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She was too late though. Billie was already crashing her lips into Jules’s, already moaning slightly as she pressed their bodies close together and Jules started to feel dizzy with the emotion of it. Her senses were suddenly full of Billie and with Billie’s wanting. She let the kiss continue for too long before she pulled away, breathless.
“Not that I don’t want to,” she said, lips sticky from Billie’s. “But we’re expected.”
“Right,” Billie said. “Fields can wait.”
“Mmm,” said Jules, thinking that fields could wait but she wasn’t sure that she could.
“And I’m serious about practice. You’ll need to do at least half an hour when we get home.”
Home. The word left a warm feeling in Jules’s heart. “Half an hour,” she promised. “Unless we get distracted.”
Billie growled and Jules laughed, taking her hand again as they strolled up the drive in the warm autumn afternoon sun. Jules couldn’t remember ever feeling so comfortable, so happy. And all with Billie Brooke. Who’d have thought?
JIM WAS SITTING with his usual cohort, and he waved them away as Jules approached.
“What’s all this then?” he asked, squinting his eyes at Billie.
Jules cleared her throat. “This is Billie,” she started.
“Right,” said Jim, holding out his hand to shake. “Call me Jim, pleased to meet you.”
Billie shot a sideways glance at Jules before she took his hand. “Um, you too,” she said.
“You’re a good looking girl, don’t look like you put up with any nonsense. A good choice, I’d wager,” Jim said.
“Granddad!”
Billie grinned. “It’s fine.”
“You’ll do,” said Jim. “I approve.” He leaned in a little, eyes narrowing further. “Hurt her and I’ll find you. Clear?”
“Crystal,” Billie said cheerfully.
Jules spied the newspaper on the arm of Jim’s chair, folded onto the racing pages. “Granddad, you betting again?”
“What business is it of yours?” he asked, settling back into his chair.
“Very much my business if you get thrown out of here,” Jules said pointedly.
Jim grinned a grin that looked far too self-satisfied and fake-innocent to put Jules’s mind at rest. “Oh, I don’t think you need to be worrying about that, not anymore.”
She was about to ask him what the hell he was talking about when Lilian appeared, stopping and almost doing a double take when she saw Billie sitting there.
“Well, well, if it isn’t little Billie Brooke, you’re just showing up everywhere these days,” she said.
“Less of the little,” Billie said, but she was smiling and Jules got the feeling that Lilian was one of the few people in Whitebridge that Billie actually liked.
Hardly surprising, since Lil had a soft spot for anyone that read books. When they were kids, Lil would often slip them bloodier books than their parents would allow under the counter. And she had a generous return policy for those who didn’t have deep pockets.
“I was surprised to see you back around these parts when you were in the shop the other day,” Lilian sniffed. “I’d have thought that with those toffee-nosed parents of yours off to the sun you’d have no cause to be back here.”
“Lilian!” Jules said.
“Oh, she’s right,” said Billie, smiling a little. “My parents weren’t terrible people, but they very definitely had a ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ mentality. And mum’s a bit of a snob.”
“So what are you doing back then?” Lilian asked.
Jules looked at Billie, knowing that this was the question that Billie dreaded above all others. Billie looked right back, a spark of anxiety in her eyes. So Jules reached out, letting her fingers just brush against Billie’s.
