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‘Stop here!’ Her abrupt cry caught him off-guard.
Assuming she’d seen a cat or a fox, he executed an emergency stop in the dark street, glancing around for the culprit, but nothing moved except for a breeze through the trees.
‘Wait, what are you doing?’
Beside him, Fliss was scrabbling to release her seat belt. Ash caught her hand to still her, but she wrenched it free with a force he didn’t recognise. He said her name, then shouted it but she didn’t even seem aware he was still there.
‘Fliss? Fliss! Look at me.’
Taking her chin firmly in his hand, it took Ash two attempts to persuade her to look at him. When she did, she finally seemed to take a breath, although the fearful expression didn’t diminish.
‘Relax. Breathe. What’s going on?’
‘It’s my mother,’ she mumbled eventually.
Her eyes, so uncharacteristically dull, fearful and something else he couldn’t quite read, knocked the breath from him. A blast even more lethal than the grenade which had almost taken his life. It commanded every defensive, protective emotion in him.
‘In your house?’
‘She’s my mother. She pops round from time to time.’
‘Define time to time.’
She glared at him. He didn’t know whether to celebrate the fact that the dullness had disappeared, or object to the fact that any rage appeared to be directed at him.
‘Once or twice a year.’
‘And she has a key?’
‘She’s my mother.’
‘A title, by all accounts, which she doesn’t deserve.’ He slammed his palm on the steering wheel, desperate to make her see sense. ‘For pity’s sake, Fliss, you’re better than this. You deserve better than this.’
‘Any relationship with her is better than nothing.’ Her defensive tone had the same unidentifiable edge to it that her eyes had and Ash couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something, but he had no idea what. He filed it away for later.
‘No, it isn’t. Not when it causes you to react like this at the sight of her car.’ He raked his hand through his hair, his feelings for Fliss all jumbling around in his chest. ‘How do I make you see this isn’t normal, it isn’t right? I thought you said she used to rage at you, anyway?’
‘Sometimes.’ He could tell she wished she’d never told him anything at all. ‘But sometimes things are...nice.’
‘Why?’ He was instantly suspicious. ‘Does she want something?’
Glowering at him, Fliss refused to answer.
The answer was obvious to him. Money. Inevitably, it would be about money. He wanted to say more, wanted to make Fliss see. But he could feel her slipping away from him already. They hadn’t had long enough together for her to trust him. As far as she was concerned, in a few days he would be gone, and her uncle, and sporadic visits from her needy mother, would be all she had.
He should ha
ve told her he was falling in love with her before. And he should never have put some stupid time limit on their relationship. Now, all that would have to wait. For now he would have to change tack and wait it out.
‘She can’t hurt you,’ he told her. ‘Not unless you let her. I’ll be here to support you.’
‘No!’ The cry almost shook the car. ‘No, you can’t come in.’
Ash gritted his teeth. ‘Try to stop me.’
‘I don’t know what mood she’ll be in, but either way she won’t like it. It will just make things worse.’
Ash heard her desperation, and realised he’d do anything to erase it. Anything to hear her jaunty, sing-song voice right now.
