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

‘Talk to the doctor about what?’ enquired Mrs Sheridan, coming into the kitchen to see if they wanted to play Scrabble.

‘Nothing.’ Emma smiled brightly. It was bad enough that her mother’s problems had ruined the festivities in her home, without the spectre of it hanging over someplace else.

Patrick and Kirsten turned up at Emma and Pete’s home the following day, bearing a bottle of champagne and a huge box of hand-made chocolates.

‘Peace offering,’ said Kirsten with an irrepressible grin as she marched into the kitchen, leaving the men on their own. ‘Let’s open them now.’

The only green things about her today were the emerald studs she wore, one of her presents from Patrick. ‘They match my engagement ring,’ she said, angling her small head so that Emma could admire the earrings.

‘Lovely,’ Emma said truthfully, taking out wine glasses for the champagne as she and Pete had never found it necessary to buy champagne flutes. ‘Is the coat new, too?’

‘God no, this is ancient,’ Kirsten said, flicking a disdainful hand over the full-length black leather coat Emma had never seen before. ‘My other present is a week in a health farm, which isn’t much of a present, really.’

‘You’re greedy and spoiled, you know that?’ Emma reproved her. ‘Patrick is too kind to you.’

‘It’s not greediness. It’s just a useless present for me. I don’t want to lose weight and I’m not stressed.’

‘Give it to me then,’ said Emma shortly. ‘I’m stressed out of my brain.’

‘I know, sorry. Patrick nearly murdered me when he found out about Mum. But I mean, Emma, we don’t know anything for sure and I think you’re over-reacting…’

Emma snatched the bottle out of her sister’s hands. ‘Don’t tell me I’m over-reacting! If you want a drink, bring those glasses into the sitting room.’

Pete, Patrick and Emma were all agreed that something was obviously wrong with Anne-Marie O’Brien. ‘My grandmother went like that before she died,’ Patrick revealed. ‘In those days, they called it senility. Now they’ve lots of names – dementia, Alzheimer’s – I saw a TV programme on it and it was pretty terrible, I must say.’

They were all silent for a moment, even Kirsten, who had been sipping her champagne as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

‘What do we do?’ Emma said finally. ‘If we’re wrong, Mum or Dad will never forgive us. And if we’re right, and we don’t do anything…Mum could hurt herself or have an accident driving – who knows what could happen. I’d never forgive myself if she got hurt and it was because I’d been too nervous to tell Dad.’

The three of them were all agreed on one thing: Kirsten would be the best person to broach the subject to her father. ‘Just tell him you’re worried about Mum and maybe you could bring her to the doctor to get her checked out. Who knows,’ Emma said, clutching at straws, ‘it could be something they can operate on. We could be barking up the wrong tree entirely.’

There was only one flaw with the plan: Kirsten refused to do it. ‘No way!’ she said. ‘I think you’re all mad. There’s nothing wrong with Mum and I’m not going to say there is.’

‘Kirsten!’ said Patrick angrily.

‘Well, you didn’t notice anything wrong with her yesterday, Patrick, did you?’ Kirsten pointed out. ‘You said so yourself: she was pretty normal all evening.’

‘Yeah, and I also said that I wasn’t the best judge and that if Emma thought there was something wrong, there was. Don’t quote me if you’re only going to quote half of what I say.’

He looked furious and Emma wondered exactly what was going on between Kirsten and Patrick. He normally wouldn’t say boo to his wife, letting Kirsten do and say what she liked without comment. But something had changed, definitely.

‘I don’t care what you all think,’ Kirsten said stubbornly, ‘I’m not saying anything to Dad. Mum has behaved perfectly when I’ve been around her, and that’s enough for me. If you think she’s going nuts, Emma, then you tell Dad. Come on, Patrick, we’ve got a party to go to.’

Later that evening when she and Pete were cuddled together in front of the fire chatting, Emma brought the subject up again. ‘You don’t think I should say anything to Dad, do you?’

‘I don’t know, love. Your father would certainly be the sort of man who’d kill the messenger who brought him the bad news. It’d be your fault she was sick, you know that. He’d never forgive you.’

Emma nodded in agreement. ‘You’re right. I just wish someone else had experienced Mum acting strangely and not just me. If Kirsten had seen – ’

‘Forget about Kirsten,’ interrupted Pete. ‘I know she’s your sister and everything, but she’s so flaky it’s unbelievable. Kirsten wants everything in her garden to be rosy and this doesn’t fit in with her plans. If she didn’t have Patrick to look after her, God knows what’d happen to her.’

Remembering how angry Patrick had appeared with her sister earlier and how furious he must have been the previous day to drag her out of bed to spend time with the O’Briens, Emma had the feeling that the worm was beginning to turn.

And if Patrick did decide he’d had enough of Kirsten’s histrionics, then life was going to be very rocky in their household.

Stop it! Emma told herself crossly. Stop worrying about Kirsten. Kirsten wouldn’t give ten seconds to thinking about anyone else’s problems. It was a skill Emma wished she could develop.

She was sick of worrying about her family: let them look after themselves. She was going to enjoy her time off with Pete. She stretched her bare feet out towards the burning coals and yawned languorously, snuggling up closer to Pete.

‘How do you fancy going to bed early?’ she murmured.

In response, he nibbled her ear gently and slid a hand down to open the top button of her blouse. ‘Or how about we don’t bother going to bed early but stay in front of the fire?’

‘Brilliant idea,’ his wife replied. There was something so sensual about lovemaking in front of an open fire. It reminded her of when they’d been engaged and never managed to get any time on their own together. Back then they used to wait until everyone in the Sheridan household had gone to bed and then they’d cuddled up in front of the huge fire, growing more and more passionate but too scared to let go and make love in case someone coming downstairs for a drink of water caught them in a compromising position. They’d never tried that in Emma’s home: she’d have been in a state of constant fear that her father would appear at the sitting-room door with a shotgun and a Bible in his hand. But they’d had some wonderfully torrid sessions in Pete’s house.

Time to rekindle that old, easy-going lovemaking, Emma thought as Pete gently opened her buttons. That had been a time when her only worry about impending motherhood had been that she’d get pregnant before the wedding. She was determined to let go of her constant thoughts about a baby: that was to be her New Year’s resolution. She’d never have a baby if she became obsessed with it. From now on, that obsession was in the past. She and Pete had to enjoy whatever their marriage brought. If that meant no babies, then so be it.

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#ulink_8df22e36-b395-56bf-8684-06a57bd9edd8)

It was ten days after Christmas and Leonie was used to her new haircut now. Mind you, she thought, running a hand through the shorter, layered style that seemed to sit better, she’d never be able to afford to have all that done again. Having your hair cut and mesh-dyed cost a bloody fortune. Still, it was nice to have honey-gold hair with tawny brown streaks running through it. It looked almost natural. The girls had been most impressed.

‘Mum, it’s beautiful,’ Mel had said, almost in surprise.

To go with her new hairdo, she’d bought some new clothes. Hannah had been great advising her about what to bring, especially for travelling.

‘Don’t waste something dressy on the plane,’ she’d advised. ‘It’s Fliss and Ray you want to impress, not the people on the jumbo. Change when you get to Denver if you want to, but wear something baggy and comfy for the trip across the Atlantic’.

Hannah was very shrewd, Leonie acknowledged. She instinctively knew that looking good when she met Ray and his fiancée was of paramount importance to her. Pride was a terrible thing, Leonie reflected, as the air stewardess ran through the safety checks and the twins sat clutching each other delightedly.

They were so excited about the trip, it was contagious. Leonie found herself sitting back happily, content because she had a nice fat detective novel in her handbag for the flight and had got the doctor to give her four tranquillizers to cope with her fear of flying. They were working – so far.

Danny had somehow managed to get himself allocated a seat apart from the rest of the family, one row ahead, beside an attractive girl in faded jeans. Just so he wouldn’t get above himself, Mel and Abby had been making loud remarks about how his girlfriend must be missing him and how he’d promised to save himself for her.

He had to keep turning back to shoot them daggers looks and the naughty pair convulsed with mirth every time, keeping silent for about one minute before resuming their conversation about how lovely his fictitious girlfriend was. Leonie grinned but told them to keep their voices down. What a pair.

She hoped they’d calm down a bit in Colorado or she’d have a manic time trying to keep an eye on them. With the twins behaving as hyperactively as if they’d been slugging down fifteen cans of Coke each, she couldn’t see them giving her much time for relaxation. Well, their father and their new stepmother could take over for a while, Leonie decided, opening her handbag and extracting her P.D. James novel.

She was going to relax. And if she felt stressed at any time, Emma had given her a little bottle of herbal Rescue Remedy. Leonie remembered Emma having it with her in Egypt. She swore by it. Just to be on the safe side, Leonie put a few drops of the remedy on her tongue, wincing at the slightly alcoholic taste.

In the toilets in Denver airport, Leonie decided against another dose of Rescue Remedy. She’d taken so much, Ray and Fliss would think she was drunk if she had any more. The flight to Atlanta had been a nightmare. It didn’t matter how calmly Danny had explained that turbulence wasn’t dangerous, it was merely the plane flying through a particular type of air current or something like that, she still felt as if she was going to have to scream with sheer terror every time the plane wobbled. It felt like being in a whale’s belly, a whale who was in training for one of those public aquariums where they jumped up and down through hoops for the audience. Did whales do that, or was it only sharks and dolphins? Leonie didn’t know. All she knew was that if she had to endure any more turbulence, she’d die. She hated flying. Why the hell had she allowed herself to be convinced to come on this trip? Amazingly, the twins and most of the rest of the passengers had slept through the storm. After dinner and a Bruce Willis film, they’d all happily dozed off, making the most of the night-time flight to sleep. Leonie had sat rigidly in her seat, unable to read, sleep, or even listen to the moronic comedy hour on the airline headsets. Three little bottles of wine hadn’t helped at all: if anything, they’d made her feel even more paranoid and convinced the plane was about to drop like a stone from the sky.

Half an hour before they arrived in Atlanta, the turbulence disappeared and people woke up. ‘Are we nearly there?’ asked Mel, stretching sleepily.

They’d had a wait of an hour and three-quarters in Atlanta before boarding the plane for Denver, and Leonie spent most of that time convincing herself that air travel was the safest in the world and that it’d be stone mad to even think about hiring a car to drive to Colorado.

‘Jeez, Mum, relax will you,’ said Danny, who wasn’t impressed by this lack of cool from his mother.

Thanks to Mel’s frantic desire for even more new clothes, they had nearly missed the plane. Five minutes before boarding, she had disappeared and Leonie had to double back and look in all the shops for her. She’d found Mel in a chic boutique investigating designer sunglasses that cost more than Leonie’s entire outfit.