The Summer of Secrets by Tilly Tennant

Author:Tilly Tennant
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786813602
Publisher: Bookouture

Chapter 19

Greg was playing cricket with Josh in the garden. Allie could hear the thwack of the ball on wood, their cheers and laughter from the front of the house as she got out of the car. It was nice, hearing them like that – it felt like it had been a long time. Almost nice enough to make her forget, if only temporarily, that it was a sound she would soon lose. Almost, but never really, because it was the only thing she’d been able to think about since Greg had made his threats – threats she knew he would have no qualms about making good.

Perhaps she wouldn’t go through and interrupt them just yet. She owed as many days of happiness to Josh as she could still manage before his world was torn apart and this might be one of the last. Besides, she was tired and her head pounded.

The front door clicked quietly behind her as she closed it. Shedding her jacket at the coat rack in the hall, she made her way swiftly up the stairs and lay on her bed, the sheets cool and the room shaded as the sun moved around the house. The day had started off murky, but now the cloud had broken away in chunks to reveal flashes of blue and daggers of sunlight.

She closed her eyes, but sleep wouldn’t come, as stubborn now as it had been overnight. Sooner or later, sheer exhaustion would take her and she’d fall into oblivion; she longed for it with all her heart. Not now, though. The sounds of Josh and Greg still playing drifted up through the open window. Once, she would have gone to sit in the garden with a drink and laughed along with them. They would have finished their game and she would have brought snacks out – breadsticks and hummus, little triangles of ham and bread, sweet cherry tomatoes and lush green salad, strawberries and cream. A garden picnic Josh would call it, his favourite summertime treat. Greg wasn’t home often, so they’d make the most of every moment.

Allie squeezed her eyes tight, tears oozing from the corners and gravity taking them down into her ears as she lay on her back. She wiped them away. Tears wouldn’t make things better, and tears were for people who deserved pity. Not for her then, who was so spineless she couldn’t do the one decent thing that had been asked of her. Not only was Harper still blissfully ignorant of Shay’s betrayal, but Allie would now have to lie to Greg about it too. He would find out; he was bound to in a village as small as theirs. If only they’d moved to Germany when he’d asked, taken the plunge and made a new life there together instead of stubbornly insisting that she wanted to stay in England, that they could make a long-distance marriage work. Perhaps they’d be out in a garden in some suburb of Düsseldorf or Frankfurt or Berlin now, laughing at cricket and eating a garden picnic.

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