A Time to Love

Chapter 1

BETA READERS WANTED: I plan to get this story published and have spent the last few months editing and changing scenes in the chapters, however chapters 1-3 escaped my attention as I thought I was happy with them at the time but looking back, I'm not too satisfied with them and would like the help of any beta readers out there (or just readers in general) to review and message me with an changes you think I should make to the story in general but chapters 1-3 in particular.

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

She lay awake staring at him, that still image. She envisioned what it would be like if he was really standing over her bed and not just watching from afar. She heard her bedroom door opening and then a voice woke her from her day dreams.

'Sarah come on. It's time to get up for college' her mother's soft voice spoke.

'Relax mum. I'll be down in a minute.'

She looked over to her bedside table where that photograph of him that she'd cut from the newspaper lay still in the frame. She smiled and imagined it again- her in his bed and then giving birth to his child, a gorgeous baby with her blonde hair and his china blue eyes.

There was a quick knock at the door and it opened, without her permission. Her mother stood there, arms folded across her chest, her posture rigid.

'Come on Sarah, your toasts going cold.'

'Okay, I'm coming' Sarah sighed as she waved her mother out of her space as though she was shooing a stray dog away from following her home.

'I'll see you later sexy' she said, kissing his image gently.

There was the usual early morning chaos coming from the kitchen as Sarah neared the bottom of the stairs, she stopped in front of the mirror to play with her shoulder length blonde hair, pushing it behind her ears and then panicking that it made them look to big so she covered them up again and brushed her fingers through it.

'At last' her mother proclaimed as Sarah entered the kitchen and sat beside her elder sister, Rosie.

Debbie Smythe was forty-three years old, strawberry blonde hair, brown eyes and had the smoothest skin a woman could own. She was in great shape for woman who had carried four children but only given birth three times and Sarah hoped that she could look that great when she got to her mother's age

'We were beginning to think our company wasn't good enough for you' and she placed the plate of toast and glass of orange juice in front of Sarah before returning to the toaster just as the next slice of light brown bread that had once been pure white popped out.

'Who's having this slice?' mum asked, applying the butter while pushing another slice in.

'Me!'

'No, me.'

Sarah's younger twin brother's-Bradley and Bailey- argued, raising their hands and then stretching them further so that one of them had their hand higher up than the other until eventually, Bradley stood on the chair with his hand raised.

'Get down from there!' mum demanded, panic making her voice shake.

In the end, neither of the twins' enthusiasm had paid off as it was Rosie who reigned victorious.

'I'm getting it because I have to be at work in an hour.'

Rosie Smythe was just over three years older than Sarah having just turned twenty-one years old, she currently worked at the local travel agents and hoped one day to be an air steward.