedly. Hudson and Anna both looked skywards.

      ‘Great. Thanks, Todd. Can I ask everyone to go on mute to cut out the background noise?’ There was a series of clicks and the phone went eerily quiet.

      ‘Raj, please can you give us an update on the finance meeting you attended?’ asked Hudson. He looked over at Anna who was jotting notes. She paused and they waited for Raj to speak. Nothing. Total silence. Anna checked the names she had managed to tick off: Raj was ticked off. He was definitely on the call. She shrugged at Hudson. He unmuted their end and started to speak. ‘Raj, are you okay to give us an—’

      ‘Sorry, I must have been on mute,’ said Raj, followed by an embarrassed chortle. Raj proceeded to run through far too much detail about the very dull finance meeting he’d attended, which had no consequences for their project at all. When Raj finally stopped talking Hudson thanked him and moved on. ‘Carol, Programme Office update please.’ Hudson muted their phone and leaned back.

      A loud bark came from the phone making them both laugh nervously. ‘Buster! Quiet. Mummy’s on a conference call,’ said Carol, who was working from home. ‘Hi, everyone, yes. We’ve set up the filing system on the shared drive …’ But Buster was determined to be heard and continued to bark all the way through her update. The only pause was when ‘Todd has left the meeting’ was announced by the automated call system and closely followed by ‘Todd has joined the meeting.’

      ‘You okay, Todd?’ asked Hudson.

      ‘My phone keeps cutting out. I don’t know what …’

      ‘Todd has left the meeting.’

      ‘Does anyone have any questions or anything they’d like to add?’ asked Hudson.

      A jumble of voices all spoke at once, followed by a round of apologies and lots of people politely repeating, ‘No, after you.’ When everyone did exactly the same again Hudson stepped in. ‘Okay. Steve, you had a question?’

      ‘Yeah, hi, Hudson. The workshop next week, is lunch provided?’

      Anna slapped her forehead with her palm and Hudson spontaneously laughed at her. ‘I’m not sure Steve, but I’ll check and get back to you.’

      ‘Who else had a question?’

      There was a long pause. ‘Hi, Hudson, it’s Paul. It’s okay, I was going to ask about lunch too.’

      ‘Okay, any questions that weren’t about lunch?’ asked Hudson and was met with a bark from Buster. ‘Okay, if there’s nothing else. We’ll catch up again on Wednesday. Thanks, everyone. Bye.’

      A series of disembodied voices said bye in quick succession.

      ‘Todd has joined the meeting.’

      Hudson hit the end-call button and let out a sigh as he slumped back in his seat. ‘Sometimes, things are a lot harder than they need to be,’ he said and Anna had to agree.

      ‘Night night, Mummy,’ said Arlo, looking perfectly angelic. Sophie’s heart melted with love for her first born. He was a monster sometimes but she loved every inch of him more than she could ever explain.

      ‘Night night, darling.’ She kissed the top of his head and reversed from the room. She’d almost made it to the door when he spoke and her heart sank. All she wanted was to sit down and put her feet up. She’d had a crappy day at work as she’d managed