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

I’m so lucky to have my treehouse. I think maybe the reason Lucy Slater is angry with me is because her dad didn’t make her a treehouse like mine …

Chapter 1 (#u3a0aea97-22d2-55bd-b3c8-fd5390bd5788)

I’m about to spread snowy white icing onto the perfect fairy cake, before adorning it with a sugary, melt-in-the-mouth pink rose, when a rail official walks into the carriage.

‘All tickets, please.’

Pulled from my daydream, I sit up and start scrabbling through my belongings, panicking that I might have lost my ticket. If only I could be more practical and less prone to disappearing into my imagination.

As an only child, I tended to escape into a comforting fantasy world in times of stress, and now – at thirty-two – I’m still a bit of a dreamer, although the days of being bullied at school are thankfully long behind me.

Something tells me I’ll have to start being super-practical if I’m going to run a successful café …

I boarded a train four hours ago in Manchester, where I’ve been studying at catering college for the past year, then I switched to this local line that will take me to the village of Hart’s End in Sussex, where I lived all my childhood. I’ve spent the time scribbling away in a notebook, composing a list of cakes, scones and tray bakes that will look good on a café menu. There’s a price beside each one, although I’m finding it hard to work out what customers would be prepared to pay. That’s why the page is full of scorings out and question marks.

Keeping busy like this also means I’m not worrying about Dad all the time.

We’re less than an hour away from Hart’s End now and my stomach churns constantly as I think about the life-changing steps I’m about to take.

I really need this café to be a success.

Honey Cottage, our family home, will have to be sold if I can’t step in and start paying the mortgage on it. With Dad in hospital, undergoing the cancer treatment that Mum and I desperately hope will save his life, the last thing my parents need is to be worrying that they’re going to lose their house. So that’s where I come in.

Twilight Wilson to the rescue!

My insides shift uneasily. I’ve always loved baking, but it’s a massive leap from turning out my favourite cakes in the warmth of my own kitchen to becoming a successful café owner …

Finally, I locate my ticket.

The only other passenger in the carriage – a woman who looks about my age, sitting further along, across the aisle – is having to buy her fare, and the rail official is gently reminding her that she really should have bought her ticket on the platform. He shrugs in a friendly way as he says it, and she pats her glamorous blonde up-do and gives him the benefit of a winsomely apologetic smile.

The instant he’s gone, the smile vanishes, like a light bulb being switched off. She raises her eyes to the ceiling with a look of contempt and gets back to her sporty-looking magazine.

The train slows down, entering a tunnel, and my reflection appears in the window, staring back at me from the darkness beyond. Fine, strawberry-blonde hair brushing my shoulders, wide-set blue eyes and too-plump lips that I’ve hated all my life. The rest of me is probably a little on the plump side, too, mainly because I love baking and you can’t be a baker and not sample the end results, can you? I’m also fairly short, so every calorie-laden mouthful tends to reveal itself elsewhere.

As a kid, I loved making cakes: experimenting with different flavours and textures. After a bad day at school, I could forget Lucy Slater and lose myself in the supremely soothing world of buttery cake mix, glorious home-baking smells and endless icing possibilities.

Baking is still my passion. It never fails to give me that comforting feeling of old. And I’ve been taking refuge in it even more lately, with Dad so very ill in hospital.

I hand over my ticket to be stamped. Then I sit back and close my eyes for a moment, allowing myself to be lulled by the gentle rocking movement of the train.

Minutes later, we pull into a station and people flood onto the train.

‘Is this seat free?’ says a deep voice.

I glance up. A tall man with dark hair and round, Harry Potter glasses is looking down at me quizzically, and I return his smile. ‘No, feel free.’

‘Thanks.’

He pushes the glasses further up his nose then hefts his sports bag onto the overhead rack. After zipping open the side pocket, he starts feeling around inside it. His pale blue T-shirt hitches up, revealing a glimpse of washboard stomach above long, muscular jean-clad legs. Quickly, I look away, out of the window.

But when he draws out a book and drops it on the table, the temptation to be nosy and read the title upside down is too great.

My brow knots in confusion.

Adventures with Crotches?

Crikey. That’s the sort of book to read on a Kindle so no one can actually see the title! He flings himself into the seat opposite me and I’m enveloped in the scent of eau de sporty man. It’s clear he’s been doing an activity of some kind, what with the sports bag and the dark hair that’s still damp from activity and curling on his neck.

The frosty blonde, I notice, is casting interested looks over in our direction – well, specifically his direction. He is quite attractive, I suppose, apart from the geeky glasses. Not that I’m at all interested. At the ripe old age of thirty-two, I’ve grown quite cynical about love. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there are probably lots of men my age who are basically decent, caring human beings. It’s just I’ve never actually met one that I was attracted to. The sad fact is, the guys I’ve been out with invariably end up being more of a disappointment than anything. And it’s not because I’m too picky, either. I suppose I’ve just been unlucky.

I think of Jason, the love of my life. The man who first disappointed me by breaking up with me in order to take up with Lucy (Lucifer) Slater, the horrible bully who tormented me throughout my schooldays. We were just eighteen when we split up, but I truly loved Jason Findlay and I was completely and utterly devastated when it ended. He was the first boy I ever properly kissed. That momentous event happened when I was fifteen, round the back of Hart’s End Youth Club, and after that kiss, we were inseparable for a long time. Until I decided to go away to university and Lucy Slater got her claws into him …

The man opposite shifts in his seat – possibly getting a little over-engrossed in crotches (‘gross’ being the operative word) – and our legs accidentally collide.

‘Sorry,’ he says with a lopsided grin. ‘I’m having trouble getting my muscles to relax.’

I shake my head. ‘Sounds nasty.’

‘It is. I’ve just run a marathon and they ache like crazy.’ He shifts them around.

‘Ah!’

‘I guess I should have started my training earlier.’ He grins and goes back to his book which, looking at the cover the right way up, I suddenly realise isn’t about crotches at all. My upside-down reading clearly needs some work. The book he’s so enthralled by is actually called Adventures with Crochet. (Which, to be fair, sets my mind boggling all over again.) There’s a colourful crocheted doll on the cover and a jolly border made from one long line of crochet, like I used to make when I was a little girl and Gran taught me.

I observe him curiously beneath my eyelashes. He certainly doesn’t look like a crochet enthusiast, with his rugby player’s body and big hands that would surely be way too clumsy to wield a crochet hook. But appearances can be deceptive. For all I know, he might also be a whiz at macramé and enjoy whipping up the odd summer fruit soufflé in his spare time. It was probably very politically incorrect of me to picture a crochet enthusiast as an elderly lady with a cat curled at her feet. Yes, in fact, good for him!

His brow is tense as if he’s concentrating hard. He’s obviously a ‘metrosexual’. The sort of man who’d feel perfectly at home exhibiting his macaroons in a Women’s Institute tent. Although why I should be so curious about someone I don’t even–

‘Excuse me,’ says a slightly breathy voice.

I glance up and so does Mr Needlepoint. The voice belongs to the blonde I spotted earlier.

‘Sorry to interrupt, but did I hear you say you’d just run a marathon?’ She bats her extensive eyelashes at him.

‘Twenty-six miles of hell,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Usually I enjoy them but today’s was tough going for some reason.’

‘So you’ve run marathons before?’

He nods. ‘Dozens.’

Her hazel eyes open wide in admiration, and I find myself fascinated by her make-up. Her eyelids are like two perfectly matching mini canvases, artfully brushed with shades of gold, pink and purple, fringed with dark, curled lashes. Mr Needlepoint seems quite taken with them, too.

‘Sorry, I should explain.’ She sits down next to me in a cloud of flowery perfume, while continuing to completely ignore me. ‘I’m Olivia.’

‘Theo Steel.’ They shake hands and as an afterthought, she turns to me.

‘Twilight.’ I wait for the reaction. Most people smile in surprise at the unusual name, which is exactly what Olivia does. Her hand feels thin and icy cold. She turns back to Theo.