The Love Solution. Ashley Croft
her sister.
She just hoped that Molly would get over her disappointment quickly and realise what an idiot he was and refocus her attention on someone deserving. There was nothing she could do about the situation and besides, Sarah couldn’t be too unhappy for long, not tonight.
She remembered Niall’s final words as he’d called up the stairs. ‘Drive carefully, there’s bound to be all kinds of drunks and dickheads on the roads.’ She didn’t need him to remind her of that, after what had happened to her parents and, besides, she was far more worried about him than herself. She also remembered the sharp tang of his aftershave and the fresh clean smell of his uniform. He always showered before he went out and the moment he got back. No wonder – after New Year’s Eve, he’d probably seen, touched, heard and smelled more bodily fluids than she cared to imagine.
Poor bloke; what a shitty job, literally, he had.
She was glad – and slightly guilty – that her own job couldn’t have been more different. She ran her jewellery-making business from a small cabin at the end of the garden. She and Niall had built it together and while it was modest, it was exactly right for her. When she wasn’t making up commissions for weddings, she ran workshops there where brides and teenagers going to proms could make tiaras and headdresses, and jewellery.
It had been a big risk to give up her safe but boring job at the bank and finally realise her cherished dream to start her own business, but Molly had been spot on. After so many years of acting as surrogate mother as well as big sister to Molly, Sarah had been ready to take a risk. So what if they hadn’t planned things this way, working for herself would fit in better with starting a family.
She parked on the pavement outside and pushed open the little wicket gate in the hedge. The path was icy and she almost slipped on one of the flagstones, which brought a smile to her face. ‘Don’t go arse over tit tonight; I don’t want to be called out to save my gorgeous girlfriend – I may be a bit busy,’ Niall had joked as he’d kissed her goodbye.
The lamp was on in the sitting room, exactly as she’d left it, knowing she’d be back before Niall. She wondered whether to watch a late-night film on TV and curl up on the sofa to wait for him. She certainly didn’t feel sleepy, not after a night on Coke and mineral water, and Niall would be home in a few hours.
She felt a twinge of guilt as she pushed her key in the front door, picturing Molly in bed alone, then told herself that with any luck Mol would be out cold after all the wine. Sarah would call her in the morning and maybe pop round later for a New Year’s Day coffee, with Niall. They could celebrate their news together properly. Molly was going to be an auntie. Comforted by this thought, Sarah pushed open the door and stepped into the hall.
Light spilled down the stairs from the landing. Sarah stopped and the hairs on her arms stood on end. She was sure she hadn’t left the light on. Or had she? She’d gone out in a rush and her mind had hardly been on such things.
She put her bag down on the hall table.
‘Arghhh …’
Sarah froze. Her stomach clenched sharply. The floorboards creaked above her and there was a soft thud and another groan.
‘Oooo … ahhhh …’
There was someone upstairs.
She held her breath. Only in TV thrillers did women walk upstairs to confront a burglar. Sarah was not in a TV thriller; she was much more scared than that. Her hands were clammy as she twisted the Yale knob and backed out of the door.
It was as she ran down the step to the garden that two things happened at once. She realised she’d left her handbag, and therefore her phone inside the hall, and she heard a man say, ‘Oh fuck, it’s Sarah.’
Sarah stood on the flagstones, staring at the open door of the cottage. Surely, she hadn’t heard Niall? He couldn’t be home yet.
And yet, she knew the sound of her own partner’s voice.
She walked slowly back into the hall. From upstairs she heard the sound of thuds and whispers; a giggle then a plea: ‘For God’s sake, Vanessa, she’ll hear you.’
Hardly daring to breathe, she slowly climbed the narrow staircase. There were no more voices but she could hear telltale creaks from the floorboards, the soft click of a door closing, perhaps a desperate “shh”. She reached the turn of the stairs and stepped over a pair of dark blue work trousers, a thick-soled boot and a white shirt. Another shirt and three more safety boots were scattered along the landing like a trail of crumbs leading to the Gingerbread Cottage – or in this case, her and Niall’s bedroom.
Light sneaked out from the foot of the door.
‘Christ, she’s coming upstairs!’
It was unmistakable this time: Niall’s soft Irish brogue, the one she’d fallen for at the club two years before.
Sarah didn’t feel afraid anymore; she felt as if she was sleepwalking around the cottage, in the midst of a bizarre dream. She stood outside the door to her bedroom and lifted the latch on the braced door. It swung inwards with a familiar creak but what she saw in front of her was so unfamiliar, so bloody plain unbelievable that her legs almost gave way.
‘Niall?’
Niall was lying in bed, his wrists tied to the bedposts with two of Sarah’s silk scarves. He was naked except for a tiara.
‘Um, hello, babe.’
She stared at him, trying to compute the scene before her. ‘What are you doing home, Ni?’
‘I thought you were staying at Molly’s tonight,’ he said.
‘No. I’m not.’
‘You said you were.’ He said it accusingly as if Sarah was the one who was naked in bed wearing a tiara.
‘I said I probably wouldn’t.’
‘When?’
‘While you were getting ready to go out. Maybe you didn’t hear me?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
She gawped at his naked body, at his waxed chest and his scar from a run-in with a drunken motorcyclist and his willy, now deflating like a party balloon that had been left behind the sofa.
‘Right. Well, forgive me for asking, but why are you tied to the bed, Niall?’
He peered down at his tackle as if he was surprised to see it at all. ‘I … um … this is not what it looks like, Sarah. I promise you.’
‘What is it, then, Ni?’
‘It’s um … ah, just a game, Sarah. I came home early and I’m … um … so embarrassed.’
‘Tied yourself up, did you, after putting on the tiara?’
‘Well, er …’ His wrists strained against the scarves. She realised that one of them, the silk one with the camellia print, had been her mum’s.
The door to the en suite opened and a tall, spiky woman with inky, poker-straight hair stood in the doorway. She was wearing Sarah’s purple bathrobe and stared at her pityingly. ‘Give it a rest, Niall. I think we’ve been rumbled.’
Niall cut across her. ‘Oh, fuck … Look, Sarah. I can explain. I mean it looks bad. It is bad but I never meant to hurt you.’
The woman swore and folded her arms.
‘That’s my bathrobe,’ Sarah murmured, still half in a trance.
The woman shrugged. ‘It swamps me, anyway,’ she said untying the belt and slipping it off her bony shoulders. She was stark naked underneath apart from two sparkly nipple clamps that tinkled when she moved. Sarah had the bizarre thought that they were actually really pretty and that she should add a new line to her business.
Niall groaned. ‘Jesus, Vanessa!’
‘She