Snowfall Over Halesmere House by Suzanne Snow

Author:Suzanne Snow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Ella felt as though the days were flying by now that December had arrived, and Christmas was on its way. There was much to keep her busy as she took over supervising the builders’ work, researched retreats for the house, wrote content for the new website, met potential suppliers and invited them to the supper she was planning. She’d finally turned down the agency interview but had agreed to another one early in the New Year after the recruiter followed up two emails with a call. Another Michelin-starred restaurant, this time opening on the Norfolk coast. Ella knew it could be a great job, and she would need work after her time at Halesmere was over. But the future lay ahead, blurred, uncertain, and she was enjoying the present too much to commit to something more than a possibility right now.

She and Max had fallen into having coffee together each morning after he’d walked the children to school, if he didn’t need to be elsewhere. She liked it, looked forward to that time with him and sensed he did too. He’d show her the gardens he was designing and was enthusiastic and supportive about the plans she was making. Their conversations gradually eased into the more personal and she was enjoying a naturally developing friendship, discovering they shared similar values and a sense of fun she thought they’d both missed.

If Ella wasn’t in his office when he returned from school, he’d send her a coffee emoji accompanied by a grinning one to remind her. One morning when she couldn’t make it, she’d sent an emoji sticking out its tongue straight back. The row of laughing ones that had followed from Max was worth the moment of realisation that she probably shouldn’t be pulling cheeky faces at her boss.

Sometimes Noelle would join them, but she wouldn’t stay long if Ella and Max were busy; she’d disappear with a wave and a promise to see them another time. Ella ran down to school with Prim three afternoons a week to collect Lily and Arlo, and she loved taking care of them, despite the bickering over whose turn it was to hold Prim’s lead on the way back and Arlo’s reluctance to do his homework while she cooked their evening meal. Occasionally Max made it back in time for the school run when it was Ella’s turn, and he’d catch her up, taking the children by surprise and making them squeal with delight when he swung them into big hugs, and she was the only one who had to hide her pleasure when he arrived home from work.

She’d given up trying to evade his insistence that she eat with them on the nights she cooked for the family. Sometimes Lily and Arlo would persuade her to stay long enough to read them a bedtime story as well, and once or twice Max had been asleep when she came back downstairs. She’d let herself out of the cottage and return to the house, despite longing to linger instead and watch him wake.

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