Love On The Westside by Riley West

Author:Riley West
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2020-10-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter twenty

​Kate had called her grandmother’s place a cottage, and that was exactly what they came upon an hour later. The Range Rover’s tires crunched on the gravel drive as they took the path off the main road. Lila breathed a sigh of relief as the car came to a stop; prying her fingers from the grab handle above the door, thankful they’d arrived in one piece.

​“You alive?” Kate teased as she caught sight of Lila’s wide eyes. There was a reason she preferred driving alone, afterall. Lila swallowed, nodded, thankful they’d been in an SUV instead of a sports car, certain Kate would have put any vehicle she was driving through its paces. It had been a harrowing hour of narrow roads and near collisions with a wide variety of roaming wildlife, including a dozen or so cows, but here they finally were.

​Once out of the car, Lila had a chance to breathe, and step back to admire the scene of postcard beauty that was Kate’s home. The little structure sat still amongst the brown and green of the glen; a loch, silent and still behind it. The low-slung cottage was made of whitewashed stone with bright, sapphire blue shutters, and a blue wooden door. In the still dim morning light, Lila caught the glow of firelight coming through the thick leaded glass window panes and she felt for all the world as if she were about to enter another realm.

​The sound of the car’s hatch closing shook her from her reverie; she turned to see Kate taking a moment to take in the view as well, somehow she’d still never gotten over the breathtaking majesty of the place.

​Kate caught Lila watching her and tossed a small bag at her, throwing her own backpack over her shoulder and hefting their other two bags. “Not bad huh?”

​“Understatement,” she waited on Kate to unlock the door, but Kate laughed, “It’s open. No one out here but the cows.”

The cottage was every bit as cozy on the inside as it had looked from the outside. It reminded Lila of her family’s lakehouse, the one place where she hadn’t felt like an outsider growing up; where her love of fishing and the outdoors could be indulged. Something she’d greatly missed living in cities all her adult life.

​Kate’s eyes softened, her whole body seeming to relax into the calm of the place as the women entered. The smoke of the little peat fire filled the home with its earthy aroma; she’d had the caretaker get it started when when he’d stopped by to open the place that morning. As promised, there had been lukewarm coffee and delicious scones in the car, neither of which Lila had touched on their winding journey. Kate was starving herself, and knew Lila must be also. Bless old Ben, she thought, spying the still hot pot of coffee on the brewer and a basket she knew would contain sandwiches and cakes from his sweet wife.

“You seem different here, you know,” Lila said as they ducked under a half fallen post fence.

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