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Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Rachel Wells 2018
Cover design © www.headdesign.co.uk 2018
Cover photograph © Shutterstock
Rachel Wells asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008295790
Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008295776
Version: 2018-09-17
For Becky, Martin, Helen, Megan, Jak and Rory.
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Publisher
I was lying on the sofa, in my favourite spot, the winter sun shining down on me through the window, when my kitten, George, leapt on me. Argh, he wasn’t such a little kitten any more; I was winded and a bit squashed.
‘George,’ I said, trying to squirm out from under his weight. ‘You have to stop doing that, you’re flattening me.’
‘Sorry, Dad,’ he replied, with his charming grin and his head tilted to one side. As usual, I melted. My boy was just too adorable, even if he was getting too heavy to jump on me. I couldn’t have been prouder of what a fine young tom he was growing into. ‘But I have news.’ He sat next to me and licked his paws. George did like to draw out any announcements. He was a fairly dramatic kitten. Unlike myself, of course.
‘Go on, George, tell me the news,’ I coaxed, thinking it would be about a funny-shaped cloud he had seen this morning, or a similar Georgeism.
‘There’s a big van parked outside so new people are moving in next door.’ He looked very pleased with himself, as well he might. I pricked up my ears. New people! On Edgar Road! Well, was there anything better for a doorstep cat like myself? Only a van full of pilchards could beat that.
My name is Alfie, and I’m a doorstep cat. Which basically means I have different families and homes I visit. I do live in one main house, here with my kitten George, in Edgar Road. Our humans are Claire and Jonathan and their children, Toby and Summer. But there is another family on this road we spend time with, Polly and Matt and their children Henry and Martha, and yet another family, who live a few streets away, Franceska, Tomasz and their children Aleksy and Tommy. Phew, it’s a lot of families and friends to keep track of. I met them when I moved to Edgar Road after an arduous journey, having been homeless after my old owner, Margaret, died, but that does feel like another lifetime. They say cats have nine lives, well I reckon I’ve used a few of those up to get to where I am today, although I still have plenty left.
I do credit myself with bringing all my families together and now they love each other the way I love them all. We even have a holiday home together, Seabreeze Cottage, which is in Devon, and we spend time there when we can. But London is our main home, on Edgar Road, where we spend most of our days. There’s always something going on here. Never a dull moment. Or if there is, it doesn’t last.
Up until now we were experiencing quite a quiet time. Winter