Lonely Girl Read Free Page B

his wife in disgust. ‘I don’t even know who you are these days … maybe I never did. Why would you want to hurt a helpless child like that … our own little daughter? It beggars belief.’ Leaning forward, he whispered harshly, ‘I should hurt you, just like you’ve hurt Rosie. That way, you might realise how it feels.’
    Molly Tanner smiled nastily. She knew he would never hurt her. He was too kind. And far too weak.
    Unable to look on her a moment longer, John hurried Rosie away to bathe her wounds.
    As her father carried her to the kitchen, Rosie looked back to see her mother smiling.
    For a moment Rosie thought her mother was trying to say she was sorry, but then she realised the smile was neither reassuring nor warm, but cold and hateful, and the little girl held on all the tighter to her father.
    John carefully settled his daughter at the kitchen table while he drew a bowl of warm water and found a flannel, which he rinsed under the cold tap.
    Bringing the flannel to her face, he told her, ‘Put your head back a little, sweetheart. Keep this pressed to your nose, and the bleeding will soon stop.’ He then treated the bruises with saltwater and camomile, constantly assuring her that by the morning the bruises would be almost gone. Privately he thought it would be a long time, if ever, before Rosie would be able to forget how badly her mother had beaten her, and for what? He was determined to get to the bottom of it all.
    When she was cleaned up he carried his small daughter upstairs and put her to bed.
    ‘I’ll be up again in a while to see if there’s anything you need,’ he promised.
    Leaving the door slightly open in case she might call out, he paused on the landing, and when it seemed the ordeal had tired Rosie out, he leaned on the banister and softly cried, asking himself over and over how Molly could be so wicked as to hurt their child like that.
    Somewhere along the way, deep in his heart, he had lost a huge measure of respect for this woman whom he felt he hardly knew any more. In fact, at some time during the past six years, since they were married, he had come to realise she was not the woman he had believed her to be.
    If he had known at the outset what she was really like, he might have walked away, but even now, after what she had done, he still loved and needed her, and if that made him a weak man, then so he was. Above all else, John Tanner was a good and forgiving man. In spite of what he had witnessed this sorry day, he convinced himself that the woman he had taken as his wife must surely have a measure of compassion in her soul.
    One way or another, he meant to find it.

Badness Will Out

CHAPTER ONE
    T HRUSTING THE UNHAPPY memories to the back of her mind, Rosie, peeping between the curtains, concentrated on keeping her vigil at the window. She now truly believed that tonight her mother would not come home. The troubling thought was tempered with an odd sense of relief.
    She was startled by a gentle knock on her bedroom door and turned to see her father peeking round.
    ‘I didn’t mean to startle you, sweetheart,’ he said, coming into the room, patting the thick neck of his black Labrador, Barney, at his heels. ‘Is there any sight of your mother yet?’
    ‘No … not yet.’ Rosie knew how concerned he was.
    When the dog came to sit beside her, Rosie ruffled his coat. ‘Hello, Barney. Come to see me, have you?’ She hugged him close, imploring her concerned father, ‘Daddy, please don’t worry about Mother. I’m sure she must be on her way home.’
    John chuckled. ‘Hark at you, young lady. All grown up and reassuring me. It wasn’t all that long ago that it would be the other way round.’
    He came over and placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘I’m so proud of you, Rosie,’ he told her. ‘We both know your mother can be hurtful at times, but you’ve learned to take it all in your stride. Fifteen going on forty-five, that’s what you are.’ He slid a comforting arm