Good Enough to Trust (Good Enough, Book 2 - Going Back)
Page 12
He rolled over on to his back and took me with him and I traced my fingers up his abs, tugged at the sprinkle of hairs on his chest.
“Stop that.” His voice was a lazy drawl, but I had a feeling that if I carried on he might just forget about Will and his brothers. “Unless you want me to sort you out.” Ha, I was right. “So does Will know he’s just a nice guy? I got the impression he was keen.”
“He knows.” I traced my finger up a bit higher to the tattoo. “I think he wants a nice girl to marry and breed with, and I’m not that nice a girl.” I traced around the dark circle outline. “When did you have this done?”
“After the accident. It’s a dharma wheel.”
“And what’s a dharma wheel?” Ollie never did things without a reason, people thought he did, that he could be reckless and random, but he was far from random.
“It’s Buddhist symbolism.” His words were soft, almost lulling.
“Of?”
“Wisdom, morals and concentration. And that tickles, will you stop it.”
His hand came down over mine. “Use your higher concentration to ignore it.”
“Always got an answer, haven’t you.” But his hand tightened almost possessively over mine, holding me there, just above his heart.
“Sophie means wisdom.”
“I know.” He would.
“I’ve not always been that wise, have I?”
“You need to get old before you get wise darling, takes a lifetime.”
“I haven’t got that long to waste.”
He laughed at me, then raised my hand up to his mouth, took the tips of my fingers between his lips. And I watched him and hoped he’d stay, and I’d be wise.
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“I know it wasn’t. You mean you’ve been blaming yourself?” He paused, a long pause, lowered my hand back to his chest. “And you’ve been blaming me.” He got it, it wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, I blamed you as well.”
“Which is why you wouldn’t let me near you after?”
“Partly.” It was my turn to hesitate. “But mainly because you’d abandoned me, you didn’t care enough to come and find me.”
“I didn’t abandon you, Sophie. I came as soon as I knew I was going to be okay.”
“I know that now, but I didn’t then. You should have told me.”
“So it’s still my fault?”
I sighed. “No. No, it’s not your fault. There were too many things going on, too much that hurt and I think I’ve just realised that love isn’t always easy, straightforward. I think Mum and Dad had a real passion and that’s what I need too, but having it all can hurt.”
It had hurt them, it had hurt me and I think I was just starting to realise how much it had hurt Ollie.
“He was ill, Dad, he couldn’t help it.” I told him everything I knew, about Mum, about Dad and he didn’t say a word until I’d finished, and then he just hugged me a tiny bit closer.
“I was ill, but I could have explained, made you listen which is an option your Dad didn’t have.”
“I’m not very good at listening though, am I?”
He laughed. “Good enough.”
“Why did you come and find me, Ol?”
“I couldn’t not. Guess I thought it was time to do what I should have done years ago, and I always reckoned I was better at actions than words.” He rested his capable hand at my waist and his thumb traced a circle in the indent. My skin prickled as a flush of goose bumps spread over every single centimetre. Yeah, he was good at actions, very good. I tried to ignore the need that was filtering through me.
“I was going to come back and explain you know, when I’d done this. When do you have to go back to Cornwall?”
He looked at me. “When do you want me to?”
“I don’t. But, you’ve got a place down there, a life.”
“I don’t have to go back.”
“You could do.” My heart missed a beat at the way his face tightened. “And I could come down for the rest of the year. See how it goes.”
“But your job?”
“I’ve got a year off, we could see.”
“I don’t get what it is with you and grumpy old Grove and Grove.” I smiled and thought back to all those years ago when I’d decided I was going to work there. “You could work somewhere much better.”
“Not better, different. When I was a little girl we used to walk past their offices on the way to school, me and Mum, and she used to say that one day she could see me there, all grown up in a suit. It was like the best place to work round here, it made her proud to think I might be clever enough to work in an office and wear a suit. And Grove and Grove would have made her proudest of all.”
He hugged me close and didn’t say anything, because he knew that I hadn’t been ready to lose my Mum, I probably would never have been ready.
“I’ve got to do one more thing before we go.”
“Go to the cemetery to see your Mum and Dad?”
I nodded. “Tell her I finally understand.”
“I’ll come.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I know I don’t need to. I want to.”
I looked up at his strong steady face, bad boy turned good. But not too good. “When I read her words now I can hear her saying them, I couldn’t before. I thought he’d made her write them. I want to tell her.”
He smiled. “Good, then where do you want to go after that?”
“You decide. Take me where you think we should go.”
“You trust me to decide?”
I smiled and slipped my hand into his. Oh yes, I trusted him with every bit of me, just like Mum and Dad had trusted each other right to the end, and it felt good.
Very good.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve