Falling for you

horror. I’m happy with that.’

He didn’t know it, but he’d made her year. Talk about an ego boost. Unable to contain the joy bubbling up inside her, Estelle said, ‘Me too.’

Nuala’s collarbone wasn’t the only thing on the mend. Like a wonderful unexpected Christmas present, breaking up with Dexter was turning out to be far less traumatic than she’d imagined. So much so, in fact, that it was almost embarrassing. In the past when boys had dumped her, she had always been distraught, weepily imagining that her life was over and that she’d never know happiness again. Having actually been quite famous for the extent of her declines, Nuala had naturally expected something similar to be happening now, but it simply hadn’t materialised. No depression, no sense of utter hopelessness, no weight loss even, which was a bit of a blow.

‘I can’t understand it,’ Nuala told Maddy as she jauntily swung the door of Snow Cottage shut behind them, ‘I feel absolutely fine. I don’t even get that choked-up thing in my throat when I see Dexter.

You know what? If I’m honest, it’s almost a relief to have it over and done with.’

‘Good.’ Maddy was pleased for Nuala, but her speedy recovery from breaking up with Dexter was a double- edged sword. On the one hand, it was good that Nuala was cheerful and in such a positive state of mind. On the other hand, there was such a thing as being annoyingly cheerful and positively irritating.

‘Two years we were together,’ Nuala marvelled, swinging her turquoise shoulder bag by its plaited leather straps as they headed across Main Street to the pub. ‘Two whole years and I’m completely over him! It’s like a miracle, I can’t tell you how great it feels!’

Which was all very well, but not what you particularly wanted to hear when you’d never felt more empty and miserable in your life. The thing with Nuala was that she’d spent the last two years being treated like rubbish by a man she should never have got involved with in the first place. Never had two people been less compatible. No wonder she was glad to be out of a relationship like that. But –

Maddy closed her eyes briefly – that wasn’t how it had been with her and Kerr. Breaking up with someone you knew was the love of your life wasn’t nearly so easy. Already, in the space of a few days, she had lost half a stone and knew it didn’t suit her.

But Nuala had insisted on dragging her out for the evening because moping around the cottage was just – quote – dull, dull, dull, and in the end Maddy had run out of arguments. Which was why they were here now, at the Angel.

‘We should go into Bath, check out some clubs,’ Nuala bossily announced as they queued up at the bar. ‘You too,’ she ordered Kate, who had come over to serve them. ‘I mean, look at us, three single girls without a man between us, how sad is that? And it’s not as if we’re ever going to find anyone decent in this dump.’

‘Charming,’ said Jake, who’d arrived just before them. ‘And to think I was about to buy you a drink.’

‘I am strong,’ Nuala told him smugly, ‘I am woman. Moping over men is no longer my thing.

Anyway, I’m quite capable of buying my own drinks.’

‘But sadly not capable of paying your own rent.’ Jake grinned at Dexter then winced as Nuala landed a punch on his shoulder with her good arm.

‘Just for that, I’ll have a Bacardi and Coke.’ Turning to Kate, Nuala said, ‘And make it a large one. In fact, make it a bucket.’

Dexter, who didn’t miss a trick, had already sensed that something was up. The moment Jake Harvey had entered the pub, Kate’s body language had given her away. Jake, as relaxed and laid-back as ever, had greeted her with a cheerful grin but Kate’s jaw had tightened beneath the polite veneer and she had made a point of avoiding his gaze. Knowing Jake as he did, it didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened when Jake had taken Kate home the other afternoon. It was like a Pavlovian reaction, Dexter imagined: the moment you found yourself alone with a girl, you automatically seduced her. What’s more, when you were Jake Harvey, it evidently never crossed the girl’s mind to say no. Who knows, maybe he’d slept with Nuala too, although Dexter doubted this. If he had, he suspected Nuala wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to boast.

The range of emotions he was experiencing weren’t the kind Dexter was used to – he didn’t actually know where they’d sprung from but they were no less powerful for that. Whereas the thought of Nuala in bed with Jake didn’t bother him at all, imagining Kate and Jake together filled him with a boiling rage. How dare Jake take advantage of her like that, when he clearly had no interest in a proper relationship? That was Jake Harvey all over, he was a shameless, morals-free zone.

‘And one for yourself,’ Jake told Kate, when she’d finished serving the rest of the round of drinks.

‘No thanks.’ Kate busied herself wiping up the spilled drops of lager on the bar.

‘Go on.’ Jake’s voice softened. ‘Hey, no hard feelings. We can still be friends, can’t we?’

Dexter, straining to hear the murmured words from six feet away, longed to land a punch on Jake.

Deeply intrigued, Nuala raised her eyebrows enquiringly at Maddy.

Maddy, who’d been lost in thought about Kerr, hadn’t a clue what was going on and wondered why Nuala was doing that weird thing with her eyebrows.

Kate shook her head. ‘Really, I’m fine.’

Resting his fingers fleetingly on her arm, Jake mouthed, ‘Sure?’

Unable to keep quiet a moment longer, Dexter barked, ‘She doesn’t want a drink, OK?’ Barging up to Kate, he steered her towards the restaurant end of the bar. ‘Table six want another bottle of wine.

Sort them out, will you? I’ll take over here.’

An hour later, Jake left to pick up Sophie from Marcella’s. Fascinated, Nuala watched Kate doggedly pretending not to watch him go. During a lull at the bar she beckoned Kate over to the table she was now sharing with Maddy.

‘More peanuts?’ said Kate.

Her shoulders were noticeably more relaxed.

‘It’s not peanuts we’re after.’ Nuala gave her a complicit smile. ‘It’s information. Otherwise known as gossip. So,’ she went on brightly, ‘you and Jake, am I right? What’s been going on that we don’t know about?’