Read Online Three’s a Crowd by Dianne Blacklock - Free Book Online Page A

everything else is going to have to stay the same.’ He glanced at her. ‘I’m worried about Soph.’
    Rachel nodded. She could see why, if the conversation upstairs was anything to go by. ‘Does she have any contact with her father?’ she asked tentatively.
    Tom looked wounded. ‘I’m her father, Rach.’
    â€˜Of course, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –’
    â€˜I know, but that’s the very reason I’m worried about her.’ He drained his glass, setting it down on the table. ‘She’s going to feel like the odd one out now, she doesn’t even have the same surname as me and Hannah. That’s just the kind of thing Sophie will obsess about.’
    Annie hadn’t changed her surname when they married, so she had certainly seen no reason to change Sophie’s, who was nearly two when she and Tom met. When Hannah was born, it had seemed only fair to give her Tom’s surname, and though they had decided it was the perfect time for Tom to formally adopt Sophie, she and Annie remained Veitches, while Tom and Hannah were Macklins. They could never have anticipated a reason to do otherwise.
    â€˜She knows where she belongs, Tom,’ said Rachel.
    â€˜I hope so, she can be hard to read.’
    â€˜She’s a sixteen-year-old girl, doesn’t that make her illegible?’ Rachel suggested.
    Tom smiled faintly, shaking his head. ‘It’s such a bad age to lose her mum.’ He looked at Rachel. ‘You’d know all about that.’
    â€˜It’s a little different, Tom, my mother’s alive, she just doesn’t seem to know I am.’ She gave him a lame smile. ‘Annie has given those girls the most amazing foundation, she was ten times the mother my mother could dream of being.’
    â€˜Yeah, she was,’ he said wistfully. ‘I was in awe of her when we first met, the way she was with Sophie. I think that’s why I fell in love with her. She was so patient, and loving, and she was all on her own. Her parents wouldn’t have anything to do with her.’
    â€˜Did they show up today?’ Rachel asked.
    He shook his head. ‘Didn’t even respond to my messages. They believe she’s going to hell, you know.’
    â€˜Tom –’
    â€˜It’s true, Rach,’ he insisted. ‘Fucking fundamentalist freaks. It used to make me so angry, but Annie was never resentful. She said it’d be bad for the girls. So in her heart she forgave them, even if she couldn’t understand them, even if it still hurt her so much . . .’
    His voice broke then, and he pressed his fingers to his eyes, dropping his head. Rachel didn’t know what to say, though perhaps it was better not to say anything, just give him a moment.
    Eventually he sat up straight again, clearing his throat and reaching for the bottle. He tilted it towards Rachel, but she shook her head. ‘I thought you were going to get drunk with me?’
    â€˜I’m still on this one,’ she protested, picking up her glass and taking another sip. That went down a little easier. She looked at him. ‘You know, Tom, time will heal.’ She groaned, slapping her forehead. ‘There I go again, where are all these clichés coming from?’
    â€˜You do seem to have a certain flair for them,’ he observed.
    â€˜What can I say? Lack of originality has always been one of my strengths,’ she said.
    He grinned then. ‘Okay, what else have you got? Give me your best.’
    Rachel drummed on the tabletop with her fingers. ‘Hmm . . . let me think. Well, you’ve already covered “It was meant to be.” What about “Things always happen for a reason”?’
    â€˜Got that today,’ he nodded, ‘a few times. Along with “Something good will come of this.”’
    â€˜I hope someone told you “You have to keep busy”?’ she