AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He guided me well. I must say, Dec, you’ve really gone state of the art with that gym.”
Declan looked pleased. “I’m glad you’re making good use of it. Maybe you can convince Mum one of these days about Reboot’s value to the community.”
“I already have. She heard me discussing the workouts with Savvie. You know Mother—she thinks gyms should only be for weightlifters or gymnasts.”
Drake approached us. Tall and muscular, with black hair and bright blue eyes, he was the kind of guy I could easily imagine the girls liking. “We’ve finished planting the cabbages.” He wiped his forehead then greeted me with a nod.
“Have a break. I’ll be there in a minute.” Declan turned to me and cocked his head. “Come with me.”
We headed to the back of the boot camp, where the foundations were being laid for Newman’s new house.
“So he’s keen?” he asked after John Newman.
I nodded. “He signed the contract for five years. He’s happy to train three of the boys.”
“He knows it won’t be ready for another two months?” Declan asked as we walked through Chatting Wood.
Being late afternoon, the sun-sprinkled leaves shimmered. That forest always charmed. As children, we were convinced wizards and witches lived in the trees.
“He knows,” I said, thinking of John Newman and how he lost years off his face when I’d offered him a holiday in Spain then arranged for them to stay in a village cottage while the house was being built.
“His wife’s expressed interest in working at the spa.”
“But that’s a month away, isn’t it?” Declan asked as we traversed the path onto the back laneway to Merivale.
“It is.” My back ached from the thought of all the work I still needed to do. Between the hotel and the spa, I had a packed itinerary.
Savanah wanted to celebrate her twenty-eighth birthday at The Rabbit Hole, one of her favourite West End bars, filled with “ourpeople,” as my mother would have it. I couldn’t say whether I connected that deeply with that trendy bar with its rib-thumping dance music and wall-to-wall people in designer, downing shots and talking loudly. I liked the scene at the Thirsty Mariner just as much.
Dressed in an orange dress with purple splashes, my sister always went for the craziest designs she could find.
I pointed at her outfit. “This is out there.”
“Vivien Westwood. I love her. Matches her hair colour.” She giggled.
Sienna, my sister’s party girlfriend, looked like she’d been squeezed into a skin-coloured dress. Her fake-tanned shoulder touched mine as she joined us. We’d had athingthat had lasted a few nights, and she was again in flirty mode.
“I thought you were naked, from a distance as I walked in. I had to do a double take,” I said.
She giggled. “I think that’s the idea. Get men all hot and bothered imagining us in the flesh.”
“Oh, we don’t need a skin-coloured dress to heat up,” I said, recalling Mirabel in her own fitted number that hugged those perfect curves. “I prefer colour myself.”
She touched the lapel of my jacket. “This is quaint. Houndstooth. Reminds me of my grandfather’s jackets. It suits you, though.”
“I picked it up in Scotland. I’m rather fond of Harris Tweed. The process is rather staggering. They dye their wool from local plant life.”
She smoothed down her super-straight blonde hair. “I wouldn’t have picked you for a nature-loving type.”
“That’s me through and through. My city persona’s just a front.”
Declan and Theadora stepped through the door and made their way through the noisy crowd, which seemed to double in size due to all the mirrored surfaces.
“Ah, there’s big brother and sister-in-law,” Savanah said, holding a bottle of beer in one hand and a shot glass in the other.
It was fair to say that my sister liked to party.
“I thought Mummy was about to have a heart attack when she saw that ring on Declan’s finger.” My sister chuckled.
