What Goes Around...

Part Thirty Three

Chapter Thirty Three

Freya stared at the phone; it was still in the very same place that she'd left it seconds earlier. She had decided to make a cake. Try to make amends, because he was rig ht, Mitchell Cooper, he had repeatedly tried to avoid starting something with her and she'd pushed and pushed. He'd not wanted more than the present...he never mentioned the future, and yet again she'd forced him into something he wasn't happy with. She owed him a truce...a peace offering. It wasn't an apology, she wasn't completely in the wrong, but he was right too. So a cake seemed the best option, she really couldn't cook him a meal. But cake...that was her new thing.

She had been in the middle of baking said cake, but the heat of the oven had made the lounge area unbearable, so she'd headed from the veranda down to the water's edge. She had twenty minutes to kill, and what better way that to recline on the sand, face upturned to the sun? She had settled down, sitting on a small rock, legs stretched out across the warm sand, and it was then that her phone rang. She hadn't had reception for most of the time she'd been at the lake, so the ringing took her by surprise. By the time she located it, in the bottom of her bag, the caller had rung off.

She'd not recognised the number, but a bleep notified her that there was a message. What she'd heard had caused her to drop the phone, unceremoniously, and minutes passed as she stared at it, lying in the sand so innocent looking, yet the deliverer of information that would tear her life apart...again.

"Miss Wicker, it's Detective Sharp. I've been trying to get hold of Mr Cooper, but I can't get an answer. I told him on Tuesday when he was captured that I didn't need you to return, that Parsons was squealing. Unfortunately he wants to speak to you, says he'll only confess to what happened. Or his motives if you meet him face to face. Now I know that might be awkward, but it'll mean we can push the conviction without you having to testify in court. As I say, can you or Mr Cooper call me back? Thanks."

She shook her head, at the words, and suddenly seeing Simon again wasn't the worst thing in the world. Terror, that had fuelled her reactions since he turned up on her doorstep, and initially being here...she had been so worried. Despite them being hours away from the place where Simon had attacked her, she'd feared him breaking into the cabin at night, or watching her from behind some foliage. She'd lived on her nerves and was over thinking everything.

But he was safe and in custody, her anxiety had been unnecessary, and Mitchell Cooper had KNOWN that. It was Saturday, that meant that FOUR days ago he knew. She shook her head unable to understand things, what the hell was he playing at? What had the last few days been about? A lie? A scheme? Whatever it was, she'd fallen into it hook, line and sinker. He knew that Simon had been apprehended, and he chose not to tell her. How could she look him in the eye again? How could she trust him?

She was too devastated for tears, all his quirks, all his denials, refusals to enter a bona fide relationship with her; she was willing to overlook all that, to understand that he wanted time and space, hell who could blame him? She wasn't planning to stand around and wait for him forever, but she also felt that he was felt the same way as she did, that given time he'd realise that they were on to a good thing. Since he'd stormed out an hour or so earlier she'd had time to think. And she'd decided that she still wanted to be his friend if there was no way that they could be anything more. The thought of not having him in her life at all was too painful. She would cope with just friendship, she'd have to.

But now? What sort of friend lied like that? Who manipulated situations like he had?

As she dropped her head burying her chin in her chest, she was finally treated to a few stray tears that seemed to scorch tracks on her cheeks.