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“Your lips are , son, but all I hear is blah, blah, blah There’s no war The only conflict I see is the one withwar I’ve ever been in I thought being on your side would be interesting But now that Kirsty has cake, I think I would be better off on her side”

“You can’t change sides,” Lake told her as he shrugged into his jacket “As you keep tellingand you have some sort of dubious role in the business So suck it up I’ recon on this one”

Betty’s shoulders slumped before she fell back into her chair She pulled another pie out of her handbag

“At least bringA second later she popped her teeth back into her mouth and took a bite of her pie

CHAPTER TWO

Kirsty had a plan It wasn’t brilliant, but it orkable As far as she could see, she had a smallof opportunity before Betty’s shop reopened In that time, she had to re amount ofIt wasn’t enough to h to buy an advert in The Invertary Standard She’d spentabout how to make her money stretch and attract the attention she needed In the end, Kirsty resorted to a tried-and-true ive away cake It was an unwritten to that the wo for cake

“What’s this, then?” asked Agnes Patterson

Her five-year-old twin boys had stopped talking long enough to stuff their mouths with a cake each

“Advertising,” Kirsty said with the brightest s It had seeet out early and catch people on their way to work and school, but after three hours’ sleep it was already wearing a little thin

“If you coet a twenty percent discount on the new season’s range”

Kirsty handed her one of the leaflets she’d printed during the night and pointed to her newly revampeddisplay—coerie

“It’s pretty, Kirsty, but really—ould I wear it? It’s not like I get to wear anything nice these days I put on that green silk dress I have for church a couple of weeks ago and by the end of the service it was covered in mucky handprints, and Michael had drawn on the hem in blue marker”

Little Michael didn’t appear to be bothered by that fact Agnes, on the other hand, looked like “bothered” was her permanent state Her hair was tied back into a messy bun, there was nothe same uniform of black T-shirt and blue jeans for the past five years Everything about her screaain” printed on the T-shirt

“You deserve to treat yourself,” Kirsty said lamely

“Maybe I’ll get a nice box of chocolates for when the boys are in bed,” Agnes said as she flicked a glance at the“Underwear that pretty would be wasted on me”