Best of Friends. Cathy Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ Mountain Arms thirty years before when she’d married the proprietor’s son, Teddy. Then, the hotel had been a family concern with just ten rooms and a small clientele who hadn’t minded the shabby décor or the fact that the rooms were often cold. Thanks to Meg’s hard work and drive, the Mountain Arms was now a thriving business with thirty rooms, a spacious, high-ceilinged room for weddings, a cosy bar named The Devil’s Elbow and a small but elegant dining room called The Haven. Teddy, God bless him, was no help at all when it came to running the hotel, although it had taken Meg several years to discover this after his parents retired.

      Nowadays, Teddy made an enjoyable daily circuit between the bookies and a small corner of The Devil’s Elbow where he liked to peruse the racing pages and sip a couple of small ones.

      ‘I like to make sure everything’s run all right in the bar,’ he told people cheerily when they enquired about his part in keeping the hotel running smoothly.

      This left Meg free to run her empire, keeping a careful eye on the kitchens, not to mention overseeing the hotel’s staff. She enjoyed being on the front desk and had long since realised that valued customers felt even more valued if they got a welcome from the proprietor herself.

      She’d been on the desk when the young couple from Dunmore had arrived and found there was something refreshing about the way they’d laughed when she’d asked if they were newlyweds.

      ‘We’re married four years,’ grinned the husband.

      ‘And we can’t afford the bridal suite this time, I’m afraid. The budget won’t allow it,’ added his wife. ‘Not that that’s going to affect our enjoyment.’ She patted her husband’s arm affectionately.

      They had that glow of the just-married about them, Meg thought. And she admired them for their candour in admitting that they weren’t in funds.

      ‘Let’s see what we’ve got for you,’ she said, checking the hotel’s computer, a machine she adored, even though Teddy wouldn’t go within an ass’s roar of it. The hotel had a bridal suite, which was the biggest room, with a pretty sitting room that looked out over the bay, and a four-poster bed draped with crimson and gold brocade decorated with medieval bower scenes, including maidens, unicorns and woodland glades. It wasn’t booked until the following week when the Gerrard/O’Shea wedding party would take over the entire hotel.

      Marriage to Teddy had long since drummed the romance out of Meg but the Kennedys had touched her heart.

      ‘I have just the room for you,’ she said. ‘It’s an upgrade but it’s the same price as we originally agreed upon.’

      The Kennedys grinned at each other. ‘Thank you,’ they said.

      Meg’s face softened as she smiled back at them. Wait till they saw the room.

      

      Greg and Erin adored their luxurious suite, and when they got back from their hike they wanted to do nothing more than throw themselves onto the voluptuously soft bed, but they were both mud-splattered. In the bathroom, they stripped off their dirty clothes and Erin began to run a bath.

      ‘I’ll seize up if I don’t soak,’ she said, adding some of the hotel’s lavender bath oil.

      ‘Can I join you?’ begged Greg.

      Erin took a look at the bath. Greg was such a giant that most tubs were too snug a fit on him, and as for sharing a bath…forget it. But this elderly claw-footed creation was obviously built for large people who liked a bit of space to move around. It could have accommodated three at a push.

      ‘We might go through the ceiling underneath,’ Erin teased, as she tested the water with a toe, ‘but why not?’

      They lay back, luxuriating in the hot, scented water, feeling stiff muscles unknot.

      ‘Is that your foot?’ demanded Erin as she felt something prodding her ribs. ‘No tickling.’

      ‘Spoilsport.’ Greg sank deeper into the water and Erin could feel his toes wriggling under her armpit, insistent and ticklish.

      ‘We’ve got the bridal suite – we’ve got to do things like this,’ he pointed out, still burrowing.

      ‘Like this, you mean,’ Erin retorted, sliding under the water, making him jerk upright when her big toe made contact with his groin. Laughing, her hair clinging to her like a water nymph, she sat up and shook the water from her head.

      ‘You wanna play, missy?’ Greg said, grabbing her ankles and hauling her through the water onto his lap.

      ‘Is the periscope up?’ Erin murmured into his neck.

      ‘Nearly. Why don’t we try dry land?’ Greg said, his fingers finding the slippery nubs of her nipples.

      Erin clambered out of the bath and wrapped a bath sheet around her, drying herself carefully. No point in drowning the bed too. Out of the bath, the steaming hot water began to have its narcoleptic effect. The bed, when they pulled off the coverlet, looking so inviting and so soft. Erin had suddenly never felt so tired and warm and soothed in her life.

      ‘What a bed. Can we buy one like this?’ Erin moaned as she lay down.

      ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful?’ yawned Greg, bashing his pillow a bit to get it right. ‘It’s so comfortable. I slept like a log last night.’

      They curled up beside each other, bodies entwined, Greg’s right hand gently stroking the curve of Erin’s back.

      ‘We could have a little snooze,’ Greg muttered, his stroking slowing down, ‘to get our strength back.’

      ‘A little snooze,’ agreed Erin sleepily. ‘Ten minutes.’ She somehow raised her head to look at her watch on the bedside table. ‘Ten to four. We’ll snooze until four.’

      ‘Or ten past…’ Greg said.

      

      The room was dark when Erin woke up and for a few scary seconds she couldn’t remember where she was. Then she heard Greg’s steady breathing beside her and she remembered. She still felt tired after their climb but mentally alert. Lying in the dark, she let the forbidden memories fill her mind.

      

      It had all happened because Erin wanted money for her eighteenth birthday. She wanted money because she yearned to travel, to see the world, and if she got enough cash together to buy a round-the-world ticket, she could work her way across the globe.

      Mum was anxious about giving Erin cold cash as a gift. ‘I wish you wanted a proper present and not money,’ she said sadly. ‘With Kerry and Shan—’ She stopped herself just in time. She’d been about to say Shannon, who was Erin’s older sister – not that Erin really knew her, and Mum found it difficult to talk about her.

      Shannon had left home to live abroad when Erin had been a baby and there was nothing but the odd postcard home to remind people she was still alive. Erin hated Shannon for what she’d done to Mum. Kerry said Shannon was a selfish bitch who’d never cared who she’d hurt and that she’d turned Mum’s hair grey overnight.

      ‘What did you get Kerry when she was eighteen?’ Erin asked brightly, determined to get her mother over the pain of thinking СКАЧАТЬ