‘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.
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