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him, choosing to ignore his last comment. It was an ongoing joke between them because there were very few years separating Chrissie and her step-children. Their Father, Marcus was fifteen years older than Chrissie. She’d always got on well with them because she had never posed as a replacement Mother. They had a perfectly good one as far as she was concerned and whom she got on well with. Chrissie had no intention of playing mother to two young adults who weren’t much younger than she was. So they saw her more as an older sister, which was why they thought it was funny to wind her up by calling her ‘Mother’.
                  “James?!” she called again, but he couldn’t hear her above the noise of the boiling kettle and the blaring radio that he’d switched on.
                  Chrissie shivered as she stood up and grabbed a warm towel off the piping hot rail. She was so thankful that the previous owners had installed central heating and replaced the kitchen and the bathroom in the time that they had lived there. Something she’d dreaded having to do. It needed a lot of cosmetic work but they’d done all the expensive stuff. Grace had told her that the last owner was in the Armed Forces and he had been posted away, taking his family with him. Chrissie had looked at so many cottages, but they all needed too much work, and she didn’t want a brand new home because she found them characterless. Just as she was about to give up, having decided that it wasn’t meant to be, there had been a phone call from the estate agents. They told her that there was a cottage that had just come on the market and the couple needed a quick sale.
                  Chrissie knew as soon as she stepped out of the car that she wanted it. She loved the old Norfolk red brick which looked deep in colour in the midday sun, and the pretty overgrown front garden. Stocks and roses crowded the path that beckoned her to the front porch. It all held a familiar feeling with it. A feeling she couldn’t pin point but had decided was her gut reaction telling her that it was the right house.
                  Chrissie dried herself with the soft towel, soothing her skin which was prickled, having stepped out of the warmth and comfort of her steamy bath. The latch on the door clicked up and the door creaked open, startling her again, causing her to quickly cover her naked body with the towel.
                  “James, I haven’t finished!” she screeched, looking up at the empty doorway.
    But there was no reply and no James stood at the bathroom door.
                  “James….?”Chrissie called, feeling her heart begin to pound; her skin prickling from fear, rather than a chill, that was creeping over her body. Chrissie stood in her bathroom staring at the space left by the door; cold water was running down her body as it dripped off her hair.
                  “Did you call me?” James appeared in the doorway, startling her yet again.
               “Cover yourself up, I don’t wish to….” He stopped, seeing her pale face. “Chrissie are you alright?”
                  “Um, yeah, did you open the bathroom door?”
                  “No, I’ve been downstairs making a cuppa. What an earth is wrong?”
                  “Nothing, I probably didn’t shut the door properly, and it swung open and made me jump.”
                  “You dozy old bag! Get some clothes on for god’s sake and hurry up and get downstairs; I’ve just made a brew.”
                  “Enough of the old!” Chrissie shouted light heartedly after him as he made his way down the winding staircase. But she didn’t feel light hearted, not one little bit. She felt silly getting so worked up about a door but it was the feeling that it had left her with that bothered her the most. She knew she’d shut the bathroom door