Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller Read Online Free Page B

wearing bandages on the head. How many stitches was it? One? Two?”
    “Three,” I said, captivated.
    “Three! Oh my poor, poor darling !” she cried, and hugged me all over again, crushing me against her yielding bosom; a beautifully rounded and creamy-coloured bosom barely concealed by her low-cut top.
    I didn’t mind. I’d fallen instantly in love with her. She was so pretty, with long black lashes and bouncing curly hair. Her lips were painted cherry-red, her eyes topped with blue eyeshadow, her cheeks bloomed by blusher; and her perfume spread from her in invisible tendrils, attaching itself to me and intoxicating me. And I had never seen such a wonderful pair of legs sprouting from such a short skirt before. Nobody in the town of Overthorpe wore such things. Headscarves and mules, yes, but never short skirts. Yes, I’d fallen madly in love with her. No matter what people would say about her in the future – and it would be plenty – from that moment on she held me under a special kind of potent spell that would never release me from its bondage.
    She thrust a book into my hands. “Take this,” she insisted.
    I looked down. It was a 1963 Dandy annual, scuffed at the edges, well thumbed. Korky the Cat was wearing a sailor suit and looking through a porthole. I never much cared for Korky the Cat or The Dandy , but I didn’t let her see that.
    “To say sorry,” she explained. “It was Max’s favourite annual, but now it’s yours. He shouldn’t have done such a nasty thing.”
    Just then my mother made her appearance. She stood there with a stone-cold expression, looking the visitor up and down with a clinical eye. The young woman rose and smiled disarmingly at mother; only it failed to disarm her. She remained armed to the teeth, those razor eyes resting on the skirt. “Can I help you?” she asked.
    “My name’s Connie. Connie Stone. I’m Max’s mother.”
    “Oh you are, are you?” my mother said, folding her arms defensively. I knew something was brewing as soon as she adopted that formidable stance. I’d seen it so many times before. “He could have been killed, you know that? Killed , I tell you. That bloody son of yours is a menace. Three stitches in his head the lad’s got. Three stitches! If your boy had been here I’d have taken a stick to him myself, the bloody stupid thing!”
    Connie bowed her beautiful head in shame. Her face had something of the Madonna about it, like I’d seen in a book once, but without the halo. “Oh, Mrs Calder, how right you are. He’s a menace at times.”
    “He deserves a beating.”
    “He’s had one,” she returned. “I’m ever so sorry. And us being new to Overthorpe as well. Not a good way to start, is it?”
    “Too right,” my mother said, but already her harshness was melting away. Her arms had dropped to her side and her voice had softened.
    Connie smoothed down my matted hair and shook her head. “At least this lovely face hasn’t been damaged,” she cooed, her fingers stroking my cheek and then cupping my chin. She squeezed it gently and I sighed, staring into those large liquid eyes. “I gave him this, Mrs Calder,” she said, indicating the Dandy annual. “I know it isn’t much, but I don’t have a lot and this is the only way I could say sorry. It was Max’s, you see.”
    “That’s OK, Mrs Stone…”
    “Please call me by my first name. You can call me Connie. You’d be the first friend I made around here to call me Connie. That would be so nice.”
    “Thank you - Connie,” my mother said uncertainly.
    “Barely a week here and already causing trouble. I don’t know, the lad’s a bad ‘un, that’s for sure. But he’s also got a heart of gold.” Connie stood straight-backed and faced mother. “He won’t ever do it again, Mrs Calder. Not a cat in hell’s chance. The little bleeder’s learnt his lesson, that’s for sure. Like I said to him, his father was a bastard, but that’s no reason for him to be a bastard