Read Cathy Kelly 3-book Bundle Online
Authors: Cathy Kelly
Cathy Kelly 3-book Bundle (133 page)
The maître d’ greeted them.
‘The O’Callaghan table,’ said Nicky, pushing Connie forward.
‘This way, madam,’ he said, and led the way.
Connie followed, tugging the bottom of her shift dress down. She looked for a big table but there were none so far,
just lots of tables for two or four. And then, round a corner by a window on to a pretty garden, she saw a long table set for twenty. There were subtle cream roses in small vases and nightlights, and sitting there were all her friends. Gaynor and Pete, Sylvie and Isaac, some of the teachers from school, Rae and Will, three of her college friends, and even Eleanor. Megan had wanted to come too, but she was spending some time with her sister. And there sitting in the banquette with an empty place beside him, was Steve. Connie’s heart skipped a beat just looking at him. He was here, at her party. She looked about but there was no sign of Danielle.
‘Surprise!’ they all said.
They ordered pink champagne and Connie went round and kissed all her guests before sliding into the empty seat beside Steve.
He looked particularly gorgeous tonight and Connie wondered, as she always did when she saw him, how she’d lived beside him for two years without ever really noticing him.
‘Happy birthday,’ he murmured.
‘Thank you!’ she said, still a little shell-shocked.
She didn’t kiss him. Not because she hadn’t thought of it but because she
had.
She wasn’t quite sure what bright red colour her face and chest would go if she did kiss him. But he had no such compunction.
‘Don’t I get a kiss?’ he said quietly.
‘’Course,’ she answered in her bright voice and gave him a peck on the cheek.
‘Is that the best you can do?’ he asked.
Around them, everyone was chattering and leaning forward for their glasses to be filled with champagne. Connie let herself assimilate the fact that these people were here for her, that Steve appeared to be here for her, that she looked better than she’d ever looked in her life. Then she gave herself a little shake. No, don’t be silly. Steve is just being nice…
She almost jumped when one large hand cradled her cheek and gently turned her face to his. It was no peck on the cheek: it was a proper kiss on the lips.
In shock at the feel of Steve’s mouth on hers, Connie gave a little squawk and opened her mouth, whereupon Steve moaned.
He moaned! Connie pulled back an inch, aware that everyone at the table was watching but pretending not to. ‘Why are you kissing me?’
‘Did you not want me to?’
Connie didn’t know how to describe the melting feeling in her insides. The girl in
The Bride’s Ransom
would.
She
melted and went hot inside, and reached great peaks of tension and excitement. But Connie O’Callaghan just felt pure happiness rush though her.
Experimentally, she reached up and touched his face. He smiled at her. A hot, sexy smile. Not a you’re-my-neighbour smile.
‘That wasn’t a neighbourly kiss?’ she said, just to be sure.
‘Not neighbourly at all.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Just checking. Where’s Ella tonight?’
‘Oh, she’s staying with my mother.’ His eyes didn’t leave her face.
‘Cheers! Happy birthday, Connie!’ roared Freddie, who had no sense of timing.
They went though five courses, all gorgeous, all filled with fun, and Connie sat there in absolute bliss with Steve sitting beside her, his knee sometimes touching hers. Other times, he sat back with his arm around her shoulders. As if they’d been doing this for months, Connie leaned against him. It felt so right, but she couldn’t quite believe it.
Before dessert, she escaped to the loo with Nicky.
‘Do you think…?’ she began, before Nicky cut her off.
‘Of course I think. He fancies the pants off you and you’re the only person who didn’t realise it. This is our present to
you. I set it all up and it wouldn’t have worked if Steve didn’t want it too. By the way, he never was interested in Danielle. “Superficial” was the exact word he used.’
‘You didn’t ask him?’ Connie was scandalised.
‘Connie, we don’t have time to waste waiting for the moon to enter the seventh house of the sun or whatever crap you’re hoping for. Steve is crazy about you – and you’re the only person who doesn’t see it, because you think you’re too old and you think he fancies Danielle.’
‘But she makes it so obvious…’
‘Danielle fancies him, which is different.’
‘But how did you get him here?’
‘I said we were having a party for you and he said he’d love to come. Then he asked me if you were still in love with Keith. You talked to him a lot about Keith?’
Connie grimaced. ‘I figured he needed to talk to a friend about Ella’s mum, so to help him along, I talked to him about Keith. You know, you bond by sharing personal stories.’
‘Not personal stories about your ex who lies about his age on networking sites,’ Nicky went on. Connie had told her about that and Nicky thought it was hilarious. Sad, too. ‘Now you’ve got a chance, Sis, off you go and have fun.’
By half twelve, the restaurant was clearing out and the birthday party was slowly departing. Taxis were hailed and it made sense for the Golden Square people to go together.
‘Eleanor can come with us,’ said Rae decisively at the taxi rank, before whisking Eleanor and Will into a cab and making the driver speed away.
‘Oh,’ said Connie.
‘Guess it’s just you and me then,’ said Steve.
They sat beside each other in the taxi, but now they were alone he didn’t touch her, and Connie felt the weight of so many years of unfulfilled dates upon her. She had no idea what to do.
She’d screw it up, she was sure of it.
When the taxi pulled up in Golden Square, they got out and Steve insisted on paying.
‘Right,’ said Connie, as he straightened up. She felt a terrible panic. This was it. He’d go into his house and she’d go into hers and the moment would be gone.
‘I don’t suppose I can come up for a coffee?’ Steve asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Connie joyfully.
In her apartment, she fluttered around turning on table lamps to make the lighting more flattering, while Steve stood and watched. She plumped up a couple of cushions too and then said: ‘I’ll put on the kettle?’
Steve shook his head. He moved closer to her. She could smell his cologne, something with musk and a woody smell that she’d tried to identify in a perfume hall recently. She’d sniffed lots of bottles trying to work out what it was, or perhaps it was just Steve.
‘I don’t want coffee. Do you?’
‘No,’ squeaked Connie.
His hands went up to caress her glossy hair, then paused. ‘If you want, I can go,’ he said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t go.’
‘You’re sure?’
It was Connie’s turn to put her hands up to his shoulders, feeling the strength of him. She was tall and he was taller, just like the romantic heroes she read about, except the romantic heroes were fantasy and Steve was better than fantasy. He was real.
‘Nicky didn’t have to twist your arm to get you to my party?’ she said.
‘I’ve been chasing you for months,’ Steve said, stroking her face. ‘I did wonder if you were totally obsessed with Keith, but then Nicky came along to ask me to your party. And she explained a few things.’
‘Did she?’ Connie and Steve were so close that their bodies were almost touching. Connie’s breasts in her silk dress were
centimetres away from his chest. If she leaned forward, they’d be touching him and perhaps she’d slide her hands up around his neck to pull him close, and his hand would move on to her lower back to haul her in to him.
Steve moved closer. Connie breathed heavily and put her hands around his neck. He pulled her tightly to him and his mouth lowered on hers, kissing her hard.
She could hear someone moaning in ecstasy and realised it was her.
‘You sure?’ he murmured, his mouth on hers.
‘I’m sure,’ she gasped, as he began to kiss her neck. ‘I’m warning you, I have twinkly fairy lights in my bedroom.’
‘Ella told me,’ he said, holding her face and smiling. ‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing them for a very long time.’ And then he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, and for once, Connie didn’t worry about pushing all the cushions off the bed. The last thing she was thinking about was cushions.
Megan booked herself into business class for the flight to New York. Once, she’d have hoped for an upgrade for an economy flight. Airlines liked famous people sitting up the front of the plane. It made the people who’d actually paid full whack for their big seat feel like they were getting something extra. A movie star beside them was better than a double helping of vintage champagne at take-off.
Those days were gone, Megan had decided.
A code of ethics started with the simple things. She didn’t want free flights, free handbags or free bottles of Krug in posh clubs. Everything had a price at the end of the day, and people who wanted free stuff all the time slipped very easily into saying things like:
Don’t you know who I am?
Megan had finally found out who she really was. She was a woman with standards and values, both for herself and for other people.
She took orange juice from the steward and took out the small book on mindfulness that Rae had given her.
‘I like this, I thought you might enjoy it too,’ she’d said when they’d hugged goodbye.
They had been in Titania’s the previous Saturday morning where Connie, Rae and Nicky had arranged to meet Megan to wish her farewell. The others hadn’t arrived yet, which gave Megan some time with Rae, who looked as if she might
burst with happiness. Her face glowed with an inner light that had nothing to do with beauty creams. It was pure joy.
‘Tricia only has two more weeks to go,’ Rae said. ‘She says she’s enormous, although I can’t imagine it. I saw her last month and her bump was very neat. She’s tall, though, and you can carry it better when you’re tall.’
For a moment, Rae’s eyes brimmed and Megan, who knew most of the story but not all of it, figured she was thinking back to being a pregnant teenager.
‘Tricia’s so lucky to have you,’ Megan said warmly. ‘When Eleanor and I did the trip to Connemara, I said that you were such a naturally maternal person. That’s a great gift,’ she added, seeing that Rae’s tears were beginning to fall, ‘even though circumstances at the time meant you couldn’t raise Tricia. You have each other now, and you will be such an amazing grandmother.’
‘I hope so,’ said Rae, hugging Megan. ‘Thank you for that.’
Connie had rushed in at that point, with Nicky and Ella in tow.
‘Swimming,’ gasped Connie. ‘Ella’s like a dolphin now.’
‘I’m too good for the Little Fishes class at half nine on Saturdays,’ said Ella proudly. ‘I’m a Starfish now.’
‘I bet you’re brilliant at being a starfish,’ said Megan. She was better talking to children now, since she’d gone with Pippa, Kim and Toby to a French campsite in the summer.
‘I am almost the best,’ Ella agreed.
‘She is,’ said Connie adoringly, and everyone laughed.
In her 1930s three-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side, Eleanor watched as her grand-daughter Gillian finished making the bed in the yellow guest room. Megan would be arriving the following day for a week-long stay. Gillian was home from college for the holidays and volunteered to help her gran get the apartment sorted out.
Gillian had arranged the white Christmas roses Eleanor bought from Lansky’s, and she’d just put fresh linen on the bed. It was such a pretty room with yellow toile de jouy wallpaper, oak floors like the rest of the apartment, and elegant cream furniture of the kind Gillian described as Disney fairytale meets Louis XIV.
‘I’ll buy some magazines for her night stand,’ Gillian said as she smoothed the cream brocade coverlet. ‘
InStyle
and the
New Yorker
, that sort of thing?’
Gillian repositioned a throw pillow embroidered with yellow-tipped ranunculus. Then she straightened up, swept her auburn hair out of her eyes and nodded. The year and a half in college had made her seem more grown-up in so many ways, Eleanor thought.
Gillian was still the gorgeous girl she’d always been, but she had a quiet confidence now. There was nothing like moving away from home for making a person mature.
Perhaps one day she’d pass on the diary she’d written for Gillian when she was living in Golden Square. She’d never finished it. It had been so painful to write lessons she’d wanted to pass on when the reason she had to write them was her possible suicide. It hadn’t felt right doing that, which was why it had been so hard. Now she could pass on her wisdom to Gillian face-to-face, which was the right way to do it. In time, when Eleanor was gone, she could keep the diary and her great grandmother’s recipe book, and hopefully they’d comfort her as they’d comforted Eleanor.
‘You don’t mind having someone who isn’t part of the family here for the holidays?’ Eleanor asked.
It had been her idea to invite Megan because it would make this a very different sort of Christmas. Last Christmas, Eleanor had been in Ireland, cooped up in luxury in a cool hotel room, lost and alone. This would be the first family Christmas that she’d spend with her family since Ralf had died.
‘It’ll be great,’ said Gillian enthusiastically.
‘Did your mum ever tell you about your great-grandmother’s recipe book?’ Eleanor asked as Gillian cast a critical eye over her efforts.
‘Yes, she did. She said you’d let me read it sometime. I’d love to, can I?’
Eleanor smiled. ‘Of course. I’ve added a little and I want to give it to you. It’s about life and love and cooking.’
‘I’d love that! Can I see it now?’
Eleanor nodded. It was time to pass the book on. She’d got everything she needed out of it. People survived somehow. She’d see Ralf again one day, just not yet. She hadn’t finished.
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Published by HarperCollins
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2010
Copyright © Cathy Kelly 2010
Cathy Kelly asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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EPub Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 9780007411016
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