Love Among the Treetops: A feel good holiday read for summer 2018

Not that he looks anything but delighted to see me.

‘Well, hello,’ he says. ‘If it isn’t Scully herself.’

A stupid smile spreads across my face at the mention of our heroes back in the day, Mulder and Scully from The X-Files.

‘Mulder.’ I swallow hard. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m good, thanks. All the better for seeing you. I hear you gave up a high-flying PR career to make pastries. Brave move.’ His eyes twinkle.

I laugh. ‘Yeah, some might say stupid. But hey, you’ve got to follow your dreams.’

‘And you always were a bit of a dreamer.’

We lock eyes and a wealth of memories shimmers in the space between us.

Me at fifteen, on the miraculous day Jason approached me shyly after school and asked if I wanted to go to the cinema with him. I’d liked him for ages but never thought I stood a chance. After saying yes, I walked on air all the way home and squealed into my pillow when I got to my room. The movie was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but I don’t think I heard a word of it – I was so delirious with happiness just to be with Jason.

Then at sixteen, listening to music with Jason in my bedroom after school, laughing, kissing and lounging together on the white fluffy bedspread, eating Screwball ice creams with bubble gum at the bottom.

And at seventeen, losing my virginity in the back of Jason’s Ford Escort. People said the first time was always a disappointment, but it wasn’t like that for us. I was madly in love and thought it would last forever.

At eighteen, I went off to university in Manchester, assuming we’d be true to each other in spite of the two hundred miles separating us. Then the horrible phone call from Paloma, six months into my course, telling me Jason had been seen out with Lucy. She’d agonised about whether or not to tell me, but I told her she’d done the right thing, letting me know.

I phoned Jason and challenged him, and he admitted they’d gone out just as friends and that was all it would ever be as far as he was concerned. But the thing was, I knew how mad Lucy was about Jason and I just knew, deep down, that with me at a distance, she would use every trick in her power to steal him from me …

To be fair on Jason, he ended our relationship before anything happened with Lucy, although it came as a horrible shock to me.

I’d taken the train home for a weekend in the middle of the summer term, a few weeks after Paloma’s revelation. I’d assumed that after my stressful phone call with Jason about Lucy, things were okay between us again. More than okay. Jason and I were meant to be together; I couldn’t imagine us ever splitting up.

We’d gone for a long walk in the lanes around the village, ending up in our special place – a secluded spot in a pretty little wood by a stream, just beyond the village boundary.

We’d sat down and I’d leaned against him in the dappled sunlight beneath the trees, listening to the lazy gurgle of the water sliding over the stones, and Jason took my hand and told me he was finding our long-distance relationship much harder than he thought it would be.

While I was in Manchester, he said, Lucy was still there, in Hart’s End. They’d been friends first, before he started to develop feelings for her, and he swore nothing physical had happened with Lucy. I believed him because Jason always told the truth. That was one of the things I loved about him – his total honesty and inability to tell a lie.

Now, he looks up at me with a wistful smile. ‘You’re looking great, Twi. We should get together for a drink. For old times’ sake.’

‘You think?’ My tone is laden with cynicism because I really can’t see Lucy allowing that. Paloma reckons Jason is completely under her thumb and I can well believe it. Jason is sunny natured, the eternal optimist and, if he has a fault, it’s that he can sometimes be way too easy-going and forgiving for his own good. I can imagine Lucy taking full advantage of this.

‘With Lucy as well,’ Jason adds swiftly.

I nod. ‘Of course.’

We smile at each other, acknowledging that nothing to do with exes is ever that simple.

‘Oh, there you are!’ a bossy voice screeches. ‘We thought you were never coming, so we decided to walk.’

I swing round. Lucy is tapping daintily along the pavement towards us, with Olivia in tow. (I’m guessing she’d gallop in her eagerness to stop Jason and I talking, if it weren’t for the skyscraper heels she’s wearing.)

‘Hi, love.’ Jason’s smile is a little sheepish. ‘I spotted Twilight and I couldn’t resist pulling up for a quick chat.’

Lucy’s eyes sweep over me, like a cold front blowing in from a northerly direction. She leans down to speak to Jason. ‘Olivia’s coming back for a drink. To talk about the 10k. She’ll probably stay over.’ She opens the back door for Olivia to get in.

Jason looks surprised. This is obviously the first he’s heard about it. But he says, ‘Yeah, fine. I’ve got an early start in the morning anyway, so I’ll leave you girls to it and grab an early night.’

‘The bin needs putting out,’ she snaps. ‘Please don’t forget to do it like you did last week.’

He grins. ‘I won’t.’

Hurrying round to the passenger side, she flicks her eyes over me. ‘If you want those trouser seams taking out, Twilight, give me a call and I’ll come round and collect them.’ I notice she doesn’t suggest I drop them off because, presumably, there would be a chance I’d bump into Jason again.

‘Oh, right, thanks.’ I have absolutely no intention of calling her for this or any other reason.

‘I think your trousers look perfectly fine as they are,’ says Jason, grinning at me, and I wonder if this is his small revenge for Lucy’s snippy comments about the bin.

‘There’ll be no nooky for him tonight,’ mutters Paloma as we watch them drive off, Lucy with a face like thunder.

Chapter 7 (#ulink_b872df47-2641-53da-ac38-347d3001943a)

It’s three days since Lucy’s fashion show and all the buzz around the 10k charity run has had an effect on me. I have decided – albeit reluctantly – to get fit for the first time in my life.

But I’m not as fearless as Paloma.

She’s started running every evening, through the village and out along country lanes, but I’m not terribly keen on putting my wobbly bits on public show like that. So, I’ve decided to join the gym instead. I figure if I go prompt at seven in the morning, when it opens, there’ll be fewer people to observe me tackling the treadmill. (I’m thinking particularly of Theo Steel. I really do not want to bump into him in my baggy T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms.)

Leaving the house, I give the milkman a cheery wave and head for the sports centre. Avoiding the main gate and taking a short cut through the bushes into the sports centre car park, I do a quick scan of the few cars parked there at this evil early hour. A pink Porsche, a clapped-out old Fiesta that looks as if it’s been abandoned and an ugly, shiny people carrier. In other words, none that screams ‘Theo Steel’.

Phew!

I whip off the dark glasses, which are probably a little over the top at seven in the morning, with the sun just a cheery promise lurking on the horizon. Then I change my mind and put them back on. At least they mask the puffiness from a very late night spent perfecting my scone selection.

By the time I crashed out around three, I had five different varieties cooling on wire trays. The date scones are my personal favourite, although I know Paloma prefers the cherry and coconut. Throw in a savoury flavour – cheddar, parmesan and cracked black pepper – plus blueberry lemon cream, and classic sultana, and hopefully, there will be a scone to suit every customer’s taste.

What prompted this morning’s early rise was Paloma knocking on my door last night, just before six. She was hoping to persuade me to join her on a jog around the village, but I despatched her speedily on her way, joking that I had far more enjoyable things to do with my time, such as cleaning the hard-to-reach bits behind the radiators and watching paint dry.

But after she’d gone, I decided that if I was to take part in Lucy’s 10k with everyone else and not totally show myself up, I needed to do something about my lack of fitness because I suspected you needed a bit more than natural stamina to run all that way.

Walking into the sports centre, I find reception deserted, except for a model-like girl leaning on the other side of the desk painting her nails. Dressed in a skimpy bright pink leotard, she’s wearing massive rollers that look more suited to flattening road surfaces than styling hair.

‘Hi, you’re an early bird.’ She beams at me. ‘I’m Lorena. I suppose you’re wanting to bag the anti-gravity treadmill before anyone else!’

I give a nervous laugh. ‘Sounds like an instrument of torture if ever there was one.’

‘Have you tried it? No? Oh, it’s amazing. You can beat world records on it.’

‘Really?’

She nods. ‘You run at eighty per cent of your body weight, so you’re much lighter and therefore you can run faster.’