Echoes of Love Read Online Free PDF

I haven’t been through enough already what with Mummy and . . . I’ll never forgive my dad.’
    Charlie patted Mallory’s shoulder and looked pleadingly at Anna.
    ‘I’ll leave you two alone,’ she said briskly and then paused. ‘By the way, how is your mum, Charlie?’
    Bea Musgrove was recovering from a badly broken arm, the result of getting overenthusiastic at the church Barn Dance.
    ‘In a tizz,’ Charlie replied. ‘The girl who runs the tearoom has handed in her notice, and Ellie who helps out with the cottages has got glandular fever. And at the height of
the letting season too. And what with Mum being one-armed and dad tied up with the harvesting and the farm rides, life’s a bit difficult at our place. To say the least!’
    ‘ Your life’s difficult?’ Mallory gulped, squeezing a few more tears out of her eyes. ‘At least you’ve got a home.’
    ‘Mallory, don’t be so dramatic,’ Anna began.
    ‘I thought you were leaving,’ her sister snapped. ‘So just go – hey wait a sec! You’ve dropped something.’
    She stepped forward and picked up the newspaper cutting from the floor. As she handed it to Anna, her gaze fell on the photograph.
    ‘Hang on, isn’t that Cassandra Wentworth?’
    ‘Thanks, I’ll take that!’ Anna snatched it from her sister’s hand. ‘Didn’t you have something you wanted to tell Charlie?’
    ‘Yeah, babes, I haven’t got much time,’ Charlie said. ‘I only popped in on my way to pick up stuff from the printers for Dad.’
    Not surprisingly, Mallory’s tears conveniently began flowing again, and the last words Anna heard as she hurried back towards the house were, ‘Charlie, if you really love me,
you’ve got to do something. And fast.’
    Late on the following Friday afternoon, Anna was sitting in Caffé Nero stirring her latte disconsolately while her best friend, Shannon Smith, demolished a doughnut
    with the dedication of one warding off imminent starvation.
    ‘. . . and so there’s nothing for it, we’ve got to move to Eastbourne.’
    She had been putting off sharing the news for as long as she could in the vain hope of a miracle, but now that Shannon was home from her latest stint in Stoke Mandeville hospital, there was
nothing for it but to come clean.
    ‘But you can’t!’ Shannon spluttered, spraying crumbs over a large area. ‘What about the band? We’ve got all those gigs coming up – you can’t just swan
off and leave us!’
    ‘I don’t want to, but . . .’
    ‘And Felix? I mean, you’ve been going on for the last heaven knows how long about how much you miss him, and how you wish you could turn the clock back, and now you get a chance to
put things right and you’re going to chuck it all away!’
    ‘What choice do I have?’ Anna asked.
    ‘Anna Eliot, for God’s sake get a grip!’ Shannon retorted. ‘You don’t want to go to flipping Eastbourne? So don’t go!’
    ‘Oh, like I can really do anything about it? I’m hardly going to rant and rave and throw tantrums like Mallory’s been doing, am I? There’s enough stress in our house
without that.’
    ‘So you’re going to wreck your summer, just to keep the peace? And let the band down?’
    ‘You don’t understand,’ Anna argued. ‘On the first of July, the Crofts are moving in – what do you expect me to do? Camp in the garden?’
    Shannon sighed, took a long gulp of her coffee, and eyed Anna.
    ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Question number one: am I your best mate?’
    ‘You know you are,’ Anna said, nodding. The two of them had hit it off that very first day in the Sixth Form at Fleckford College, and Shannon was the only one of Anna’s
friends who knew the whole horrible story from beginning to end.
    ‘Question number two: do best mates tell it like it is?’
    ‘Well, you certainly do,’ Anna teased. ‘With embellishments.’
    ‘Last question: have you really thought through whether you want to see Felix again? Because it sounds to me as if you’re