The Woman At The Door Daniel Hurst (online e reader TXT) 📖

to be together than alone. Maybe I’m realising the same thing.

‘I want to tell him to come home,’ I say, nodding my head as if to convince myself. ‘I don’t want to get an investigator and behave like a paranoid wife who doesn’t trust her husband. I just don’t want to get hurt. Do you know what I mean?’

‘Of course I do,’ Ally tells me, and she puts a reassuring hand on my arm. ‘Just take your time and do whatever feels right for you. The ball is in your court. You don’t know if Sam has done anything wrong, but you know that you definitely haven’t, so you’re entitled to take things slowly.’

I smile at my friend and feel reassured by her advice. I’m glad I messaged her about coming to the park today. The sun has really broken through the clouds now, and there’s more blue sky visible than there was when I arrived here. It’s shaping up to be a sunny Sunday, and everything always looks better in the sunshine.

That’s when I decide that I’m going to go and see Sam after this.

Just like that canoeist went off alone but came back in the end, I’m going to do the same. I feel like there is still enough doubt in my mind to give Sam another chance. I’ll tell him he can come home, but only on one condition.

It’s the condition that nothing else happens to make me doubt him and his commitment to me.

If it does then that is it. We are finished. I’m not going to be a woman who is walked all over. Like Ally said, I have done nothing wrong. He’s the one that has some making up to do, not me.

He’s the one that’s got it all to do to earn back my trust.

24

SAM

It was shaping up to be a very sorry Sunday until I got the phone call from Rebecca telling me that she wanted to see me. I’d thought that the only thing I had to look forward to all day was the Formula 1 race coming on the TV in my hotel room at 5 o’clock, but fortunately, it seems there might be something even brighter on the horizon.

I might get to go home.

Rebecca has asked to meet me in the same pub where we enjoy our regular Sunday Roasts, but I’m not sure if beef and gravy is going to be on the menu today. The most important thing to do is talk, whether that’s over good food, good wine or a glass of tap water. I just want things to go back to normal, and I’m hoping that her call to me today is the beginning of that.

I see her sitting at the table in the corner as I enter the pub, so I hurry over and take a seat opposite her, giving her a nervous smile and noticing the glass of white wine sitting in front of her.

‘Starting already?’ I say, hoping that a light joke might be the best way to break the ice between us.

‘Yeah. Are you having anything?’

‘I might get a pint,’ I say, glancing back at the bar. But it looks busy and I’d rather just get to the bottom of why I’m here without delaying things any longer.

When I turn to look back at Rebecca, it seems like she wants the same thing. Her hand has reached out across the table and is in search of my own.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask, taking her hand and wondering what this might mean.

‘Not really. I miss you.’

‘I miss you too,’ I say, and I feel the relief flooding through me because it seems like everything is going to be okay.

‘Do you understand why I needed this time?’ Rebecca asks me, and I nod to show her that I do.

‘Of course.’

‘It’s just the woman and then the lipstick. I don’t know what to think.’

‘I understand, and it’s not your fault. You’ve done nothing wrong here.’

‘And neither have you?’

I know Rebecca still feels unsure about everything, but all I can do is keep doing what I’ve always done and that is tell the truth.

‘I haven’t done anything,’ I say as I squeeze her hand. ‘I promise.’

Rebecca gives me a faint smile before picking up her wine glass and taking a sip. As she does, I rack my brains for something else to say that can make her feel better.

‘Look, the PI is doing her best to try and find out who that woman was, and I’m hopeful she’ll be able to get us some answers there. As for the lipstick, I genuinely have no idea how it came to be on there, but I swear on my life that I have not been seeing another woman.’

Rebecca studies me, and she seems to believe me because she nods her head.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I want you to come home.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But if anything else happens then that’s it,’ she warns me. ‘I can’t keep giving you a pass if you don’t give me answers. Do you understand?’

‘I do,’ I say, and while I’m relieved about the fact that I get to go home, I do feel anxious about the condition that it comes with. That’s because I can’t guarantee that there won’t be anymore troubling events in the future. I had not expected a woman to come to our door and tell Rebecca that I had slept with her, nor had I been expecting there to be lipstick on my shirt, but both those things have happened. The fact that I don’t know how or why those things happened means that I can’t be sure that they won’t happen again, and that is going to lead to a few sleepless nights even when I am back in my own bed. But what can I do? I just have to hope that nothing else happens as well as hoping that the PI finds that woman so I can get to the bottom of all of this. But that remains