The Perfect Escape: Romantic short stories to relax with

‘Josie, you look lovely as ever,’ he said, giving her a hug and huge kiss on the lips.

‘Flatterer,’ said Josie, neatly escaping from his grasp.

‘And who have we here?’ Ant noted with pleasure a very fetching pair of legs encased in a pair of skinny jeans, emerging from the back of the Civic.

‘Ant, meet my friend, Diana,’ said Josie with a smile. ‘Diana, this is Ant.’

Ant nearly dropped his coffee in shock, as he followed the legs up (via a very and the jeans and busty top) to a ginger (she said auburn) head of hair and pretty face, with those emerald green eyes he remembered with clarity even though they’d last met eight years ago.

‘You!’ they said simultaneously.

On a balmy summer evening, anything can happen … the new enchanting and entertaining novel from the Sunday Times bestselling author.

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Four for Home (#ulink_58c1fcbf-2b75-5547-b0eb-8f31c0708413)

Miranda Dickinson

‘Ladies and Gentlemen – the Maynard Sisters Theatre Company proudly presents … The Three Beautiful Princesses!’

Jim Maynard’s chest swelled with pride as his eldest daughter introduced her latest theatrical extravaganza. Looking down at the handwritten programme, painstakingly decorated with wax crayoned flowers and unicorn stickers, he smiled.

The Three Beautiful Princesses

a musical play by

Daisy Heartsease Maynard

Starring

Daisy Maynard age 9

with

Guin Maynard age 7

and

Elsie Maynard age 5 and a bit

Enjoy the play xx

‘I am Princess Jewel, and I am a beautiful princess!’ exclaimed Daisy, already tall for her age, her hair messily plaited under a crown of silver Christmas tinsel. ‘I come from a faraway kingdom and I have two beautiful sisters …’ She glared, stage right, towards the wriggling and giggling long Indian silk curtain over the patio doors leading to the garden. ‘Comeon…’

The curtain gave one final squirm and two blonde-haired girls emerged, their wonky tinsel crowns and too-long bedsheet cloaks causing great annoyance to their playwright sibling.

‘I am Princess Snowflake and I can talk to unicorns,’ said the older of the two, her russet red cheeks and baby blue eyes shining as she held her youngest sister’s hand.

‘And I am …’ the smallest Maynard sister’s cherub-like face crumpled in consternation, ‘… I am …’

‘Princess Poppy …’ Guin prompted in a loud stage whisper.

Elsie’s smile beamed back into life. ‘I am Princess Poppy and I have a puppy called Spot.’

‘No you don’t,’ Daisy hissed. ‘You have a magical talking bird called Cassandra.’

Elsie’s lip jutted out. ‘But I don’t want a bird. I want a puppy.’

‘It’s only pretend,’ Guin interjected, ever the practical peacemaker.

‘Then I can have a pretend puppy,’ Elsie replied, her stubborn streak as bold as ever.

Jim held up his hands. ‘Girls, it doesn’t matter whether Elsie has a puppy or a bird.’

‘But it’s my play,’ Daisy moaned. ‘And I’m the oldest, so they should do what I tell them.’

‘You’re a bossyboots, Daisy!’

‘No I’m not!’

Rolling her eyes, Guin stepped between her sisters. ‘Let’s do the song now.’

Pacified, the eldest and youngest Maynard sisters obediently fell into line, singing Tomorrow from Annie with breathless enthusiasm.

Jim relaxed back in his old striped deckchair, sipped a cup of chai and listened to his daughters’ voices mingling with the summer hum of bees from the flowerbeds surrounding the garden. This is what Sunday afternoons were made for, he mused to himself: fun and laughter and music and family. The warm July sun glinted in the windows of the three-storey family home, sparkling on the three tinsel crowns and golden blonde heads of his daughters. Like sunshine personified, his mother always said of the three little girls when they visited her cottage in Hove. You have a little cluster of sunbeams dancing round you, Jim. Never forget how blessed you are.

Grandma Flo was right, but then she had a knack of being right about most things. She had been right when he first brought nineteen-year-old Moira O’Shaughnessy to meet her, himself barely twenty and smitten with the blonde haired beauty he had met on his travels.

‘She’s a storm waiting to happen,’ his mother had warned, her sudden change in demeanour catching him off-guard when Moira had gone. ‘You watch that one, Jim, or else she’ll break your heart.’

But Moira Abigail O’Shaughnessy had stolen Jim Maynard’s heart and nothing – not even the warning words of his beloved mother – could dissuade him from his chosen path.

While Guin was the spitting image of him, Jim often caught glimpses of Moira in Elsie and Daisy – and even now it tore at his heart to see their mother’s likeness: a bittersweet, constant reminder of the only woman he had ever truly loved. Despite everything – despite the lies and the barrage of words hurled in anger, despite the sleepless nights and silent days – he knew he still loved her. The emptiness he had felt for so long in her company was now echoed in the emptiness of his life without her in it and, to his shame, he suspected that if she were to relent even now he would run back into her arms and forget it all.

‘Daddy, you’re not listening!’ Daisy’s voice by his ear made him start.

‘I’m sorry, my darling. What were you saying?’

Her sigh was laden with more exasperation than her years could contain. ‘I said that you have to be the King and grant us each a wish.’

‘Ah. Righto.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I am King James the fourth of Brightonshire and I will grant you each a wish.’

‘Daddy. Not like that.’

‘Oh.’