Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

‘See you soon,’ she said, opening the door. ‘I meant it about dinner. No hassle, just a neighbourly evening.’

‘I’d like that. I hate people asking me things,’ he said awkwardly, ‘and you haven’t.’

Leonie shrugged. ‘I hate that too. People like placing you,’ she said ruefully. ‘You know: are you married, single, divorced, interested in golf, whatever. As a divorced mother, I’m fed up to the back teeth of nosy people trying to figure out where I fit into the grand scheme of things, if I’ve got a boyfriend, why my marriage ended, all sorts of personal stuff. As an attractive, apparently single man living in isolated splendour you would be a five-course banquet for all the local gossips. I am not one of them, so if you want an uncomplicated dinner with us, you’re welcome to take pot-luck any time. And I won’t be hitting on you, either.’

He laughed again. ‘You’re refreshingly frank and an awful liar at the same time, Leonie. I can’t imagine anyone hitting on me ever again.’

‘Nonsense,’ she said brusquely. ‘You’re not Quasimodo, you know. Pity is short on the list in my house. I’m offering food not counselling, but why don’t you roll up with some red roses and let’s really get the locals talking?’

He was still grinning when he drove off. A nice man, Leonie thought, as she and Penny ran up to the cottage front door. But he was deeply scarred both on the outside and the inside. She wondered what had happened to make him so suspicious and hostile. It was more than the accident, she was sure of it. A woman, definitely. Someone who hadn’t been able to cope with a fire survivor who’d become introspective and untrusting.

Telling herself to stop trying to analyse people, she stuck her key in the lock. Her clothes were dry and she didn’t feel like trudging round to the back door, having to bypass all the dripping evergreen bushes.

The telly was blaring and the smell of burned chicken filled the house.

‘Girls,’ called Leonie mildly, ‘didn’t you smell anything?’ Anaesthetized after two hot whiskeys and a Ponstan, she couldn’t summon up the energy to get angry.

‘Oh er, we forgot,’ said Mel shamefacedly, sniffing the air in the kitchen. ‘Sorry. Mum, what are you wearing?’ she added, finally noticing that her mother was clad in unfamiliar and far too big men’s clothes.

‘I was abducted by aliens crossing the road and they took me to their planet, performed experiments on me and then sent me back in these clothes,’ Leonie dead-panned.

‘Oh, Mum, what are you like?’ Mel rolled her eyes to heaven.

‘What happened?’ Abby demanded.

‘I fell into a pothole down the road,’ Leonie began, and explained the whole thing. ‘It’s lucky I wasn’t really abducted by aliens because you pair wouldn’t even notice. I said I was only going out for ten minutes and I’ve been gone an hour and fifteen minutes. I could have been raped and murdered and you two would just change the channel and start watching Coronation Street, completely ignoring the sounds of wailing police sirens in the background!’

‘We were watching something good on TV,’ shrugged Abby.

‘What are we going to do about dinner?’ Leonie wondered aloud as she peered into the fridge. The chicken, dried up like it had been charcoaling in a kiln all day, sat on the worktop. Even Penny, who usually slavered over any food left out, turned her head away in disgust.

‘I’m not hungry,’ Abby said quickly.

‘Me neither,’ Mel said.

‘Toasted cheese sandwiches, then,’ Leonie said decisively. ‘And you two can make them.’

Two days later, she met Doug as she trudged along past his house in the late afternoon, walking Penny in yet another downpour. Even the holly bushes slumped miserably in the rain, prickly leaves cast down. There were no bushes with berries left: festive locals had denuded all the berry-bearing bushes for Christmas decorations.

‘Nice weather for ducks,’ Doug said, stopping the Jeep beside her. ‘When are you having the grand dinner?’

‘Tonight, if it suits you,’ Leonie replied, peering up at him from under her sopping baseball hat. ‘I’ve done my pre-Christmas grocery shopping and the freezer is full. You can have lasagne, mushroom and chicken pasta or chilli.’

‘Lasagne, definitely,’ Doug said.

‘I’ll see you at seven,’ she said and trudged on, secretly pleased. It was nice to have a new friend and she felt a certain frisson that Doug had befriended her when he’d blatantly ignored all attempts at camaraderie from his other neighbours. Subtle questioning of the woman next door had revealed that, in his eighteen months in the area, Doug had rudely slammed the door on the outraged emissaries of the Best-Kept Village group and he’d told the curate to ‘bugger off’ when he’d bicycled up with the Easter dues envelope.

‘Really?’ said Leonie, enthralled.

‘Why are you asking?’ enquired her neighbour.

‘No reason, I just wondered who lived in that house,’ Leonie lied blandly. ‘What does he do, anyway?’

‘Something arty-farty,’ sniffed the neighbour. ‘Painter or some such. Wouldn’t hurt him to paint those gates, if he’s so good with a paintbrush. They’re peeling something rotten and it’s letting the whole tone of the neighbourhood drop.’

As she bustled around getting ready for dinner, Leonie wondered about Doug’s career. She’d never heard of him, but then, she liked watercolours of roses and baskets of fruit, things that the artistically inclined Abby thought were naff.

She defrosted a big lasagne, made a crisp, green salad, put baked potatoes in the slow cooker and bustled around tidying the house. After half an hour, she realized it was a waste of time. The house was too small to contain four people, one dog, one cat and a hamster, and remain even vaguely minimalist. Remaining tidy would be a miracle. At least it was clean.

She began to change from her old leggings and sweatshirt into something a bit glammer, when she stopped herself.

Poor Doug was obviously traumatized over a woman and would run a mile if he spotted her all tarted up and reeking of Samsara. She’d promised she wouldn’t hit on him and even though that was the last thing on her mind, because he wasn’t her type in a million years and she was damn sure she wasn’t his, he’d be bound to suspect it if she dolled herself up.

So she brushed her hair, put on a slick of lipstick and exchanged her old sweatshirt and leggings for a baggy denim shirt and cotton skirt instead of the silky purple blouse and velvet pants she’d planned to wear. Now, she thought, staring at herself in the mirror, nobody could accuse her of setting her cap at Doug. With her face almost devoid of make-up, except for eyeliner and mascara, she looked very natural. Not her femme fatale, Mata-Hari of the make-up counter self. She settled on a gentle squirt of Body Shop vanilla perfume as an alternative to overpowering Samsara, and then went back to the kitchen to check on dinner.

It was nearly half seven before Doug arrived. Danny had given up watching television with the twins in order to moan at intervals about how ravenous he was and how it was bad for your body to be denied food for so long.

‘You had a pizza three hours ago, you human dustbin,’ his mother replied crushingly. ‘You’ll just have to wait until Doug arrives.’

‘Did you buy crisps?’ Danny demanded, opening cupboard doors and banging them shut in his attempts to find something edible.

‘Doug’s here,’ announced Mel, bringing him into the kitchen. He was carrying two bottles of wine. ‘Can I have wine, Mum?’ asked Mel. ‘It is nearly Christmas.’

‘Did you buy beer?’ demanded Danny, having waved hello at Doug and now searching the bottom cupboards systematically for Budweiser.

‘I have hidden all the goodies because you know you’ll wolf it all down in one go and I am not shopping again before Christmas. And, yes, there is beer,’ Leonie said, rolling her eyes. Everything yummy was hidden at the back of the cupboard which held Penny’s dog food. They’d never think of looking for it there. That way, she could magic chocolate Kimberlys out of nowhere when the kids thought everything nice was gone. ‘Bet you’re sorry you came,’ she said to Doug.

‘Not at all,’ he smiled, sitting down at the table and petting a delighted Penny. ‘If you give me a corkscrew, I’ll do the wine.’

Nobody had looked at his face or paid him much attention at all, Leonie realized, which was probably just what he needed.

Dinner was great fun. Buoyed up by a glass of wine, Mel and Abby were chatty and giggly. Danny clearly enjoyed having another man at the dinner table, muttering about how he felt outnumbered normally. ‘Even the dog is a female!’ he groaned.

They all ate lots of lasagne, and Doug even asked for seconds.

There was only one sticky moment when Mel looked wonderingly at Doug and said, ‘Your poor face, does it hurt?’

Leonie felt her stomach disappear. But Doug wasn’t upset by the ingenuous question.

‘Not any more,’ he said. ‘Plastic surgery is next on the list, but I don’t think I want to go through with it.’

‘I would, I’d love plastic surgery,’ said Mel artlessly, eyes shining. ‘I’d have my boobs done.’

‘What boobs?’ demanded Danny. ‘You have to have some in the first place to have them done.’

‘Shut up, smart arse,’ Mel retorted. ‘That’s why you’ll never need brain surgery, not having any brains to start with.’

Leonie was relieved to see the corners of Doug’s mouth lifting.