Page 11 of The Wisteria Tree Cottage

She had always struggled with making friends. Growing up, her parents had never let her play with anyone after school or go over to anyone’s house because her dad had said he’d then be expected to have those children round to his house too and he didn’t want children in the house, something Meadow often thought included her.

But Bear, Heath and River had, at least in their early years, lived right next door so she would often climb over the fence to play with them. Their parents and later their various guardians hadn’t minded her presence and the boys had no desire to come and play in her house with the grumpy man so everyone was happy.

But at school the girls would often mock her for her closeness to the Brookfield brothers so she hadn’t made any real deep female friends there. There had been a few girls later on that she’d thought she could count on, Sally and Fliss, but no sooner had Meadow announced her pregnancy, she hadn’t seen them for dust. They had all gone off to university the following year and she had been forgotten. And while she had attended some mother and baby groups, the other mums were quite a lot older than she was, with most of them being mid to late twenties in comparison to Meadow’s seventeen, and quite a lot more judgemental than she’d been expecting, too. So apart from a weekly yoga class where she had a nodding acquaintance with the other participants, she had largely stayed at home, as Heath said, and hidden herself away. It was easier than putting herself out there to be rejected, and not just in her relationships with men but also in her friendships with women.

But this, sewing, following a pattern, embroidering, creating a dress from scratch, this she found peaceful. She smiled wryly because a love of sewing didn’t exactly make her a great catch for the men she was going to date. She was sure men wanted women who surfed or danced or went backpacking around the world. Unless she went out with the guy with the train set in his loft. He could have his boring hobby and she could have hers.

She sighed because that didn’t exactly fill her with joy either.

CHAPTERSEVEN

Bear lay in bed that night and idly logged in to his online dating account. He’d reopened it earlier that day but he hadn’t yet looked at any of his matches. His heart really wasn’t in it, but he had promised Meadow that he would do all this dating stuff with her so he supposed he’d better chat to a few women online so he could get a few simple dates out of it.

He went to his matches and saw that he had forty-nine. And one of them had already messaged him earlier that afternoon. Twilight Rose. He rolled his eyes. He wondered if the woman was aTwilightfan. Meadow had made him watch all the movies with her and he’d hated them. The acting was terrible, the plot was wispy thin. She did say she loved the books better than the films but the films had certainly never made him want to pick up the books. It was one of the things they agreed to disagree on and one of the things he teased her about. He had made her watchStar Warswith him and she’d hated that too, so he supposed they were even.

He clicked into Twilight’s profile and then sat up straight. Ninety-six percent match. He’d never matched with anyone with such a high percentage before. He read through her information and her introduction to herself and it made him smile.

He clicked into her message.

Hello, I read your profile and you seem really lovely. Please don’t spoil it by replying to this message with a dick pic, I’ve had three of those already and I’m not sure I can cope with any more.

He groaned. Some men were twats. No woman deserved to be sent that kind of message. He hoped Meadow had been spared that but he sincerely doubted it. He carried on reading.

So I have a question for you. If you put a coat on a snowman will it melt?

He laughed. What a brilliant starter question. She’d skipped straight past the typical favourite holiday destination question and what’s your favourite movie and gone for something fun. And this kind of question was right up his street.

He opened up a reply box.

Hello Twilight, lovely to hear from you. Your profile made me smile. Can I take this opportunity now to apologise for my gender about the dick pics. I’m not sure why some men do that and if it has ever worked for them. It’s not something I’ve ever done or feel inclined to do, so I promise you’re safe there. As for your question, the jacket would actually protect the snowman or snowwoman from warmer air getting to it and keep the cold air trapped inside the jacket. So I have one for you. Until I am measured I am not known, but how you miss me when I have flown. What am I?

He pressed send. She would get an email notification to say she had a message and if she was free she might come online to reply, although it was quite late now.

He waited a few moments and he couldn’t help but smile when he saw her little green online light come on. She must have read his message because the little three dots appeared to show she was writing a reply.

I’m lying in bed, half asleep, and I can still tell you the answer to your riddle is time. You’ve picked the wrong girl to challenge with a riddle, I am the riddling queen, and you’re right about the snowman, but of course you knew that.

He liked that she was into riddles. Meadow loved a good riddle but he knew this wasn’t her as she was the rather randomly named Iris Starfish. Twilight was still writing more so he waited for her next message to pop through.

And thanks for no dick pics, it is an extraordinary thing why men would do that. I’m new to online dating, well dating at all, so that was an unpleasant surprise. I’m still not really sure I want to enter the dating world, I’ve been happily single for a very long time. Well, maybe not totally happily but I’ve done OK. Letting someone else into your life feels like a big step. Have you done much online dating before?

Bear liked her honesty. He wrote his reply.

I’ve done it before, came off it for a while, came back on again, I’m fortunate enough never to have been sent any dick pics though.

He smiled when she immediately sent back a crying laughing emoticon.

I should hope not.

He quickly wrote his reply.I can understand your caution about dating and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being single, I think a lot more people nowadays are finding being alone the better option. But there’s a big difference between doing OK and being happy. My brother has recently got together with someone who makes him blissfully happy and I look at them together and I want what he has, that forever kind of love. Sorry, I’m sure that sounds very soppy.

Her reply was almost instant.Not soppy at all. And you’ve given me hope that some men on here are looking for the same thing I am. From some of the messages I’ve had so far it’s clear a lot of men are on here just looking for sex.

Bear replied.Yeah, a lot of women are on here just looking for the same.

She sent her reply.Thank you for being so lovely. I’m going to go to sleep now, my daughter gets me up early most days and as it’s the school summer holidays she wants to go out and enjoy the outside as early as she can. I will message you tomorrow with another riddle. Be prepared. Night x

He smiled.Goodnight Twilight x

---