Stirred with Love Read Free

he’d promised? Nick had always kept himself fit by playing football but recently he’d taken to watching football at the pub, staying on afterwards for Sunday lunch and then going out to analyse their game as well as training for the next one during the week. And he had the audacity to moan at her when she wanted to go out on the odd occasion?
    She tossed the ready-meal into the microwave, slammed shut the door and punched in the allotted time. Pouring herself a large glass of wine, she switched on the evening news and slouched down into the settee again.
    Dinner for one it was then.
     
    Later that same evening, Chloe was in her bedroom trying desperately to get into gear for today’s bout of revision.
    Just for one moment she imagined that she didn’t have A’ level exams to sit in three weeks. Last September, as the new term of her second year in the sixth form was about to start, she’d sent out five applications for university places. She’d been interviewed for all of them and accepted by four, if her grades were good enough.
    She stretched her arms above her head while her eyes vaguely wandered over the garden, the view far more appealing than the textbooks spread out in front of her. On the desk, her mobile phone beeped and, unable to resist the lure of a message, she picked it up. But it was only from Christian, her man of three dates.
    Well, hardly a man at all, Chloe sighed, that was the problem. Although they were the same age, Christian seemed so juvenile and immature. Chloe wanted a man with a car who could take her out to places, not a student with a Saturday job in the Virgin shop. Her friend, Manda, always went on about her lack of interest in boys her own age. But then again, Manda hadn’t had to grow up as quickly as Chloe.
    Chloe was seven when her mum, Christine, had been killed. The family were on their way home from a wedding when a newly qualified driver had flown around a blind bend, hurtling towards them at sixty miles an hour. On the wrong side of the road, he’d hit the passenger side with a tremendous thud.
    Because she’d been strapped up in the back of the car with Ben, the two of them had both escaped injury. Their father, Graham, pulled his neck, his lower back muscles were strained and his left arm was broken. Christine was trapped unconscious in the car. Chloe could still clearly remember sitting in the back of the ambulance whilst the firemen worked to free her. She’d played nurses happily throughout the noise of the machinery, a friendly ambulance man showing her how to fix a sling to her dad’s arm. Ben, at twelve, too big to sit on his dad’s lap, sat on it anyway.
    Eventually the paramedics had insisted that the three of them should go on ahead to the hospital so that they could get checked out. It had taken another hour until they’d finally freed Christine from the indistinguishable mound of metal. Unfortunately, she’d taken the brunt of the impact and, although the medical staff that treated her refused to give up for what seemed like ages, she was pronounced dead at the hospital. The young slip of a boy who crashed into them had been driving his father’s new car. He received a six months suspended jail sentence and a small fine. They received a life sentence of grief and unfulfilled opportunities.
    All things considered, Graham had brought them up well. Chloe really admired him for what he’d done. It must have been hard for him to put his children first when he was suffering so much pain. She knew it was his manners and calm attitude that had made her into the strong redhead she was today. Her hair, with its natural spirally curls, was forever being swept up from her face in a gesture so much like her mother, her dad often looked away in a daze. Her eyes were the same shade of green, her stature tall and thin. Often, Graham took to pulling her near in a way she knew he felt close to her mum. Yet, although he was the best dad possible, Chloe still wished she had