Artistic License (13 page)

“I’m not taking Sophy to the wedding,” said Mick bluntly.

“Why not? She’s going to be in Auckland for the Darwin/Harper arraignment, isn’t she?”

“Yes, and she’s nervous enough about that. I’m not going to inflict my family on her as well. Especially not when she starts hyperventilating at the mere mention of a party.”

“Ask her. I bet she’d go.”

“I bet she would too.” Mick reached for the remote and snapped off the TV. The announcer’s voice was driving him up the wall. “She’s a people-pleaser. She would probably shave her head if someone asked her nicely.” He shook his head. “She would hate it. And I want to get in and out with as little drama as possible.”

Sean narrowed his eyes.

“And you don’t want her to meet your family.”

“No.” Mick stole the remaining whisky, knocked it back. “No, I don’t.”

Chapter Seven

It was amazing how quickly one forgot, Sophy thought on Friday morning. She had once lived in Paris for five months and had daily had to cross the vehicular chaos around the Arc de Triomphe, so she had experienced her share of city traffic. Upon returning to the open peaks and plains of Central Otago, however, where congestion was really limited to intense bubbles in the town centres, she had got used to living a life largely free of traffic jams. It had taken over an hour to get from her hotel to the courthouse this morning. She could have walked faster. The fear of being late had added to her stress about the whole appointment. She was not an organised person, but leaving early for dreaded encounters was usually practical. Arriving with red cheeks and sweaty hair didn’t boost anyone’s confidence.

She was now sitting in a supremely uncomfortable chair in a busy waiting room, trying not to swing her feet under the Trunchbull glare of the receptionist. The only spare seat when she’d arrived had obviously been intended for elderly limbs that couldn’t crouch far, because Sophy’s perfectly bendy but sadly short legs didn’t touch the floor. She felt about six years old, a deflating illusion not helped by the fact that every few minutes a person in a suit appeared and called someone else’s name. She was starting to have disconcerting flashbacks to school and the selection of teams for everything from pop quizzes to ping pong tournaments. The vertically challenged and chronically wheezy were not usually all that popular.

She wasn’t sure what to expect of today, but had come armed with her sketchbook and her inhaler, as per Mick’s helpful and slightly bossy instructions. It appeared he had been right about the waiting aspect and she just wanted to get it over with. She wasn’t flying back home until Sunday morning, so the sooner she gave her statement, or signed a paper, or waved a gavel around, or whatever this entailed, the sooner she could get on with some extraneous shopping and gallery-hopping.

Not that she wasn’t thrilled to do her civic duty.

Her clenched hands were trembling slightly against her closed sketchbook. It had been a sensible suggestion, but she was far too anxious to draw. She suspected that any attempt would bear an unintentional resemblance to a Jackson Pollock.

She wondered if Mick’s plane had landed yet. They were planning to meet for coffee at the
Observatory later, after she’d indulged her
Star Wars
obsession with the afternoon asteroid show and before he had to be at his parents’ house for a pre-wedding dinner. She hadn’t seen him for several days, since she’d collapsed in a snoring heap on his lap, but they had talked on the phone twice. His mood had been significantly darker last night, presumably with the prospect of a family reunion looming in less than twenty-four hours.

In the interests of merry diversion, her brain continued to throw up any and all distractions it could muster, next causing her to wonder if she’d left enough cooked food in the fridge for Jeeves. He’d developed a nervous stomach condition that preferred expensive cuts of meats to cheap dog biscuits. She was not entirely convinced that it wasn’t psychosomatic, but doubting the validity of his complaints didn’t save the carpets. The pricey meals it was. Goodbye, any new clothes for autumn. Hopefully he wouldn’t do anything to disgrace himself in front of Melissa. Her cousin tended to be a fair-weather animal lover. The moment that bodily fluids or frenetic barking were involved, her admiration went out the window. They had both dropped her off at the airport late last night and Melissa had stood at the darkened glass windows with her, waiting for the boarding call and watching the Christmassy twinkle of lights on the runway.

Having mostly put Mick’s irritating hypothesis out of her head, she had still found herself venturing a tentative enquiry about Dale. Melissa had hooted at any suggestion that they might get back together.

“God, no,” she’d said dismissively. “Things are good. I can go entire days without wanting to throttle him. The delicate balance of our relationship depends upon our never, ever getting mutually naked again. Besides,” she’d added thoughtfully, “I get the feeling he’s interested in someone else.”

“Why do you think that?” Sophy had asked uneasily.

Damn
Mick. He was determined to topple her lovely, uncomplicated life at every turn.

“I don’t know.” Melissa had wrinkled her nose. “He just has this
expression
sometimes. Like a lovesick sheep. Thank God he never looked at me like that. It’s revolting.”

She’d laughed, apparently unperturbed.

Sophy had not.

She still thought Mick was way off the mark about Dale’s perception of her, but she didn’t appreciate even the whispering suggestion of anything sexual. Now things were inevitably going to be tinged with awkward when she was around him. She was incapable of compartmentalising things like that.

A door opened and she looked up quickly, her nerves jumping, but her immediate neighbour, a grey-haired man with a walking stick and a battered copy of
To Kill A Mockingbird,
was called instead. She sighed, and then almost fell off her seat when a hand touched hers.

Mick lowered his tall frame into a chair that was far too low for him and eyed her askance.

“Sorry,” he said mildly. “But I did say your name three times.”

She stared at him wide-eyed, her palm pressed to her sternum to prevent her heart from actually making a stressed, suicidal leap from her chest.

Mick was leaning forward to look at her dangling feet, a smile breaking through the gravity of his appearance.

“Would you like to swap seats?” he asked, his voice carefully even. “That one looks a little…hard.”

Sophy entertained the offer for about three seconds, before deciding that the indignity would override any benefit of switching. And he was silently laughing at her, the git, so she didn’t feel particularly sorry that he would have to sit with his knees up around his chin.

“No, thank you,” she said primly. She was still watching him in surprise. “You came.”

His shoulders moved fractionally under the crisp blue of his shirt. She could see a slow, steady pulse beating in his throat. He had probably shaved early that morning before his flight, but the stubble was already a blue-black shadow around his jaw. Unlike her, he looked completely at ease in the environment of the courthouse. He also looked like the popular Hollywood conception of a drug dealer, which was earning him the side eye from the world’s most intimidating receptionist.

She was embarrassingly pleased to see him.

“I had the morning free,” he said laconically, “since I wasn’t planning to help decorate the church.”

Despite the dismissive words, his dark eyes were keen and evaluating as he studied her.

“How was your flight?” he asked.

“Turbulence over the Strait and the guy across the aisle looked like Hugh Jackman, so the flight attendant kept forgetting my coffee. Yours?”

“Uneventful.”

That was probably the most banal exchange they’d ever had. She suspected he was trying to distract her with the trivial.

“Sophia James?”

A man in a waistcoat and tie, actually wearing pince-nez like he was a solicitor in an Agatha Christie novel, had come into the waiting room and was looking up expectantly from an open file.

Mick stood and somehow managed to extract her from the depths of the chair in seconds while giving the impression of barely touching her. She admired the panache.

“It shouldn’t take long,” he said calmly. “I’ll wait for you here.”

“Okay.” She started forward, then stopped and handed him the sketchbook. “Can you look after this, please?”

He took it from her, and she frowned warningly at him.

“And don’t look at it this time.”

He raised a brow and cast a pointed look at the hovering clerk.

Fine.

She steeled her shoulders and followed the other man without looking back.

The whole thing turned out to be almost unbelievably dull.

She had faintly expected a scene from
Law and Order
and instead she got a re-enactment of her last appointment to apply for a student loan. Forms, forms, and more forms, all to be filled out under the supervision of three grim officials who appeared to have lost their joy in life somewhere about 1982. The most traumatic part was recording her witness statement, the footage to be used if Maria Harper was committed for trial, since making any kind of television appearance was literally her second-worst nightmare after accidentally leaving the house without clothing. She was so relieved that she shouldn’t have to appear in court (“At
this stage
,” intoned the Weird Sisters of the Auckland legal system in pessimistic accents), she almost kissed the clerk’s dour cheek on the way out.

She kissed Mick’s instead, grabbing her belongings and hustling him out into the sunshine as quickly as possible. He was still speechless by the time they reached the car park.

“It’s almost lunchtime,” she said, turning his wrist to check his watch. “Do you want to get something to eat somewhere?”

He seemed to shake off his distraction, although he gave her an intent look before he nodded and pulled out his car keys.

“There used to be a decent restaurant in Royal Oak near the Observatory.” He was the picture of masculine resignation. “If you’re still set on going there this afternoon.”

“Why would you not want to look at stars?” she asked as he unlocked the doors of a black power car, the bumper of which claimed to be a BMW. She thought it looked exactly the same as the Lexus, but kept those sentiments to herself. She’d once replied, “What new car?” when her dad had replaced a red station wagon with another red station wagon, and he’d acted like she was several crayons short of a pack.

“Fake stars.”

“Excuse me,” said Sophy. “I saw professional wrestling results on your phone.” She gave him an exaggerated look of pity. “Oh, did you think
that
was real?”

Mick was grinning again.

“Do you want to walk to the restaurant?” he asked pleasantly, and added as they pulled out into the traffic, “And those were Sean’s wrestling results.”

“Of course they were.”

The restaurant he remembered had undergone a lifestyle change and become an office supplies store, but they found a cheerful café further down the block with multiple gluten-free options. Sophy deliberately kept the conversation over lunch light and breezy and Mick remained responsive, although the occasional shadow darkened his countenance. He accompanied her willingly enough to the Observatory for the one-thirty show and then annoyed her by falling asleep in the middle of it. Jesus. Men. And they could stay awake through entire sports tournaments.

When they emerged back into the mid-afternoon sunshine, she blinking, he yawning, Sophy stood and shifted from one foot to the other, a little at a loss. They hadn’t planned to spend the whole day together and she wasn’t sure what time he was expected to meet up with his family. And God knows, she wasn’t inviting him shopping. Nothing killed a promising retail buzz like a reluctant male audience. 

“Well…” she started lamely, and he flipped his watch around to check the time.

“Do you have plans for the rest of the afternoon?” he asked, and she watched, astonished, as a tinge of colour flared along his cheeks. It took quite a lot to visibly discompose Mick.

“No,” she said slowly. “Nothing in particular. Why?”

“I have – I think there’s something you might be interested in.”

Oh God, please tell me it’s not meeting his mother.

“It has nothing to do with meeting my family,” he said, reading her faint blanch with eerie accuracy.

“I wasn’t thinking that,” she lied. Her cheeks felt hot and uncomfortable. “Um, okay. Sure.”