Room for Love Page 5

  She put her pen down. What next?

  “Have you seen my grandson?” 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 realized 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 thirty 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? Let her. “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 you are the gardener. 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 print out 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 toward 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 apologize to Nate, she realized. 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 apologize to her, actually. Or at least start doing his job.

  Still, the gardens hadn’t even made it on to 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.

  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, and only clocked the caller ID after she said, “Hello?”

  “Carrie, hi.” Anna Yardley’s voice was as crisp as ever, but the sound of traffic behind it was distracting. “Do you really think this is the best way to go?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Not you. I have a taxi driver who seems to think the best way back to the Manchester office from Liverpool is via Scotland.”

  “Right.” Anna had never, in all the time Carrie worked for her, agreed with a taxi driver about the correct route to anywhere. “What can I do for you?”

  “This temp of yours. Where on earth did you get her?”

  “The usual agency.” Carrie refrained from pointing out that Anna had seen all the CVs the agency sent over and chosen Naomi herself. She’d known this wasn’t going to work.

  “Yes, well, their standards are obviously slipping, then.” The line crackled, and Carrie assumed Anna had put her hand over the mouthpiece and was talking to the driver again. “You do understand that we’re going to Manchester, right? Our country’s second city? Does this mean anything to you?”

  “What’s wrong with Naomi?” Carrie asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

  “She doesn’t know anything!”

  “It’s her first day,” Carrie said. “She’s probably still getting used to the office, and our systems.” And being dragged in to work on a Sunday, she thought, but didn’t add.

  “Still, I can’t trust her to get on with things like I do you.” Anna sighed. “Temps are like taxi drivers. You have to watch them all the time.”

  “Give it a couple of days, and it will be like she’s always been there.” Carrie tried to inject more cheer into her voice than she felt. If things worked out at the Avalon, she’d need to start splitting her time between Wales and Manchester, at least while the renovations were going on. Anna might have to get use
d to Naomi. “And I’ll be back in the office in a week or so.”

  “That’s true. And maybe you could just take a look at a few of the things I need doing? When you get a moment?” Anna’s voice was wheedling, but Carrie was under no illusion that this was a request.

  “Well, I–”

  “Great. I’ll email them over now.” The phone went dead, and Carrie went to fish out her laptop and wireless dongle from her bag, adding get broadband and Wi-Fi sorted to her list as she went.

  * * * *

  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 six 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 step ladder. Apparently there was more to this talk than soggy sandwiches and an organizational 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 let you have free run of the place.” 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. “And 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.”

  “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. Nancy and the Avalon Inn had straightened him out, even given him a vocation.

  “Nancy took one look at me and put me to work in the gardens.” And twelve years later, when he’d been lost and confused, he could only think of one place to go–the Avalon Inn. And Nancy had saved him again.

  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 become your home,” she said eventually, looking down at her hands. “But Nancy was a big part of that and she’s not here anymore, Nate.”

  “I know that,” Nate said, trying not to let his irritation show. As if he hadn’t noticed.

  Moira looked up and caught his eye. “Whether we like it or not, Carrie’s in charge here now. And I think she’s going to need our help if she’s going to make the Avalon Inn a success again.”

  Nate broke away from her gaze. He’d seen the survey. He knew exactly how much help Carrie would need. More importantly, he knew where she planned to get it.

  “Perhaps,” Moira went on, her tone delicate, “if you don’t feel you’ll be able to help her, for whatever reasons, it might be time for you to move on again.”

  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 gray 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 and her boss to sort out the inn? There’d be nothing of the old Avalon left, and Nancy would never forgive him. Moira was right when she said Carrie would need help. He just had to make sure she got the right sort.

  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 less than seventy-two hours left until Anna’s arrival, Carrie finally had a handle on her 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 Anna,” 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 Manchester, 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. Who to?”

  “Graeme.” Ruth sighed the name. “I told you about him, last time you called. Remember?”

  Racking her brains to try to remember when she last spoke to her cousin, Carrie was pretty sure it hadn’t been long enough for Ruth to reach the engagement part of any romance.

  “That was two months ago,” Carrie said. They’d emailed since then, but Carrie had mostly been filling Ruth in on the deal for the inn, and maybe she hadn’t paid quite enough attention to her cousin’s responses. “It was just after the funeral. You said you were going on your second date.”

  “I said I thought this was the one,” Ruth corrected. She sounded wounded, Carrie realized. “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 was even the first time Ruth had gotten engaged. By Carrie’s count they were up to three ex-fiances, with
not a wedding between them.

  Carrie squinted at the papers, and shifted the completion of the terrace back a week. The work was bound to run over.

  “Carrie, this one’s different. Trust me. I never... With the others, it was different. This is the one for me. And when you meet the love of your life, there’s just no point waiting. You’ll see what I mean one day.” Ruth’s tone was utterly serious now, and Carrie sat up straighter. She sounded like she might actually go through with it this time.

  “So, um, when did he propose? And where?” Maybe the kitchen could wait until next summer. Jacob seemed to be managing all right at the moment. Carrie shifted the relevant Post-it note into the Future Plans section.

  “Last night. We were having dinner in this cozy little Italian ’round the corner from his flat, and we were talking about the future–you know how you do.”

  “Of course,” Carrie said, although in her experience, at the two-month mark she was more likely to be discussing how it really wasn’t working out, and how she had a lot of work on right now anyway, and maybe it would be better if they stayed just friends.

  “Anyway, Graeme said he saw himself marrying me, one day, so I said, ‘Why wait?’”

  That didn’t sound exactly like a proposal to Carrie. More like a hijacking.

  “We’re going shopping for a ring this afternoon,” Ruth concluded.

  “Well, I can’t wait to see it.” Carrie hoped Graeme had a decent credit limit. He certainly hadn’t had time to save up for a suitable rock. Picking up the survey again, Carrie flicked through to see exactly how desperately the guttering needed replacing.

  “Oh, you will soon. I’ve told Graeme we have to get married at the Avalon, so we’ll be visiting so he can get the tour. He thought it was cute how we used to play weddings there when we were kids. It’ll be perfect. You can be my bridesmaid again!”

  The survey dropped to the floor, clunking against the carpet and sending up dust. “The Avalon? Well, I hope you’re planning a long engagement.” Carrie attempted a chuckle, but it came out more of a croak.

  “Oh, no.” Carrie could practically hear Ruth tossing her head from side to side. “I want to be Mrs. Frobisher as soon as possible. And I’ve already decided on my bouquet. This month’s Blissful Bride magazine had a feature on Ecuadorian Cool Water Roses. They’re lavender, you know. My favorite color.”