Conflicted Innocence Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t begin to imagine how she gets through her days. And the thought of coming back to this house, where it all happened, doesn’t bear thinking about.”
    I lifted Grace from her pushchair and held her tightly for a second, breathing in her delicious baby scent. Losing her would tear my heart out.

Chapter 5
    After dropping off the keys to James, Lee headed straight back to the cottage. The journey took longer than usual as, just outside Nottingham, the heavens opened making it difficult to see the road ahead.
    While stuck in traffic, he called around a few local decorators, but they were all booked out for months in advance, so he would have no choice but to continue alone. He knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of getting it all done before Wednesday, but he would try his best. If he could just finish their bedroom and the lounge and kitchen to a fashion, he’d be happy with that.
    It would be better to bring Lydia home to a partially finished house than to take her to the old one.
    As soon as he arrived back, he got on with decorating the lounge in taupe and cream swirled wallpaper, and worked flat stick until his stomach growled. He’d not eaten since the two rounds of toast that morning. It was still hammering down outside, so he grabbed his keys and drove to the Chinese takeaway.
    “Hi, Eric. The usual, please,” he said, as he burst through the door, already soaking wet from the five second dash from the car.
    “You not usually here on Sunday,” Eric said, his words heavily accented.
    “I’m taking a few days off work, so you’ll have to put up with me for a few extra nights.”
    “No problem.”
    They made small talk until his meal was ready, and then Lee braced himself for the return dash to the car.
    As he put the keys in the ignition, someone with a large fur hood tapped on his window.
    He wound it down a few inches.
    “Can you spare a few pence for a cuppa, sir?” a young girl, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, asked.
    “I’ve got no cash on me, sorry. What are you doing out on a night like this?” he shouted above the rain.
    The wind blasted, and the girl turned her back to fend off the worst of it.
    “Got nowhere else to go,” she finally managed to shout back.
    Horrified, Lee pointed to the passenger side. “Come on, get in.” He took the takeaway bag and a couple of other items off the seat and put them on the floor.
    The door opened, and the girl was blown in beside him. He fiddled with the heater and, within seconds, it blew out a steady stream of hot air.
    “There you go. You must be freezing,” he said, turning back to his passenger.
    She pulled the hood down, and Lee noticed her showering water all over his upholstery, but he didn’t say anything. She looked a little older than he first thought, but still young, with long, dark brown hair and masses of black eye makeup surrounding her grey eyes.
    “What are you doing out in this weather?” He shook his head as she held red, raw fingers up close to the heater.
    She shrugged.
    “Are you from around here?”
    “You’re not a nonce, are you?” she said, eyeing him warily. She had the roughness of a street walker and the face of an angel.
    “If you mean a sex offender, I can assure you I most definitely am not.” He laughed.
    “I don’t know why you’re laughing. You haven’t a clue how many ordinary looking men are nonces.”
    “You’re full of compliments.”
    She wrinkled her nose in a sneer. “What you on about?”
    “First you think I’m a nonce, and then you tell me I’m ordinary looking.”
    She shrugged.
    “Okay, I guess we can’t sit here all night. Have you eaten?”
    She shook her head.
    “Well, my house is just along the road there, and my dinner’s getting cold. You’re welcome to join me if you like.”
    “What would you expect from me in return?”
    More than a little irritated by her rudeness, he sighed. “I wouldn’t expect a thing. Let’s get this straight before we go any