A Safe Pair of Hands Read Online Free Page B

“Sshhh… it’s all right, it’s over
now…”
    Sadie had never really cried over that time, she had put it
firmly in her past and buried it.
    She had thought that she was over all that hurt and heartache,
that she was stronger than that time.
    Nick’s sympathy and understanding was so unexpected. She would
have died for that three years ago, but now she simply cried
instead.
    Wrapped in his strong embrace; the tears, once they started to
fall, did not seem to want to stop.
    And with the tears came such heart wrenching sobs that Nick
felt tears on his own cheeks as he shared in her pain.

Chapter Four
    Once she started crying, Sadie didn’t think that she would be
able to stop.
    She had never told anyone the details of her
marriage.
    Oh people guessed some of it; her family had seen the change
in Sadie when she came home from her honeymoon.
    Her vibrancy was dimmed. She looked tired and pale and her
lips seemed to have to fight to smile, whereas before there had
always been an upward tilt to her lips, as though her smile was
more than ready – and usually did, break out at the slightest of
enticements.
    “ Maybe she’s just tired?” her mum had murmured to her dad. “It
was quite a long journey for them?”
    But as the weeks went on and they saw less and less of their
daughter – concerns began to rise.
    When they did see her, she was quiet and barely responsive,
and never on her
own.
    Her doting husband was always by her side, stroking her hand
or patting her knee, kissing her cheek or flicking her hair to one
side.
    To her friends and family this constant attention would have
been suffocating.
    But then one day they were visiting Nancy, sitting together on
her sofa, when her sister noticed how Sadie flinched on one
occasion, and as though she had tried to cover that slight
reaction, Sadie sat forward to pick up her mug of tea.
    The long sleeve of her dress pulled up and Nancy was horrified
to see the bruising, travelling up her arm, and out of
sight.
    “ Dear god, Sadie, what have you done?” Nancy’s reaction had
been instinctive as she reached out to her little sister to brush
back the material and take a better look.
    Sadie had given a little sob and she had tried to pull away
again, but not before Nancy clearly saw the finger
marks.
    Her horrified look turned to accusing, as Nancy’s gaze turned
to Rick.
    He was surprised and not prepared for this, and Nancy as she
looked at him saw such a look of hatred towards herself, that the
colour drained from her cheeks.
    “ You did that?” she whispered. “You hurt my little
sister!”
    Rick lurched to his feet his expression one of cold
rage.
    “ What happens between a man and his wife – is of no business to
anyone else!” he snapped.
    Nancy stood up as well, and thrust her chin, and her body
forward so that she was right in his face.
    “ YOU hurt my sister!” she shouted again as the blind fury
rushed through her.
    “ Rick please!” Sadie cried out anxiously as she tried to step
between the two of them.
    Rick’s anger turned on his wife. “Why are you taking her
side?” he demanded as he shoved her out of the way, causing Sadie
to fall to the floor but not before knocking her head on the side
of the coffee table. “You should always side with your husband – no
matter what!”
    He did not even stop to check her, to see if she was okay; he
simply spun on his heel and stormed out of the room, and Nancy’s
home.
    Nancy heard the roar of his car's engine, but dismissed him
from her mind as she knelt beside her sister.
    “ I’m going to ring for an ambulance,” she declared as she saw
the graze just above Sadie’s cheek bone, which would leave one hell
of a bruise.
    Sadie sat up and put a shaking hand to her face. “No!” she
looked at her sister imploringly. “Please Nance… I don’t need that…
it’s not deep, it’s not necessary.”
    “ The police then!”
    “ NO!”
    “ But Sadie…”
    Sadie pulled herself up onto the sofa.
    “