by Fiona Harper
‘How is Maggie?’
She’d been a bit of a coward on that front after Nick had left. Everyone knew she was useless at keeping up with correspondence and she’d hidden behind that as an excuse to keep contact with Nick’s family to a minimum. Yes, she’d dashed off the odd email and sent a Christmas card, but she’d avoided the messages on the answering machine, pretending to herself she was too busy with her work. In the last few months, everything had gone a little quiet.
The truth was, she was just plain scared. Scared, now she and Nick were no longer a couple, that maybe his mother and sisters would go cold on her. Just as her own parents had. She’d only been part of the family by default, after all. It had been easier to avoid anything deep than risk finding out her fears had some foundation.
He poked the pile of peas with his knife and sent them scattering. ‘You know Mum…’
Adele tried not to let the shame show on her face. She’d been a coward, plain and simple.
She knew Nick’s mother better than she knew her own. Which wasn’t difficult, seeing as the last time she’d seen her parents in the flesh was a good three years ago. But that was nothing unusual. It had been that way since they’d packed her off to boarding-school so her mother could flit around the world with her father as he moved from exotic location to exotic location with his job.
Maggie Hughes was the sort of woman she’d fantasised about having as a parent in her teenage years. Her house was always full of children and grandchildren, who complained constantly that she had her nose in their business just a little too much, but it never seemed to stop them coming. She had a big heart and had made sure Adele always felt part of the family, always felt wanted. She was a little too indulgent with her only son, perhaps, but nobody was perfect.
‘Give her my love when you speak to her, won’t you?’
Nick coughed. ‘Well, I was kind of thinking you could tell her yourself—in person.’
‘And when would that be, exactly? You haven’t forgotten with all your Hollywood high-flying that she moved in with Auntie Beverley last year, have you? Scotland is a long way to go for a cup of tea and a chat.’
‘She’s having a big birthday bash. Charlotte is organising it and, of course, my other sisters have been roped in too.’
Adele could imagine it. Nick had three older sisters. They were a formidable force en masse. Their only weakness was a huge soft spot for their baby brother. She’d heard plenty of stories about the scrapes Nick had got himself into as a cheeky young lad, and for every misdemeanour there was a matching tale of how one or all of the sisters had bailed him out, duffed up the bully, or cleaned up the resulting mess.
‘What’s this party got to do with me?’
Nick looked at her from under the wayward tuft of hair. ‘Mum wants you to come. In fact, she’s insisting.’
‘Why?’ Maggie was always so sensible. ‘Surely she knows that having both of us together at the party would just make things awkward. Why would she want to risk her big night like that?’
‘Er—that’s the thing, you see. I haven’t really told her about…us.’
Adele felt the band of tension across her forehead tighten a few notches. ‘Us?’
‘About our…you know…problems.’
The plate on the table swam before her eyes. The sinking feeling that he’d done it again—walked away from a difficult situation, leaving someone else to deal with the fallout—crept up on her and sat on her shoulder whispering nasty little words in her ear.
Surely, not even Nick could be that daft? She looked at him. That lopsided cocky smile said it all. He always pulled that one out of the bag when he knew he’d done something that was going to make her blood boil.
It was all Adele could do not to pick up his plate and pour the contents, gravy and all, over his head. She should have had a medal for managing to stand up and walk stiffly from the restaurant without spontaneously combusting.
She gulped in a lungful of winter air and hoped it would cool her down before he caught her up. She did not want to make a huge scene in the car park of The Partridge.
This was typical Nick! Why had she even let him open his mouth in the first place? She had known no good could come of it, yet she’d trotted down the road with him like the class-A doormat that she was.
She caught a flash of a brown leather jacket at the corner of her eye and knew Nick had managed to pay the bill and give chase.
Well, tough. She wasn’t ready to talk to him right now. Thankfully, they’d decided to walk down the road to the nearest pub for lunch. It would only take her ten minutes to get home.
She listened to the staccato rhythm of her boots on the pavement as she stalked off in the direction of the house. Make that eight minutes, if she kept up this pace.
Nick could see Adele strutting from the car park and followed. He really wanted to sprint, but a little voice inside his head whispered that it would be better to let his wife cool off a bit. He compromised by jogging.
Boy, she could walk fast when she took off like this. It was a minute or so before he gained enough ground to get within talking distance.
‘Adele!’
She didn’t even turn round, just held up a hand in his direction. The face obviously wasn’t listening.
‘Come on, Adele. Please?’
She had to stop at that moment to cross a road and he caught her up.
He started to open his mouth.
‘Don’t! Just don’t,’ she warned.
He shut it again.
‘You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Nick. I can’t believe you’d turn up here after nine months of no contact and invite me to a birthday party.’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘This is a new level of insensitivity, even for you.’
Now, hang on a minute! How many times had he called and tried to apologise in the days after he’d left? How many times had she slammed the receiver down before he’d been able to get more than a syllable out? If they hadn’t communicated for nine months, it was more to do with Adele than it was with him. At least he’d tried.
In the end he’d done what she’d obviously wanted and let her be. And now she was blaming him for it?
‘Well, maybe you’ve got all the answers, Adele, but I certainly haven’t.’
She stepped back from the kerb and looked at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean, I’m not sure myself what is going on between us. What is this? Are we separated, or was it just a really long cooling-off period after a fight? If I can’t figure it out, how am I supposed to define it for anyone else? You wouldn’t talk to me. I have no idea what’s going on in your neat and ordered little head.’
Adele shook her head and crossed the road. He had to wait for a couple of cars to turn the corner before he could catch her up again. No more hanging around waiting for her to fill him in. He’d waited nine months and he was going to get his answers right now.
‘What did you tell people, then, Adele? What was your take on it?’
And then he shut up. He knew exactly what Adele would have told her friends. Mona would have had every last grisly detail and would be in no doubt that Nick was the black-hearted villain of the piece, while Adele came off snowy white and smelling of roses. The woman was so blinkered sometimes.
He marched along behind her in silence. He should have listened to his gut instinct. Adele was in no mood for even reasonable explanations. Anything he said would just make it worse while she was in this state.
While he waited for her to unlock the front door, the sparks flying off her were almost tangible.
‘I’m going upstairs,’ she said, and marched off, leaving the door open.
He stepped inside and closed it. Despite the twelve hours of sleep he’d had the night before, he was starting to flag again. He went into the living room and switched the television on. Maybe he could doze in front of it for a bit.
Adele would calm down soon enough. She always did. Her anger was quick to flare
up, but it usually burnt itself out pretty quickly too. He flicked the television on and dropped into his favourite armchair. Just fifteen minutes watching the footie and he’d make her a cup of tea as a peace offering and see if they couldn’t discuss things without world war three starting.
A little later, just as he was considering hauling himself out of his chair and switching the kettle on, he heard Adele coming down the stairs. Or, to be more precise, he heard a whole lot of bumping and crashing, then thump, thump, thump—as if there were two of her jumping down each step.
He arrived in the hall just in time to see Adele wrestling his bag down the last three stairs.
‘Adele? What on earth are you doing?’
Adele stopped what she was doing, partly to answer, partly to catch her breath. Her arms were aching. How did a bunch of rumpled shirts weigh so much?
‘I thought that was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? I’m throwing you out.’
The look on his face was classic. If she weren’t ready to kill him, she’d want to laugh. Finally, Nick Hughes had come across a woman who refused to melt at his feet and he was totally floored.
‘You can’t throw me out. I live here too.’
‘Not any more. You can find some other poor sucker to rope into your hare-brained schemes. I’m finished with the whole lot of it.’
Her stomach dipped as she realised the implication of her own words. Was this really what four years of marriage had come to? She looked at Nick and the sickness sank right into her toes. That had wiped the dimples off his face. She should be feeling pleased he was finally getting the message, but suddenly she felt her eyes moisten.
‘I’m sorry, Adele. Really I am. I should have told Mum…something.’ He shook his head. ‘But she loves you like a daughter and I didn’t want to upset her. She’s not very…’
He swallowed the rest of the sentence. She felt her heart squeeze as he struggled to find the words.
‘She’s been…I mean, going to be really sad for us. I didn’t want to tell her until I knew for certain there wasn’t any hope.’
No hope.
Her lip quivered and she pressed her mouth into a thin line to disguise it. Nick gave her a rueful smile. Now, this was the smile that really did some damage. It was heart-wrenchingly lopsided and utterly genuine.
The fault lines started to widen. Hadn’t he said he didn’t know how to define their relationship? Did that mean he hadn’t made his mind up, that maybe he didn’t want a divorce after all?
And, even if he did, why should she punish Maggie for her son’s abandonment of his wife? Although there might not be a light at the end of the tunnel for her and Nick, she didn’t want to cause bad feeling in the family.
She breathed in and out once, sharply. Family. For four years she’d been a part of a family and that had been wonderful. Phone calls on her birthday. Loud, overpopulated Sunday lunches with too much food and too little elbow room. The world was going to seem horribly empty when all that had gone for good.
She closed her eyes. No. She had to be strong. She couldn’t weaken now. Missing out on one last chance to see them all—to say goodbye to them—was the price she’d have to pay to keep her sanity and her heart intact.
She had to focus on the fact that, once again, he was asking her to drop everything and trot off after him. And there were no guarantees that he wouldn’t leave again after it was all over. He hadn’t mentioned wanting to get back together again, had he? He just needed her to save his skin.
Too bad. He could save his own sorry hide.
He had no idea of the torment she’d been through after he’d left. She had to remember that black place and all the reasons why she never wanted to go back there.
So as Nick lounged against the door jamb, she let the blackness feed her anger until it was good and bubbling. And then she hauled his bag the short distance to the front door and flung it onto the garden path. When Nick let out a strangled hey and dived after it, she slammed the door and locked it behind him.
She punched the button on the remote control again and again. Celebrity chefs. TV’s Worst Mishaps. Top Ten Pop Stars She Didn’t Recognise. Why wasn’t there anything good on the telly? She had more than fifty channels to choose from, for goodness’ sake. There had to be something mildly interesting. Even a schmaltzy TV movie would be better than nothing.
Mind you, it was almost three o’clock in the morning.
She yawned. Normally she’d have been tucked up in bed hours ago, but tonight she just couldn’t calm down enough even to bother with the pretence of going upstairs and getting changed into her PJs. And there was something oddly comforting about sitting in the dark with only the flicker of the television for company.
Mona would say she was wallowing. Mona would probably be right.
But a girl was allowed to wallow after she’d kicked the man she loved out of her life for good.
She threw the remote onto the sofa cushion next to her and tried to concentrate on the sitcom rerun she’d stopped at.
It was no good denying it. She loved Nick. He wouldn’t make her half as crazy if she didn’t. She might try to kid herself she was trying to lock him out of her heart as well as her house, but, in reality, there was no point. He was firmly embedded there.
But that didn’t mean they were capable of building a life together.
They had different priorities. No, it was more than that. They were so utterly different that she wondered how things had lasted as long as four years. Five, if you counted the year before they got married. And then there was the year before that, when Nick had steadily pursued her and she had steadily refused until he’d worn her down and made her laugh.
She’d been very firm with him. One date—no more.
Only she’d discovered one date wasn’t enough. Well, that was how it had seemed at the time. Maybe she’d have been better off listening to her feminine intuition—the alarm in her head that had yelled code red, code red every time Nick was in range.
She sighed and let her eyes wander round the room. It was stupid to feel so desolate at the thought of saying goodbye to Nick for ever. She’d made up her mind months ago.
The light on the answer-phone was blinking. Her heart hiccuped into action. Nick?
She jabbed the button and waited for the message.
‘Hi, Nick. It’s Debbie.’
Sister number two.
‘Mum thought you might have got back by now. Hope the jet lag’s not too bad. Anyway, just to let you know that Mum is over the worst of her last round of chemo, so it’s all systems go for the party. Give me a ring and I’ll fill you in. Tell Adele there’s a chocolate torte with her name on it waiting for her. Bye.’
Chemo?
Nick’s mum had cancer? The whole world seemed to somersault. Maggie couldn’t die. She was too resilient, too vital. Why hadn’t Nick told her?
Because you never gave him a chance, a little voice whispered. Too busy feeling sorry for yourself. You shut him out while you were grieving and then, when you were ready to listen, he’d given up. And she’d been too proud to call him, too battered and hurt to risk losing him again if he rejected her. She’d lost so much already. It had been easier to blame him and nurse her grief.
If only she could call him now. He must be feeling awful. But she’d slung him out without a thought as to where he might go and she had no idea how to contact him.
Whereas she had a few close friends she had known for years, Nick always seemed to have a nebulous cloud of acquaintances. He was popular, but he was always giving up one interest to try another, tiring of the same sports clubs and restaurants quickly.
The only one who’d been constant was his old college mate—what was his name? Kelvin? Connor? No, Callum. That was it. But she’d only met him twice and had no record of his address or phone number.
She sank back into the sofa and clicked the television off. The room was plunged into darkness, but she just sat there staring at nothing, for what seemed like hours.<
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Then she heard a rattle at the front door. She held her breath. It must be the wind, surely? She strained to hear more but it had all gone quiet again. The door had two locks, anyway. She was just about to breathe out when she heard the noise again.
No. This time it wasn’t just a rattle. She could hear the lock turning. Goose-pimples broke out all over her arms and her stomach nosedived, but somehow she couldn’t move. All she could do was huddle herself into a ball in the corner of the sofa and try to slow the rise and fall of her chest.
If only Nick were here! Why couldn’t this have happened last night when the big lunk had been asleep in the kitchen?
Then came the sound she had been dreading: the second lock clicked and she heard the door creak open. She held her breath and, as quietly as she could, she eased herself off the sofa and hid behind the armchair. Her ankles cracked as she crouched down and she was sure the noise was as loud as a gunshot.
Someone was in the house! She began to shake. The phone. She needed the phone.
But it was across the other side of the room, and the intruder was moving down the hall towards the living-room door. She couldn’t risk it. Even if she could creep over there and make it back in time, she’d be heard talking once she made the call.
She peered out over the arm of the chair just as the living-room door brushed across the carpet. A shadow moved towards her and she froze.
CHAPTER THREE
THE burglar felt down the side of the armchair. He was so close his breath warmed the air near her. He didn’t find what he was looking for and moved his arm to reach behind the side of the chair where she was hiding.
Adele did the only thing she could think of. He wasn’t wearing gloves and when his hand was only inches from her face she lunged forward and sank her teeth into the exposed skin of his wrist.
He let out a yelp of pain and jumped back, tripping over his own feet as he did so.
‘What the…?’
Adele had been preparing to scratch and bite and kick and do anything she could think of to get out of there safely. Her leg was draped across the arm of the chair, ready to spring over it and out of the door while he was off balance.