AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Time enough to think in the morning.
“I need hot chocolate, dog kisses and bed, not necessarily in that order,” she said, her hand on the door.
“Sophy.” Mick’s voice was quiet, carefully steady and so very, very tense. “I love you.”
Her fingers folded in on themselves, clutching the door handle. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t breathe.
“I’ve never said that to anyone before,” he went on, and emotion briefly broke through his purposeful calm. He didn’t sound particularly besotted; he sounded pissed. “And I want to be with you. I’ve never said that to anyone before either. Never considered asking it of someone. Certainly never dared to hope on the outcome.” He had got his frustration under control again. “I don’t doubt that you have feelings for me as well. You haven’t held that side of yourself back. But I feel like whatever it is that you feel for me, you feel it against your will. I don’t think you want this, whatever this is, and I never want to force you into a situation where you’re not going to be happy.”
She was crying again.
Her eyes met his through a blurry haze and he summoned a crooked, awful smile and touched his knuckles to her cheek.
“Wake up Melissa,” he said quietly. “Tell her what happened tonight, in as much detail as you can, and get her to go to the police station with you tomorrow. Contact your parents. Don’t keep any of this to yourself. I know you’re a private person, but in cases like this, talking lances the wound.” His lips touched hers in the lightest, most fleeting of kisses. “And call me when you’re ready.”
He walked her to the door, waited until he heard the snick of the locks, and then drove away without a further word.
Sophy stood in the hallway with her aching head leaning against the door, listening to the sound of Melissa’s late night TV show in the living room, and cried.
Chapter Ten
There were certain times in a woman’s life when she needed only one thing: her mother. And if she was lucky, she had one like Sophy’s.
Marion listened in appalled silence to her account of the night’s events. They were sitting outside the Cheesery, the morning sun basking down and casting a sense of complete unreality over what she was saying. It seemed impossible that anything so terrifying and ugly could have occurred under a sky that could produce such a cloudless blue, in a world where bees hummed in lavender and birds sang in fruit trees.
She had not spent the night alone after all, but wedged into the couch with a horrified, equally teary Melissa and a reassuringly self-absorbed Jeeves. When dawn had touched the sky, she had borrowed her cousin’s battered Mazda and followed Mick’s advice, driving directly to her parents. By the time she had arrived at Silver Leigh, the sun was high and bright and her nerves were relatively composed, but Marion had still taken one look at her face, marched her out of the store and plunked her down a bench to demand the full story.
She told her mother everything. Well. Not everything. The details about Samantha Hollister and any specifics surrounding Mick’s family were not her story to tell – and revelations about stupendous sex seemed a bit of an over-share. When she came to a shaky halt, Marion let out a long breath.
“Have you been to the police station today?” she asked, her hand repetitively smoothing the fall of Sophy’s hair over her shoulder, as if she was reassuring herself of her daughter’s safe presence.
“I have to see the sergeant this afternoon. Melissa’s coming with me.” Sophy’s mouth twisted a little. “Mick thought someone should come with me.”
Marion touched her cheek.
“He’s a very good man, Sophy.”
She swallowed.
“I know he is, Mum.” She bit hard on her lip. “He was so hurt last night. And I just let him leave. I made him leave.”
“Honey, you’d had a terrible shock. I don’t think anyone, least all of Mick, would hold anything that you said or didn’t say last night against you. It was hardly the time for confidences.” Her mother took Sophy’s hand and held it between both of hers. She hesitated, considering her words before she spoke. “Soph,” she said, “I’ve never wanted you to feel that you have to be other than what you are or that to be shy and more reserved is some sort of character flaw that needs to be overcome. You know I’ve always found it infuriating when people hold up extroverted, outgoing behaviour as a yardstick to emulate, when that personality type is no more or less valid than one more introverted.”
Sophy nodded. From her first day at kindergarten, when she had clung to the corners of the room, too shy to mingle with the other children, her mother had impressed upon her the difference between pushing herself as much as was comfortable and feeling that she needed to apologise for herself.
“You’ve been the light of my life since the day you were born,” Marion went on whimsically, smiling at her. “I know you better than almost anyone else in the world – and yet I suspect there will always be parts of you that I couldn’t begin to fathom. And I don’t begrudge that. I actually appreciate that. Just because you love someone, it doesn’t mean that they’re entitled to know everything about you, or vice versa.”
“Mum…” Sophy shifted uncomfortably, and her mother’s grip tightened around her fingers.
“There’s a huge difference, Sophy, between sharing yourself with another person and subjugating your personality and your free will to theirs. There are men out there, of course there are, who demand and manipulate women into that sort of imbalanced relationship, but I highly doubt that Mick is one of them. If he were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’ve always been an excellent judge of character.” Marion gave her hand a small shake. “I understand your concerns, Soph, and at any rate, any kind of life-altering change is always scary, no matter who you are. But I think you might be over-thinking this a bit. It’s not the Dark Ages, honey. You aren’t literally going to be leg-shackled to anyone. Making a commitment doesn’t mean that you’ll never get time to yourself or you’ll lose part of yourself. You don’t have to give up everything when you share your life with someone. You make allowances; you make compromises. But what you get back in return should make it worthwhile. If it seems like a sacrifice, if it doesn’t seem worth it – only then should you not be in that relationship. You hear me?”
“I hear you,” Sophy murmured, and Marion dropped her hands to cup her face.
“You’ve always been such a happy girl,” she said, “and that’s the greatest blessing that a parent could ask for. I think this is just a chance for further happiness, Sophy. You’re my loving, giving, beautiful daughter. You’ll know if it’s right.”
“People always say stuff like that,” Sophy burst out. “But what if it’s not right? What if you make a horrible mistake and people get hurt?”
“Well, you will make mistakes. And people will get hurt. Unfortunately, that’s life. But that doesn’t automatically negate all the good stuff. And it doesn’t mean that you should make some sort of pre-emptive strike against taking the risk in the first place.”
