Teepee for Two by Daisy Tate

Author:Daisy Tate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-06-28T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

The farmhouse was virtually vibrating with excitement. Everyone had worked so hard the day before, they’d all slept like logs then risen early as the countdown to make the milk bar a reality continued. Charlotte had volunteered to do all the cooking so that Freya could focus on the shop. When she wasn’t preparing a meal, she was experimenting with new cake recipes. It was such fun she even occasionally forgot about Xanthe’s photos of Oli changing tiny nappies. Oli giving foot rubs. Oli doing any number of things he’d never once done for Charlotte, apart from crowing about the fact she’d done a ‘proper Diana’ by giving him an heir.

If he’d been bothered enough to ring and ask how his children’s ‘ruined’ holiday was going, he’d find out his heir had just learned how to give CPR to a calf. Charlotte had never been more proud of her son. He knew how to a do a thing, and had asked to do it again if possible to make sure he’d got it right. Such a change from a boy who, if she was honest, was not the finest of pupils.

Poppy had come out of her shell as well. She’d volunteered to help Regan make signs to post out on the road and had even started a small #HogmanayMilkBar buzz on Twitter, with a terrifically clever video she and the other girls had made last night. They’d unearthed some toy carts and horses from the attic, piled the carts with miniature whisky bottles, then rigged them up to look as though they were gliding up the farm track to the theme song from Chariots of Fire.

Charlotte scanned the kitchen. Experimental rings of sponge cake were cooling everywhere. She’d not yet made the boozy buttercream, as Emily still hadn’t gone on her ‘Rocco-chauffeured booze cruise’. Rocco was so busy with calving, gritting the drive for the milk lorries, and doing heaven knew how many other chores on top, at Freya’s bidding, that she daren’t press him. She’d never known a man to be so generous with his time. And so patient!

Charlotte tutted to herself. She was being silly about Rocco. The winks. The moments when their hands brushed. It felt nice to know the shine she’d taken to Rocco back in the day may have been reciprocated, but he lived up here and she lived down there, and soon enough this whole fluttery-tummy business would be but a distant memory.

It needed to be. Given what lay in store for her when she got back to her real life, romance should be the last thing on her mind. The children’s cancelled ski trip was very likely the first of many disappointments she’d have to smooth over. Even before he’d left, Oli had been unreliable. Regularly missing Jack’s electric guitar recitals, Poppy’s choral concerts. Client dos. Dos she’d never been invited to because ‘she’d find it all dreadfully boring.’ Perhaps Xanthe had been his ‘plus one’ at those events all along. His #CheekyLawGirl.

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