Meg had looked up, surprised. “Oh, what a lovely idea. Anywhere in particular?”
Allie smirked. “You’ll have to see when you get there.”
Despite Meg’s best efforts, Allie had steadfastly refused to tell her where they were going. Looking out the window, she noticed that the fields they had been driving through had given way to vineyards. Row upon row of vines stood like sentinels, their buds just starting to appear.
Allie slowed the car and turned into a small rutted lane. Curious, Meg peered around, but could still see nothing but grapevines.
“Where are we going?” she asked again, even more puzzled.
“Patience. Your questions will be answered just over the top of this hill.”
Allie drove slowly up the lane, the small car managing the steep incline perfectly. Meg sat forward in her seat, excitement building as they neared their destination. When they reached the crest of the hill, she gasped in delight.
There, spread out a little ways below them, were three hot air balloons. Two were almost fully inflated, while the third one was still being prepared. Meg gazed in wonder at the spectacle of colours.
As she pulled into the makeshift parking area, Allie grinned at the stunned expression on Meg’s face.
“Well, are you going to sit there all day or are we going hot air ballooning?” she asked, opening the car door.
Meg climbed out of the vehicle and threw herself into Allie’s arms. “You remembered,” she whispered.
Allie linked her arms around Meg, pulling her more tightly against her body. “Of course I remembered. It took a bit of organising because they don’t usually fly over this region, but I do have some powers of persuasion too, you know.”
They walked to the smaller balloon and the pilot took them through the safety briefing, by which time the balloon was ready for boarding. The pilot helped them into the basket and the two women settled into their positions next to each other. As the pilot prepared for take-off, Meg was delighted to realise that this flight was just for the two of them.
Slowly, the basket began to rise as their pilot opened the burners. As the ground fell away from under them, Meg trembled with excitement. Leaning on the basket’s edge, she was entranced at the rows and rows of vines stretching out below them like a patchwork quilt. The fog had completely burnt off and the two other balloons provided glorious splashes of colour against the peerless blue sky above them.
“It is even more beautiful than I expected, a real dream come true,” she murmured in wonder.
Allie handed her a glass of champagne and gently clinked their glasses together. “Well, I hope you know that I intend to spend the rest of my life trying to make your dreams come true.” Looking out on the vista unfolding before the still rising balloon, she leant into Meg and whispered softly, “After all these years, we really are now having the time of our lives.”
Meg took Allie’s hand. “As long as we are together, my darling, then I can’t imagine wanting anything else.”
ABOUT JANE WATERTON
As a daughter of a bookseller, Jane’s love of books was actively encouraged from a very early age. In her early twenties she wrote poetry and song lyrics, but at the age of 45, after a very funny lunch with friends, an idea germinated for her first full length novel.
Although originally from Sydney, Jane has for the past six years, lived and worked in a small remote town in the red desert region of Western Australia with her partner and fur family. Here she dreams of eventually retiring to the coast and writing full time.
CONNECT WITH JANE WATERTON:
Webseite: www.janewaterton.com.au
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jane.waterton
OTHER BOOKS FROM YLVA PUBLISHING
www.ylva-publishing.com
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ISBN: 978-3-95533-388-1 (mobi), 978-3-95533-389-8 (epub)
Length: 100,000 words (353 pages)
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Set in 1980, the beginning of the Reagan era and the decline of Pittsburgh’s steel empire, Cast Me Gently is a classic lesbian romance.
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ISBN: 978-3-95533-392-8 (mobi), 978-3-95533-393-5 (epub)
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ISBN: 978-3-95533-049-1 (mobi), 978-3-95533-050-7 (epub)
Length: 67,000 words (267 pages)
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The assignment takes her far from home, from the darkness of her loss to the dawning of a life reborn. Along the way, Lee encounters people unlike any she’s ever met before: Wrong-Way Wally, a small-town oracle shunned by the locals for his off-putting speech and mannerisms; and Wally’s best friend, Gaëlle, a woman who not only translates the oracle’s uncanny predictions, but who also appears to have a deep personal connection to life beyond life. Lee is shocked to find herself fascinated by Gaëlle, despite dismissing the woman’s exotic beliefs as “hooey.” But opening yourself to love also means opening yourself to the possibility of pain. Will Lee have the courage to follow that path, a path that once led to the greatest agony she’d ever experienced? Or will she run back to the cold comfort of a safer solitary life?
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G Benson
ISBN: 978-3-95533-342-3 (mobi), 978-3-95533-343-0 (epub)
Length: 132,000 words (350 pages)
A successful anaesthetist, Anna is focused on herself, her career, and her girlfriend. Everything changes abruptly when her brother’s and sister-in-la
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Filled with self-doubt, Anna feels as if she’s making a mess of the entire thing, especially when she collides with a long-legged stranger. Anna barely has time to brush her teeth in the morning, let alone to date a woman—least of all one who has no idea about the two kids under her care.
Just when Anna finally starts to feel as if she’s getting some control of the situation, the biggest fight begins and Anna really has to step up once and for all.
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Rewriting the Ending
hp tune
Juliet is an author with a deadline. A big deadline…and a ratty old backpack, and she’s on her way to Belgium.
Mia has a one-way, first class ticket to anywhere. Today anywhere happens to be Scotland. The one thing she knows is that money can’t buy happiness, and she has no idea what does.
A chance meeting in an airport lounge and a shared flight itinerary leaves Juliet and Mia connected. They’ve known each other for only twenty-four hours and they are destined for separate continents. How do you forge a future when the past keeps pulling you back?
Welcome to the Wallops
Gill McKnight
The villages of High Wallop and Lesser Wallop have graced either end of the Wallop valley since medieval times. And competition between the two has never ceased since, especially over the famous Cheese and Beer festival.
As head Judge of Show, Jane Swallow has always struggled to keep peace, friendship, and equanimity within the community she loves, but this year everything is wrong. Her father has just been released from prison and is on his way to Lesser Wallop with the rest of her travelling family and their caravans.
Her job is on the line, and her ex-girlfriend from a million years ago has just moved in next door.
Her life is going down the drain unless she can pull off some sort of miracle.
Quoted in Chapter 35
“The Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear, Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabet, 1871
Times of Our Lives
© 2015 by Jane Waterton
ISBN (mobi): 978-3-95533-414-7
ISBN (epub): 978-3-95533-415-4
Also available as paperback.
Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Owner: Astrid Ohletz
Am Kirschgarten 2
65830 Kriftel
Germany
www.ylva-publishing.com
First edition: November 2015
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Credits
Edited by Alissa McGowan
Cover Design & Printlayout by Streetlight Graphics
Times of Our Lives Page 20
