Free Good Enough to Share (Good Enough, Book 1 - Christmas) by Zara Stoneley Page B

down and kissed me,
took my mouth in his just as Dane thrust hard and deep and shattered my last
bit of control. And as I felt the warmth flooding me, as I cried out it was
into Charlie, sharing caring Charlie who had his fingers tangled in my hair and
his hand lightly covering my breast. It was Charlie’s tongue that found mine,
but Dane’s hands that were warm against my hips as he held me until every last
shiver had gone.

Chapter Six
     “You look
knackered.” Sophie was giving me ‘the look’.
    “Yes, I had a
lovely Christmas thanks for asking.”
    “I didn’t think I
needed to ask.” She plopped down on the chair opposite and raised an enquiring
eyebrow which I chose to ignore.
    “You had a good
day too then?”
    “Turkey, kids,
broken presents, wrong presents, tantrums, wine, falling asleep in front of a
movie. Yeah, par for the course.”
    “Same here.” Well,
more or less. But from the look she was giving me she knew it was less rather than
more.
    “Hmm. So where are
the boys?”
    “Pre-match beer.”
It was Boxing Day, which meant football and I’d been quite pleased when they’d
announced they were off. I’d woken up with one leg entangled with Dane’s, a
dead arm, and the warmth of Charlie wrapped round my back with his hand on my
boob. All in all a new experience, and it needed assimilating. I didn’t process
new experiences that quickly. “Do you know about Charlie’s ex?” Heading her off
at the pass was the easy option, but I also knew she’d know, and I wanted to
know. Not because I was jealous or anything, but….
    “Oh Anna, you
mean?” She knew, didn’t even need to ask which ex. “Why?”
    “She emailed him
yesterday and he was a bit—”
    “Yeah, he would
be.” She wandered through to make herself a cup of coffee, but carried on the
conversation. “What did she want? He’s not been in touch with her for ages,
well since—”
    “She went?”
    “Yeah.” She sat
down again and stretched her legs out in front of her, admiring her socks for a
silent moment. “They’d just split when I met him—”
    “I thought you’d
known him for years?”
    “No.” She frowned.
“Oh, he’s not from round here, well not originally.”
    “Oh.” That stopped
me short, I’d assumed that he was one of Sophie’s primary school mates, just
like Dane. He seemed so settled, like he’d been here forever. “But, this place,
the —”
    “He wanted to move
on from everything so he came back here with me in the hols and liked it here.”
She shrugged. “He bought this place, so he has been here a few years. Anyway,
as I was saying, the Anna thing was why he’d left Oxford and came to Sheffield.
He needed to get away.”
    “It was that bad?”
She gave me a look, the interruptions weren’t welcome.
    “Well he wanted a
fresh start, no family expectations, no Anna. It’s not easy when your family
are practically royalty and you’re expected to do everything a certain way you
know.”
    “Isn’t it?” I
wouldn’t know, and I don’t think Sophie would either. She chose to ignore me.
    “They’d grown up
together, been really good mates, you know? Then one night they had a quick
snog and it just went boom. They’d been pretty full on before but I think this
was real soul mate stuff. When she sent him that note it was completely out of
the blue and she just did a disappearing act, went abroad I think. It sounded
so weird, but he was really broken up about it. I know he always seems devil
may care but he was dev-a-stated.” She was putting on the full dramatics, but
something told me every word was true. “What did she want then?”
    “I don’t know.
Dane read the email but I didn’t.”
    “Nosy bugger.” The
two words kettle and black sprung to mind but I didn’t say them. “Don’t play
games with Charlie, will you? Be gentle.” Christ she looked serious, very
serious for Soph, and the change of direction caught me on the hop.
    “Of course I won’t
play games, what