Hostage to Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’m not going to be able to conceive without some sort of clinical intervention. And there isn’t a fertility clinic in the whole of Scotland that will treat lesbian couples. Not even privately. If I’m going to have any possibility of a baby, I need to start doing something about it now.”
    â€œLook, you’re just broody. It’ll pass. It always has before,” Lindsay said wretchedly.
    â€œNo. You’re wrong. It never passed. Sure, I stopped talking about it, but that was only because you were so negative about the whole thing, it felt like pushing a boulder uphill. Just because I stopped talking about it doesn’t mean it wasn’t always there, constantly nagging away at me. If I don’t have a child, there’s always going to be a hole in my life that nothing else will fill.”
    Lindsay drew her arm away and rolled on to her back. “You’re saying I’m not enough for you. That what we have isn’t good enough.”
    Sophie shuffled on to her side and reached for Lindsay’s hand. “That’s not what I’m saying. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone else. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But this need in
me—it’s different. It’s a kind of desperation. If you’ve never felt it, you can’t know what it’s like. If you could walk for five minutes inside my skin, you’d maybe comprehend how this is consuming me. I need to try, Lindsay. And I need to try now.”
    Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut. Please, let this not be happening, she thought. “I don’t want a child.” She spoke slowly and deliberately.
    â€œYou’d make a great parent.”
    â€œThat’s not the issue. The issue is that I don’t want to.”
    â€œBut I need to.”
    Lindsay jerked upright, oblivious to the stab of pain in her ankle. “So what are you saying? You’re going to go ahead anyway? Regardless of how I feel?”
    Sophie turned away. Her voice was shaky with tears. She feared she was driving Lindsay further from her with everything she said, but she couldn’t keep the churn of emotions secret any longer. “Lindsay, if I have to lose you to have the chance of a child, then I’ll do it. This is not about choice, it’s about compulsion. This isn’t some whim, some spur of the moment desire for a designer accessory. It feels like life and death to me.”
    Her words shook Lindsay like a physical blow. She pulled her knees up to her chest, gripping them tightly with her hands. She knew her lover well enough to realise that this was no empty ultimatum. Sophie didn’t play games like that. And she was sufficiently resolute to carry out her stated intention.
    This was the moment Lindsay had always dreaded, ever since the issue of motherhood had first raised its head between them. Her life had been bound to Sophie’s for so long, she couldn’t imagine what it would be without her. She didn’t even want to try. But if she didn’t give in, that would be exactly what she would have to face. “I can’t believe you’re making me choose between losing you or having a child with you,” she choked out.
    â€œI can’t either,” Sophie said. Her chest hurt, as if she was being physically rent in two. “Surely that alone tells you how powerless I feel? I’m in the grip of something I’ve got no control over, and it’s killing me. But I’ve got to try, Lindsay. I’ve got to.”
    â€œI’ve got no choice either then, have I?” Lindsay said bitterly.

    There was a long silence. Then Sophie said, “You have got a choice. You can stay with me and try to make a family with me and our child. Or you can choose to walk away.”
    Lindsay snorted. “Some choice. At least you’ve got a chance of getting something you want out of this. I don’t. Either I lose you, which would break my heart, or I