Bloody hell.
She ran to the Hall just as the girls were jumping off the stage.
“Miss Sibyl,” Flower was calling to her, her voice plaintive, “we can’t get that last part right.”
“We’ll never get it right,” Katie moaned as the four of them stopped in front of Sibyl.
Sibyl was in a panic. Flower, Katie and their two friends Emma and Cheryl were staring at her with need and expectation.
And it was Colin or four little girls. She had to decide in a split second who needed her most.
It took her less than a second.
Colin would have to wait and Sibyl would have to suffer the consequences.
She turned off her phone, buried it in the back pocket of her cords and took a deep breath.
“What part is giving you trouble?” she asked Flower with an overbright, shaky smile.
* * * * *
She arrived home nearly an hour later even though the drive from work was twenty minutes. She could, of course, lie and say that it took her that long to get home; Colin had no idea where she worked. But Sibyl couldn’t lie, she’d already lied to Colin once and if they kept stacking up she knew she’d get them messed up and get caught in one of them one day.
She pushed open the door to her house, feelings of dread seeping through her body.
Colin was standing in the living room staring out the back window, emanating rage even though he didn’t move a muscle.
He had a drink in his hand. Gin and tonic. Once she knew that was his preference, she made certain she stocked it in her house, just like she made certain she had Diet Coke and rum when her sister came around, good Scotch when her father was there and margarita mix and tequila for her mother.
The minute she entered the cottage, he turned around.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
“I told you, Colin, I was at work,” she replied softly.
He processed this and she could tell by the muscle leaping in his jaw that he did not like it one bit. Then he put his glass on a table and started toward her.
“Your phone is off,” he informed her.
“Yes, I… well, I had to turn it off.”
She really wished she was a good liar. It would certainly help in this situation.
“Why is that?” His voice sounded curious, curious and cold and very, very menacing.
He’d reached her and when he did, his hand came up to curl around the side of her neck. This could have been a loverly gesture but, at that moment, it was most definitely not.
“I was in the middle of something urgent and –” she started, his eyes turned to stone and immediately she stopped speaking.
“Did you forget the rules?” he asked in a quiet, scary tone.
No, she didn’t, though she had been harbouring some, small, lingering hope that he had, until that moment.
She shook her head. “Colin, I –”
“Be quiet,” he ordered softly, dangerously and thus she felt a tremor slide through her and instantly ceased speaking.
She was already in enough trouble; she was not stupid enough to throw fuel on what appeared to be a rather blazing fire.