Once bytten

Prologue

"Alan, Christian, wait up. Please," Ella shouted as she ran after the boys.

At ten, Ella's little legs could hardly keep up with the boys who'd already started growing into their men's feet. At fourteen, Christian was nearly a man, towering over his mother already and not much shorter than his dad. Alan, though a lot shorter, was still a head taller than Ella.

Ella wouldn't have been so desperate to go up to the treehouse after the boys. But she knew Christian wouldn't look out for the birds' nest and the eggs would fall out and die.

"Please Alan, wait for me," she tried again. Alan was her best bet because Christian didn't want to have anything to do with her. This time Alan ignored her too. By the time she got to the bottom of the huge hawthorn in the middle of the Hoovers' yard, Alan was already half-way up the ladder. Christian was nearly at the nest.

"Christian, look out, there's a bir..." Ella trailed off and squeezed her eyes shut when she saw his huge foot connect with the nest. She turned around and ran for the patio her mother and Aunty Tamara were sitting on, before she could hear the wet plop of the eggs on the ground.

Rose Bridges, Ella's mother, and Tamara Hoover, Alan and Christian's mother were enjoying the spring sun in the cool shade of the patio as the children played in the backyard. They'd been the best of friends ever since the day they met at preschool. It seemed like they were destined to be together when they married local boys from two of the richest and most influential families. Not that their own families were any less rich, or powerful. At the end of the day, they moved in the same circles, to fall in love and marry John Hoover and Desmond Bridges!

Now as they looked at the three children, they knew history would repeat itself. If only Rose could've had another child, everything would've been perfect. But they refused to revisit that painful chapter of Rose's life.

"It seems like the boys grow a foot every week," Rose chuckled, her eyes following the three children as she sipped Tamara's lemonade. "And why doesn't my lemonade ever taste like yours, Tammy?" She added as the drink seemed to wrap her in a cool breeze.

"They do. They also eat more than our horses, I swear," Tamara sighed dramatically, but her eyes spoke the truth as she looked on at the three children. "As for my lemonade, you say that about everything I make. What can I say, I am just a phenomenally good cook," she winked.

"Well, you are, actually. You could be a chef at the Marriott downtown. And you'd love it too!" Rose said, her eyes demanding an answer.

"John just won't allow it, Rosie. I've tried so many times. It's the one thing that we fight over. I even suggested that I supply pies and cakes to select coffee-shops around here. No one need ever know they came from me. But he simply won't budge!"

"Oh! He can be such a dinosaur sometimes! It's not the 1890s, for God's sake, that he expects his wife to have no life outside of the family," Tamara bristled.

"Well, it is what it is and I've given up fighting for it. I am just glad Desmond respects your talent and allows you to not only paint, but display and sell your awesome paintings too. Now let's not talk about this. It gives me a headache," Tamara declared, her eyes trained on the little girl running at breakneck speed towards them.

"What do you think, Rosie? Will the children really follow our dreams? Will Ella marry one of my boys?"

"I don't know, Tammy. She really adores Alan. I really hope something will come of it."

"Yes, she does seem to be attached to Alan. But I always have this vision of Ella marrying Christian."

"I am never marrying Christian. I hate him. He killed the eggs and he stomps on ladybugs!" Ella declared as she ran up to the women and caught the trailing end of their conversation.