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

She sounded so grown-up, so in control of herself.

‘Abby, promise you’ll never do it again,’ Leonie begged.

Abby put her arms gently round her mother. ‘I won’t, Mom. I won’t for you and I won’t for me, you have my word. To stop being bulimic, you’ve got to do it for yourself. That’s what healing is all about. It’s not always easy, you know, but I can do it. Especially when I have you with me.’

They sat around the kitchen table all evening, laughing and talking about the holiday. As usual, Mel had photos and, also as usual, she’d decapitated most of her subjects.

She seemed younger than her twin, Leonie realized. Abby had grown so much for so many reasons, while Mel had never had to. She’d have to suffer at some stage, go through the pangs she’d effortlessly avoided now. Leonie knew Abby would be there for her when it happened.

‘Mom, I’m hungry,’ Abby said, prowling around the kitchen and opening cupboards. ‘Do we have any rocket, pesto and pine nuts?’

Leonie laughed heartily. ‘No. We’ll have to go to the supermarket tomorrow. Does your new healthy-eating plan mean I’ll be cooking four different types of meals every day?’

Abby stuck her tongue out wickedly. ‘I’ll have you eating my way before long, you wait and see.’

‘She will,’ Mel confirmed. ‘She won’t let me have double chocolate-chip ice cream any more.’

That night, Leonie got ready for bed feeling as if a giant load had been lifted from her shoulders. Abby was well, more than well, actually. Blooming. That was the most important thing in the world. So what if Leonie had a small ache in one corner of her heart over Doug. She had her girls, her beloved girls. What else did she need? She’d made the mistake of getting involved with Hugh and not noticing what was wrong with Abby. That wouldn’t happen again. Men would not be a part of her life in the future, she decided emphatically. Who needed them anyway?

The next day, the three of them went shopping for clothes and school uniforms. School started in a week and Mel needed a new jumper, while Abby needed a new skirt as she’d shot up too much for the other one to fit. When they’d bought everything, they went to the latest Merchant Ivory movie and then to a Mexican restaurant to have something to eat. While she was with the twins, Leonie could forget about Doug. But they came home to find he’d left a brief message on the answerphone saying he’d ring back. Leonie spent the evening waiting for the phone to ring. She didn’t know quite how Doug was going to explain what had happened but she still wanted to hear his voice, to hear him say ‘Leo’ in that tender way of his. The phone rang all right: for the girls, endlessly. Doug didn’t phone. He was obviously lost in love and deliriously happy with Caitlin, Leonie decided sadly.

She felt oddly dispirited as she went into work the next day. She should have been thrilled: Mel and Abby were home, delighted to see her, and Danny was due back the following week. But she felt a bit miserable.

‘What’s up with you?’ Angie enquired, as Leonie dumped her belongings and pulled on her nurse’s uniform.

‘Nothing,’ Leonie said, taking the clipboard with the day’s instructions on it. There were two dogs booked in for spaying that morning and Angie was doing exploratory surgery on a cat who was suspected of eating an entire reel of thread and a needle.

‘Is it the girls?’ Angie asked delicately.

‘No, they’re great. They had a lovely time but they’re happy to be home,’ Leonie answered. ‘Abby looks amazing and she’s so happy.’ Leonie’s voice trailed off. She didn’t want to talk about it. Hell, she didn’t know what was annoying her.

She inspected the surgery’s inhabitants. Three cats, one of whom was on a drip, four dogs who’d been operated on the day before and were due to go home, and Henry, a pigeon with a broken wing who glared at her from his cage, outraged to be confined in this way. To prove his point, he picked up his birdseed and threw it out of the cage on to the floor. Normally, this would have made Leonie laugh. Today, she glared back at him. ‘Bad boy, Henry,’ she said.

Angie answered a phone call from an owner concerned about their dog, while Leonie, Helen and Louise, the other nurses on duty, began bringing the dogs out for a constitutional in the back yard.

‘I know it hurts, you poor thing,’ Leonie crooned to a sweet nine-month-old boxer bitch who’d been spayed the day before and who was whimpering as she walked shakily out of her cage. The boxer leaned against Leonie, shivering and desperate for reassurance. Leonie hugged her until the frantic shaking stopped. ‘You’ll be going home today,’ she murmured, petting the dog’s soft ears.

When all the dogs had been let out and their cages cleaned, she and Louise started on the cats.

Finally, all the animals had been seen to and it was time for morning surgery. Because the receptionist was late, Leonie had to man the desk. She hated working on reception when it was busy and today the place was jammed. People and animals were crowded into the reception area, with dogs howling in misery and a lot of frightened mewing from cats in carriers. By the time the receptionist got there, apologizing profusely because she’d had a flat tyre, Leonie had processed ten people, taken four phone calls, and calmed a hysterical woman who arrived with a vomiting cat.

‘It’s OK,’ Leonie said woodenly.

Relieved of reception duty, she took over from Helen, who was assisting Angie in the operating room. Angie was removing impacted teeth from a poodle, a tricky job. Silently, Leonie took up her position beside the poodle’s head, monitoring the dog’s breathing and colour. The dog’s tongue was a healthy shade of pink, meaning it was doing fine under the anaesthetic.

‘Jeez, Leonie, you look like you lost a shilling and found sixpence,’ Angie said, without looking up.

‘I’m fine.’

‘If you’re fine, I’m the Queen of Sheba,’ Angie announced. ‘Tell me what’s wrong, for God’s sake.’

‘Oh I don’t know. Something depressed me…’ Leonie said.

‘Hugh?’ Angie asked as she triumphantly dropped the extracted tooth into a little dish.

‘No. Something happened the other day when I went into town with Doug on the way to pick the twins up from the airport.’

‘Ah yes, the reclusive Doug. I saw him the other day,’ Angie said. ‘You wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crisps.’

‘Angie, you’re disgraceful! He’s been through so much.’

‘And you fancy comforting him?’ Angie remarked shrewdly.

‘No, I don’t. He’s a friend, that’s all.’

‘What was that Shakespeare said about people protesting too much?’ Angie went to work on another tooth.

‘He is,’ Leonie insisted.

‘And why didn’t you get an attack of the miseries when darling Hugh got the big E?’

There was no answer to that.

‘Tell me what happened,’ Angie ordered.

Leonie did.

‘And he hasn’t phoned since?’ Angie said in outrage.

Leonie shook her head.

‘You know what you have to do, don’t you?’ Angie added. ‘See him and tell him how you feel.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ Leonie began. Then backtracked: ‘Anyway, I don’t feel anything. I was just hurt he hadn’t rung to apologize. Well, he did ring, but I wasn’t there and he hasn’t rung back since.’

‘Delaney, don’t bullshit me,’ Angie barked. ‘I know damn well you’re crazy about him. You see him every second day, go for long walks with him, have endless cups of coffee in his studio…Now don’t tell me that’s not love, even if it’s only just occurred to you that it is. Hell, you saw ten times as much of Doug as you ever saw of bloody Hugh. Of course you’re in love with him.’

‘I didn’t know I was,’ Leonie said quietly. ‘It was when I saw him and Caitlin together that it hit me. I hated her for hurting him so much.’

‘Well, tell him!’

‘How can I tell him when he’s obviously with her? What should I do – stomp up to the house and demand to be heard, with her standing in the background mocking me for even imagining I could go out with him? You should have seen her, Angie,’ she groaned. ‘She’s bloody perfect.’

‘Not if she dumped him as callously as you say she did.’ Angie gave the poodle an injection of antibiotic to help fight infection, then she picked him up to bring him back to his cage. ‘You’ve got to say something to Doug or you’ll kick yourself for the rest of your life.’

‘Guess I’ll just have to kick myself,’ Leonie muttered, cleaning up after the operation.

The following week, Danny came home from his trip with a rucksack full of filthy clothes and a million tales of his travels. The twins went back to school, buoyed up with their own tales of travels. Leonie was permanently busy, what with trying to get back into the early-morning routine, along with doing extra hours in work as one of the other nurses was sick and they all had to fill in. She shouldn’t have had a moment to think about Doug, but she managed it. She kept thinking of their walks in the mountains, the long talks they’d enjoyed sitting in Doug’s kitchen and that wonderful dinner in the Hungry Monk when they’d been so relaxed with each other. She’d never been that relaxed with Hugh, she realized. Even during lovemaking. Or perhaps especially during lovemaking. Sometimes, she let herself think what it would be like to make love with Doug, to feel his beard brushing against her breasts as he kissed her…Stop it! Furious with herself for moping like a teenager, she took Penny on long, exhausting walks to burn off her nervous energy. She didn’t walk past Doug’s house: she went in completely the other direction so there was no chance of bumping into him and Caitlin, entwined besottedly with Jasper and Alfie gambolling at their feet. Penny, however, wanted to go their usual way and meet her canine pals, but Leonie dragged her away.