Summer at the Heartbreak Cafe: Summer Sweet Romance (Lakeview Contemporary Romance Book 0) Read Free Page A

friend exchanged a few more pleasantries, Grace replaced the receiver, and stood in the hallway rubbing her forehead. Sometimes she felt as though motherhood was one huge roller coaster, with no breathing space in between. There was always something that the boys ‘should’ be doing, and for a moment she thought again of her plans to go back to college or the workplace, and wondered how she would juggle all of it.
    “ Mum !”
    “ Mummy !”
    Grace looked at the top of the stairs and saw Jake and Josh standing there rubbing their eyes after their nap. A few subtle differences helped to tell them apart. Josh had a small mole on his chin and Jake was a little bit taller.
    At four years old, they still had that impish cuteness, but it was fading fast. They were growing up so quickly.
    With a shriek, they ran down the stairs, taking two at a time and coming close to falling head first.
    “Stop it!” Grace cried, images of a screeching ambulance racing down their street on her mind. “You’ll get hurt.”
    “Relax, it’s just a little rough and tumble,” Kevin said from behind her.
    She glared at him. “Don’t you know how dangerous those stairs are?”
    “Grace, they’re just being kids. Hello boys, give your daddy a big hug.”
    Kevin tickled each of the boys, until all three of them laughingly fell to the carpet.
    Grace found herself smiling despite her panic. Kevin always had a way with the boys. She thought again of the looming trip to Lakeview and her smile froze.
    She couldn’t handle the twins by herself, they were just too much. Sometimes they could be sweet, but those times were now increasingly a rarity. The majority of the time they were like twin tornadoes, destroying everything in their path.
    “Go on to the kitchen for your tea guys, Marie is waiting,” she told them.
    “But we want to eat our tea in the living room with you and daddy,” Josh complained.
    “Let them.” Kevin said.
    Grace sighed. “OK but you must promise to behave.”
    “Promise!” they chorused.
    Grace went into their huge sunny kitchen and carried a tea tray to the living room. Then she went back for the boys’ milk and cookies. She placed their cups of milk and cookies on a square stool and arranged two small chairs opposite each other on the stool.
    “Did you have a good day at work today?” she said to Kevin, enjoying the silence.
    For a moment she felt at peace, the boys were eating their cookies quietly and she and Kevin could catch up, and they could all just be a family together. But before her husband could answer, a quarrel arose.
    “What is it?” she said sharply, turning to the twins.
    “It’s Josh,” Jake said. “Dipping his cookie in my milk. Disgusting.”
    “Stop it Josh, please,” Grace said, feeling her blood pressure rising yet again.
    “But mum, he did it first,” Josh said in a whiny voice.
    “I don’t care who started, just eat quietly.”
    “You shouldn’t let them get to you like that, hon. They’re just being kids, let them be.”
    Grace deliberately picked up her tea and swallowed a huge sip, hoping to push down the eruption of annoyance. She didn’t know how Kevin did it, keeping his cool with the boys like that. Most of the time they drove her so crazy, she couldn't think straight.
    Like now.
    She could see their feet kicking each other’s shins under the stool. She tried to ignore it, but it felt like a pressure cooker, with the steam building every second.
    Unable to bear it anymore, she put her cup on the table and stood up.
    “I need some things from the shop; I’ll just pop out and get them,” she said and left.
    How would she cope alone with them for two weeks, Grace thought as she backed the car out of the garage.
    If only Marie didn’t have to travel back home.
    She felt the tension leave her body as she drove and listened to jazz music coming from the speakers.
    Their departure date was a week from now; still time to get used to the idea.
    Or talk herself out of