Good Enough to Share (Good Enough, Book 1 - Christmas) Read online

  GOOD ENOUGH

  TO

  SHARE

  By

  Zara Stoneley

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2012

  Published by Zara Stoneley 2012

  Edited by Annie Seaton

  The moral right of Zara Stoneley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All right reserved. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Discover more about Zara Stoneley at

  http://www.zarastoneley.com

  Recent titles by Zara Stoneley

  Riding High

  Forfeit

  Freefalling

  Prologue

  Shit happens–isn’t that what you told me Sophie? Some things that you are certain should be a part of your life never materialize. And things you never thought in a million years you’d do just pop up, and before you know it you’ve nodded your head and gone off down a road you never knew existed. Last year was shit and sugar, the sweetest time I never thought I’d have, topped and tailed with stuff I’d just rather forget, and it scares me. Why? Because whatever happens this year can’t match up, can it?

  So before you know it twelve months has whizzed by and it’s the start of another bright, new, shiny year full of promise, but the one thing I do know is life just isn’t ever going to be quite the same again.

  How the hell am I going to write in this diary every damned day? Nibbling the end of the pen isn’t exactly helping on the inspiration front at all. But diaries aren’t really for boring everyday stuff are they? They’re for revelations, witty repartee, for clever insights and ‘Confucius say’ type declarations of wisdom. Not to record the price of fish and whether I’ve opted for the sensible shoes or killer heels.

  It was a typical Sophie thing to give it me as a parting present. She’d pressed it into my hands on New Year’s Eve, just as we’d clambered into bed in a slightly tipsy way, and she’d made me promise, before I’d even unwrapped the damn thing, that I would follow the request inside. And now it is New Year’s Day, and she’s gone–and like the good girl I am, I’m trying to keep my promise.

  Bugger. Maybe every day is pushing it, maybe I should just fill up the whole of January right now with one rambling metaphorical outpouring from my jumbled up mind.

  So here comes January, my darling Sophie, and it’s got me wondering already. Somehow everything that has happened over the last twelve months to us all wasn’t a surprise to you, was it? It was as though you knew exactly where we were heading. Did you plan it all? It makes me feel slightly less sad about how things have worked out, slightly less sad about you going - if that was what you had in your mind all along. But I’m still going to miss you like hell, even if you can be a bit of a pain in the ass at times.

  Yeah Sophie could be a pain. Pushy, opinionated, so full of bubble and life that at times I just wanted to sit on her, shut her up, make her stop and listen. Make her just stop. But she couldn’t, never had. Not until now. Not until she’d finally given herself permission to find some ‘me time’.

  I thought I knew you so well Sophie, but now I realize that you managed to shut me right out with your jokes, your hugs and your giving. Yeah, you did a good job of making sure you didn’t let any of us reach that hurt little part of you deep inside. But I still love you, Soph. This year has taught me so much about myself and I think it’s done something for you too. At least I hope so. I hope that you find what you’re looking for out there, and that you’ll come back and tell us it was all worthwhile.

  Anyhow, this is my diary and I’ll do my best to do what you wanted me to and fill the bloody thing in. To write it all down so that this time next year we can swap and it’ll be like we never missed a day. My diary, to you and to Charlie, from both of us. Because without Dane there probably won’t be much to tell.

  Holly x

  I put a strong line straight across under my name, a mix of frustration and hurt that leaves a jagged scar on the page and then I smudge away the splash that isn’t allowed to be a tear from the edge of the page and turned to stare out of the window.

  It looks cold outside, icy fresh like it’s supposed to be at this time of the year but seldom is. I rest my elbows on the uneven windowsill and my breath mists up the glass inviting me to trace a pattern, so I do.

  I trace our initials on the cold pane like some overgrown kid. H, D and then the C, the C for Charlie that curled around the others, holding them together, and then I add the S. The letter that links and tangles our lives until you can’t tell where one begins and the other ends. The letters start to fade, condensation dripping, bleeding them together and I press my forehead over them, close my eyes to block out the frosted trees, the ice-edged leaves, to invite in the people who make up my life.

  It surprises me, but the image pricking at the back of my eyelids isn’t Charlie, it isn’t Dane, it is James. Blond-haired, blue-eyed James, standing there as clear as day, all neat and tidy. The most perfect man in the world, the man I’d stood next to in the church of dreams, the man who had slipped that band of precious gold onto my finger. A promise. Forever, until death do us part.

  And, as I watch he closes his eyes, throws his head back, his perfect lips parting as they always do in that moment of suspense just before he comes. And I can’t stop myself looking down, and all I can see is his cock, his slender, long cock in a firm male hand, a hand that is pumping him with steady assured strokes. A hand that isn’t his. A hand that just over twelve months ago shattered my complacent little world into a zillion sharp splinters, and made me open up my mind and my heart….

  Chapter One

  “Stuff Australia, who needs surf and sand when you’ve got me? We are going to make this the best Christmas ever. We’re going to share everything.”

  “Everything?” I raise an eyebrow and Sophie gives a dirty laugh.

  “Everything.” Charlie grins in a way that turns him from geek to mischief-maker, his dirty blond hair making him look like some wayward angel. “We’re going to have a really laid-back, do what we want kind of Christmas. Deal?” He tops up my glass with white wine before I have a chance to object. “What about you, Soph, are you going to join the debauchery?”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “I’ll have another glass of wine, yes.” She held out her glass for a top up. “Christmas Day I think I’ll be stuffing the turkey for my little sis.”

  “You can count me in, Charlie.” I planted a kiss on his day old stubble. “But without the debauchery.” There were a lot of worse ways to spend Christmas, like on my own. My folks had made their plan for the festive season while I was still happily delusional about married life, and so I hadn’t been part of them. Instead I’d dropped them off at the airport in the early hours and driven back home, with the knackered heater in the car blowing out cold air, wondering just what kind of Christmas this was going to be.

  And Charlie? Well, Charlie always skated round the issue of his family and, from what Sophie had told me, I gathered he did Christmas with friends or not at all. He’d never really explained why, just twittered on about freedom of choice and ideals and some other meaningless crap which wasn’t him at all. But for
once he’d been a closed shop. No comment.

  I could have gate-crashed my parents trip to the Australian sunshine, but I didn’t want to. Too many questions and too many sympathetic looks, a drunken geek fest with Charlie sounded a far better idea.

  We’d met at University and clicked instantly; you know how you can like someone before they even open their mouth? It was that. He was clever, he was a bit of a hunk, he was funny and he was laid-back almost to the point of horizontal. Charlie was one of those people who just made life taste good.

  When we graduated I moved down South to take up my dream job and we drifted apart slightly, and then the drift became more of a rift when I met my dream man. James.

  Charlie visited once or twice but it had been awkward, he and James had been chalk and cheese, they just hadn’t liked each other at all. And when he’d come to the wedding it felt like he was saying goodbye, a brief awkward standoff. Then the guy I called my best friend had gone off to shag the chief bridesmaid, muttering something about never trusting a man who looked like he spent more time in the bathroom than you did, and in a blink of an eye he’d become my ex-best friend.

  I forgave him. I put it down to jealousy at first, but I’d been so high up in the clouds that I must have been suffering from oxygen shortage, or some kind of hormonal disorder that affected my brain. And it wasn’t until those cotton wool clouds got blown abruptly right out of the sky that I discovered he was right. And being the friend he was, he just picked me up and dusted me off without once actually saying it. And he forgave me. And it had just seemed logical that when I decided I needed a new life, a new job, everything, it was up here, in Cheshire, with Charlie and Sophie.

  “Don’t let the wine get warm, Holly berry, drink to it.”

  “Well, it’s a deal as long as the pair of you don’t make me wear anything as ridiculous as this ever again.” I was more holly leaf than holly berry right now and it was all Sophie’s fault. Sophie, the girl who could charm the birds right out of the trees.

  I flipped up the hem of my green tunic and she laughed. A full bodied, warm your soul type of laugh that made every red-blooded male in the bar turn and glance our way.

  How on earth I’d let her persuade me to dress up as one of Santa’s little helpers I do not know. Even the words ‘good cause’ don’t usually sway it with me if it involves dressing up and looking an idiot, though in this case undressing was a better description.

  Charlie gave the bottom an experimental tug of his own, his fingers fluttering briefly against my barely covered buttocks and I gave him the thump he deserved. I suppose it could have been worse, I could have been a reindeer.

  When I’d first met him he’d come across as fairly reserved, and then he’d introduced me to his old mate Sophie and I saw a whole new side of him. Sophie was an indestructible force of nature, but a nice one. It made it far, far harder to say no to anything she suggested. Which I was discovering was dangerous.

  “If you’re going to start thumping me, I’m off.”

  “You were going anyway.”

  “I was. Don’t wait up, I could be late.”

  “As in tomorrow morning?” Since I’d taken up Charlie’s offer of a room we’d settled into the comfortable routine of an old married couple. Well, hopefully not the old bit, but very routine. Takeaway pizzas, old films, comfortable pajamas and a goodnight kiss before we went our separate ways to bed. Some nights I’d be out with Sophie, sometimes the three of us would hit the town, and sometimes, just sometimes, Charlie would do a disappearing act.

  He grinned and drained his glass. I’d never seen him with a girlfriend, or a boyfriend come to that, his stay-out-late vice just seemed to be the occasional poker game. Unless he just wasn’t telling.

  “Later.” He ruffled my hair, blew a kiss at Soph and managed to flip up my tunic again all in one easy movement, and headed for the door before I could retaliate.

  I’d never really looked at Charlie before, you know, properly looked - because he was more like a geeky big brother. The annoying idiot who always stole the game controller from you, the guy who laughed at your high heels and told you the tart look was hot this season. The guy who was always there to cuddle up to and offer wise words when you’d had a shit day. But for some reason I was looking now, well staring, at his trim bum that his expensive chinos were hugging like a second skin. And I felt tempted, very tempted.

  “Can he surf?”

  “What?” Sophie gave me her ‘you’ve grown two heads’ look. Shit I’d done that speaking out loud thing when it was supposed to be in my head.

  “I was just wondering. He just looks like he should be on a surf board in the sun somewhere.”

  “Oh yeah, sure. The sun kissed beaches of Anglesey.” Sophie did sarcasm well, very well.

  “They don’t get breakers there do they? I was thinking more sun-drenched Australia.”

  “Is there something in your wine that I’ve missed out on?” She was right, it was a bit random, but I have this thing with people where I tend to imagine what they really should be doing, and I’d just had this startling image of Charlie with his hair slightly longer, and his body slightly more toned. He’d make a good surfer dude.

  “Anyway, forget Charlie, I’ve just spotted something much better.”

  The evil glint in her eye, and the instant switch-on of her sultry smile should have warned me, but being one drink up and a bit slow on the uptake I swung round to follow the line of her sight. And really wished I had kept my head turned and my nose buried in my wine glass.

  “You two out on the pull then?” You know how some deep male voices have that perfect resonance to vibrate right down to the bottom of your stomach and beyond? Yeah, that. I was blushing from the inside out and I had completely and utterly forgotten about Charlie, with or without a surfboard.

  Christ, why was it that every time Dane Stephens popped up I was dressed in something that either said ‘shag me, I’m a complete tart’ or ‘I’m a complete saddo’? Or in this case a mixture of both. The fact that Sophie and I were propping up the bar, both with a goblet of wine in hand each didn’t help with the image much either.

  “We’ve been working.” I tried to keep my face straight and stop my nipples making a break for freedom as the gorgeous guy who seemed to feature in every one of my current run of dirty dreams rested his hand on my shoulder and sent a warm thrill straight between my thighs. Along with a very strong urge to grab hold of him and give him the type of kiss that would leave a lasting impression. Gee, life would be so much easier if that kind of full frontal attack was one of my special skills. It wasn’t. Best mates with a bit of flirting thrown in as a side order was a better description of my capabilities.

  I’d been having dirty dreams about Dane for as long as I can remember. Well, probably since the first time all six foot something of him had swaggered into this bar and given me the type of smile that gave me an almost, emphasis on almost here, uncontrollable urge to strip every last inch of his clothing off in slow motion. But I hadn’t, because nice girls don’t, do they?

  “Been out hammering shoes on?” I tweaked a bit of straw out of his thick dark hair and resisted the urge to tangle my fingers in deeper, just in case I’d missed a bit. And then rub a hand over that broad, strong chest just for good measure. He was buff underneath that shirt, I just knew it. Well, I did actually. I’d seen him strip to the waist the odd time at the tail end of the summer when we’d actually seen a bit of that golden orb in the sky they call the sun, and he’d built up a sweat manhandling horses. And along with every other girl on the yard I’d gone weak-kneed and tried not to stare as I’d watched his muscles ripple and a trickle of sweat bead its way down his back. A bead of sweat that needed licking off.

  I’d had a thing about cowboys, well, since I was fifteen when my boy friend, as in two separate words, had dragged me along to watch a western in the local cinema. His idea had been to get his tongue down my throat, but he’d faded into insignificance when the hero
of the piece had got off his horse. This had been no normal cowboy, he’d been naked down to the low slung jeans that barely scraped his hips and when he’d slipped one hand under the waistband, just as he tugged the girl in for a kiss the rush of dampness to my knickers had shocked me. And left me squirming, and meant that the boy friend got an end of show, tongue twisting snog that shocked me more than as it did him.

  And as I grew up I realized men like that just didn’t exist. I just never met a man who’d had the same effect on me, not even the man I’d married had done that. Until Dane had walked in four long months ago and been the nearest thing to a cowboy that the English counties had to offer. He’d probably never had a Stetson on his head, or a rifle in his hand, but I bet he’d look good on a horse and even if he didn’t, in my mind it just didn’t matter. Dane was just hot, and made me hot, and wet.

  His jeans were slung just the same, so I just knew I’d be able to see his hip bones if I unbuttoned that thick cotton shirt. And boy did I want to, and I was just itching to slip my own hand tight in there. I just needed an excuse and September through December had left me too tongue-tied to find one. Even if my horse seemed to be throwing a shoe on a weekly basis and he’d been out an embarrassing number of times.

  “Yeah, lots of thrown shoes, darling, you know ‘tis the season.” He winked and my mouth watered. Literally. Much more and I’d be drooling, a drooling elf who would have thought? Bugger, I really did need a plan or I’d be spending another Christmas morning just wishing I’d asked Santa for the type of toy box that had long life batteries and lube in it. But was quiet enough not to disturb Charlie.

  “Hi Dane, boy. We—” Sophie was practically licking her lips, he had that effect on every female old enough to have hormones, as she drew herself up to her full five-foot one and a half inches and put a hand on his arm “—have been doing our good Samaritan bit.” She knew him? I didn’t know which bit made the feeling of empty spread in my stomach, the fact that she knew him, or she knew him. Because from the way she was grinning in a slightly flirty, slightly too cosy way meant she definitely knew him. Every bit of him. I gulped down the lump in my throat and tried to breathe normally.