Chapter Twenty Three
P aul Farmer slammed down the hood of the car he’d been working on and patted it. “Good as new,” he said. He turned to Sophie. “You can give Ad Park a ring and tell her that her car’s ready to be picked up.”
“Right,” Sophie said, writing a post-it and sticking it on her computer. “And then I’ve ordered the parts you wanted. They’ll be in on the sixteenth.”
“Good. I’ll just go and wash my hands.” He disappeared off into the bathroom.
Sophie sighed.
This wasn’t what she’d wanted to do with her life. Sitting at a tiny desk in a cramped garage, smelling of oil and ordering car parts. Alright, she did some accounting, but this wasn’t what she’d trained for.
Not for the first time, she thought about applying for other jobs. At the beginning, this had all been temporary. Her dad had needed the help, and she’d just finished school. But over time, it had turned into an expectation.
Which was why she couldn’t apply for another job. Her dad would be so hurt.
“What you thinking about, Soph?” he asked as he came back in. He perched on the edge of her desk. “Not still worried about the police thing, are you?”
How was she supposed to answer that? Of course she was. She’d tried to file it away in her mind, tried to forget about it, but of course she was worried about it. Her love interest had raided her work-place.
Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it was kind of true, too. And yes, she knew that Tilly had a job to do, but she could have sent a text or something instead of just turning up like that. There was more to it, though. Like the fact that she’d been sitting there at her desk while Max and Tilly were walking around, expecting them to find something at any moment.
She’d been so sure that Gio and her dad hadn’t done anything. Right up until the police arrived. Then she’d just been waiting for the piano to fall on her head.
They weren’t going out at night, she was sure of that. She was relatively sure that they had nothing directly to do with the stolen cars. But… but there was that little sneaky suspicion in the back of her head. That worry about why Gio had a new car, about the raises they’d been promised.
“You don’t need to be worried about the cops,” her dad said now. “They’re just giving us a hard time. It’ll clear itself up.”
“Right.”
“We haven’t done anything, you know that, don’t you?”
She nodded. Her dad reached over and took her hand, giving it a squeeze.
“You do a good job here, Soph,” he said, his eyes blue and a bit misty looking. “And I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it for a while now. I know that this isn’t your dream job.”
“But—”
“Nah, let me finish,” he said. “I know it’s not what you’ve always wanted to do. But I also know that you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and, well, I’m not getting any younger, am I?”
“You’re fine,” Sophie said. “And you’ll stay fine as long as you take your meds.”
“I can’t stay fine forever,” he said, squeezing her hand again. “And it’s important to have things sorted out.” He rubbed his nose with his hand. “Here’s the thing. I know you can be trusted. So when I go, I want to leave the garage in your hands.”
She opened her eyes wider in shock. “Me? I always thought—”
“Gio’s a good boy and he’s good at his job, but he can’t run the place and both you and he know it. I’ll expect you to keep him on and pay him a good salary, but the actual day-to-day running of the place, well, that’ll be down to you. I’ll talk to Gio about it. Not now, but closer to the time.”
Sophie swallowed, nodded, unsure of what she was supposed to say.
Her dad stood up and stretched. “Right, after a day like today, I’m off for a pint. Gio’s probably already propping up the bar. You coming down the pub?”
“No,” Sophie said. “Not yet. I’ve got a few invoices to finish and then I need to do some choir practice.”
“I tell you what, I’m looking forward to this concert of yours,” her dad said with a grin.
She smiled back. “It won’t be long now.”
She bent her head down and got on with some work while her dad finished putting tools away and then bid her goodbye. She waited until he was truly gone, door closed, before she sat back in her chair and looked around.
She didn’t think they’d done anything. But thinking wasn’t enough. Not if this place was going to be hers one day. If she was going to own the garage, she wanted to know that everything was legal. She wanted to make sure there was nothing to find here.
And she had one advantage over the police. She could go anywhere she liked.
She started with the large tool boxes with their pull out drawers.
IT WAS ALMOST eight, and she’d found nothing when her phone started to ring. Tired, dirty, and aching, she went back to her desk, flopped onto her chair, and answered the phone without thinking.
“I thought we were going to sing.”
Sophie sighed. “I thought we had an arrangement.”
“Me too,” said Tilly. “To sing. But you’re not here?”
She’d been avoiding this conversation, she realized. Okay, so she had wanted to check the garage for possible contraband. She’d wanted to make sure that if the police came back, they found nothing. But, more pressingly, she’d wanted to avoid seeing Tilly. Because she was angry.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Ah,” Tilly said. There was a silence on the other end of the phone. When Tilly spoke again, her voice was soft but clear. “I’m not going to apologize, Sophie.”
“You could have rung.”
“No,” Tilly said. “No, I couldn’t. That was police work. I had information that led me to believe the garage could be involved in the stolen car ring. I could not inform you, the daughter of the owner, that we were preparing to come and have a look around. How would that have looked in court?”
“We’re not in court,” Sophie said stubbornly.
“Listen, we agreed. I have a job to do. You have a complicated family. Those two things are going to coincide at points. There’s nothing I can do about that. What would you have liked me to do?”
“I’d have liked some warning.”
“You’re being unreasonable.” There was a pause. “Sophie, I know that you know this.”
She did know it. She was being unreasonable. “I suppose.”
“These things are going to happen. I’m not going to compromise my job for you. And in the same way, I don’t expect you to compromise your family for me.”
Sophie bit her lip. Tilly was right, she knew she was right. “It was just… it was a shock, that’s all. To see you here, to see you so soon, just… just looking.”
“Looking and finding nothing,” Tilly reminded her. “And just so you know, no matter what your brother might think, neither Max nor I would ever plant evidence.”
“I know that,” Sophie said. She did know it. She instinctively trusted Tilly. She sighed, the sound louder through the phone than she’d intended. “Have I messed all this up?”
“What?”
“This. Us. Have I been unreasonable and messed it all up?”
Tilly laughed a little and Sophie’s stomach eased. “I don’t think so. There are bound to be misunderstandings sometimes, aren’t there?” Tilly said. “And whilst I won’t apologize for doing my job, I will apologize for taking you by surprise like that. It wasn’t my intention, just an unfortunate side effect.”
“Right,” Sophie said. “Um, and I apologize for being weird about it.”
“We all get to be weird sometimes,” said Tilly. “What about this singing business?”
“Yeah, sorry about that too,” Sophie said. “I got caught up in some paperwork and forgot the time.” Partially true.
“It’s a bit late now,” said Tilly. “I think we’re doing okay, though. We can miss one practice.” She cleared her throat. “What about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Babysitting?”
Sophie stared at her computer screen. She’d been shaken when Tilly and Max had shown up. She’d made her promises in the village hall, thinking that the matter was mostly closed, thinking that there was no way anyone could really believe that Gio and her dad had done anything. The reality of it hit a little different.
The reality of dating someone like Tilly.
A police officer.
“You absolutely don’t have to come,” Tilly said. There was a slight catch in her voice, something Sophie hadn’t heard before. “I mean, if you don’t want to, or it’s too soon, or, or whatever.”
Still, the police had been now, hadn’t they? They’d seen that there was nothing here. They surely wouldn’t come back. She was being silly. She looked around at the half-darkened garage. The garage that would be hers one day.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll be there.”
“Brilliant,” Tilly said, and she sounded like she was sixteen, so young, so innocent. “I’ve already talked to Mila about it. She says it’s fine. We can order a pizza or something if you like. How about around eight? I think the kids should be asleep by then.”
Sophie stretched her legs out, thinking about Tilly’s hand on her waist, thinking about the firmness of her lips. “How about around seven?” she said.
“Eager, are we?”
“I want to see you.” The raw desire in her voice took even Sophie by surprise. She took another look around the garage, wondering if she could stand another full day of working before she saw Tilly again.
“I want to see you too,” said Tilly. “I… I was worried that you weren’t going to want to see me anymore after today.”
“But you did your job anyway,” Sophie said.
“I did. It’s important to me.”
“More important than I am?” Sophie couldn’t help but ask.
“That’s not a fair question. I’ve only known you for a couple of weeks. And we have an arrangement.”
“We do,” Sophie said. “Yes. You’re right. We do.” She closed her eyes and could see Tilly’s face. “Alright, I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait,” Tilly said.
“Me neither.”