Read Wartime Sweethearts for Free Online

oven hummed with heat. He was swigging back a cup of tea. ‘That woman gives me the willies. I wish she’d stop pestering me.’
    ‘That woman is in love with you,’ said Ruby, flipping at her brother’s head with the corner of a tea towel.
    ‘Not my type. I don’t go for redheads. Never have.’
    Ruby sliced the last apple into the saucepan and added the sugar. ‘So what is your sort?’ she asked, an amused smile flickering around her lips.
    Charlie threw back his dark head and closed eyes that were identical to those of his sisters.
    ‘Now let me see.’ His brow was deeply furrowed. ‘I know what I’d like. I’d like one of them South Sea Island girls: dark hair, dark eyes and wearing a grass skirt and flowers in her hair.’
    ‘Ha!’ said Mary. ‘I have it on good authority that she’ll be at the fete tomorrow. You won’t be able to avoid her.’
    ‘A hula girl?’ he asked hopefully.
    ‘No,’ Ruby added with a grimace. ‘Miriam. She’ll be there.’
    The look of hopefulness fled his face.
    ‘In that case I’ll hide myself in the beer tent. Even though her old dad is dead, she still won’t go in there, the demon drink and all that.’
    ‘Charlie Sweet, are you telling me that you’re only going to the village fete for the beer?’ Ruby couldn’t help chuckling.
    ‘It’s my day off. A holiday. Of sorts.’
    ‘You’re not entering anything?’ Mary asked him, eyeing her beloved brother sidelong, noting the impish grin and the way he ran his finger over his top lip.
    He grinned. ‘How about a rich pudding soaked in ale, loads of sultanas and candy peel?’
    ‘Are you serious?’ Mary said to him.
    ‘No,’ said Ruby. ‘He’s just being stupid.’
    The girls had entered the village fete baking competition every year since the first time they’d mixed their own bread dough. But for Charlie baking was work not pleasure. Baking for the village fete he would leave to his sisters. Besides, it took up valuable drinking time.
    Still their father had encouraged all of the children to have a go as early as they could sprinkle flour through their fingers.
    He’d laughed those first few times they’d baked their own bread, made pies or pasties and cakes. Not at their efforts which he praised to the roof telling all three of them – Charlie included – that they were chips off the old block and he was proud of them. ‘Thing is you’re wearing as much flour as you’re putting in the bowl.’
    His laughter and obvious pleasure was accompanied by him dabbing more flour on all their noses – not that it made much difference, seeing as their faces were already covered in it.
    Frances came home from school at lunchtime, darting through the back kitchen and up the stairs.
    ‘What’s up with her?’ asked Charlie as a cloud of flour floated down from the ceiling when Frances banged their bedroom door. No matter how careful they were, flour got everywhere.
    ‘She’s of an age,’ said Mary.
    Charlie looked puzzled. ‘An age? What age?’
    Mary shook her head and reached for the rolling pin. ‘Never mind, Charlie. Let’s just say it’s women’s trouble.’
    ‘Women’s?’ He said incredulously. To him Frances was just a nipper.
    Suddenly he realised she meant the monthly business and turned beetroot red.
    ‘I’ll just pop up to see if she’s all right,’ said Ruby, taking off her white apron and hanging it on the hook at the back of the door.
    She headed for the stairs, closing the door tightly behind her.
    ‘What’s up with Ruby?’ asked Charlie once they could hear her footsteps overhead. ‘Same thing?’
    ‘Not quite. I’m surprised you noticed.’
    He shoved his hands in his pockets, swaying backwards and forwards, mainly because he wished the subject of
women’s trouble
hadn’t come up. The women outnumbered the men in this house, which sometimes made him feel something of an outsider. He might find women fascinating, but they were also a little frightening.
    ‘Of course I