Be Mine: Valentine Novellas to Warm The Heart

by Nicole Flockton

  He reached up and slipped the straps of the maillot off her shoulders, pulling the still damp costume away. She shivered, arching back, as his hands slid down her chest, gently cupping each breast. Her lips parted she bent over him. He groaned and rolled her over on to her back, his mouth pressing on hers with a bruising intensity while they scrambled to divest themselves of their scanty clothing.

  Above her the leaves of the old eucalypt rustled in approval, the sun casting dappled shade across their bodies as they lost themselves in the moment, in the surrender of two hearts that had broken and had begun to heal, melded together by adversity and an acceptance that sometimes love can be found again.

  They lay wound in each other for a long, long time, lost in the languor of the morning, their time together.

  "Oh God I hope we were alone!" Meg whispered at last.

  Chris gave a smothered laugh and tightened his arm around her shoulders, drawing her in closer.

  "Quite alone, Meg."

  She propped herself up on one elbow and leaned over him. He opened a drowsy eye and looked up at her. "What are you thinking?"

  "I am thinking that I love you very much, Chris Kingsley." The words were out and could never be taken back

  He reached up and stroked her damp hair, his face suddenly serious. "And I love you, Meg Taylor."

  She sat up, reaching for her shirt. "I'm ready for lunch. Let's open that wine before it gets any warmer."

  As they sat together in the shade of the gum, watching the birds dip into the cool pool, Meg raised her glass. "I've just realised today is St. Valentine's day."

  Chris raised his glass in salute. "To St. Valentine, and his earthly assistants."

  "What do you mean?"

  He shook his head. "Just sometimes, it seems St V needs a little help along the way for two people to see what they have known for a long time."

  Meg frowned. "You mean this weekend wasn't your idea?"

  He screwed his eyes. "Not exactly."

  Meg went through the list of people who may have put the idea into Chris's head. "Your mother," she concluded.

  "I know the last thing you need is another interfering mother," Chris admitted. “But in this case, she meant well and, let’s face it, I probably needed organising.”

  Meg shook her head. "Ellen's different." She snuggled into Chris's shoulder and raised her glass, watching the last of the bubbles, dissipate in the heat. "To Ellen," she said, “And St. Valentine.”

  Epilogue

  October was always a special time of year at Neerimbah. The first of the spring roses bloomed in the immaculate gardens and the days were clear and warm without the heat of summer.

  Ellen Kingsley took particular pleasure in the way the garden looked today. The wedding guests wandered among the roses, pointing out favourites whispering to each other about how lovely the house looked in the soft spring sunshine.

  Now, as she waited beneath the oak tree with the other guests, tears pricked at the back of Ellen's eyes. Nearly two years ago, it had seemed as if the world had ended in a flash of lights and scream of metal. Sarah was dead and Chris barely alive, leaving a small boy who looked as if he could well be an orphan.

  Now Ben stood beside his father, stiffly proud of his role as 'best man', waiting with the celebrant for the arrival of the bride. No green velvet pantaloons, but a neat pair of black trousers and a white shirt with a Mickey Mouse tie, his choice.

  The celebrant stiffened and whispered something to Chris. Chris turned and the smile on his face had Ellen scrabbling in her sleeve for the handkerchief she had put here just in case. Meg, dressed in a simple, cream dress, her thick curling hair confined in a loose coil in the nape of her neck and wreathed with fresh roses walked down from the house toward them, her hand tucked into Bill Kingsley's elbow.

  The guests shifted with quiet murmurs of appreciation, but Meg and Chris had eyes only for each other as they held hands, repeating the simple vows they had written. When the celebrant asked for the rings, Ben stepped forward, the rings clutched in a small, sweaty but very important hand.

  Bill slipped into place beside Ellen and reached for her hand. He smiled at her, a knowing happy smile.

  "It's time we retired," Bill had told Chris and Meg the night before. "If you have a mind to give up your fancy job in the law, I could do with a hand around here."

  Chris frowned. "What about the house?"

  Ellen had laughed. "It's all yours. Our wedding present to you both. Your Dad and I have been doing up the old manager's house. This place is too big for the two of us and if you want to keep the B&B business going, I’m happy to help."

  Meg's eyes had lit up and her hand had tightened on Chris's. "You mean you want us to come and live here at Neerimbah?"

  "Absolutely. If you want to, that is. We'd understand if you don't want to leave the city."

  "I would love that!" Meg's eyes shone at the prospect. "I want nothing more than to come and live on this beautiful old property, in a place where Kingsleys have lived for generations."

  "You'll hate it!" Chris said. "It's hard labour from the moment you get up until the time you go to bed."

  "Oh no. It will be wonderful, Chris. Please let's do it?"

  Chris shrugged, "Consider yourself warned."

  He had smiled at her and he was smiling at her now, a smile full of love and wonder. Meg took the ring from Ben and looked up at him, her own face lighting up and Ellen smiled too.

  It had taken a nudge from St. Valentine to heal two broken hearts, but it had been the right thing to do. Ellen cast her eyes up through the new green foliage of the oak tree. She knew Sarah was looking down and approving.

  About Alli Stewart

  Alli Stewart is better known as Alison Stuart, author of THE POSTMISTRESS and other historical romances. She is also A.M. Stuart, author of the Harriet Gordon Mystery series. Many of her full length stories have been nominated for multiple international awards.

  Alli has been writing stories since her teenage years but it was not until 2007 that her first full length novel was published. She describes herself as a ‘recovering lawyer’ and lives in Melbourne with a long suffering husband and a bossy cat.

  Visit her website: https://www.alisonstuart.com

  The Romeo + Juliet Experiment

  Elizabeth Stevens

  Setting:

  This story is set in Australia and therefore uses Australian spelling, grammar, slang and syntax.

  Heat rating - one chilli - but also some swearing.

  About The Romeo + Juliet Experiment

  Girl + guy + three days = greatest love story ever.

  Yeah, right.

  Jess Clayton had no interest in romance. The teen cynic was convinced it was all a ruse made up to lure you into stupidity and part you from your hard-earned pennies. No matter how many people asked her out – not that there was a line or anything – she refused to date.

  When it came to romance, Ryan Miller had been there and done that. The re-reformed bad boy had already done his redemption romance story only to have his supposed one true love go and break his heart. He really wasn’t interested in going through all that mess again.

  So, when the two come together for a Year 12 English camp with the express purpose of testing the legend of Romeo and Juliet falling in love in three days, nothing could possibly go wrong. After all, it was impossible to fall in love with someone in three days. Wasn’t it?

  Wilderness + teenagers + camping = true love?

  Over our dead bodies.

  To our fireys, thank you for fighting for our Australia.

  1

  Jess

  The bus bounced along the road as the movie credits started rolling. I stretched in my seat as best I could and caught sight of Tibby’s face. She saw my smirk and sniffed.

  “What?” she laughed as she wiped her eyes. “It was sad.”

  “You are such a romantic sap,” I said fondly.

  She was utterly unashamed by the tears tracki
ng down her face. “Well someone has to be.”

  I nodded, giving her that one.

  It was kinda sad the poison hadn’t killed him fast enough and they’d both had to realise the mistake. But that was what you got when you played dead for a boy at thirteen. I was never going to play dead for a boy. I wasn’t going to play anything for a boy. Romance was dumb and so not worth it.

  “All right, girls,” Mr Lawrence, our English teacher, called as he stood up from his seat. “Can I have your attention, please?”

  Once the busload of us was relatively quiet, he nodded.

  “Thanks. Now that we’ve seen the mastery that is Baz Luhrmann, we can get down to business. We don’t usually do camps this early in the year – it’s only week three and all that, I know. But a colleague and I had this great idea to bring our classic studies into the twenty-first century and put them in terms you guys can understand–”

  “You calling us idiots, sir?” Norah called, raising her hand and Tibby and I smiled with her.

  “I’m not calling you idiots, Norah,” Mr Lawrence said with a wry smile. “We just thought it would be easier if we put it in context for you, and you might be less resistant to learning if we made it a little more fun.”

  “So, what exactly are we doing?” one of the girls up the front asked. “Are we staging a play?”

  “Yeah,” Tibby scoffed to me quietly. “Because that would be fun.”

  I snorted, putting my fist over my mouth when Mr Lawrence shot me a quick glance.

  “We’re not,” he answered to audible disappointed groans from the front. “We’re going to conduct an experiment.”

  “An experiment in English?” Norah hissed to Tibby and me. We both shrugged in response.

  “We’ve started looking at Shakespeare’s infamous ‘Romeo and Juliet’ this year. We’ve started looking at themes and tropes, and there has been some debate about the legitimacy of this text as the world’s greatest love story. So, we’re going to put it to the test.”

  There were cries of “What?” and “How?” and some quieter mutterings as the class tried to guess what he meant by that.

  “We’re going to meet up with a class from Prince Edwards at the camp ground. Tonight, we’re going to stage our own ‘ball’ where you – our Juliets – will meet your Romeos. You then have three days in which to test if it’s possible to ‘fall in love’,” complete with air quotes thankfully, “with each other.”

  There were pockets of excited chatter, some of it coming from my friends on either side of me. There was one person who was even less enthusiastic than me, but Mr Lawrence was always happy to hear our concerns.

  “Yes, Reese?” He pointed to her behind us.

  “I just have to question how inclusive this is, sir.”

  Mr Lawrence nodded. “Good. Yes. Miss Johnson and I talked about the potential problems with this at length. We debated it and wondered if we should just scrap the idea. But, given we need to pair you with someone you hopefully don’t know and it’s none of our business what your sexual orientations are, pairing one Our Lady’s with one Prince Edward’s student seemed the most fair.”

  “To assume we were all straight was the most fair?”

  “I know it comes over that way and I’m sorry about that. Had I been able to convince the teacher from St Marys, we would have done the same thing and we’d be pairing you all up with girls. I can only work with what I’ve got.” He shrugged and, as much as I didn’t get the nuances of the whole thing, he did look apologetic.

  I looked back to Reese, to find her nodding. “Yeah, all right, sir. I can understand that. I’ll just pretend he’s a Ramona.”

  He smiled. “Thank you. All right, any other questions?”

  Hands shot up throughout the bus as chatter swirled once more.

  “So, we have to make our Romeos fall in love with us?” someone asked.

  Mr Lawrence nodded noncommittally. “It’s more about sussing out the potential of love after three days. Trying to find something in another person that could make you fall in love with them. Obviously, we don’t expect every pair to fall in love in three days. We’re matching you up randomly after all.”

  “And, what’s to say we’ll even like them?”

  Mr Lawrence nodded. “Your second lesson – civility and teamwork. In life, you’re going to find yourselves having to meet and work with people you would otherwise choose not to. Think of this – much like any other lesson – as practise.”

  People called out more questions, but they were drowned out as Norah leant towards Tibby and me.

  “How do you think we’re supposed to make them fall in love with us, then?” Tibby asked.

  “Our natural charm and beauty, of course,” Norah said and Tibby giggled.

  “Do you think our Romeos will be hot?”

  I sunk back into my seat and crossed my arms as they kept on. Neither of my friends expected any input from me, nor did they direct any conversation to me…until I ‘humphed’ one too many times. And look, that one was entirely on me.

  Tibby nudged me and laughed. “You could at least pretend not to be so…”

  “You,” Norah finished for her, then they burst into laughter.

  I tried not to smirk, but it was impossible with these two.

  “It’s really not my fault,” I told them.

  “Oh, really?” Norah asked.

  “Yes. Please do tell us what’s so wrong now,” Tibby said.

  “The cliché, girls,” I sighed. I looked at Norah, then at Tibby. “We’re doing a stupid assignment where we have to pretend to fall in love in the week ending on Valentine’s Day. How many short-lived couples are we going to see out of this ridiculous and, let’s face it, probably highly unethical experiment? Seriously, children. What principal okayed this?”

  “So pessimistic,” Norah chided gently. “Honestly, you’d think she didn’t believe in love or something.”

  “Never,” Tibby snorted. “Why would you think such a thing?”

  “Certainly not because it’s true,” Norah said with a wry smile.

  I looked at her and she winked at me. Honestly I wanted to, but I couldn’t stay mad at that face. Norah had been with me since long before I could remember. We’d been best friends before we’d learned to walk. Our parents had sent us to the same school when it was obvious we’d be useless without each other and that was where we’d adopted Tibby.

  “At least don’t ruin it for the rest of us,” Tibby pleaded, but she wore a knowing smile.

  “Sure,” I scoffed. “I’m going to sit by and watch helplessly while you two pretend to fall in love, forget what you’re doing, and get your hearts broken.”

  “Thank you,” Tibby said, putting her arm around me awkwardly, as Norah replied with prayer hands, “That’s all we ask.”

  I leant into Tibby. “Just don’t come crying to me.”

  “What if we let you have all the ‘I told you so’s you want?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Okay. But I get to pick the commiseration ice cream.”

  “Deal,” Tibby and Norah agreed.

  I gave them a nod in return, then tuned them and their excitement out as the bus continued bouncing along towards the camp ground.

  The idea of studying ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was stupid enough. It was overdone to death. But at least it gave us young, impressionable children such a healthy idea of romantic love. Cue the eyeroll.

  What an utter load of wank.

  I still remembered the day we – I use the term ‘we’ loosely – went from talking about Barbies to boys. Okay, so that might be a slight misremembrance. We’d probably put the Barbies down a few years before that. I couldn’t remember exactly what we’d all been obsessed with in Year Six before the School Social with Saint Marks. But, the next day, all we’d been able to talk about was boys. And it basically hadn’t stopped since. Cue an even larger eyeroll.

  But I’d been a good friend. If Tibby and Norah wanted to spend time chasing boys and yea
rning to fall in love, it wasn’t up to me to tell them they couldn’t. It was up to me to pick up the pieces when those boys broke their hearts. Which I did, while thankfully never succumbing to the insanity myself.

  One and done was a slight misnomer – not many chances for a one-night stand for a seventeen-year-old high schooler – but I didn’t do getting attached. It was safer that way. It was also far less dramatic. Well, slightly less dramatic.

  “We’re here!” careened around my brain cavity as Tibby started shaking me and I registered the bus had stopped.

  I blinked, then grunted as Norah launched herself over me to look out the window.

  “Are they here yet?” Norah hissed.

  “I don’t know,” I replied deadpan, as I tried to pull my arm out from under her hip. “Dude, get off me. There are bones here that should not be touching.”

  “If you’re talking about my lady boner, you’re just jealous.”

  “Oh, yes. Because mine is so small and inoffensive,” I said, digging my knee into her stomach only hard enough to coax her off me.

  “They’re here!” someone screamed and Norah turned so quickly her elbow clocked me in the cheek.

  “Dude!” I yelled, laughing and shoving her arse out of my face.

  “I’m sorry!” she called as she grabbed her bag. “I love you!”

  Tibby patted me on the head as she clambered over me and started following the others off the bus.

  “Not as much as you love dick apparently,” I huffed to myself with a laugh as I dragged myself out of my seat.

  “Looking forward to camp, Jess?” Mr Lawrence asked.

  I plastered on a smile and nodded. “You know I am, sir.”

  He nodded, both of us pretending it was true. “Atta girl.”