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

‘I don’t want to break up the heavyweight boxing final of the year, but I think one of you should come and get your mother inside,’ said Pete, peering round the kitchen door as if expecting to get hit with a flying saucepan.

‘What’s she doing?’ Emma asked, row forgotten.

Pete grimaced. ‘Listen,’ was all he said.

The sisters could hear their mother shouting, roaring really: ‘Get away from here, you bastards! Get away!’

‘Jesus,’ said Kirsten, shocked.

‘I tried to make her come in but she won’t,’ Pete said.

They rushed to the front garden where Anne-Marie was standing at the gate, waving her fists belligerently at bemused passers-by. ‘Get out of here!’

‘Oh, Christ, I can’t look!’ said Kirsten and rushed back into the house. Pete touched his wife’s hand briefly and then they both approached Anne-Marie.

‘Come on in, Mum,’ Emma said in her softest voice. ‘Let’s have a nice cup of tea, shall we?’

Hannah had spent the past month practising what she’d say to David James.

I’m leaving because I’m pregnant, so thanks but no thanks to your fantastic job offer in Wicklow. And thanks for all your faith in me, promoting me from office manager and giving me a real career.

No matter how she said it, it still sounded terrible. Halfhearted and ungrateful.

She was getting used to the idea of being pregnant, and was secretly thrilled at the idea. She’d been reading pregnancy books and was policing her daily intake of calcium and all the right foods. Although he too was delighted at the idea, Felix still kept trying to give her glasses of wine in nightclubs and couldn’t understand why she didn’t want him smoking near her. Telling people was the difficult part. The rigorous self-control bit of Hannah hated having to tell anyone she was unexpectedly pregnant. An unplanned pregnancy smacked of some flibbertigibbet who let things happen to her rather than made them happen.

Her mother had been delighted at the news and they still had to brave a visit to Connemara where her father would be let loose on poor Felix.

‘Your father will be delighted,’ Anna Campbell had insisted on the phone. ‘He loves children.’

Felix wanted to get married before they went visiting the various in-laws, and Hannah, who had visions of her father yelling blue murder about being denied a big bash for his only daughter, was inclined to agree with him. Anna Campbell wouldn’t mind being presented with a fait accompli as far as the wedding was concerned. Stoic was her middle name. Hannah would have quite liked to have met Felix’s family first, but he was strangely reticent about them and Hannah, who understood that, didn’t push him.

But before weddings and family reunions, Hannah simply had to tell her boss. For some reason, she hated doing it.

She’d picked a Friday evening so she could skive off afterwards without having to face David’s disappointment for the rest of the day.

‘Can I talk to you for a minute?’ she asked him at five thirty that evening.

‘Sure. Come into my office in five minutes,’ he said.

He was still on the phone when Hannah went in and stood, feeling like a schoolgirl about to be bawled out for faking period pains for the second time in a month in order to miss games.

David smiled at her as he listened to the person on the phone and gestured to her to sit down. Oh hell, she thought miserably, sitting. She felt terrible. He must guess what she was going to say. Surely guilt shone out of her like a beacon. But what did she have to feel guilty for? She was pregnant and engaged to be married. What was wrong with that. Absolutely nothing!

David put the phone down and sat back in his chair with a sigh.

Temporarily buoyed up, Hannah launched into her spiel at breakneck speed: ‘David, I’m pregnant. Felix and I are getting married and we’re going to live in London.’ There. Done it.

‘Oh,’ was all he said. Hannah had expected more. She wasn’t sure what, but more…

‘So I won’t be able to take the job in Wicklow, even though you were so good to offer it to me,’ she rushed on, frantic now to fill in the gaps in the conversation and get out of there.

David steepled his fingers and looked at them thoughtfully as if trying to figure out some arcane puzzle that lay hidden therein. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said, without looking at her. ‘We will miss you round here and I had great plans for your future. You’re a natural at this game.’

‘Sorry,’ she said lamely, looking down at her own hands now. She was sorry she hadn’t worn her engagement ring to give her confidence, but she deliberately hadn’t been wearing it into work until she’d officially announced it.

‘Felix is a lucky man,’ he added lightly. ‘Do I get asked to the wedding because I inadvertently introduced you?’

Hannah instinctively felt that the last thing David wanted was to be at her wedding to see her marry Felix.

‘We’re probably going to get married abroad,’ she said, avoiding eye contact. ‘I’ll work out my month’s notice here, naturally.’

‘Naturally,’ he said. ‘Hannah…’

The way he said her name, softly, caressing, made her look up at him. He normally sat up so straight in his chair, ramrod straight in an almost military way. Now he was leaning against the desk with his arms resting tiredly on it and the lines on his face made him look suddenly old. He needed a holiday, Hannah thought fiercely. He worked so hard and never took time off. A few weeks away, letting the sun tan the strong, hard planes of his face and lifting the lines that seemed ingrained around his dark eyes: that’s what he needed. But she wouldn’t be around to suggest it in a half-bossy, half-motherly fashion, the way she might have before.

‘Don’t lose touch, will you?’ he asked, his eyes boring into hers. He looked sad somehow, terribly desolate.

‘I won’t.’

She got up to go and he did too, walking towards her to open the door.

Impulsively, Hannah threw her arms round him. It was the closest she’d ever come to him before, apart from that strange pub lunch when he’d held her hand. As her arms went around his shoulders, his closed round her waist, pulling her closely to him.

Suddenly, he lowered his head to hers and kissed her gently on the lips, his five o’clock shadow grazing her chin. It was a kiss redolent of regret. Not hard and sensual, the way she’d imagined he’d kiss, yet intensely moving all the same. For some strange reason, Hannah wanted it to go on: she wanted to feel his huge hands circling her waist as if she were a slender little thing; she wanted to feel his body crushed against hers and to run her fingers through the salt-and-pepper hair. She wanted to bring him home and tell him he needed a day off, a week off, and…

He pulled away slowly. ‘I meant that,’ he said. ‘Don’t lose touch. I’m your friend, Hannah, and I’m here if you need me. There’ll always be a job for you here.’

Nodding, Hannah hurried out the door, scared that if she didn’t get away, she’d say something she’d regret.

‘What did he mean there’ll be a job for you?’ said Gillian, who’d been standing conveniently beside the photocopier which stood outside David’s office. For a second, Hannah was horror struck at the notion that Gillian might have witnessed the kiss, but then she realized that David’s blinds were down.

‘I’m leaving, Gillian,’ Hannah said far more pleasantly than she felt. She may as well tell them all now.

‘Leaving?’ asked Donna, who was tidying up her desk.

Hannah nodded. ‘Felix and I are getting married. We were going to anyway,’ she said with a sidelong glance at Gillian, ‘but I got pregnant, so we’ve pushed the date forward.’

Gillian was magnanimous in victory. Her most hated enemy was leaving and she could afford to be nice.

‘I’m soo delighted for you, Hannah,’ she said, eyes roving over Hannah’s belly speculatively to figure out how pregnant she was. ‘When’s the happy date? The wedding, I mean?’ she said with a little tinkling laugh.

‘The baby’s due in December and we haven’t organized the wedding yet.’

Thankfully, Gillian’s phone rang so Hannah was spared more questions.

Donna gave her a congratulatory hug. She was happy for Hannah, but her reservations showed in her eyes.

‘You don’t think I’m doing the right thing, do you?’ Hannah asked quietly.