Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange by Jenny Kane (fiction books to read .txt) 📕

dropped her pen. ‘I could do with a stretch. Shall I find Shaun and head to the kitchen?’

‘Walled garden would be better if that’s okay.’

‘Perfect.’

*

Dylan proudly read out each title as he lined his books up on the window sill. Every now and then he’d look at Tom and Helen through his fringe, as if asking if it really was okay to put them there.

Sensing his excitement had morphed into insecurity; Helen patted the bag that was slung over her shoulder as she watched Dylan from the doorway. ‘I have something you can use as a bookend if you like.’

‘What’s a bookend?’

‘Something that holds your books in place on a shelf.’ Helen opened the bag. ‘Would you like to fetch it?’

Tom laughed as Dylan rocketed forwards, his hands inside the bag in seconds. ‘It’s so heavy!’

‘It has to be, or your books will fall over. Careful now.’ Helen held out a hand, ready to catch in case Dylan dropped his prize.

‘Wow! It’s a fozzel!’

Helen couldn’t help but smile. ‘Yes, a fossil. Put it on the bed a minute.’

Dylan stroked the stone in delight. ‘Look, Dad, it’s like a swirly snail.’

‘It’s an ammonite.’ Tom looked at Helen in amazement. He’d seen the fossil in her room. It was the only unnecessary possession she’d brought with her from Bath – and now she was giving it to his son.

Is this the moment we should tell Dylan we’re a couple?

‘What’s an ammmonbite?’

‘Ammonite.’ Helen ruffled the lad’s hair. ‘Tricky word to say, isn’t it? They were ancestors of octopuses and squids. Lived in the sea between 400 and 66 million years ago.’

‘Million!’

‘Yes. That fossil is even older than Bert.’

Dylan giggled as he carried it to the window. ‘Thank you, Helen.’

‘You’re welcome. You gave me a lovely stone, now you have one too.’

Helen felt choked with emotion as Dylan asked, ‘Where did it come from?’

Hoping Tom would help her out, Helen pulled a handkerchief from her pocket; watching Dylan trace a finger over the lumps and bumps that formed an echo of the long dead creature.

‘Helen found it.’ Tom crouched down next to his son. ‘It’s from Lyme Regis, that’s in Dorset. It was dug out of a cliff. That’s what fossil means, “to be dug up from the soil”.’

‘You found this, Helen?’ Dylan’s eyes widened in awe.

‘When I was a student. A long time ago.’

‘But not millions of years?’ Dylan’s open expression reminded her of his father.

‘Not quite.’

‘Can I really keep it? Even when we live somewhere else?’

‘Even then.’

As the fossil sat in place, propping up an Enid Blyton collection, Tom gave Helen’s hand a secret squeeze. ‘What would you like to do on your first day as part of the Mill Grange household, Dylan?’

‘Can I choose?’

‘You can.’ Tom picked up Dylan’s favourite teddy bear and placed him on the pillow of his son’s bed. ‘A walk, a picnic, lunch out and explore in the woods, a paddle in the river?’

‘Well, umm.’ Dylan suddenly looked shy. ‘Could I have a go on the fortlet? Could I do archaeology?’

*

Butterflies danced around the trailing apple trees climbing the walls on either side of the garden. Sam joined his friends at the trestle table he’d set up for the meeting. ‘If I’m any judge, the apple blossom will be out just before the wedding. Let’s hope it stays.’

Thea smiled at Tina. ‘It’ll be like extra confetti if the wind blows.’

Mabel nodded approvingly. ‘Better than real confetti, that would do the chickens no good at all if it blew into their coop. I’ve written it down here.’ She lifted up a huge list, upon which she’d put, in capital letters, NO CONFETTI IN WALLED GARDEN.

Feeling a little intimidated as she clutched her own wedding notebook, Tina said, ‘That’s quite a list, Mabel. We only want a little wedding. Is there really that much to do?’

Catching Tina’s troubled expression, Mabel patted her hand across the table. ‘It looks worse than it is. It’s the smallest things that often take the time, but fear not. I’ll sort everything.’

Seeing that Mabel was in danger of giving Tina the wedding she’d have wanted for a daughter if she and Bert had been blessed with children, rather than the one she actually wanted, Sam spoke more firmly than he normally would. ‘With Tina’s help, Mabel.’

Ruffling through her papers, to hide her sudden embarrassed blush, Mabel opened her folder at a page covered in lists of wedding dress shops. ‘So, Tina, I know from our chat with Lady Bea what sort of dresses you favour. I’ve taken the liberty of researching which local shops sell the sort of thing you’re after. I hope that’s okay?’

Getting up, Tina threw her arms around Mabel’s shoulders. ‘That’s very okay. That’s the sort of thing that’s been panicking me. It’s not the getting things sorted so much as the time it takes to source everything before we can get things sorted.’

Mabel patted the folder. ‘That’s what this is, potential outlets, people to ask for help and stuff.’ She looked up from her planning Bible. ‘I’ve been in Upwich a while, I know pretty much everyone.’

Thea pointed towards the list of dress retailers. ‘Which is the closest, Mabel?’

‘There are three in Taunton, and several in Exeter. But there are also two local boutique bridal shops. One in Bampton and one in Wiveliscombe.’

‘So there is!’ Tina clapped her hands together, reminding herself of Sam’s mother as she did so. ‘I’ve driven past both shops heaps of times. I forgot all about them.’

‘Bridal shops are like that though.’ Thea recalled the boutique in the corner of the Bampton’s high street. ‘You only need one when you need one – if you see what I mean.’

‘I like to support local, but wouldn’t a boutique be much more expensive than a department store in Taunton or Exeter?’

‘Almost certainly.’ Mabel tapped her pen against the list of shops. ‘Also, the larger stores would probably have something off the peg you could take within a few days. We might already have left it