A Couple is Three: The Beginning (book 1 & 2 Completed)

Chapter 32 - More Parents

Thursday morning

Samantha and Lily made their way along the garden path towards Jake's house. Samantha had been impressed the previous night when they showed her how they had set up their farm. Each family owned their own land, but the farm and business was co-owned by both families. The main stables and the two families houses were set up in a triangle, within walking distance to each other, but set up so that you couldn't see either of the other buildings from any other building. Each building also had its own driveway. All this allowed for privacy for each family even though they were extremely close to each other.

Samantha eyed Lily warily. After being woken up early by Josh and Jake that morning, Samantha had returned to Lily's room to get dressed for her morning workout. Lily had still been asleep, but she had been awake when Samantha had headed into the shower before breakfast. Josh and Jake had both gone from their workout to the stables after having dropped her off at the house so she had faced Lily alone.

Lily had seemed pleasant, asking Samantha how she had slept and why she was up so early. Samantha had hedged saying that she had slept very well, the truth, but hadn't explained that she had spent the night with her boys. She had explained how she had gone for her workout with the boys which was why she had been up so early. As she had headed out the door to the bathroom, Lily had received a text. Lily had smiled and waved before bending her head done to look at her phone.

When Samantha had returned to the room, things had been different. Lily continued to smile and talk to her, but there had been a distance that hadn't been there earlier. The distance had only widened when the boys had entered the kitchen, freshly showered, for breakfast. They had each taken a seat on either side of Samantha leaving Lily to sit with John and Sharron on the other side of the huge table. Conversation had been free flowing and Lily had been smiling and joking like the previous night, but there seemed to be a slight edge to it whenever she talked to Samantha. The edge became more pronounced whenever Lily managed to catch either Josh or Jake touching Samantha.

Samantha had hoped that she would have been able to talk to Lily while they were helping Sharron to pack the trailer with food and clothes for the trip to Calgary, but Lily managed to avoid any deeper conversations with her. With the boys off doing their own chores and prep for the trip, Samantha at least wasn't on the receiving end of any quick glares from Lily.

Even with Lily acting that way, Samantha had still had fun helping out. She had enjoyed getting to spend more time with Sharron. She was so different than what Samantha had thought that she would be before arriving at Josh's. Throughout the morning, Sharron had kept the girls in stitches with her jokes. As they had packed pre-cooked frozen homemade meals, Samantha couldn't help questioning Sharron about how she had made them. This led to a huge discussion about meal preparation, canning, and even pickling. Sharron even invited Samantha to come back for visits when Sharron would be harvesting from her garden so that Samantha could see how everything was done.

Remembering all this caused Samantha to smile brightly even as she continued to worry about Lily on their walk. "Are you happy that the school year is done?"

Lily glanced over towards Samantha before returning her gaze to the path. "Extremely." She walked another few steps before muttering, "Not that it stopped anything."

Samantha continued to watch her, but Lily refused to to look at her again. Deciding to leave Lily's cryptic remark for a later time, she scrambled for something new to talk about. "So did you ever compete in rodeos?"

Lily stopped. "Josh didn't tell you?"

"No."

Lily walked forward to where Samantha had stopped after she did. "I thought that Josh and Jake told you everything about me so that you could pretend to be my friend."