Finding Katie

Chapter 23

Katie

"I should probably warn you."

The halting words broke through my thoughts and I looked to my side. "About what?"

Ben glanced briefly away from the rush hour traffic around us to meet my gaze. "My mother."

I stared at him. He sounded more weary than wary, and so far nothing he'd told me about his mother had made me nervous about meeting Mrs Graves. "What about your mother?"

"She called the other day."

"Yes?"

He glanced at me again. "Sarah told her that I'm bringing a guest. A female guest."

I tried, I really did, to suppress my smile at his expression as I arranged the seatbelt over my shoulder so I could turn fully to him.

We had left the centre an hour ago and were halfway to Cambridge in Ben's commodious car, and the farther from London we travelled, the more my shoulders relaxed. The more distance there was between me and my nemesis, the more right it felt to not tell Ben everything now. As Bridget had said, the lies could keep for a few more days.

My head tilted as I stared at him. "You didn't tell your mother that I'm coming with you? I thought you said she was fine with me staying with them, too."

"She is. I would have, if Sarah hadn't beaten me to it."

"So why the warning?"

He glanced my way again, and my lips twitched.

"Let me guess," I said. "You don't often bring a woman home with you?"

A weary sigh left him that only made me chuckle. "Only two before you. You'd best brace yourself."

"You make it sound like your mother might interrogate me before she'll let me into their house."

Ben snorted. "Quite the opposite. She might not let you leave again once you're inside."

I laughed and covered his hand with mine for a moment. Ben made it so easy to smile, to laugh. To sit back and relax, and just enjoy being with him, despite my revelation that there was something I needed to tell him.

He seemed almost more at ease now that we'd made plans for Monday than he had been since I'd failed so abysmally in keeping him from growing suspicious about me.

It wasn't that he'd been indifferent or unresponsive, or even angry at me, and our intimacies had been more passionate than ever, but he'd been quieter since his return from Manchester. Something was weighing on his mind.

My guess was that it was either my lack of proper answers to all his questions or his work, but I wasn't going to pry into either. I didn't want to remind him of my failure to reply, or risk him mentioning the very subject that Dave wanted to know more about.

Knowing absolutely nothing about his work would – hopefully – make it easier for Ben to believe me when I told him about the subterfuge I'd employed towards Dave.

"I'm sure your mother is lovely and it'll be fine."

He only snorted in reply, but when he turned the car into the driveway in front of a large, two-story, red bricked house on the outskirts of Cambridge, the front door flew open before he'd taken the key from the ignition.

A slender woman came racing out, still trying to put on her bright yellow clogs. She halted right where the path to the front door met the gravelled drive and was all but bouncing on her feet. She was middle-height, her grey-blonde hair cut just beneath her ears, and she was grinning from ear to ear, waving at us with both hands.