Least Said Read Online Free PDF

into my head. A big blonde woman, she had been Tina’s good friend for years. In fact, she had been there, literally, when Tina and Calum had first met. That meeting had led to a passionate but doomed affair and Bette was the only person – apart from Tina herself – who had known all along that Calum had fathered a child with Tina. Their now grown up daughter, Leanne.
    As I swept Tina before me into the kitchen and switched the kettle on, I could remember all too clearly the furore when Leanne became ill with meningitis and how Tina had felt obliged to make the decision to share with Calum the fact that he had a seventeen year old daughter.
    To say he was angry that she hadn’t seen fit to apprise him of this fact sooner – seventeen years sooner, in fact – was a massive understatement. Tina telling him that she’d planned to reveal his identity to Leanne on her eighteenth birthday and leave her to contact him had done nothing to help matters at all.
    ‘You’re very quiet,’ Tina said suddenly, as I put her tea, milky with two sugars just as she liked it, in front of her and pushed the plate of chocolate digestives her way.
    I smiled. ‘Just remembering how it was,’ I said, ‘when Calum found out about being Leanne’s father.’
    ‘Oh, please don’t remind me,’ she pleaded. ‘How I could ever have thought keeping such a thing from him was the right thing to do, I can’t for the life of me imagine now. Thank God they both forgave me eventually – but it was far more than I deserved.’
    ‘You did what you thought was best,’ I assured her. ‘It’s all that any of us can do.’
    ‘Who did you think I was?’ Tina asked suddenly, and I stared at her, until she continued, ‘You know, when you opened the door to me? You obviously weren’t expecting me, so who were you expecting? Someone you didn’t want to see, evidently, because you wrenched the door open with such force and stood there looking as if you were ready to do battle with whoever you imagined was on the doorstep.’
    I pulled a face, felt the ready tears fill my eyes and finally blurted, ‘I think I saw him again, Tina, and even closer to home this time.’
    ‘By him, I suppose you mean the rugby player?’
    I nodded, and could feel the sense of panic that was becoming all too familiar since that first sighting sweep over me.
    ‘And you’re sure – quite sure?’
    ‘Well, that’s just it,’ I admitted reluctantly. ‘I was positive at the moment I saw him, and remained positive all the way home, then I calmed down a bit and managed to convince myself I was wrong – until the phone rang and a man’s voice said my name.’
    Tina looked startled.
    ‘It wasn’t him,’ I shook my head, ‘but I’d no sooner put the phone down than the doorbell went straight away. It was you, of course, but I swear to God I thought he would be standing there and I was completely terrified. What am I going to do, Tina?’
    ‘Nothing,   is the answer to that,’ she stated in her calm way. ‘You’re getting yourself into a complete state about nothing, Wendy. Okay, I accept that you saw him once. I understand that it was a huge shock for you, but I think you have to accept it for the coincidence it really was.’
    ‘But he recognised me.’
    ‘No,’ she said firmly, ‘that’s not quite true, is it? He thought he knew you from somewhere – there is quite a big difference. Remember he even said, “Don’t I know you from somewhere ?” So he obviously just thought you looked familiar. You told me yourself how you rushed out of there, and you can bet your life that he will have shrugged his shoulders and forgotten all about you before the door had even closed behind you.’
    My shoulders slumped as the tension began to seep out of me. ‘I don’t know how many times you’re going to have to tell me I’m being paranoid.’ I pulled a rueful face.
    ‘As many times as it takes to make you see that you’re worrying for nothing, is the