He parked outside the cottage and regarded it, a sense of doom washing over him. ‘Right, let’s get this over and done with,’ he said aloud. Trying to ignore the stress headache that was beginning to pulse at his temples, he climbed out of the car.

‘Is this it?’ asked Loretta, her nose turned up in distaste as she took in the peeling paintwork, and the gaps between the bricks where the pointing had long-since crumbled.

‘There wasn’t much choice,’ Nick said flatly as he felt in the pocket of his waxed jacket for the keys. They weren’t there so he tried his trouser pockets. They weren’t there either.Oh, bugger!He had a horrible feeling he’d left them at Brogan’s place. In fact he could see them in his mind’s eye on the dresser by the little ceramic donkey where he’d set them down last night.

‘In case you haven’t noticed, it’s freezing out here.’ Loretta was standing on the pavement, her shoulders hunched against the cold wind.

‘Er, yeah, I know.’ He bit his bottom lip, wishing he hadn’t been so hasty in taking the keys off his keyring.

He headed back to the car, checking the little space he sometimes chucked bits and bobs, but he was disappointed to find they weren’t there.

Loretta threw her head back and gave an impatient groan. ‘Oh, don’t tell me, Nick-I-Lose-Everything has struck again. How typical.’ She looked daggers at him.

‘In fairness, I had no idea you were going to turn up at the surgery. If I had, I would’ve made sure to have brought the keys with me.’

‘You were the one who told me to come and get the shoes,’ she said snappily. ‘And anyway, why aren’t they on your keyring? Who doesn’t fix their house keys to their main set? Oh, yes, silly me;Nickdoesn’t.’

Nick pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and his thumb. He was getting pretty fed up of hearing Loretta speak to him like this. He tried counting to ten, but had only reached three when he found himself saying, ‘Actually, if you hadn’t been so wrapped up in yourself, you’d have stopped to listen to me explaining to you that, as of yesterday evening, this cottage became uninhabitable. A small matter of a flood – on top of everything else, i.e. no heating, no hot water, no electricity. It’s been hell, Loretta. Absolute hell. And I’ve been put in this position by you, so please don’t give me any more crap about your poxy bloody shoes. Okay? There’s no way you would’ve put up with something like this without throwing a hissy fit like the princess you’ve become.’ His words poured out in a torrent, his chest heaving. And now he’d started, he found he couldn’t stop himself. ‘I took the keys off because there’s no way I’ll be living here again – which some people may think is a stupid reason but, hey, it’s just what I felt like doing last night. I’ve been trying to contact the landlords but they don’t seem to want to know. I’m feeling pretty pissed off with the whole situation, and your snide comments aren’t helping.’

‘I am not a princess,’ she said, glaring at him, her lips pushed into a pout.

‘That right?’ he said, giving her a pointed look before launching into one last check of his jacket for the keys. He reached into a side pocket, feeling a pulse of hope as his fingers touched something that felt distinctively like a set of keys. He pulled them out to see they were the very ones for Willow Cottage.Thank you!

The door had swelled up even more, and he had to put his shoulder against it before it would budge. Nick took a tentative step into the hallway. In the stark winter light things looked distinctively worse than they had in the torch light of the previous evening. His nose twitched at the tang of damp that pervaded the air as he inched past the soggy boxes in the hallway and headed into the living room, his boots squelching over the carpet. It had been a cold house before the flood, but now it was bone-numbingly so.

‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe you actually pay money for this place, it’s a dump.’ Loretta’s breath floated out in a plume of condensation. She gave a shiver, and pulled up the collar of her coat as she looked around her, making no attempt to hide her disdain.

Nick was finding it hard to believe too, but he wasn’t in the mood for one of her critiques. ‘Like I said, I didn’t have much choice if I wanted to live near the practice.’ He reached into the box that held the ill-fated shoes, his spirits slumping. They looked worse than he remembered and were now peppered with black dots of mildew. There was no easy way of doing this. ‘Here they are.’

‘My shoes!’ Loretta snatched them out of his hand, looking at them in disbelief. ‘They’re ruined!’

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you—’

‘Yes, well, I didn’t think you were serious. I thought you were just being bloody minded; making me suffer because I… because we broke up.’ She stole a sideways look at him.

‘You know that’s not my style. And besides, I’m done with all the grief. It’s the run up to Christmas and I’d like to get my life a little more settled and…’ It suddenly struck him that he’d never felt more settled than he had last night with Brogan, an image of the two of them chatting away like they’d known each other forever blooming in his mind.

‘And what?’ Loretta asked, her eyes narrowing.

Nick gave a shrug. ‘It’s been an unsettling time, that’s all.’ He made his way to the kitchen to survey the damage there, conscious of Loretta’s eyes boring into him as she followed behind.

‘So where are you staying now? Have you got somewhere permanent sorted out?’ He’d been dreading her asking this.

‘It happened yesterday; I’ve hardly had chance to get anything permanent sorted, especially when vacant rental property is in such short supply.’ He lifted his gaze to the gaping hole in the ceiling, the legs of the ancient cast iron bath peeking through. Jeez, it was grim; everything looked so much worse than he’d been expecting. A shudder ran through him as he recalled how Brogan had been seconds away from it collapsing onto her.

‘So where did you stay last night then?’

He sighed, a cloud billowing out of his mouth. Was she ever going to give up? It dawned on him that he didn’t have to answer her, didn’t need to explain what he was doing. ‘It really doesn’t matter where I stayed, Loretta. What’s important is you’ve got what you wanted. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to get back to the surgery.’

She leaned away from him as he stepped past her, her gimlet gaze never leaving him. ‘It’s her, isn’t it? That dumpy girl with the wild-looking, auburn ponytail you were flirting with. You’ve shacked up with her, haven’t you?’ she said mockingly. She gave a scornful laugh. ‘Talk about being a fast mover, Nick.’

‘I don’t know who you could possibly mean from that description.’ He felt a shard of annoyance spike through him at Loretta’s bitchy comment.

‘Oh, come on. Of course you do, you were all over her when you came into the waiting room. Laughing together like a couple of children.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘Bregan, I think someone called her.’ Spite was dancing in her eyes, setting Nick’s hackles up.

‘If it’s Brogan you’re referring to, I find her curves attractive. And as for her hair, it was the first thing that struck me about her. I think it’s stunning.’ He headed towards the front door, his anger boiling.

Loretta’s smile faltered. ‘Well, I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.’