Fool for Love by Rachael Sommers

Author:Rachael Sommers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ylva Publishing
Published: 2021-09-15T16:18:55+00:00

Chapter 15

The party wound down at eight, kids dropping like flies as sugar rushes and the high of winning wore off.

“You don’t have to,” Amy said, when Chloe started to help her clean up. “It’s not like you made any of this mess.”

She’d made none of it, in fact, had spent most of the afternoon with Amy and various card games, with Sam and her mum joining in when they’d returned from their ride. All in all, Amy had had a much better afternoon than expected, and she knew it was entirely due to Chloe.

“I don’t mind. Besides, I think you could use an extra set of hands.”

Well, she wasn’t wrong about that—Danny was dealing with the cows, and her mum and Gabi were getting the boys into bed—so Amy didn’t argue. A stack of dishes sat piled high by the sink, and Chloe washed while Amy dried, the two of them falling into the roles they used to have when they were younger, after a family dinner.

“I’m going to do a sweep of the garden,” Amy said when they were done. “Check no one’s left any rubbish out there. Last thing we need is foxes roaming the place.”

“I’ll help.” Chloe left Bella beneath the kitchen table to follow Amy out the back door. “It’s getting dark already.”

“Don’t remind me.” Amy used the torch on her phone to light up the grass, the new moon offering no source of illumination as she checked around the picnic tables. “I hate winter nights. Do you have any idea how hard it is to check you’ve got your whole herd of mostly black cows in when it’s pitch-black outside?”

“I’m guessing very?”

“It’s not fun.”

“Oh my God, you still have the treehouse?”

She found Chloe standing at the base of the oak tree, fingers running over the notches of the ladder etched into its trunk. “Uh-huh. The boys use it now, but it’s still standing. We can go up, if you want.”

“Will we fit?” Chloe asked, frowning at the platform their dads had built for them so many years ago.

“One way to find out.”

She let Chloe go first before joining her. It was a squeeze. The treehouse wasn’t built for someone of Chloe’s stature, and she had to duck her head to she didn’t hit it on the roof.

“Looks different in here,” Chloe said, eyes tracing the walls, slathered with Adam and Sam’s drawings. “And it’s a lot smaller than I remember.”

“Because we’re bigger.”

“I don’t think I’ve grown much since I was seventeen. And you’ve definitely not.”

“Rude,” Amy said, trying not to think about the last time she and Chloe had been in this treehouse. That the reason it had felt bigger then was because they hadn’t been trying to keep a careful few inches of space between them—had been doing the opposite, in fact, their legs tangled together and their kisses frantic.

One of their last kisses, Amy realised, at the end of the summer before everything had changed.

Maybe coming up hadn’t been such a good idea.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.