Emma Darcy - In Need Of A Wife

His temper flared. ‘I came to say I was sorry. What more do you want?’

‘Nothing. There’s nothing I want from you, except for you to go away and leave us alone.’ She held out her hand for the bag. ‘Please?’

He ignored the appeal. ‘Where do you think you’re going to live? You’re being totally selfish squatting on your family. They don’t have room for you.’

‘I intend to find a place of my own.’

‘Sure! That will be real easy with a baby in tow and no steady income. You’re not thinking straight, Sasha. It’s time you stopped sulking and came to your senses.’

‘There’s no point in this, Tyler. Please give me the bag and let us go.’

‘You’re being stupidly stubborn. Come back home with me and...’

She started walking away without the bag, sick of the argument, sick of everything to do with Tyler, wanting to put him behind her once and for all.

He caught up with her and wrenched one of her arms away from Bonnie, his hand closing around it with biting strength and jerking her around to face him. ‘Don’t turn your back on me! I came to talk to you.’

‘It’s no use!’ Sasha cried, shocked at being forcibly held and struggling to free herself. Bonnie started screaming at the jolting.

‘You’re upsetting the kid,’ he accused.

‘Let me go and she’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine.’

‘You’re coming home with me.’

Pulling her after him, denying her any choice, he set off across the park, heading back to where he must have parked his car.

‘Stop it, Tyler!’ Sasha tried digging her heels in but that caused her to stumble when his relentless forward progress dragged her along with him. ‘I don’t want to go with you,’ she protested.

He didn’t so much as slow his pace. ‘You’re coming whether you like it or not.’

‘This won’t get you anywhere,’ she fiercely promised him, pulling and straining against his iron-tight grip. She was hopelessly incapacitated by the need to hold on to Bonnie who was now screaming at the top of her lungs. Sasha was reduced to pleading. ‘Let me go, Tyler. You’re hurting me.’

‘If you stop being a stubborn mule, you won’t get hurt.’

‘Let the lady go.’

The command startled both of them. In harnessing all her strength to resist Tyler’s caveman tactics, Sasha had forgotten about witnesses. Tyler turned to glare at the man who had suddenly thrust himself into an intervening role. Sasha stared at her self-appointed rescuer in dazed disbelief.

Nathan Parnell had shed his sexy air of relaxed indolence. He looked very big, very strong, and very determined.

‘Butt out, mister,’ Tyler snapped at him. ‘This is none of your business.’

Sasha felt a hot surge of humiliation. Being manhandled in public, and having her helplessness witnessed by Nathan Parnell and his son, was degrading. She should have handled this confrontation with Tyler more tactfully, although how she could have stopped him from turning it into an ugly spectacle she didn’t know.

‘Let her go or I’ll... break ...your arm.’

The words were loaded with menace. Her uninvited champion stepped forward, obviously prepared to execute the threat.

The shock of it brought Sasha’s miserable train of thought to an abrupt halt. Why did men have to be so...so primitive? There was going to be a major physical confrontation unless she did something to stop it. And it wasn’t necessary.

‘It’s all right,’ she cried. When all was said and done, she was capable of standing up for herself. Tyler didn’t mean to do her any physical harm, she was sure of that.

Nathan Parnell didn’t back off but he stopped. ‘It certainly will be,’ he said, ‘when the gentleman releases you and returns your bag.’

To Sasha’s knowledge, Tyler had never been faced with the threat of physical violence before. With imminent danger temporarily averted, shock gave way to bristling bravado. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he demanded.

‘Parnell. Police officer. Off duty.’

The economy of words reinforced the command of the man and the identification made his stance even more intimidating. It gave Tyler pause for thought. He finally decided discretion was the better part of valour and released Sasha’s arm.

Sasha reacted rather than acted. Her self-protective instinct made her step back out of Tyler’s reach. Her maternal instinct urged her to soothe Bonnie’s alarm. She was too shaken by what had happened to initiate any further resolution to this dreadful scene.

The erstwhile stranger from the sandpit stood his ground, eyeing Tyler as though he were a prime suspect in a murder case.

‘You don’t understand, Officer,’ Tyler blustered. ‘This is nothing but a domestic argument.’

‘Want to come down to the station and have a friendly chat about it?’

Tyler didn’t care for that challenge, either. ‘This is ridiculous. Cops everywhere. Isn’t there any freedom left in this country?’

‘Yes, sir, there is. Freedom for women and children as well as men. Now, if you don’t mind, hand over the lady’s bag.’

‘She has her hands full with the baby. Our baby,’ Tyler argued.

Nathan Parnell turned to Sasha who was still trying to calm Bonnie. He addressed her quietly, politely, giving no indication that they had met and talked before.

‘Would you like me to carry the bag for you, ma’am? I’ll give you safe escort to wherever you want to go.’

Sasha felt confused. The authority he had brought to the situation was helping to end it, but she didn’t want to get involved with the law. She didn’t want to get any further involved with Nathan Parnell, either. He was just as bad as Tyler in wanting a convenience , and his he-man display didn’t impress her any more than Tyler’s did.

‘You go with him, Sasha, and you’ll never see me again,’ Tyler vowed, fuming at having been put in the wrong.

It made up her mind for her. She didn’t want to see Tyler again. ‘Thank you, Officer. I would be grateful for your help.’

He turned back to Tyler and held out his hand. ‘The bag please, sir.’

Tyler tossed it at Nathan Parnell’s feet, glaring intense hostility at Sasha for her part in his humiliation. ‘Don’t think you can come crawling back to me. This is it, Sasha. I gave you your chance.’

She made no reply. Nathan Parnell scooped up the bag, stepped between her and Tyler, and took a gentle hold on her elbow to steer her in the direction he wanted her to go. ‘If you’ll come this way, ma’am...’

Sasha hesitated, unsure what she would be getting herself into by going with him. Leaping into the unknown was not her idea of a ‘glorious adventure’. Then she remembered his son and realised he must have left the little boy somewhere. Matt should be getting his father’s attention.

She moved decisively, submitting to Nathan Parnell’s escort, embarrassed by the trouble she hadn’t been able to avoid, but relieved to put Tyler behind her. She wondered if it made her a coward, taking the easy way out, but what possible good could it do to continue a post-mortem argument with Tyler? The decision was made. There was no going back.

Matt was, in fact, sitting on the grass a little distance away, gravely watching their approach. Sasha wished he hadn’t seen that ugly tussle. It must have disturbed him as much as it had disturbed Bonnie. It rocked children’s sense of security when adults fought together.

‘Get the rest of your things out of my apartment tomorrow or I’ll throw them out,’ Tyler shouted after her. ‘Your parents will really love having to house all that. They won’t have room to move.’

Sasha shuddered, hating the vindictiveness, hating the fact that four years of commitment had come down to this horrible parting.