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“Who is that for?” Carrie asked, pausing in the doorway.
“Sunday lunches,” Jacob said, flashing her a smile. Obviously he was hoping she’d forgotten about the childminder incident. “Even when we don’t have guests, there are a lot of locals who like to stop in for a decent roast. We get a few walkers and such, too.”
She’d known that, Carrie realised, feeling stupid. Or she should have done, anyway. How many Sundays had she spent at the inn over the years?
“Of course,” she said, wondering how this would affect her plans for the day. Not too much, she decided. She could hole up in the front drawing room, and the bedrooms were still empty for further inspection. And anything that brought money in had to be good. “I was just looking for some tea...”
Jacob nodded at a white plastic kettle and toaster in amongst all the industrial kitchen equipment. “That we can do. Mugs and bags are on the shelf above, fridge is under the counter.”
The corner he indicated was obviously the staff area of the kitchen. The small fridge held only spreadable butter, milk and a couple of Tupperware boxes with Nate’s name written on labels on their lids. The slanting, cursive print really wasn’t what Carrie would have expected from him.
“There are some muffins in the bread bin, too,” Jacob called over. “Help yourself.”
Carrie took her tea and hot buttered English muffins through to the front drawing room, settled in at the window table, and pulled out her list.
“Okay. Where to start?” Realising she was talking to herself, Carrie turned to a blank page in her pad and started to write notes to herself instead.
First question was, bedrooms or dining room? Which held top priority? They both needed doing, but which mattered most?
Without decent bedrooms, the Avalon really wasn’t much of an inn. But without a great reception room, what wedding party would want to stay there anyway?
On the other hand, most of the work in the bedrooms was cosmetic, so it might be quicker to get done. The dining room itself wasn’t bad, structurally, but the terrace outside needed considerable work, according to Nancy’s survey. And from what she’d seen that morning, the kitchen was going to need updating if they wanted to host full-on wedding breakfasts and evening suppers in addition to their normal fare.
“How many can the dining room hold, anyway?” She’d have to measure it for herself, before the lunch crowd arrived.
“We can fit seventy for our New Year’s Eve dinner dances,” Cyb said from behind her. “Although, to be honest, we don’t often get that many these days.”
Carrie blinked, turned and said mildly, “You’re here very early.”
Cyb grinned, and waved a handful of small, brightly coloured bunting at her. Carrie peered closer, and picked out the national flags of Brazil, China and Denmark in the mix. “Just dropping off the decorations for tomorrow night,” she explained. “I had to wash them after last month’s International Night. Walt managed to get Campari and soda all over the bunting during a particularly enthusiastic tango attempt. Stan’s always telling them to put their drinks down first.”
“Sounds like…fun.” Carrie turned her attention to her list and, to her relief, when she looked up again, Cyb and her bunting were gone.
So, seventy for a dinner dance. Maybe a hundred, a hundred and ten without the dance floor, then cart everyone off to the bar while they turned the room around for the disco, with tables around the outside. A healthy number.
“Maybe the bridal suite and the dining room first, then,” she muttered to herself, adding another note to her list.
“If you mean room twelve, then it needs new windows,” Nate said, and when she turned around he was actually peering over her shoulder at the list. Carrie resisted the urge to cover her notes with her hands and wondered why he didn’t seem in the least embarrassed about the previous evening.
“They all need new windows.” Carrie’s gaze flicked involuntarily back to the huge book of a survey. Many of them needed a great deal more.
“Yeah, but the bridal suite frames are rotted through. One of the perils of wooden frames.” Nate reached down and snagged half a muffin from her plate. Carrie was starting to think the man really had no concept of appropriate work relationships. “And the terrace isn’t looking great, either. I started patching up the kitchen end yesterday, but I noticed last night the left side’s sagging something awful too.”
Carrie wanted to ask if that was before or after he’d attempted to stick his tongue down her throat, but that wouldn’t be very appropriate, either. By the time she’d come up with an alternative response, Nate had already left.
Carrie slumped back in her chair and twisted her pen around her fingers. She wasn’t sure what bothered her more: the fact that he’d kissed her at all, or the way he really hadn’t tried to make it in any way passionate. Rather, it had been the sort of a kiss a brother might give, only on the lips rather than the cheek. Nothing like the inexperienced first kiss she’d received on the same spot.
And apparently he’d been thinking about the bloody woodwork the whole time, anyway. Really, she’d have thought being kissed by a devastatingly attractive man would be better for the self-esteem.
Not that relationships had ever been particularly good for her self-esteem. Her best ever relationship, lasting a full three years, had been the result of a blind date arranged by her cousin. She couldn’t even find love by herself. And look at what a disaster that had been, anyway. Turned out working a lot of weekends gave guys time to look for better options.
I don’t have time for this. Remember?
Even if she did have time for romance, Nate would not be her first choice. Or any choice. He admitted himself that he didn’t stick around. Hell, she actively wanted him to leave so she could have control over the whole inn! Not the best basis for a relationship.
She just had to wait him out. He’d leave eventually. That sort of person always did. Wasn’t her own mother proof enough of that?
Back to the list. Carrie pulled the survey onto her lap to see what else might be wrong with the bridal suite, besides the lilac walls and the hideous bedspread.
Apart from the windows, the room was pretty sound. And, actually, perhaps all the windows should be number one on the list. She’d hate to decorate, only to have to redo it once the windows were in, all because some cowboy of an installer had chipped her paintwork.
Finally, she was getting somewhere. Starting a new page, she wrote: 1. Windows.
She put her pen down. What next?
“Have you seen Nate?” Moira wandered into the drawing room, waving around a Tupperware box of the sort Carrie recognized from the staff fridge. It even had the label, which explained a lot. “I’ve brought him some lunch.”
“He was here a moment ago,” Carrie told her, picking up her pen again, in the hope of conveying an ‘I’m very busy here, don’t disturb me’ vibe. “I’m not sure where he went, though.”
Izzie appeared at the other door. “Nate’s sorting out some dinner-booking thing over in Reception. But Stan’s looking for you, Moira. Said something about the music for tomorrow.”
“Oh, dear.” Moira handed Carrie the Tupperware box. “Can you give this to Nate for me, dear? Or just put it in the fridge for him. I’d better go and see what Stan’s broken now.”
They were both gone before Carrie could argue that packed lunches really weren’t her job, and before she realised sorting out booking problems probably was.
It was so tempting just to let Nate deal with it. But if she wanted to run the Avalon Inn, she had to actually run it. So she packed up her lists, her survey and Nate’s lunch, and headed for Reception.
* * * *
“But we sent you all our menu choices three weeks ago!” The man on the other side of the reception desk wasn’t getting any less irate since Nate had taken over from a very flustered Izzie.
“So I understand,” Nate said, in his calmest, most understanding voice. “Only we don’t actually have any record of your booking, and we don’t have a set menu at the moment we could’ve sent out for you to choose from.”
The man wasn’t listening. Neither were the large group of his closest friends and family who’d come to help celebrate his wife’s sixty-fifth birthday.
“I’ve got the email right here!” Nate took the opportunity and grabbed the piece of paper that the man waved around the lobby.
Suddenly the problem became much clearer. “Um, sir, I think I understand what has happened here.”
“Well, I’m glad somebody does! I want to talk to your manager.”
Which was, of course, the exact moment that Carrie Archer chose to walk into the lobby. Carrying one of his gran’s bloody packed lunches to boot. “What seems to be the problem here, Nate?”
Nate glanced down at the email. “Mr, uh, Jenkins, this is Carrie Archer, owner of the Avalon Inn. Carrie...”
But Mr Jenkins wasn’t waiting for an explanation. He looked a little taken aback, whether at Carrie’s timely arrival, or her age, Nate wasn’t sure. Regardless, his demands hadn’t become any quieter. “I booked this private lunch three months ago. I paid a deposit. I sent menu choices. And now your staff are telling me they can’t find my booking!”
“I am so very sorry, sir.” Carrie shot a glare at Nate, and he clenched his jaw and stared down at the email. She wanted to handle it all on her own? Let her. Maybe it would help convince her that everyone needed a little help sometimes. “Why doesn’t your party come through to the bar for a complimentary drink while I try and resolve this issue for you?”
Mr Jenkins looked faintly mollified when Carrie led them all into the main bar, gave instructions to Henry the part-time barman to hand out as much free booze as necessary, then shut the door on them before coming into the lobby.
“Before you say anything—” Nate started, but Carrie was already talking over him.
“You’re not talking now,” she said, her voice much sharper than it had been in the dim light of his summerhouse the night before. “I don’t know how my grandmother ran this inn, and I know I’ve only been here one day, but my understanding is that your domain is the garden, and your input should end at the front door. A fact that was made abundantly clear by your treatment of our customer. So from now on, I would appreciate it if—”
“He isn’t our customer,” Nate broke in, attempting to keep a tight hold on his anger. Never mind that he’d been practically running the place since Nancy got ill and wouldn’t tell her family. No matter that he’d held everything together while they waited for Carrie to pack up her life in the city and grace them with her presence. Never mind that Mr Jenkins was an idiot.
It stopped Carrie’s tirade for a moment, anyway. “What?”
“Mr Jenkins. He’s not our customer.” Nate pushed the printout of the email across the reception desk and waited for Carrie to reach the hotel name in the signature.
“Arundel Hotel.” She didn’t sound particularly apologetic, Nate thought, but at least she seemed calmer.
“Yeah. It’s a couple of miles down the road.”
“Right.” Carrie shut her eyes and sighed. “Of course.”
Without an apology or a retraction, Carrie snatched the email from the desk and stalked off towards the bar to give Mr Jenkins the good news that out there somewhere was a dining table set for thirty, and their food was going cold.
* * * *
Once the Jenkins party had been dispatched in taxis to the Arundel Hotel, Carrie took her pile of papers back to the drawing room, determined to finally get some work done.
Passing through the lobby, she saw Izzie in place behind the reception desk, shuffling piles of junk mail. She glanced up at Carrie. “If you’re looking for Nate—”
“I’m not,” Carrie told her, without breaking pace. She was, after all, perfectly capable of running the Avalon Inn without him.
She sat at the window seat, this time, to avoid anyone else sneaking up on her, and turned to The List.
1. Windows.
She should probably apologise to Nate, she realised. Sighing, she turned to stare out at the gardens. Whatever the bushes were by the driveway needed cutting back. And the beds under the windows were empty, she remembered.
Maybe Nate needed to apologise to her, actually. Or at least start doing his job.
Still, the gardens hadn’t even made it onto her priorities list yet. They certainly came after the bedrooms and the dining room, but probably not too much farther down. Photo opportunities were a huge selling point for wedding venues. She wondered if the inn had a pagoda.
But the gardens were Nate’s responsibility now, not hers. She’d just have to trust him to get on with it and not invest in some offensive topiary just to get back at her for this morning.
The sharp beeping ringtone of her mobile phone seemed oddly out of place at the Avalon. Adding change ringtone to the mental list, Carrie answered it quickly. “Hello?”
“Carrie? It’s Vicky. Vicky Purcell. How are you?” Her ex-client’s voice was too overly cheery, Carrie thought, for this to be a good phone call.
“Fine, thanks, Vicky. Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yes, fine. Just…we were wondering. I know you’re not with Wedding Wishes any longer, but, really, you were the reason we decided to hire the company. And now you’re not there… Well, I don’t suppose there’s any chance you might be looking to take on a couple of clients on the side?”
Oh God, what was Anna doing over there without her? Any guilt she’d felt about leaving Wedding Wishes had been for her clients, rather than her boss. Once Carrie had become vaguely competent at the wedding planning side of things, Anna had taken a back seat, dealing with the finances and contracts rather than handling distraught brides and double-checking dates on invitations before they went to the printers.
Which was probably why Anna had been so cross about her leaving, Carrie thought. She liked to keep herself away from the actual wedding part of wedding planning. Too much joyousness tended to annoy her.
“I’m sorry, Vicky,” Carrie said. “I really can’t. Even if I wasn’t…otherwise occupied now, I signed a contract with Anna. I couldn’t take any clients with me when I left.”
Vicky sighed. “Lucas said that’s what you’d say. But I figured it was worth a try. I just wish…”
“I’m really sorry, Vicky,” Carrie said again. “I’m sure Anna will do a great job for you. I mean, she’s being planning weddings for much longer than I have.”
“I suppose.” Vicky didn’t sound convinced.
“I hope the wedding goes wonderfully.” What else could she say, really?
“Yeah. Thanks. Bye, Carrie.”
“Bye.” Carrie ended the call and dropped her phone onto the table.
Bridges burned, just as her dad had said. She’d left that world behind, and all she had now was the Avalon. She had to find a way to make this work.
Grabbing her pen, she turned back to her list.
Chapter 6
Autumn was marching on and, given his mood, Nate saw no harm in getting stuck into some of the more energetic pre-winter garden jobs. After all, he was just the gardener. And he had a sudden urge to hack at stubborn roots and overgrown shrubs. Which had to be better than his earlier, similar urge to do with his new employer.
Besides, certain things had been let slide, he’d admit, while he’d been busy running the rest of the inn for Nancy. Time to get back to his garden where he belonged. Far away from Carrie Archer.
“She hasn’t been here in five years,” he told the hedge he was cutting back. “Who the hell is she to tell me my job?”
“Your boss.” The words held just the right mix of sympathy and censure to stop him feeling sorry for himself. It could only be his grandmother.
“I know.” Nate sighed and lowered the hedge clippers.
“You left your lunch in Reception,” Moira said, proffering another ubiquitous Tupperware box. “It’s ham and tomato today.”
“Sorry.” Nate took it from her and thought longingly of the roast he’d seen Jacob prepping earlier. But Gran liked to think she was looking after her boys. Really, how did you screw up a sandwich?
“Can’t have you going hungry.” Moira smiled and settled herself on the top of his stepladder. Apparently there was more to this talk than soggy sandwiches and an organisational chart reminder.
Nate returned to his hedge. Might as well get some work done while he listened.
“I know this is going to be hard for you, Nate,” Moira started, plucking a stray leaf from her skirt. “Nancy left you free run of your gardens, but you’re used to looking after everything.” She held up a hand when Nate tried to interrupt, and the memories of his gran’s leg smacks were still terrifying enough to make him shut his mouth immediately. “She needed your help, I know that. You were a great boon to her, these last couple of years.”
She paused and gazed at him, as if assessing his general usefulness.
“I owed her,” he said, looking away. “She gave me a home and a job.” And now she’d managed to make both rather more permanent than he’d intended.
“She gave you a lot more than that, and you know it. You might not remember what a hellion you were at sixteen, Nate, but I certainly do.”
But Nate remembered well enough. Remembered his mother’s tears, most of all. Remembered that restless feeling he couldn’t shake, that just wouldn’t let him settle down and work hard and pass his exams so he could get a nice, safe job. That wasn’t him, never had been. But at sixteen, that restlessness had translated directly into trouble. Into pushing boundaries, rules, laws far past breaking point, until his mum couldn’t cope any more.
Moira had taken him in, looked after him for one long, formative summer. But it was Nancy and the Avalon Inn that had straightened him out. Given him a vocation, even.
“Nancy took one look at me and put me to work in the gardens.” He could almost hear her saying the words, in her brisk, decisive way. You need to learn patience, boy. And the best teacher for that I’ve ever found is nature.
And twelve years later, when he’d been lost and confused, restless again and unable to find his path, he could only think of one place to go—the Avalon Inn. Where Nancy had saved him again.
“Why do you think she did it?” Nate asked. “Left me the gardens, I mean.”
Moira looked uncomfortable, her expression just a little bit guilty, which pretty much confirmed all his suspicions before she even spoke. “Maybe she thought it was what you needed.”
“Or maybe you did,” Nate said, and Moira looked away. “Did you ask her to do it?”
“No! We talked about it, I admit. Nancy agreed with me that it was time for you to settle down, to find a place where you could be happy. Fulfilled. But she thought you’d already found it, and just needed a little push…”
“And this was her push.”
“I suppose so.” Moira shifted on the stepladder and sighed. Nate leaned the shears against the hedge, and waited to hear what else she had to say. He hadn’t learnt a lot in thirty years, as Nancy had regularly told him, but he had learnt Gran was always worth listening to.
“I know this place has been a refuge for you,” she said eventually, looking down at her hands. “But Nancy was a big part of that and she’s not here any more, Nate.”
“I know that,” Nate said, trying not to let his irritation show. As if he hadn’t noticed.
“I don’t know if she realised how different it would be here without her. How difficult.” Moira looked up and caught his eye. “Whether we like it or not, Carrie’s in charge here now.”
“Not in my gardens,” Nate muttered.
“Perhaps,” Moira went on, her tone delicate, “if you don’t feel you’ll be able to work with her, for whatever reasons, it might be time for you to move on again. Admit that the Avalon isn’t where you belong, after all. Set yourself free to stop hiding and find your own place in the world.”
The very thought of leaving the Avalon hurt something inside his chest. Turning to his hedge again, Nate tried to make a joke of it. “You trying to get rid of me, Gran?”
“Never.” Moira snuck an arm out and clasped his forearm. The skin on her hands looked grey and tired. How could he leave her now? “But I want you to be happy. And I’m not sure hiding out here is what will do that for you any longer.”
The hand disappeared, and when Nate looked up Moira was already halfway to the path. For a little old lady, she could move at speed when she wanted to. And she always spoke a lot of sense.
Except this time he wasn’t sure she was right.
Because what would happen if he left Carrie alone to sort out the inn? There’d be nothing of the old Avalon left, and Nancy would never forgive him. He owed Nancy, and so he’d stay. For now, at least.
And if the memory of standing on a moonlit terrace, pressing his lips against Carrie’s, had anything to do with his decision, well, Nate was happy to ignore that, for the time being.
* * * *
Carrie’s planning week swept on without her, and more often than not she found everyday events at the inn distracted her from renovation plotting. For a place that hadn’t made money yet this financial year, it was certainly bustling.
But with time and money slipping away, and a meeting with Nancy’s lawyer and the business advisor he’d recommended looming, Carrie finally had a handle on her business plan. She’d done the research, she had the builder’s quotes Nancy had left, although she didn’t know how useful they’d be, since the firm had apparently gone bust since then. Still, she had another firm coming round later and she even had the beginnings of a timetable. All she needed now was the time and space to put it all together into a winning presentation.
Which was why she was spending Friday afternoon hiding in the seldom-used Green Room, trying to ignore the moth-print wallpaper and the faded velvet curtains that looked and smelled like moss. Replacing them, creepy as they were, was so far down her list she really didn’t have time to start obsessing about them now.
But the Green Room did have some things going for it. It was at the far end of the west side of the building, it had enough floor- and bed-space to spread out all her notes and good light streamed through the large bay window facing south over the woods.
And, most importantly, no one would ever think to look for her there.
“By the time I leave this room, I’m going to have an honest-to-God plan to show potential investors,” Carrie muttered to herself, starting to lay out her papers.
She got twenty minutes in before the phone rang.
“Guess what?” Ruth’s voice, miles away in Cheshire, was bubbling with excitement.
“What?” Carrie asked her cousin, shifting the decorating of the bedrooms up by a few weeks on her timetable.
If she sounded impatient, Ruth was obviously too excited to notice. “I’m getting married!” Ruth finished off the sentence with the obligatory squeal of excitement.
“That’s...” Carrie paused. “Hang on. To Graeme?”
“Of course to Graeme!” Ruth sounded vaguely insulted. “Who else would I be marrying?”
“But you’ve only been together, what… a couple of months?”
“What does that matter?” Ruth asked. “I told you at the funeral that I thought he was the one.” Her voice took on a wounded tone. “Aren’t you happy for me?”
“Of course I am,” Carrie said automatically. “It just seems a bit fast, is all.” And it wasn’t as if this were even the first time Ruth had got engaged. By Carrie’s count they were up to three ex-fiancés, with not a wedding between them.
Of course, that was arguably still better than Carrie’s own romantic disaster zone. Since the miserable demise of her only real relationship, the best she’d managed was a series of first dates, followed by a few two-month-long attempts at dating that generally ended when the men in question realised Carrie was too busy working to see them. Of course, that was usually around the time that Carrie realised that she didn’t care that she hadn’t seen the guy in two weeks, so it all worked out quite well, really.