Stirred with Love (20 page)

‘I’m scared to go back now after that phone call lark,’ she admitted.

‘Do you still love him?’

Kate paused. That was the million-dollar question of the moment and one she was having trouble answering. ‘I miss being with him. I miss him holding me. I miss sharing things.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Maybe it was a stupid idea to move away.’

‘Nonsense, it took a lot of courage to do what you did. Why do you think it was stupid?’

‘I thought I could forget him if he wasn’t around to remind me. But that phone call really threw me. I can’t stop thinking about him, yet I know that I don’t want to be with him anymore. It’s like his ghost is following me around. Watching my every move in case I do something he disapproves of.’

Lily understood that far more than Kate would ever comprehend. She often thought she felt Bernard’s presence nearby, more so since the coffee shop had opened.

‘And I suppose Chloe is full of sympathy for you?’ She hoped that Kate would grasp her irony.

Kate did. ‘She tries to help, but doesn’t understand. She keeps telling me the best thing I can do is find another man but it’s not that simple.’

‘Of course it’s not. Chloe is young. Just wait until her heart is broken, and then she’ll know what you’re going through.’

‘You’re a good listener, Lily,’ Kate told her, which brought her neatly onto the subject that was intriguing her. ‘I think you would have made a great mum. Chloe mentioned that you and Bernard couldn’t have children. That’s a shame.’

Lily endeavoured not to look too sad as she tried to explain some of the pain in her heart. ‘We tried for many years before admitting defeat. It was hard to watch Irene’s daughter grow up while we were still trying to conceive our child. In the end, we decided not to go for tests, just let nature take its course. And nature never did.’ She went off into a world of her own, her eyes glistening as she thought about what might have been.

Kate realised that she’d touched a nerve. She smiled at Lily to make amends. ‘Thanks for listening to me going on,’ she said. ‘I’m still getting used to everything changing. It’s good to have someone to confide in.’

‘You mean someone old, with more wisdom and experience, don’t you? I’ll get you for that.’ She smiled and patted Kate on the leg. ‘Don’t worry. Everything is new yet. All these feelings are part of the healing process.’

Kate shrugged. ‘I can’t understand why I feel so guilty, Lily. It’s never going to work out between us again.’

 ‘Then it’s right to see him now. It’s best to get it finished. That way you can let go of the past and put your heart into Somerley.’

‘I thought I did that the last time I saw him.’

‘Oh, that was just a wobble he had when he called you. That’s understandable.’ She smiled. ‘I know you’ve had your fair share.’

Kate smiled back, beginning to realise just how much Lily had noticed without her saying a word. She
had
had doubts since she’d arrived. She’d been fearful that she’d made the wrong choice to move to Somerley. She’d felt sorry for herself to find her marriage in tatters. She’d felt utterly rejected because Nick didn’t want to put up a fight to keep her with him in Brentside. She’d felt…Jeez, she felt exhausted thinking about it!

So was going to see him the right thing to do? Get it over and done with, as Lily had stated? Well, there was only one way to find out.

Once the morning shift had finished, Kate decided to leave for Brentside straight away. An hour and a half later, she indicated right and turned into Marble Close.

Suddenly feeling nervous as she caught the first glimpse of their house up above, she pulled into the kerb for a breather. Number 25 had been their first home and was situated at the head of a cul-de-sac. Hidden by a thick row of conifers, she could only see a part of it but already it seemed like years since she’d lived there.

Anxiously, she checked her reflection in the rear view mirror. Her hair had been recently dyed, leaving it with a vibrant shine, dress to impress had been the words of wisdom to come from Lucy and Chloe had shown her some tricks with this season’s make up, persuading her to try some new shades to give her a confidence boost. The effects had been stunning. Nick would certainly see what he was missing.

Not that she really wanted him to, Kate thought.

Or did she?

Even though she was fifteen minutes early, she started up the engine to move along the last few yards. She turned her car into the driveway and…slammed on the brakes. Nick was standing in the doorway. Her so-called friend, Louise, had been getting into her car, parked next to his. Before she noticed Kate, she ran back to Nick, straight into his arms for a kiss.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Kate tried to get out of her car so fast that she got trapped in the seatbelt. In frustration, she pulled at it. It flew backwards with a groan.

‘Kate!’ Nick spluttered as she finally reached him. ‘I – I wasn’t expecting you yet.’

‘Oh, I bet you weren’t.’ Kate slapped him hard across his cheek. ‘And I bet you weren’t expecting that either. How could you!’

‘Stop, Kate!’ cried Louise.

‘Don’t
speak
to me, you cow!’ Kate watched Louise visibly pale in a matter of seconds. ‘You, of all people. ‘You’ve got to leave him’ you said. ‘He’s a bully, if you ask me’ you said. You – you bitch! Not a phone call, not a text, was that because you were fucking my HUSBAND!’

‘Whoa!’ said Nick, rubbing at his cheek to ease the sting. ‘Can we take this inside? I still have to live here, you know.’

Kate pushed past him and through to the kitchen. As she fought to compose herself, she could hear Nick and Louise talking. Moments later, they came into the room, Louise staying behind Nick, peering over his shoulder.

‘So, you not even married for a year.’ Kate shook her head in disbelief as she glared at Louise. ‘Does James know about this, I wonder?’

Nick took a step forward. ‘This has nothing to do with Lou, Kate.’

‘Like hell it hasn’t. In case you’ve forgotten, she’s married to a good friend of ours. She was my best friend at work, my confidante.’ Kate involuntarily shuddered, thinking back to all the things she had told her. ‘Everything I said to you,’ she pointed at Louise, ‘you used against me to get him for yourself.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Louise. ‘Nick and I…we’re in love.’

Kate saw Nick’s eyes widen for a second before he looked away. She laughed. She couldn’t help herself.

‘Now would that be love as in he loves you or love as in he’s
in
love with you? And where does that leave James? Do you love him or are you still
in
love with him, even when you’re screwing around?’

Nick opened his mouth to speak but Kate continued to rant. She moved closer to him.

‘She’s the one you used to slag off all the time. He used to have a go at me for going out with you,’ she glanced pointedly at Louise, ‘saying that we dressed up for a night out as if we were on the pull. Like a couple of tarts. The office bike, he used to call you, isn’t that right, Nick? What was it, some kind of love – hate relationship?’

‘Look,’ said Louise, ‘you have every right to be angry. But don’t you think you should give Nick a chance to explain!’

‘Oh, please! I don’t want to hear another word from you. You’re the one who used to sympathise with me when I went on and on about his bad habits. My god, how could I have been so stupid!’

 A silence spread around the room as each one of them worked out their options. Kate sat down with a thump at the kitchen table. This wasn’t how she’d imagined her chat today with Nick. She’d thought she’d be coming back for one last time, to settle things in her mind. To make her realise that she had done the right thing. Well, Nick had certainly gone some way to making her mind up for her once and for all.

She looked across the room where glances were going back and forth between Nick and Louise. Nick, her husband, and Louise, her best friend. It was a joke, a cliché. It was her worst nightmare. Yet…

Yet now, as she sat here, Kate wondered if she actually did care. Maybe Lily was right and all her feelings for Nick had gone. The distance between them had obviously been far more than forty miles and had grown considerably since she had left.

Maybe it was the thought of the two of them going behind her back and not the fact that someone else was messing around with what was still rightfully hers.

She needed to talk to Nick.

‘I think you should leave, Lou,’ she said. ‘Go back to your husband and leave me to talk to mine, alone.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good –’

‘She’s right, Lou,’ said Nick, much to her dismay. ‘This is our argument, me and Kate. I’ll call you later, yeah? When it’s all settled.’

‘But –’

Nick touched her gently on her arm. ‘I’ll call you later.’

Louise’s eyes were full to the brim as she turned back to Kate. ‘I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened but it did. I’ve hated myself ever since. That’s why I stopped calling you, texting you, whatever.’

‘I think you’d be better explaining that to James.’

At the mention of her husband’s name, Louise winced and her tears fell. ‘Please don’t tell him.’ Quickly, she wiped them away and, with one last look at Nick, she left.

Kate had no intention of telling James anything. She knew he idolised his wife, why should she be the one to burst his bubble?

As soon as the front door had closed, Nick joined her at the table.

‘I’m sorry, too, Kate. But, you and me, we were going nowhere fast. I just clicked with Lou at her wedding, there was something between us.’

‘Her wedding!’ Kate gasped. ‘But that means –’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Nick interrupted sharply. ‘I never thought anything of it at the time. Then I saw her, maybe a week, after you’d left. She was walking towards me in the town. We stopped to chat. She asked me how I was doing and, well, you know the rest. But it wasn’t meant to happen. And I know you probably won’t believe me, but nothing happened before you left. That was just down to the two of us.’

‘That’s good to know,’ said Kate, sarcastically.

Nick stood up. ‘I’ll make coffee. I know I could do with one.’

Kate sat in silence again as he prepared their drinks. She had no idea what to say next. For one thing, she couldn’t work out how she felt. Why wasn’t she ripping his head off for screwing her best friend? Why wasn’t she feeling slightly hard done by? Nick had clearly moved on while she had spent her time thinking about him in Somerley, feeling guilty at times, yet he’d probably been with Louise. She thought back to that late night phone call. Maybe the guilt had got to him.

Suddenly she realised that she’d been let off the hook emotion wise. If Nick had been having an affair before she left, it would have been more of an ordeal to get over him. She would have wondered what was wrong with her, why did he need to find love with someone else. But Nick was right. This way she could see that they had made their marriage collapse, without any interference from a third party. Somehow it made it more acceptable.

There could be only one explanation. She couldn’t love him anymore.

‘Look,’ Nick broke into her thoughts as he sat back down. ‘You do know, if it wasn’t me, then it would have been you eventually. Our marriage was over. We just didn’t want to let go.’

Kate knew he was right. It wasn’t easy to try again, no matter what other people thought. Like she had told Chloe during their midnight feast, once the magic had gone, it’s hard to get it back.

‘I know,’ she replied. ‘I suppose sleeping with someone I could understand but did it have to be Louise? I thought you got on with James.’

‘I do!’

‘Well, I’d hate to be you when he does find out.’

‘He won’t find out from me.’

‘Oh, me neither, but you’re bound to slip up soon. Someone will see you, somewhere you least expect it and then boom. Have you thought about what might happen then?’

Nick picked up his mug and looked over the garden. ‘I haven’t really looked that far ahead.’

‘But you must! It isn’t fair not to.’

‘I thought this conversation was going to be about you and me.’

‘Well, it is, kind of.’ Kate shrugged her shoulders and sniggered. ‘It’s about you and me being definitely over, isn’t it? That much is plainly obvious now, don’t you think?’

Nick’s bottom lip twitched.

Kate smiled, picked up her drink and took a sip. Indeed, the conversation hadn’t gone as she’d expected but it had sorted out a few problems for her. She didn’t love Nick anymore and for that thought alone the afternoon had been worthwhile.

‘You must really hate me,’ Nick said, taking her silence for distress.

Kate shook her head and did something impulsively. She reached across the table and took hold of his hand. ‘No, I don’t hate you at all. I think you’re right. It would have been one of us sooner or later because the love had gone. The respect and the friendship were still there but…well. Love makes the world go round so they say.’

Nick covered her hand with his free one. ‘I do still care for you, Kate. I think I always will.’

‘I know,’ she told him.

Two hours later, they were still chatting. Being into financial advice, Nick had insisted on taking out new insurance policies whenever they’d had a pay rise so there had been a few more papers to sign. Kate had pooh-poohed the idea every year – saying that she’d rather spend her well-earned money on shoes – but now, she realised, she could finally appreciate his expertise.

‘Don’t you find this weird, Nick?’ she asked him as she finished off another coffee. They had moved to the settee now. ‘Three hours ago, I slapped you for playing around with my best friend. Now, we’re talking about things in a civilised manner.’

Nick rubbed his hand over his cheek. ‘There was nothing civilised about that. It bloody stung like hell.’

‘Well,’ Kate nudged him, ‘you deserved it.’

‘I suppose I did.’

Nick’s eyes glistened as he gave a weak smile. Blinking rapidly, she looked up towards the ceiling, trying to stop her own tears falling. But they fell anyway when he pulled her into his arms. Kate hugged him back fiercely.