Can she make room for love?

When wedding planner Carrie Archer inherits the crumbling Avalon Inn where she spent her childhood summers, she knows she’ll do whatever it takes to make it home. With no money for renovations, that means finding investors if she ever hopes to turn the Avalon into a dream wedding venue.

But Carrie has been left more than the inn—she’s also inherited its occupants, including three senior citizens, a single-father chef with childcare issues, a panicky receptionist, and one very gorgeous gardener.

So when her cousin Ruth declares her intention to get married at the Avalon on Christmas Eve, Carrie finds herself juggling decorating with dance nights, budgeting with bridge games...and sabotage with seduction.

Coming soon from Sophie Pembroke

An A to Z of Love

Summer of Love

Room for Love

Sophie Pembroke

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2014

Copyright © Sophie Pembroke 2014

Sophie Pembroke asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2014 ISBN: 9781472096296

Version date: 2018-06-20

AUTHOR BIO

Sophie Pembroke has been dreaming, reading and writing romance ever since she read her first Mills and Boon as part of her English Literature degree at Lancaster University, so getting to write romances for a living really is a dream come true!

Sophie lives in a little Hertfordshire market town with her scientist husband and her incredibly imaginative five-year-old daughter. She writes stories about friends, family and falling in love, usually while drinking too much tea and eating homemade cakes. Or, when things are looking very bad for her heroes and heroines, white wine and dark chocolate.

She keeps a blog at www.SophiePembroke.com, which should be about romance and writing, but is usually about cake and castles instead.

Dedication

For Simon and Holly

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Endpages

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

It’s a money pit, Carrie. You don’t have to do this. You can’t do this.

Carrie stared out of the car window at the familiar, crumbling form of the Avalon Inn, her father’s words still echoing in her head. Five years, and it barely seemed to have changed at all. The roof tiles still sat wonky, the terrace seemed to be sinking into the grass, and moss had crept so far up the building it appeared to have taken over the stonework.

In other words, it still looked like home.

The place she’d spent endless childhood summers, reading by firelight or adventuring through overgrown gardens. The scene of her first kiss. Fourteen years old, dressed in Grandma Nancy’s second-best silk gown, dancing on the terrace with one of the local boys. He’d sung along to the music, his breath warm against her ear as they’d hidden in the darkness, peering through the window at the women dancing, their long dresses swirling. Cigar smoke and music had filled the air, and Carrie had known in that moment that the Avalon Inn was where she truly belonged.

Even now, so many years later, she knew this place, deep in her bones. Just through the front door stood the ornate, curving main staircase, the site of her cousin Ruth’s many fictional weddings. And somewhere, shoved in the bottom of a cupboard, she’d probably find a dressing-up box holding the endless parade of second-hand bridesmaid’s dresses Ruth had dressed Carrie in for the occasions. The unicorn tapestry would still be hanging over the reception desk, and the old Welsh dresser must still dominate the dining room.

All so, so familiar.

She could almost see Grandma Nancy skipping down the front steps, if she tried. Carrie squinted for a second, before the twinge of guilt that always accompanied the thought of five years of absence caught up with her. Because Grandma Nancy would never walk down those steps again. Because now the Avalon Inn belonged to Carrie.

She shouldn’t have done it, Carrie. It wasn’t fair. You don’t have the knowledge or the experience to run an inn. Especially not a crumbling old heap like the Avalon.

She could still see her father, shaking his head as he spoke, hands trembling as he held the whisky glass Uncle Patrick had forced into his hand the moment the funeral service was over.

“I’ve been organising society weddings for five years,” Carrie argued, even though her dad was two weeks and three hundred miles away. “I think I can manage one venue.”

Think of what you’re throwing away! It’ll swallow up all your savings in one gulp, and God knows Mum didn’t have much money to leave you. And what then? Do you think that boss of yours will take you back again? Anna gave you a job when you needed one, when no one else would, as a favour to Uncle Patrick. And now you’re walking out on her. You’re burning your bridges, Carrie.

Enough. She might have burned every bridge, aqueduct and underpass she had, but she was here. And she couldn’t just sit in her car waiting for something to happen. She was on her own now.

Sucking in a deep breath, Carrie opened the door and stepped out, locking the car behind her automatically before she caught herself. She almost laughed. Who did she think was going to steal her tiny city car here in the middle of the Welsh mountains? There probably wasn’t even anyone there to see it.

Behind her, the peaks and valleys of Snowdonia stretched out, green and vibrant and damp in the autumn afternoon. The air tasted different here. Fresher than London, of course, but more than that. Almost as if it had more life in it.

For the first time in the two weeks since the funeral, since that awful fight with her father, Carrie felt something inside her relax. This was the right thing to do. Grandma Nancy had left her the Avalon—not Dad, or Uncle Patrick, or even Ruth—so she’d obviously believed she was up to the challenge.

No matter what everyone else thought.

Carrie was going to save the Avalon Inn, all by herself. And then she was going to take great pleasure in saying ‘I told you so’ to everyone who said she couldn’t do it.

Just as Gran would have wanted.

* * * *

The heavy, dark-wood front door, with its stained-glass panel showering coloured light onto the stone floor of the reception area, felt like another old friend to Carrie. She remembered being too small to even open it on her own; sitting on the step outside waiting for Nancy to come back from the garden to help her, or for a kindly passing guest to let her in. Today, Carrie’s hand hovered above the wood; she was suddenly reluctant to enter. What if it wasn’t as she remembered?

Carrie closed her eyes and shoved. The door fell open under her hand, easier than she’d remembered, and she stumbled before finding her feet.

Her favourite tapestry still hung above the reception desk and the sparkling silver threads of the unicorn’s horn caught her eye immediately. Her gaze moved lower.

“Hello! Welcome to the Avalon Inn!” The alarmingly perky young blonde behind the reception desk beamed at her. “Are you here for dinner in the restaurant? Only it’s not actually open for the evening yet. And, well, we don’t have any bookings, so I’m not sure what Jacob has on the menu.”

“No,” Carrie said, trying to follow the stream of babble. “I’m—”

“Oh, are you looking for a room?” Her eyes widened. “Wow. I mean, hang on, I’m sure I have the reservations log around here somewhere…”

Carrie glanced at the name badge pinned on the blonde’s blouse as she rooted around on the desk. “Actually, Izzie, my name is Carrie Archer. I’m Nancy’s granddaughter… I, well…”

Izzie stopped shuffling papers around and stared at her. “You own the Avalon Inn. You’re my boss.”

That’s right. Carrie got to be a boss now. No more running around, dancing to the incomprehensible whims of Anna Yardley at Wedding Wishes Ltd. She got to run the show.

And she’d do it a hell of a lot better than Anna, thank you. After all, she had perfect experience of how not to treat employees.

She gave Izzie a warm smile. “I’m hoping we’ll all be able to work together as a team here at the Avalon.”

Izzie’s head bobbed up and down in agreement, but Carrie suspected she’d have said ‘yes, miss!’ to whatever she’d suggested.

“You’ll want to see Nate,” Izzie said, head still bobbing.

“Nate?” Carrie blinked. “Um, who’s Nate?”

“The gardener.”

“Right.” Why would she want to see the gardener? “Well, maybe I could have a look around the inside of the inn first? Meet the staff here?”

“You mean Jacob.”

“Jacob. And Jacob is…?”

“The chef.” Izzie’s smile turned a little softer talking about Jacob. Carrie had a feeling she wasn’t getting the receptionist’s full attention any more.

“Okay. Is there anyone else working here?” Like a manager, or someone who could tell her what had been going on at the Avalon since Nancy got sick, for preference.

Izzie looked thoughtful. “Well, there’s Henry, the part-time barman, but he doesn’t work today.”

“Why don’t we start with a tour of the inn?” Carrie asked with a sigh. Maybe they’d stumble across someone more useful on their travels.

But Izzie shook her head. “You really should wait for Nate for that.”

“Izzie, this is my inn.” She leant across the reception desk, just a little, in a ‘just between us girls’ way. “I think I can look around it without the gardener, don’t you?”

Izzie bit her lip, but eventually nodded.

“Right, then! Why don’t we start through here?” Carrie pushed open the door to the left of the reception desk, which led, if she remembered right, to the dining room. “Oh!”

She stopped in the doorway to take in the scene. One woman - who had to be eighty plus - in a flamenco dress. One fiddling with an iPod. And one old boy coiling up a line of red and black bunting.

“Hello!” The woman in the flamenco dress stepped down from the chair she was standing on, where she’d been taking down another line of bunting. “Are you here for the flamenco lesson? I’m sorry, we had to cancel it. The instructor got stranded in Aberarian when her car broke down. I thought we’d called everyone... But our next dance night is on Monday, and we could definitely do with some new blood!”

“Ah, no. I’m—” Carrie started, but Izzie interrupted her.

“This is Miss Archer, Cyb. Carrie Archer. Nancy’s—”

“Nancy’s granddaughter,” the man with the bunting said. “Well, well. They said you were coming, but we didn’t know when.” He gripped her hand hard enough to burn, and Carrie focused on the light reflecting off the row of military medals pinned to his knitted waistcoat. “Stan Baker. Pleased to meet you.”

“Yes, very!” said Cyb, the flamenco dancer. “I’m Mrs Cybella Charles. Widowed, of course. Almost everybody is these days, it seems. But we’re just so excited to have you here with us. Do you play bridge?”

Carrie blinked at the onslaught of words. She vaguely recalled a New Year’s Eve at the inn, ten or so years ago, when Nancy had tried to teach her over too much whisky. “Um, badly, I think.”

Mrs Charles gave a wide, still-toothy smile and clapped her hands together. “Wonderful!”

“And I’m Moira Green,” the lady with the iPod said, her voice reassuringly gentle. “I was your grandmother’s best friend. But I don’t suppose you remember me. It’s been a long time.”

“Five years,” Carrie said, feeling that ping of guilt again. Ever since her dad started trying to persuade Nancy to give up the inn and move in with him. And ever since she took the job at Wedding Wishes and gave up her weekends for all time. “But I remember you.” Vaguely, anyway. Had Moira been one of those women in silk gowns dancing at Nancy’s parties, when Carrie was a child? She wasn’t sure. But she remembered some things. “You and Nancy used to take tea in the front parlour together, every afternoon.”

“That’s right!” Moira beamed. “And I remember you running in here with grass stains on your knees and your hair full of twigs from climbing the trees in the woods.”

Carrie winced. “I like to think I’ve grown up a little since then.”

“Of course you do,” Moira said. “Now, I suppose you’ll be wanting to see my Nate.”

“Your Nate?” What was it with this guy? Why did everyone think he was so important?

“Nate is Moira’s grandson,” Stan explained. “And I think he was in the kitchen with Jacob, last I saw.”

“I’ll take you!” Izzie said, too quickly. “We were headed that way anyway.”

Carrie allowed herself to be dragged across the dining room, and through the side door that led to the kitchen corridor. When she’d stayed at the inn the chef had been a terrifying woman called Frieda, so Carrie had never really spent much time in the kitchens.

But it seemed as though Izzie had.

“You’ll love Jacob,” she chattered as they walked. “He’s great. And his beer-battered fish and chips with homemade tartar sauce is to die for!”

Carrie’s stomach rumbled. Maybe food wouldn’t be such a bad idea…

“Who were those people?” she asked, to distract herself from her hunger. “Stan and Cyb and Moira, I mean?”

“The Seniors?” Izzie shrugged, which looked odd while she was still walking. “Just friends of Nancy’s.”

But Nancy was gone, and they were still there. “But what, exactly, do they do around here?” she asked.

But it was too late. They’d reached the kitchen door and Carrie no longer had any of Izzie’s attention.

Unfortunately, neither of them seemed to have the much-lauded Jacob’s either.

“I know that, Sally. But she promised...” The guy Carrie assumed was Jacob stopped shouting into his mobile and ran a hand through his disordered hair. “Look, I’m at work. Can’t you just—?-” Looking up, he spotted them in the doorway and abruptly fell silent.

“Don’t mind us,” Izzie said, smiling too brightly as she shuffled Carrie into the hallway. “We’ll come back later.”

“Who’s Sally?” Carrie asked, glancing back over her shoulder.

Izzie’s face clearly showed the debate that was raging in her head as she tried to choose between telling her new boss the truth and protecting Jacob. Carrie raised her eyebrows and waited patiently.

“Childminder,” Izzie said eventually. “Sounds like Jacob’s ex wasn’t able to pick Georgia up today. Bloody woman. She’s only supposed to have her daughter two afternoons a week. Not exactly hard to arrange, now, is it?”

“Happens a lot, does it?” Carrie asked. This was the kind of information she needed. She needed to know where things at the Avalon were weak. Not to use it against them, as Anna would have, but to help. To improve things.

God, what would Anna have made of a chef who kept having to run off to collect the kids? Her ex-boss had never been big on people having a life outside work.

“God, all the time,” Izzie said, rolling her eyes. “She’s such a...” She cut herself off, obviously aware she was approaching the TMI point. “Well, Nate obviously wasn’t there! He’s probably outside. Come on!”

Grabbing Carrie’s arm, Izzie dragged her out of the side door, onto the terrace. Carrie stumbled a little before finding her feet. Apparently Izzie had got over the intimidated-by-the-new-boss phase pretty quickly.

The terrace was exactly as Carrie remembered. Shady and cool, smelling of damp wood and wet grass. She wanted to take a moment, to remember sitting out here on folding chairs with Gran, talking about everything and nothing as they sipped lemonade. Maybe even remember the night of her first kiss, when everything had seemed possible.

But Izzie yelled, “There he is!” and tugged Carrie towards the sound of hammering, so private moments would have to wait.

“Nate!” Izzie called as they approached the edge of the terrace. “Look who’s here!”

Carrie couldn’t see anyone, but the repetitive banging of metal on wood stopped at least. Then, appearing over the wooden terrace rail like a swimmer from the sea, a man unfurled and stood, and leant against the bar.

“Carrie Archer,” he said, his voice low and warm. “You made it, then.”

She blinked. How did he know who she was? And why, of everyone she’d met today, did he feel so familiar?

“Hi. You must be Nate,” she said, holding out a hand over the rail. “I’ve heard…well, nothing about you except your name, actually. And that you’re the gardener here?”

Nate took her hand in his larger, warmer one, and Carrie felt something unfamiliar spark up her arm. Heat? Attraction? It had been so long since she’d felt either she wasn’t sure. But there was something beyond either of those. A feeling of comfort, maybe?

It was probably just the reassuring bulk of his presence. He was a good two feet lower than her, down on the grass below the terrace, but he barely had to reach up at all to shake her hand. He had to be well over six feet, and with the broad, strong shoulders of someone who spent his days working outdoors, lugging trees around or something. He was one solid thing, in an inn that was falling apart.

Maybe Nate was exactly what she needed here at the Avalon. A trusty support team was important to any manager, or leader. If she could get him on side, to help back her up, he could be a great asset.

She was already starting to feel better about the whole thing when Nate’s next words made the terrace shift under her feet and face a new reality.

“Not heard of me, huh? Well, that’s kind of weird, given that your grandmother left me control of the grounds to this place in her will.”

Chapter 2

Carrie drew her hand back from Nate’s. “I’m sorry? She did what?”

“Didn’t you read the will?” Carrie shook her head, which made Nate tut. Moving along the grass, he climbed the steps up onto the terrace. Now they were on even ground, he stood a good head and shoulders higher than Carrie. Suddenly, she wished she’d worn higher heels.

“Mr Norton, Gran’s lawyer, he said he’d go through the details with me once I arrived. He just told me that she’d left me the Avalon.” He hadn’t mentioned caveats, or another heir. Hadn’t told her that even Nancy hadn’t thought that Carrie could do this alone.

Someone else she had to prove wrong, then.

“You know your gran,” Nate said, looking down at her with something like pity in his eyes. “Always meddling. She left you the inn, and the land, with the caveat that I had control over the gardens. For as long as I wanted it.”

“And I suppose you still want it.” Looking up, she met his eyes, and knew his answer long before he said it.

“Yes. I do.”

It was hard to tear her gaze away. Something about his slate-grey eyes that drew her in, made her want to be closer.

“Besides, I think you’re going to need me,” Nate said, breaking the moment. Carrie pulled a face, staring down at her shoes.

She had to remember that Nate wasn’t who she’d thought he could be. Wasn’t a sturdy, trusty sidekick. Instead, he was one more person who thought she couldn’t do it alone. Wasn’t capable. Wasn’t good enough.

One more person to prove wrong.

And one more person who would try and tell her what to do. Would want her to do things his way.

Well, he was going to be severely disappointed.

“Need you?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “And why is that, exactly?”

Nate blinked at her. “Well, because this place is a wreck. And because I’m the one who’s been running it for the last six months, since Nancy got sick. I know what we need to do here.”

“Look, I get that we’re going to have to work together,” she said. “But Gran left me the inn. I appreciate you keeping the place going until I could get here but, like you said, it’s a wreck, and six months in your care hasn’t changed that. This is my place now. And I’m the one who’s going to fix it.”

Nate stared at her for a long moment, his dark eyes a little too knowing. “You really are just like your grandmother, aren’t you?”

Carrie thought about how Nancy never let anyone tell her what to do, always struck out on her own path. “I hope so, yes. Now, how about you give me the tour of this place, so I can see what I’m dealing with?”

“You don’t want to check out the paperwork first?” he asked, and for a moment Carrie started to second-guess herself. Then she shook her head.

“No. I want to see my inn.”

Nate gave a sharp nod. “Then let’s go.”

* * * *

They started in the dining room.

“I’d forgotten about this carpet,” Carrie said, staring down at the green and purple monstrosity, her face sour.

Involuntarily, Nate glanced down too. “You don’t notice it after a while,” he lied. He’d told her the place was a wreck. But her words, six months in your care hasn’t changed that, were stuck in his brain now, and he knew he didn’t have a chance of getting them out. She didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, of course. But still, the need to defend the Avalon Inn against this outsider was undeniable.

“Denial won’t fly with most clients.” Carrie pulled a notebook out of her handbag and started scribbling. “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

Nate wondered how much she’d paid for the all-cliché business course to teach her that one. Almost not wanting to know, he stepped closer to see what she was writing.

The list, headed up ‘Renovations’, read:

—Replace dining room carpet

—And probably chairs, tables and crockery

—Definitely replace curtains

“At least you’re leaving the walls intact,” he muttered, and Carrie glanced up in surprise, as if she hadn’t realised he was there. “Come on, you can mentally tear down the kitchen, next.”

Actually, he thought as he waited for Carrie to trot after him, it was possible the kitchen might prove a saving grace. Not the room itself, although it was at least hyper-hygienic, thanks to his cousin Jacob’s obsessive nature, but what it stood for. The Avalon had always been famous locally for its food. Nancy liked to put on a good spread for any occasion, and hired the best chefs to make it happen.

Yes, ten minutes chatting about roast lamb and sticky toffee pudding with Jacob should have Carrie falling in love with the inn, he reckoned. Especially if Jake provided samples.

“Actually, I’ve already seen the kitchen with Izzie. It seemed that your chef was having an issue with his childminder, though, so we didn’t stay.”

Nate closed his eyes for a moment. Of course Jacob’s unreliable ex would flake out on them today. “I assure you, Jacob is usually—”

“Izzie said it happens all the time.”

“Izzie was mistaken.” Nate bit the words out, already planning the talk he was going to have with the receptionist. Nancy had to have left him the grounds for a reason and, so far, the best he could come up with was to make sure that he stayed here to help Carrie. Or, the thought had come late one night, to stop her, if she tried to change too much about what made the Avalon home for so many people.

They had to stand together, now Nancy wasn’t there to stand for them. And Izzie needed to get on side, quick.

“Why don’t we head upstairs, then?” he suggested, and Carrie nodded. “Great.” Nate shepherded her in the direction of the stairs. “I’m not sure how well you know the inn,” he said, desperate to change the subject.

Carrie made a noise that was almost a snort. “I practically grew up here.”

Which didn’t explain why she hadn’t been back since he’d arrived, Nate thought. Didn’t explain why she hadn’t been there when Nancy got sick.

He pushed the thoughts away. He had to work with this woman—for now, anyway.

None of them knew what she had planned here. They were all nervous; the Seniors most of all. They had the most to lose, Nate supposed. If Carrie Archer decided to sell the inn or turn it into flats, or any other inconceivable idea, he’d get by. He’d work for the new owners, if they wanted him, or he’d get a new job. He still got offers often enough. People who wanted to be able to show off their new garden and say, ‘Oh, yes. We got that chap who used to be on the telly to sort it for us. You know, the Singing Gardener.’ At least, the ones who didn’t mind the fact that he hadn’t had a programme in almost two years. He’d manage well enough, he supposed.

Only he didn’t want to ‘manage’. The Avalon Inn had become home, from the moment he’d pitched up on Nancy’s doorstep and said, “Remember me?” Nancy had let him in, made him hot chocolate and sent Izzie to make him up a bed in the summerhouse. That was two years ago too. He’d headed straight to Wales from the meeting with the producers, the meeting where he’d said, ‘No, no more. Enough. I want to do it my way.’ He hadn’t really expected them to decide his way wasn’t good enough.

He didn’t want to leave the Avalon Inn, even if it felt strange every single morning, heading up to the house and not finding Nancy drinking coffee in her office or berating Jacob in the kitchen. But he didn’t want it to change, either. It was comfortable. It was home. And Nate liked it just the way it was.

Which meant he had to work with Carrie Archer to keep it that way.

“Well, if you know the inn then you’ll know we’ve got twelve bedrooms here, each individually decorated. Shall we start at the eastern-most end?” he suggested.

The bedrooms didn’t meet with Carrie’s approval, either. By the time they reached number twelve, the largest of the rooms, her renovations list stretched onto its sixth page, and Nate could feel a serious headache building behind his eyes.

“It’s not what you were expecting,” he said, watching Carrie add bridal suite—total makeover! to her list.

Carrie sighed. “It’s just there’s such a lot to do.”

Nate thought, not for the first time that afternoon, it might be better for all of them if Carrie Archer just sold up and left. Why bother keeping the inn if she planned to destroy everything that made it Nancy’s Avalon?

Except Nancy had left him here to stop that, hadn’t she? And he owed Nancy, even now she was gone. He couldn’t just walk away. Not until he’d repaid Nancy for all she’d given him.

She’d nailed his feet to the floor, and he was damn sure she’d known exactly what she was doing when she wrote the bloody will. She wanted him to settle down.

After all this time, he’d thought she’d have known he wasn’t the settling type.

The rickety stairs up to Nancy’s bedroom gave out ominous creaks under their feet, but for once Carrie didn’t comment. Didn’t say anything at all until they were enclosed in the stuffy attic room, the autumn sunlight creeping through the window and making the dust motes glow.

“I haven’t been up here in years,” Carrie said, touching each of Nancy’s trinkets and treasures in turn as she moved around the cluttered room. When she reached the bed and spotted her bag in the middle of it, she stopped and looked over at the window and the dressing table instead.

It felt strange to see another woman in Nancy’s space, Nate realised. He’d never expected, when he arrived at the Avalon, that he’d spend much time in the cramped attic Nancy had chosen for herself. Quite aside from the fact that he had to duck his head just to stand in there, he’d never felt very comfortable in such a personal space. Still, towards the end, Nancy had grown more and more tired in the afternoons, but remained too stubborn to succumb to the idea of afternoon naps. Instead, she’d called work meetings in her room, lounging on top of the jewel-coloured patchwork bedspread while Nate folded himself into the white wicker chair at her dressing table, taking notes on all the things she wanted done around the inn.

And her family hadn’t noticed she was ill. Not even her beloved granddaughter.

“I don’t imagine it’s changed much,” he said, staring at the string of silver bells hanging from the window frame.

Carrie’s head jerked up at his words, but Nate could tell she didn’t really see him. Her attention flicked away again, drawn to a photo on Nancy’s dressing table, a picture of a child in a summer meadow. Carrie, he assumed.

“She loved that photo,” Nate said, feeling something catch at the back of his throat.

“It was the most perfect day.” Carrie’s voice sounded very far away. “We chased butterflies through the field and had ice cream on the terrace. Just me and her. She even let me use the cut-glass cocktail glasses for ice-cream bowls.”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Nate realised he might have something in common with Carrie Archer after all. She missed her grandmother. Maybe even as much as he did.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said. He stepped closer to her automatically, though he stopped himself from reaching out to touch her.

But then, he didn’t move away, either.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Carrie’s question was abrupt, and Nate could hear real pain in her voice, this time. “When she got sick. We could have...”

“She didn’t want anyone to know.” Nate’s jaw felt tight, making him force the words out. “She didn’t want...pity, I suppose. She wanted to face it alone.”

“She let you help,” Carrie said, sounding bitter.

Nate shrugged. “I’m paid staff. It’s different.” He sighed, and tried to find the right words to explain. “You know what she was like. She didn’t want to interrupt your lives with her problems.”

“You should have told us anyway.”

The accusation in Carrie’s voice broke Nate’s reserve. She could not, would not blame him for this. “If you’d visited—hell, if you’d even paid attention when you called—you’d have known. It was blindingly obvious to anyone who loved her.”

Stark silence followed. Carrie flicked her gaze to the photo and it stayed there, as if she were living in some half-forgotten yesterday. “She sounded tired.” Her voice sounded very small, now. “But I thought... She was old, Nate. I just thought it was age. I saw her when she visited Dad’s at Christmas and she seemed fine. And I thought if something was really wrong that she’d tell me...”

“She was a stubborn old thing,” Nate said fondly. Carrie huffed a laugh and put the photo on the dressing table. But when she looked up and met his eyes, she still seemed to be watching something very far away in time.

“Do I know you?” she asked, her voice faint.

Nate blinked, and was just considering the best way to deal with what appeared to be some sort of weird stress-related amnesia, when Carrie shook her head, her cheeks pink, and went on, “I’m sorry, I mean, have we met before? You just look familiar, somehow.”

Letting out a breath of relief, Nate grinned. “You know, a lot of people say that to me.”

Carrie smiled back, faintly. “Guess you’ve got one of those faces. What about the people downstairs? Stan, and Moira and...”

“Cyb,” Nate finished for her. “The Seniors... They’re old friends of Nancy’s.”

Carrie nodded slowly. “Ye-es, that’s what Izzie said. But what are they doing here?”

Nate resisted the urge to wince, while he tried to think of the best way to put it. Perhaps best to start out softly, he decided. “Well, they’re all very attached to the inn, and they live locally. And I know they were all looking forward to meeting you.”

All of which was scrupulously true, if slightly misleading. Nate liked to avoid outright lies whenever possible. But he wasn’t above a bit of misdirection.

Carrie seemed to be buying it, anyway. She ran a hand down her skirt to straighten it, and Nate could almost see her packing away her feelings and getting back to the task in hand. “Right, then. I’ll have plenty of time for this later. What do you want to show me next?”

It was too late, though, he thought. He’d seen that she cared. There had to be a way he could use her emotional attachment to preserve Nancy’s inn.

“Why don’t we head down to the drawing room?” he suggested. “Like I said, Nancy left some papers and things to be given to you. Might as well make a start sooner as later.”

And if words from beyond the grave didn’t guilt Carrie into doing the right thing by the Avalon, he’d just have to find something else that would.

* * * *

It was only once they started touring the rooms that Carrie realised how inaccurate her original impression had been. Not only had the Avalon Inn changed, it hadn’t been for the better.

She’d remembered the bedrooms as cozy and charming, but the ones Nate showed her were just shabby. The dining room looked tired, and no one would want to hold their wedding reception on a carpet so hideously patterned. Even the drawing room and library were filled with lumpy chairs and paperback novels missing pages or covers.

She couldn’t help but think that Anna would hate every inch of the place, if she saw it. The Avalon Inn would never be good enough for a Wedding Wishes booking. In fact, as it stood, Carrie was very afraid it wouldn’t be good enough for anyone’s wedding. Which left her plans stuck rather behind square one.

And, if that weren’t bad enough, Carrie’s bag sat in Nancy’s bedroom, not the tiny boxroom she’d made her own in childhood. Nothing was as it should be.

Carrie had arrived expecting a dream wedding venue. What she’d got instead was fast approaching a nightmare. And apparently the decor was only a part of it.

“There’s a lot to be done,” Nate said, dropping into the leather wingback chair opposite hers, framed by the bay window of the front drawing room. The Seniors appeared to have scampered off to wherever they came from, probably for tea and a nap, much to Carrie’s relief. She looked up from the notebook where she’d been creating her Avalon Inn To Do List as their tour threw up new problems and jobs.

“So I can see,” she said, adding, patch drawing room chairs when her left hand found a hole in the leather of her seat.

“More than just the cosmetic,” Nate clarified. He pulled open the file drawer in the desk beside him, and handed her a thick wodge of paper. “This is a survey of the inn your gran had done last year.”

“You’ve seen this?” Carrie asked Nate, leafing through the pages.

Nate nodded. Of course he’d seen it. Nancy had obviously trusted him. Still, the idea of someone else knowing her inn better than she did made Carrie want to grind her teeth. Especially since it looked as if the surveyor hadn’t found a single part of the inn that didn’t need something done to it.

“New windows, rotting terrace... Possible roof issues?” Carrie sighed. “Well, this is going to be fun.”

Nate winced. “Yeah. Looks like your redecorating might have to wait.”

Carrie couldn’t quite decide if he sounded pleased. “It all needs doing, sooner or later.” Nate might not like the idea of updating the inn, but, if Carrie managed to find a way to pay for the structural work, she’d need to give the place a thorough facelift to have any chance of earning the money back.

“There are some other papers, too,” Nate said, his voice softer. He held a small pile of letters out before him, and Carrie reached across, feeling some resistance when she tugged them out of his hands.

On the top sat an envelope marked ‘Carrie’. She’d have recognized the handwriting anywhere in the world. But here at the Avalon, there was only ever one person it could be from.

Carrie swallowed around the lump that had taken up residence in her throat and wondered how long it would take her to work up the courage to open it. She put it to one side, and turned to the next paper in the stack—a copy of Nancy’s will.

There, in black and white, signed by her grandmother herself, was the proof that Nancy hadn’t believed that Carrie could save the Avalon on her own. With the proviso that Nathanial Green be given full control of the gardens, for as long as he wishes it.

Perfect. Well, at least he didn’t get any say in what happened inside the inn. However much he obviously thought he should.

Nate braced his hands against the arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet, his gaze still fixed on the will in her hands. Carrie glanced up. He looked even more absurdly tall when he was the only one standing.

“Well, you don’t need me here for this,” he said, just as Izzie stuck her head around the door from the bar, saying, “Nate? Jacob’s got some kind of childcare crisis, and he’s supposed to be giving me a lift home. Can we...?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nate said, with a wave of his hand. “I’ll walk you out. I need to talk to Jacob about menus for next week, anyway.” He stopped by the door and turned back to where Carrie waited patiently for him to realize his mistake. “If that’s okay with Carrie. I mean, Miss Archer.”

For the first time, Carrie felt properly in charge. But it was spoiled rather by the sarcastic lilt Nate put on the words ‘Miss Archer’. “Fine. I’ll see you both tomorrow, Izzie.”

The receptionist disappeared into the bar, but Nate still hovered in the doorway. “I don’t know if anyone mentioned, but I live on-site,” he said, as if he couldn’t decide whether telling her was a good idea or not. “I’ve got the summerhouse, down by the woods. So I’ll be around later if you want to discuss anything.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Carrie told him, and he nodded and left.

She’d be damned if she needed to ask Nathanial Green for help any time soon.

Chapter 3

Cyb wasn’t sure she liked the Red Lion very much. She’d never had cause to go there before. Why would she, when the Avalon Inn was so friendly? Even when her Harry was alive, they’d gone away to hotels, or nice restaurants, and to the theatre. Never to a sticky pub on High Street. And didn’t it used to be a hardware store? Surely she remembered Harry buying a new broom there, once. He wouldn’t recognise it now. Of course, he’d been gone a very long time. He might not recognise her either.

No, Coed-y-Capel had changed in fifty years, and Cyb wasn’t all that interested in living in it now. Much better to remember how things were, and recreate them as best as possible at the Avalon.

“Now, then,” Stan said, getting to his feet on the beer-stained floorboards. What kind of a place couldn’t even afford a nice carpet? Cyb tried to pay attention to Stan, as she always did, but really, with all the flashing lights and the pounding music, who could stay focused? “I call to order the first official meeting of the Avalon Inn Avengers.”

Across the table, Moira raised her hand just enough to get Stan’s attention and said, “Can I just be very clear on one point? The Avalon Inn Avengers is a stupid name.”

Stan’s face reddened, but he had good manners so he didn’t shout. Cyb liked that about Stan. He always looked as if he might bellow, but he never did. A good quality in a man. “Your opinion is noted, Moira,” he said instead. “But until such time as we have a better suggestion, or until the group is no longer necessary, we will stick with what we have. Yes?”

Moira nodded but Cyb thought she might have been smiling, just a little bit. Moira didn’t really appreciate Stan. Not the way she did.

“It is clear to me,” Stan said, leaning his hands against the table, “that our way of life, our inn, is being threatened. I’d hoped Nancy’s granddaughter would have better sense than to change what has worked for decades. But now she’s here, and from what I saw today...”

“What exactly did you see today?” Moira asked. “I noticed you’d sloped off when Cyb and I headed home earlier.”

Stan bristled. “I thought somebody should take responsibility for keeping an eye on what was going on at the inn.”

“You mean you followed Carrie and Nate around on their tour.”

“Not exactly.” Stan’s gaze darted away. “But I can report that she didn’t look happy with what she saw.”

Of course, Stan wasn’t perfect. He did get worked up about things, sometimes, when it really wasn’t necessary. A sign of a passionate nature, though, Cyb supposed.

“Carrie seemed perfectly darling to me,” she said, without really thinking, and felt her cheeks getting warm as Stan turned his stern gaze on her. “Of course, we only just met...”

“Exactly. Who is to say that tomorrow she won’t close the inn and start making it all...froofy.” Stan waved a hand on the last word, as if to say you know what I mean. Cyb thought she did, anyway.

She usually did—even when Stan was blustering and fussing, she knew it was all for show.

Moira, however, obviously felt the need to question. As usual. “Froofy?”

Stan sat down with a sigh and turned his full attention to the dissenter. “Tell me, Moira. Do you want to lose your bridge nights? Or our dances? Or your garden patch?” Cyb sucked in a breath at that. Stan really was bringing out the big guns if he was threatening Moira’s garden. But he wasn’t done. “Do you want your grandsons to lose their jobs and for Nate to go back to London?” Cyb shook her head. Threatening Nate and Jacob was a step too far.

“Nancy said she’d take care of all those things,” Moira said, but even she looked doubtful now. “She said she’d make sure we’d all get to stay. Especially Nate. Why else would she leave him the gardens?”

“Nancy said,” Stan echoed. “And I’m sure she did her best. But the inn is Carrie’s now. How much do you think she’ll respect her grandmother’s wishes? Besides, Nancy only left Nate control of the gardens while he wanted it. If he feels pushed out by Carrie…you know what he’s like. The boy will walk. Again.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Izzie said, slipping into an empty chair at the table. Cyb hadn’t even noticed her enter the pub. She, at least, looked as if she belonged there, with her blue jeans low on her hips and her blonde hair swinging across her shoulders. Cyb had looked like that once. Without the jeans, though, of course. “Jacob had to get home so the childminder could leave, so I just got him to drop me off by the park and walked in from there.”

Moira jerked half out of her chair at her other grandson’s name. “Does he need me to—?”

Izzie shook her head. “He’s fine. Just worried about leaving a bad impression with Miss Archer.”

“Why didn’t he call me?” Moira asked. “He knows I would have gone and got Georgia.”

Looking awkward, Izzie shrugged. “He just didn’t want to bother you again, I think.”

Something else new, that. A single father raising a little girl, and on a chef’s wage. Nancy couldn’t have been paying him much. If Moira didn’t help out so much, especially when Jacob was working weekends, he’d probably never be able to afford the childminder to cover the afternoons when Georgia wasn’t with her mum.

It wouldn’t have been like that in the old days.

“Never mind that, Izzie-girl.” Stan leaned far enough across the table to make the poor girl actually move her chair back a little. Stan forgot sometimes how intimidating he could be to people who didn’t know him as Cyb did. “Tell us what’s going on up there.”

“I thought Nate was coming with you,” Moira said, wrinkling her forehead. Cyb really should remind her to stop that. It wasn’t as if they didn’t all have enough wrinkles already without wilfully making things worse.

Izzie gave a secretive grin. Or, rather, the sort of grin Cyb knew meant she was about to share a good secret. “He was. He walked us to the gate, but then he said he had to get back and do some job or another urgently.” The grin got wider. “And I heard him tell Miss Archer he’d be around later. If she wanted to talk. Even told her where his room is.”

The table fell silent. Cyb tried to imagine good, honest Nate ‘putting the moves’ on anybody, and failed. Of course, Harry always said she hadn’t much of an imagination. It wasn’t that Nate wasn’t good-looking, of course, although far too tall really, which couldn’t be helped. No, the issue was, he really only cared about three things: his garden, his grandmother, and Nancy. Cyb knew Izzie had been excited when he’d first arrived, but he hadn’t shown any interest at all. And Izzie, with her blonde hair and big blue eyes, was far prettier than Carrie Archer. Unless...

“He must have a thing about redheads,” Cyb said absently, and Stan glared at her. Not a lot of time for romance, Stan. Which was a shame, really.

“We’re not here to discuss Nathanial’s courting habits,” he said, his tone curt. “Now, what was Carrie doing?”

Izzie shrugged. “Looking through papers in the drawing room. I think they’re the ones Nancy left.” She paused. “She didn’t look very happy with them.”

Silence again. Even Cyb knew what those papers said.

Moira let out a loud sigh. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Perhaps there were other papers, too. Financial ones. Not just the ones about us.”

“I’m not sure that’s any better,” Stan said, his voice ominous. “No, Moira, I don’t like it. We need a battle plan. And for a battle plan to work, we need to have better intelligence.” He turned to Izzie. “Izzie-girl. You’re our eyes and ears backstage at the inn. I need you to watch everything, listen to everything, and report everything back to me. Everything. You got that?”

Izzie’s blue eyes were wider than ever as she nodded. Cyb wondered if Stan had really thought this through. Even she could see he’d probably get more reports about Nate’s possible attempts to seduce Carrie than anything else.

Maybe he should. Maybe Carrie would be the one thing to make him stay. Moira would like that.

Nancy would have, too, actually. Cyb smiled. Maybe the old girl had known exactly what she was doing, leaving that confusing will behind.

“Good. Then, with that sorted, I call to a close this meeting of the Avalon Inn Avengers.” Stan banged his empty pint glass on the wooden table, and Cyb sighed. Perhaps Moira was right. They really should have spent some of the meeting trying to come up with a better name.

* * * *

Carrie sat staring at the envelope in front of her long after Nate had shut the door behind him. Then, using only the tips of her fingers, she removed it from the pile and leaned it against the lamp on the table beside her.

It contained Nancy’s final words to her. It was only right to save it until last.

Instead, she started in on the stack of papers below it. They didn’t make for any happier reading.

First came a financial summary, which was every bit as bad as Carrie had feared. Mortgage documents lay beside insurance policies and details, along with notes on why none of them would pay out for the things that needed fixing. There were some builders’ quotes for most of the work detailed in the survey and, underneath, a letter of refusal from the bank, not sounding very sorry at all that they couldn’t extend Nancy’s existing loan with them to cover it. At the bottom was the Avalon’s latest bank statement. In credit, at least, she supposed. But the balance wasn’t anywhere near enough to cover everything that needed doing.

Carrie sighed. A project like this was going to need financial backers, and she was the one who’d need to find them and convince them to invest.

Well, she’d wanted to prove herself. Now she knew how she could do that.

Time for the next folder.

This one, labelled in Nancy’s sprawling hand, boded a little better. “Current bookings,” Carrie read aloud, and smiled. If people were willing to stay at the Avalon when there was a good chance it might fall down around their ears, just wait until Carrie had finished with it.

Flipping the folder open, she started reading, her smile slipping with every word.

It wasn’t a long list, but what there was would take up a great deal of the inn’s resources, with very little recompense. It also explained why Nate’s Seniors had been loitering around earlier, without even the excuse of a flamenco lesson. They were waiting to see which way she was going to jump.

“‘Bridge night, every Wednesday evening, in perpetuum. Dance night—themed—every Monday evening, in perpetuum. Sing-songs, in bar, at will and as needed.’ Who makes bookings this way?”

Carrie slammed the file shut. Not one decent, proper booking in the lot. There wasn’t even any information on what the groups paid for the use of the inn.

“Oh, God, what if she wasn’t charging them at all?” Carrie let out a moan, and dropped the folder to the floor.

How was Carrie supposed to turn an old people’s home into a designer wedding venue?

She leaned back in her chair, rubbing circles at her temples with her index fingers, and considered. The most important thing was keeping the inn. To do that, she needed money, and apparently the banks weren’t likely to provide it. So she needed someone else. Someone who would put up the money but not get involved in the running of the inn.

“It’s my inn, now,” Carrie reminded herself. “So I’m going to have to run it my way.”

It might upset the Seniors, might even upset Nate and the rest of the staff. But the Avalon had been losing money for months. If they wanted to keep it going at all, there were going to have to be some big changes.

“Maybe they can have a dance night once a month. And move the bridge club to lunchtimes.” That sounded fair. A compromise. At least, to start with. Carrie was pretty sure she could phase them out, after the first few months. There had to be other, more suitable inns around willing to accommodate them.

Feeling better for having one thing decided, Carrie glanced up at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, and realised the evening was almost gone. She should think about going to bed.

Except…she remembered her bag, lying on Nancy’s brightly coloured patchwork bedspread.

It made sense for her to stay there, Carrie knew. The bedrooms would be needed for guests, and, before that, for decorating. Nancy’s attic was the only room in the whole place not required to earn its keep.

But did she really have to sleep there tonight? Did she really have to deal with the memories, and the guilt, and the scent from the bottle of Nancy’s perfume still on the dressing table, so soon? Couldn’t it wait, until she’d cleared out the room, packed away all the history?

Of course it could. There were a dozen empty bedrooms in the inn, after all. One of those would do for one night. Or even longer.

Decision made, she gathered her papers together and stood, planning to head into the reception. But glancing back at her chair, she spotted Nancy’s letter leaning against the lamp, circled by the glow of its light.

“What if I’m not ready yet?” she whispered to the empty room, already knowing the answer. It didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter because Nancy had written the letter for her. And how could she begin to work on the Avalon without knowing what Nancy wanted her to do? It was her inn now, but it would always be Nancy’s first.

Carrie dropped into her seat, hearing the leather sigh beneath her, and fumbled with the envelope, eventually pulling out three thin sheets of writing paper, all covered in Nancy’s sprawling purple ink.

The first page was, as she’d expected, a message of love from her grandmother. The second bore an entreaty to treat the Seniors well, and to trust the staff Nancy had put in place.

Carrie’s mouth twisted up into a half-smile. Nothing unexpected there, either, given that Nancy had included the Seniors’ bookings with the most important inn documents. And she had always loved her staff.

Nate will help you, if you let him. Trust him. He’s a good man now. I wouldn’t have left him in charge of the grounds, otherwise. You need him, Carrie. And he needs this place.

Just as she’d thought. Nancy hadn’t thought she could do it alone. But why did she think Nate needed the Avalon? Did the guy have nowhere else to go? So much for hoping he might get bored and move on.

The third page was about the Avalon itself. And about Carrie.

I know you love this place every bit as much as I do. And I know you’ll want to make it your own. Just remember, the Avalon is, and always has been, a home, first and foremost. Make it earn its keep, certainly. But never lose that love.

Carrie folded the pages and returned them to the envelope, blinking against threatening tears. How could Nancy think the Avalon would ever be anything but home to her?

She just needed it to be profitable, too.

He needs this place.

Why? Carrie couldn’t stop herself asking the question. What was it about the Avalon that Nate needed? And how much was it going to get in the way of her plans for the place?

She sighed, shuffling the papers into order. At least she knew where she stood now. She needed a backer. Needed to talk to the bank, the accountant, the lawyer, the builders… She needed to talk to Nate. As much as she hated it, they were going to have to work together on this, at least to start. Not because she couldn’t do it alone, but because Nancy had made it very clear she shouldn’t. Wedding venues needed gardens and outdoor space, for photos and drinks receptions and everything else that went with it.

Nate controlled the gardens. But Carrie was in charge of the Avalon Inn. They had to work together.

Just as long as he remembered that she was the boss.

Tucking the letter from Nancy back inside her folder, Carrie gathered her patience and went to talk to Nate.

Chapter 4

The autumn night was drawing in fast, the evening breeze chilly through the open doorway. Carrie dumped her files on the reception desk and grabbed a coat from the rack tucked away beside the front door, only realising once she’d shut the door behind her that it was one of Nancy’s old knitted cardigans. It came down to Carrie’s knees, and the waist tie wrapped around twice, but the soft wool and the scent of roses comforted her enough to ignore even the garish cerise colour.

The summerhouse sat on the edge of the woods, through the gardens and past the fountain. Last time Carrie had been there, it had been filled to the rafters with Nancy’s boxes of junk. But theoretically it was a proper lodging; she’d even stayed there herself one summer when the inn proper was full. It would be interesting to see what Nate had done with the place.

The lights of the summerhouse were visible from a way back, glowing yellow against the dark of the woods, warm and inviting. Carrie wrapped her cardigan tighter around her, and stepped up the three wooden steps to the door.

Nate answered her knock quickly, a paperback in hand, and didn’t look in the least surprised to see her. Stepping aside with a smile she couldn’t quite read, he motioned her inside, and shut out the night air behind her.

“Drink?” he offered, moving to the kitchenette in the corner of the main room, which held a microwave and mini fridge. “I’ve got wine or beer, I think. Or whisky.” He looked up and saw her still hovering by the door and said, “Sit down, won’t you?”

Still Carrie hesitated as he stuck his head back into the fridge. The summerhouse looked nothing like she remembered. It looked like a proper home now, with a sofa, and a desk under the window, and even lamps and one of Nancy’s traditional lumpy patchwork blankets. The door to the bedroom was open, and she could see a real bed beyond, not just a camp bed. And she knew farther back was the tiny bathroom Nancy had put in when she had some idea of this being staff quarters one day. Which it was, now, Carrie supposed.

Nate stared at her from the kitchenette, a bottle of wine in one hand and whisky in the other. In a burst of movement, she threw herself down on one end of the sofa and said, “Actually, whisky would be great.”

The glass tumblers Nate provided looked like the odd ends of Nancy’s old sets, and probably were. As he settled onto the other end of the sofa, Carrie took a sip of the smooth amber liquid and started to feel properly at home for the first time that day.

Nate watched her, caution behind his eyes, and she tried to smile for him. “Nancy started me drinking whisky when I was sixteen,” she said. “Just a half-measure, before bed, when I couldn’t sleep. The next summer she decided that if I was going to drink it, I should at least learn what was decent and what would rot my insides.” She took another sip. “This is good stuff.”

“It should be,” Nate said, with a half-smile. “It was a Christmas present from Nancy.”

“That explains it, then.”

They sat in silence for a moment, until it started to feel awkward, and Nate said, “Did the papers tell you all you needed to know?”

Carrie sighed. “And much, much more.” She remembered the copy of Nancy’s will. “You were right; I have to keep you on.” She couldn’t bring herself to admit to the words ‘full control’.

Nate blew out a short breath. “Is that a problem?”

“Not as much as the bookings we apparently have until the end of time.”

“Ah.” Nate winced into his whisky. “The Seniors.”

“Yeah.” Carrie tried to catch his eye, but his attention was firmly focused on his drink. “You knew about that bit?”

Nate shrugged those wonderfully wide shoulders again. “Nancy mentioned she wanted them to still feel welcome at the Avalon.”

Carrie sipped at her whisky and considered. “It’s that important to them?”

“It’s their home.” Nate looked up, finally, and caught her eye. When he spoke again, it was with such conviction, Carrie almost wished he hadn’t. “None of them really have anyone, or anywhere, else. It’s not just the three of them, you realize. There’s a whole crowd of people for whom the highlight of their week is playing bridge with Stan, or dancing with Cyb. It’s important.”

“A community service,” Carrie said, with a half-smile. “Only problem is, I don’t see how it’ll go side by side with a boutique wedding-venue hotel.”

Nate settled back against the arm of the sofa, his left leg folded up over his right. It couldn’t be comfortable, Carrie thought, being such a tall man in a very small summerhouse. “That’s what you’ve got planned for the place?”

Carrie nodded. “It’s what I do: I’m a wedding organiser. When I was a child, I thought the Avalon would be the most perfect place in the world to have a wedding. I thought... Well, I guess I thought that was why Nancy left the place to me.”

“She left the inn to you because she loved you,” Nate said, and Carrie had to look away. She was going to have to work with this man. She needed to trust him.

“But she didn’t believe I could do it alone. She left you control of the grounds, so I’d have someone to help me out when I got stuck.” It hurt to admit that. Carrie wasn’t sure it ever wouldn’t.

Nate tipped his head to the side as he looked at her. “Does it really matter if you save the Avalon Inn single-handed or with help, as long as you save it?”

Carrie knew it shouldn’t. Knew that the right answer was that it was only the Avalon that mattered.

But it wasn’t, not to her. This was her chance—her first and only chance in twenty eight-years—to prove that she was good enough, all on her own. After a lifetime of having her dad, or uncle, or cousin, or boyfriend, or somebody step in every time life got hard, she needed this. Needed to prove to herself that she could make it on her own, for once.

So she turned the question back on him instead. “Why do you care so much about this place, anyway? Nancy said…” She tailed off, not sure if she wanted to share the contents of the letter with him. Would he be offended at Nancy’s telling her all about him?

“Nancy said what?” He kept his gaze fixed on her face as he sipped his whisky. Carrie shifted on the sofa, trying to get away from those slate-grey eyes.

“She said you needed the Avalon.”

Nate snorted a laugh. “Did she, indeed?”

“What did she mean, do you think?”

“It means that your grandmother wasn’t above a bit of meddling. Probably cooked the whole scheme up with my gran.” He sighed, and put his whisky glass down on the coffee table. “She knew I wasn’t…overly inclined to stay in one place too long. I figure this was her way of making me hang around a while.”

“Why? For your grandma?” Carrie thought of the straight-backed woman with the iPod she’d met that afternoon. Moira hadn’t looked as if she needed anyone.

“Perhaps. But I think Nancy…” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “Who knows what she was thinking? But I know she thought I belonged here. So she made it harder for me to up and leave.” He looked up at her, and Carrie reached for her whisky. What was it about his eyes that made her lose her train of thought? “She knew you belonged here, too. Why else would she leave you the place?”

“Not all of it.”

Nate shook his head. “No. She wanted you here. Not either of her sons, or your cousin. She didn’t want it sold, or rented out, or turned into anything except what it is. She wanted you here to rebuild the Avalon Inn. Make it great again.”

What if I can’t? Carrie thought, but didn’t say. She couldn’t show that kind of weakness.

“There was a financial summary in the pile,” she said instead, and Nate winced.

“Yeah. It’s not great, I know.”

Carrie bit her lip. “We’re going to need backers. Investors.”

“We?” Nate asked with a grin.

“I’m still the boss,” Carrie clarified. “It’s my inn. But I admit that you have an interest in it too. So we’re going to need to work together.”

“I’m glad you think so.” Nate reached for the bottle of whisky and topped up both their glasses. “Where do we start?”

“With a business plan.” Carrie thought back to all the books she’d read over the last two weeks, on running your own business. “We need to convince people we’re a great investment.”

“Any idea how?”

“Not yet,” she admitted. “But I think that if we can make people see what a great wedding venue this could be—”

“Just weddings, though? Isn’t that a bit… restrictive?” Nate sat up so fast he sloshed whisky over his fingers, and brought them up to his mouth to lick them off. Carrie looked away. That was far hotter than it should be.

“Well, no, I suppose not. We could do other events too. But like I said, weddings…they’re kind of my thing. I’m good at weddings.”

“Is that why you haven’t been back for so long?” Nate asked, stretching an arm out along the back of the sofa. He could almost touch her, if he wanted, Carrie realised. He didn’t. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Too busy organising other people’s weddings?”

“Something like that,” Carrie admitted. “I worked most weekends, all year round. And my boss was kinda…” she searched for the right word to describe Anna Yardley “…evil.”

Nate laughed. “Doesn’t everyone think that about their boss? Present company excluded, of course.”

“Yeah, maybe. Okay, not evil. But…demanding. And often unreasonable.”

“Sounds like your grandmother,” Nate muttered, although he grinned when Carrie raised an eyebrow. “But we all loved her, so it didn’t matter.”

“Anna’s not very loveable. Or likeable.”

“Then it’s a good job you’re not working for her any more.”

“It is.” Carrie had thought of Anna, when she realised they needed investors. She could make a pretty good case for Wedding Wishes having its own bespoke wedding venue two hours from Manchester. But that would mean working with Anna again, and she just couldn’t face that. They’d find someone else.

“So, it was Anna’s fault you didn’t visit?” Nate asked, and Carrie felt the guilt flood over her again.

“Partly, I suppose. I mean, I really was working, most of the time. But…” she thought back, remembering all the arguments between her dad and Nancy “…there were other…tensions, too. Family, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Your dad wanted Nancy to give up the Avalon and retire quietly, right?”

“Except Nancy really wasn’t the retiring quietly sort,” Carrie said with a wry smile.

“She really, really wasn’t.” Nate laughed. “So, what does your dad think about you being here now?”

Carrie froze. She didn’t want to answer that question. Didn’t want to get into the hideous fight at the funeral. Except…

“You were there, weren’t you? At the funeral. So you probably heard exactly what my dad thinks about it.”

Nate winced. “Yeah. He wasn’t exactly quiet, was he? So, is that why you’re so desperate to do this by yourself? Just because he said you couldn’t?”

“Not just him,” Carrie muttered.

“Right. Well, if you ask me that’s a rubbish reason. But what do I know? I’m just the gardener, after all.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over them, stretching out in the night until Carrie had to break it.

“What did you think I was going to do?” she asked, honestly curious. “With the Avalon, I mean.”

Nate looked as grateful for the change of subject as she was. “There were a number of theories. You could have sold the place for development into flats, for example, leaving me as a caretaker.”

“I’d never do that!”

“Yeah, well, we couldn’t be sure.” Nate sighed. “Stan will be relieved, anyway. He’s been imagining the worst for weeks.”

“You think they’ll come to a compromise?” Carrie asked, hopeful. “About the dance nights and the bridge?”

He eyed her speculatively. “I think it will be fun to watch you try,” he said, finishing off his whisky.

“As long as I’m entertaining,” Carrie said, and swallowed the last of her drink.

“I think you might be.” Nate got to his feet, unfolding slowly from the sofa. “Well, you can’t do anything about it tonight. So can I pour you another, or do you want me to walk you back to the inn?”

Carrie handed him her glass. “I’m done, thanks. Lots to do tomorrow.”

“I’ll walk you,” Nate said with a nod. Carrie tried to protest, but he stood firm. “I’m responsible for the grounds, remember? That means I’m responsible for you while you’re walking across the gardens.”

It was very dark out there, Carrie had to admit. “If you insist.”

“I do,” Nate said, grabbing his coat.

The gardens were invisible in the black night, which was a shame. Carrie would have liked to ask Nate what he was doing with them, but it would have to wait another day. And lovely as the gardens might be, the inn itself had to be a priority, anyway. She wondered if he was any good at DIY.

She’d turned all the lights on when she’d left earlier, knowing she wouldn’t want to come back to a dark and lonely inn. Knowing Nate was down in the summerhouse was reassuring, somehow.

To her surprise, Nate headed not for the front door, but for the dining-room end of the terrace, at the other side from where they’d met that afternoon. He held open the folding glass doors for her. “Don’t forget to lock these behind you,” he said, and Carrie nodded.

On impulse, she paused on the terrace before the door and turned to him. “Thank you for your help today,” she said. All that talk about Anna had reminded her of the sort of boss she wanted to be. But suddenly, all she could think was that Nate was really very close.

Close enough that she could watch his smile widen as he looked down at her, his dark grey eyes warm. So close that, when he bent his head to hers and kissed her, very softly, right on the lips, she couldn’t really have moved away if she’d wanted to.

“Welcome home, Carrie,” was all he said, before disappearing into the darkness of the night and leaving Carrie standing alone on the terrace.

“Apparently this is my number one spot for kissing,” she murmured to herself, remembering her first kiss there, half a lifetime ago. Then she shook her head. She was the boss now, not some kid looking in, wanting to be part of things. She was in charge.

Which meant she didn’t have time to be distracted by Nate Green’s dark eyes and wide shoulders, or the softness of his mouth against hers.

With a deep breath she went inside, locked the doors behind her, and took her files and notes up to Nancy’s attic room to sleep. Time to start dealing with things.

Chapter 5

Carrie knew the first step in any insurmountable task was prioritisation. She’d written her list while touring the hotel the previous day, and she had Nancy’s survey, so she’d already identified what needed to be done. Now she just needed to make a schedule based on priorities and timescales.

Really, it was just like organising a wedding, if you looked at it right. Most things were, Carrie had found.

It was Sunday, so Carrie was hoping for a peaceful day pottering around the inn, working on her lists and drinking tea. Nate would probably be sticking to his garden, hopefully embarrassed by his audacity at kissing the boss the night before—an incident Carrie had decided to chalk up to the notorious effects of Nancy’s best whisky, and chosen to ignore. Even if his lips had been much softer than she’d expected.

She shook her head. If it wasn’t on her list, it didn’t matter. That was the new philosophy.

Dance night wasn’t until tomorrow, so there was no reason for the Seniors to be around, and no catering events planned, so Jacob shouldn’t be in. There were no guests, so no reason for Izzie to be scheduled to work, and even if she was, there were plenty of jobs for her to do far out of Carrie’s way.

No, this was going to be her peaceful, planning day. She could review work schedules, figure out how Nancy had run the place, and then set about making things work her way.

Even she was surprised at how excited she was at the prospect of so many lists, schedules and timetables. But first, there needed to be tea. And maybe toast. Or crumpets.

Carrie had slept late, after the whisky, so it was gone nine when she slipped into the kitchen and found Jacob already prepping a huge joint of meat and another young man she hadn’t met peeling potatoes.

“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.

“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? You want to get married here?”

“Of course I do! Besides, I need you to plan my wedding, or else Dad will stick me with the awful Anna Yardley. And since you’re only doing weddings at the Avalon, where else could I have it?”

“You do remember what the Avalon is like, right?” How long had it been since Ruth had visited? She must have been there more recently than Carrie, surely.

“Of course. But now you’ve taken it over I’m sure it’s going to be glorious.” Confidence shone out of Ruth’s voice, making Carrie feel even worse.

“Unfortunately ‘glorious’ takes money,” she said. “I’m just working on a business plan to put to investors now.”

“You need investors? Well, that’s easy—ask Mum and Dad.” Ruth made it sound so easy, so simple. But the thought of having to go cap in hand to Uncle Patrick and Aunt Selena, begging for help, made bile rise in Carrie’s throat.

“I need to do this on my own, Ruth. I told you that.”

“But you’re not on your own, are you? Gran left you that gardener chap to work with, for a start. And besides, we’re family. We’re supposed to help.” When Carrie didn’t answer, Ruth sighed. “Well, think about it. And anyway, my wedding should help pay for some of it, right? I mean, Dad is already expecting me to spend a fortune on it, so I may as well spend it right.”

Which sounded a lot like a handout by another name to Carrie. “I don’t want you holding your wedding here just because you think I need the business.”

“I’m having my wedding at the Avalon because it’s home. And I will be paying a deposit cheque—that coincidentally will help get the place ready for my big day—because that’s what I’d be doing wherever we held it. So you don’t need to get all huffed up about it.” Carrie winced at Ruth’s insulted tone.

“I’m sorry. You know I’d love for you to have your wedding here. I just 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 favourite colour.”

“How soon is as soon as possible?” Carrie asked, desperately trying to get back to the things that mattered.

“Actually, I was thinking of a winter wedding. Maybe even Christmas.”

Christmas wasn’t so bad, Carrie told herself. Fourteen months away. Plenty of time. Unless... “You don’t mean this Christmas, do you?”

Ruth laughed. “Of course, this Christmas. Are you free on Christmas Eve? I think that would be the most romantic day to get married, don’t you?”

Carrie slumped against the embroidered moth cushion on the musty bed, secretly hoping that Ruth and Graeme would break up over the jeweller’s counter. She loved her cousin, really she did. But there was no way they would be ready for a wedding by Christmas.

“Anyway, I know we haven’t got much time, so I’ll email you some bridesmaid dress ideas later, and I’ll check with Graeme when we can come up to see you to sort out the rest, okay?”

Carrie nodded, then realised that was useless. “Great,” she said, unable to muster much enthusiasm.

“Then I’m off to choose my ring!” Ruth said, and hung up.

Carrie had two minutes of staring blankly at the phone before there was a knock at the door, and Nate’s head appeared around it. His expression was blank, so she had no idea if he was still angry with her about Mr Jenkins or not. They hadn’t really spoken since, which suggested he probably was. But on the other hand, he’d come looking for her…

“How did you know where I was?” she asked.

Nate came into the room, and shrugged, still expressionless. “Cyb saw you sneak in here earlier. Look, the builder’s here, when you’re ready. Said you called for some new quotes?”

“Yeah.” Carrie grabbed her clipboard and hopped off the bed. She had bigger things to worry about than whether her gardener liked her. “I’m coming.” She wondered what builder Tom would say when she told him she needed all the work done by Christmas, and she still didn’t have any money to pay him.

Chapter 7

As Carrie trailed around the Avalon Inn later that afternoon, always three steps behind the builder she’d called in, she felt her spirits falling by the second. It was all very well trying to save the inn, but really, in the face of Tom Powers of Powers Construction, master of the sucked-in breath and “that’s going to cost you”, how much could one woman do?

Finally, they finished with the inside and headed out to deal with the inn’s exterior.

“This door doesn’t look good, either,” Tom said as they went through the main entrance.

Carrie groaned inwardly. The door was huge, heavy and almost certainly expensive. “The survey didn’t mention it.”

Tom gave her his ‘Listen to me, idiot woman. What do you know about construction, anyway?’ look, which he’d perfected over the course of his visit. “Hardly surprising, with all the other problems. Surveyor was bound to miss a few things.”

Given that she was probably going to owe the man her first-, second- and third-born children by the time he’d fixed her inn, Carrie decided not to argue.

“How’s it going?” Nate appeared again, this time from behind one of the shrubs lining the drive, shears in hand and a couple of leafy twigs in his hair. Carrie wondered how long he’d been hiding in the bushes waiting for them to arrive. And why he’d bothered.

Tom sucked his breath through his teeth again, making Carrie shudder. “Lot of work here.”

Nate stepped closer, still holding the clippers. “Well, we knew as much from the survey.” His voice was perfectly amiable, Carrie thought, but somehow the huge blades in his hands made the words a little more threatening.

“Tom’s found some problems the surveyor missed, too,” Carrie told him.

Nate flashed her a look miles away from the ones Tom had been giving her all morning. This one was more conspiratorial, somehow. The knot that had set up residence in Carrie’s stomach when they’d started the inspection tightened as she tried to figure out what Nate planned to do. Just in case she needed to stop him.

But all Nate did was say, “Really? Can I take a look?” He reached out and snatched the pad Tom had been scribbling on for the last hour from his hands. Tom didn’t even put up an objection, possibly because of the very sharp blades.

Nate cast a cursory glance over the paper and, before Carrie could even ask to see it, he thrust it back at Tom. “Yeah, she’s not going to be using you.”

“What?” Carrie reached out and grabbed the pad from between the two men. “Tom, don’t listen to him, he’s just the...” The numbers of Tom’s estimate sank in, three times Nancy’s initial quote, and she lowered the paper. “Yeah, sorry, Tom. He’s right.”

For a moment, she thought Tom might argue, but he looked at Nate and obviously decided to cut his losses. Without even taking his notepad, he stalked off towards his car, parked at an angle on the other side of the gravelled drive, muttering, “Waste of bloody time.”

Carrie watched him go and wondered how the hell she was going to put together a proper business plan without building quotes.

“Cheer up.” Nate leaned the shears against the side of the steps leading up to the front door, and stood beside her as they watched Tom Powers screech away in his four-by-four.

Carrie turned on him, scowling. Just because he was right didn’t mean she was happy about it. “What the hell did you think you were doing just then?”

“He was ripping you off,” Nate said, taking a cautious step backward.

Carrie glared at him. “How do you know? Are you a building expert now, too?”

“The survey was thorough.” Nate’s voice was calm and sincere, but it wasn’t making Carrie any less furious. “I know the guy who did it. If Tom says he missed anything, Tom is trying to rip you off. Probably in any number of ways. Where did you find him, anyway?”

“Internet,” Carrie said, knowing she sounded defensive.

Nate rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, well. Either way, I’ve still got to find someone to do this work. And I need to figure out what’s essential and affordable, and what’s going to have to wait.” And convince investors it was all worth it. All of which meant going back to The List. Carrie was starting to hate The List.

Nate picked up his shears. “Give me a minute to tidy up. I’ve got a friend or two in the building trade. We’ll make some calls.”

Watching him head over to the shrubs to put away his tools, Carrie wanted to scream, I don’t need your help. But unfortunately, it was becoming patently obvious she did.

* * * *

By the end of her first week on the job, Carrie had managed to offend everyone at the Avalon Inn. By Sunday night, her mental apologies list was growing by the hour.

When she awoke on Monday morning, she tucked Nancy’s multicoloured bedspread tighter around her in the attic bed and ran through them again to make sure she’d remembered them all.

1. Apologise to Nate for not realising Mr Jenkins was an idiot. And for shouting at him about the builder thing

2. Apologise to Moira for leaving the stupid soggy sandwiches out on the reception desk again

3. Apologise to Cyb for saying the bunting made the dining room look like the Eurovision song contest

4. Apologise to Izzie for suggesting she didn’t know how to work the reservations system yesterday.

Carrie considered the last item. Izzie really didn’t know how to work the computer program that stored their reservations information. Maybe she’d just teach her, instead.

But apologies and lessons would have to wait. First she had her meeting with Nancy’s lawyer, Mr Norton, and his recommended business advisor.

“Carrie.” Mr Norton held out a hand as she walked into the lobby that morning. “It’s so lovely to see you again. I just wish it were under better circumstances.” He turned to the grumpy-looking man in a suit next to him. “This is Frank Andrews. He’s been trying to talk with Nancy about the future of the Avalon Inn for some years now, so he’s delighted to join our meeting today.”

As Carrie shook his hand Mr Andrews’s face broke into a forced sort of a smile.

“Well, thank you both for coming,” Carrie said. “Why don’t we take a seat in the drawing room to talk, then perhaps I can interest you in a tour of the inn, Mr Andrews?”

He gave a slight nod, but didn’t actually answer. Carrie decided it was too early to take that as a bad sign, but, still, it looked as if she had some convincing to do.

As the men headed through, Carrie turned to Izzie at the reception desk and added, “Can you get someone to bring us some coffee?” She wasn’t sure she’d make it through this meeting without caffeine.

Izzie looked dubious, but she nodded, so Carrie decided to hope for the best.

Hoping for the best soon went by the wayside, though.

“Mr Andrews and I have been looking at some options for the inn,” Mr Norton said, his hands folded on his lap.

“Options?” Carrie wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that.

Mr Andrews leaned forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees. “Mr Norton suggested last week that it might be helpful for me to look into the value and saleability of the Avalon Inn.” Carrie felt her heart pause at his words. That wasn’t the deal. These people were supposed to be here to help her find a way to save the Avalon, not sell it.

“But I’m not looking to sell the inn. I want to re-launch it as a wedding venue.”

Mr Norton gave a small nod. “I know that was your plan. But now that you’ve had a chance to see the current state of the building, not to mention the accounts, I felt it my duty to ensure you were aware of all the possibilities. And I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results of Mr Andrews’s research.”

Carrie turned her gaze to Mr Andrews, who gave another grimace of a smile. “I have had, in the last thirty-six hours, not one, but two offers to buy the Avalon Inn.”

Carrie blinked. “Are you sure they weren’t looking for the Arundel Hotel?” she asked. Even she had to admit that, other than sentimental value, the Avalon didn’t really have a lot going for it at the moment.

Mr Andrews frowned and glanced over at Mr Norton, as if not really sure if she was making a joke. “Um, no, they were really very clear. Their interest lies purely in the Avalon Inn’s development potential.”

“Development potential?” Carrie wasn’t entertaining the idea of selling, but the words made her even more certain she didn’t want these buyers getting their hands on the Avalon.

“Yes. I believe one party was looking to turn the inn into a health farm.” Mr Andrews glanced down at his notes. “The other, um, was searching for a site for a rehabilitation facility.”

It wasn’t until the coffee tray clattered to the table that Carrie even realised there was anyone else in the room. The idea of the Avalon as a rehab or fat farm was too distractingly horrifying.

Glancing up, she saw Cyb straightening the plate of biscuits and Mr Norton looking on disapprovingly. “Would you like me to pour for you?” Cyb asked.

“Uh, no, I think we can manage.” Carrie smiled up at her, wondering why Izzie hadn’t managed to find someone who actually worked for the inn to bring the coffee. “Thanks, Cyb.”

Cyb backed out of the room, smiling nervously, and Carrie turned her attention to Messrs Norton and Andrews.

“The offers really were very substantial, Carrie,” Mr Norton said.

Mr Andrews rifled through his papers. “I have some figures here... Ah.” He held a sheet of paper out to her, and Carrie looked away.

“No. No, thank you. Please, thank both parties for their interest, but tell them I’m not interested in selling.” Mr Norton looked sceptical, but Carrie kept her gaze firm.

“At this time,” Mr Andrews added, obviously hoping to keep his options open. She wondered what sort of commission he was up for.

“Ever.” Carrie stood, a sudden sense of surety in her blood. She was home, and she was staying. “Now, how about a tour?”

Mr Norton exchanged a look with Mr Andrews. “Actually, I’m afraid we have another meeting to get to…”

“But you said you wanted to assist me. I need you to help find a way to save the inn. To find investors, backers, something!” If even Mr Norton, who’d been Nancy’s lawyer since she opened the Avalon, wouldn’t help, how could she expect anyone else to?

“Carrie…” Mr Norton gave her a sad smile. “I know you love this place. But really…it’s falling apart. Without Nancy here, you have to think if it’s really even possible to save it. In this economy…and with your lack of experience…”

“I can do it,” Carrie said firmly, the heat in her chest burning. “I will do it. And if you won’t help me, I’ll do it alone. Just watch.” She yanked open the drawing-room door. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

* * * *

“A health farm?” Stan’s voice was getting squeaky and high, and Cyb worried about the vein bulging at his temple. He wasn’t getting any younger. But Stan always liked to be told the truth, upfront and straightforward.

“Or a rehabilitation facility,” she repeated, and the vein turned bright purple. “That’s what the man said.”

Across the pub table, Nate put down his pint and shook his head. “I can’t see Carrie selling the Avalon. She’s got plans for it. I told you. She wants a boutique wedding venue.”

Stan scoffed, so loudly that the Red Lion staff looked over from the bar. “Does she? Really? How do we know she hasn’t decided it’s all a bit too much like hard work? We can’t afford to give her the benefit of the doubt just because you’ve got a little crush, boy.”

“I have not got a—”

“Besides,” Stan said, “I know what these business types are like. He’ll have money on the table for her.” He shook his head. “Not sure she’s the sort who would pick hard work over money. Not like her grandmother.”

“She was talking to Izzie about the reservation thing on the computer yesterday,” Moira said. “Would she really do that if she was planning on selling?”

“I have no idea what goes on inside young women’s heads these days.” Stan’s face grew redder and redder. Cyb moved his pint glass farther away, in case he decided to bang his fist on the table again. A passionate man, Stan. She looked at him, considering. Maybe it was time to find a better use for all that passion, once this mess at the inn was sorted out.

“We could just ask her what she’s going to do,” Cyb suggested, in what she thought was a reasonable manner.

Stan obviously thought otherwise. “Just ask? And what, exactly, is going to ensure she tells us the truth?” He grabbed his ale and drained the quarter of a pint left in the glass. Cyb motioned to a nearby member of the bar staff and indicated the empty glass. The Red Lion didn’t offer table service, but they weren’t very busy and Cyb had found them to be very accommodating to a group of senior citizens. Moira had suggested they were just afraid one of them might slip on the pools of stale beer that tended to form by the bar and sue the pub to cover their hip replacements.

“Unless...” Stan tapped the side of his empty glass. “Nate, boy, I have a job for you.”

“No,” Nate said, firmly. “I’ve already told you everything she told me.”

“Wait a moment,” Cyb said, willing her forehead to unfurrow. Anti-wrinkle cream could only do so much. “I don’t understand. What’s the job?”

“He wants me to get close to Carrie, win her trust and find out if her plans have changed now she’s met with the lawyer and business advisor,” Nate explained. Obviously he didn’t want to say ‘seduce the truth out of her’ in front of his grandmother.

“Well, would that be so bad?” Cyb asked, still confused. It had seemed to her Nate wanted to get close to Carrie Archer. Well, apart from the days he was mad at her. Moira said he couldn’t seem to make his mind up about whether Carrie was going to save the Avalon or destroy it.

“If she found out I was only doing it because Stan told me to?” Nate shook his head. “Hell, yes. Look, I’ll talk to her some more, I’ll ask her. But I’m not going to pretend anything.”

Stan gave a heavy sigh, and Cyb wondered where the bar staff were with his second pint. He was always more manageable when he’d relaxed a bit. “Play it any way you want, Nate. But remember, it’s your livelihood at stake here, too.”

Cyb was watching Nate, waiting for his response, so she saw the look he threw at his grandmother, a secretive sort of glance, and she wondered what Moira knew that the rest of them didn’t.

Whatever it was, Cyb wasn’t feeling any better than she had when listening to Mr Norton’s offers. If anything, she felt worse. And, looking around the table, so did everyone else. Probably not the time to try to discuss passion with Stan, she decided.

It would either be a very sombre, or a very exciting, dance night that evening.

Chapter 8

The only good thing about getting rid of Mr Andrews and Mr Norton so early was that Carrie was able to have a mini breakdown in private before the Seniors returned and started decorating for dance night. And before Nate got back. Nate, she knew, would have questions.

She really didn’t want to answer them.

Carrie had thought that coming home to the Avalon would be an opportunity. Yes, she knew it would be hard and she’d have a lot to do to make a success of the inn, but she’d seen it as a chance to make her own future. To strike out on her own, go after the life she wanted for herself.

Instead, the doors of opportunity seemed to be slamming in her face everywhere she turned.

Left alone that afternoon she’d sat down with her planning file and made a list of options still open to her. With the banks, Mr Norton and Mr Andrews out, it was a very short list. With the amount of structural work needed on the Avalon, even another mortgage was out. Which left private investment. And the only people she knew with the money and potential incentive to invest were Anna and Uncle Patrick.

She’d written both names down in her file, then covered them over with a Post-it note. They had to be a last resort. Anna was still furious with her for leaving, so would probably say no out of spite anyway, or screw her over on the deal. And Uncle Patrick and Aunt Selena… They were family; the Avalon had been Patrick’s mother’s pride and joy; their own daughter wanted to get married there. They had all the incentive in the world, and God knew they’d bragged often enough about having the money. But Nancy hadn’t taken it, and Carrie didn’t want to either.

They could pay for the wedding. But to ask for more… Not yet. There had to be some other things she could try first.

Even if she had absolutely no idea what at the moment.

Sighing, Carrie stared up at the Union Jack bunting strung around the dining room and tried to decide if she liked it more or less than last week’s international flags. Still, in context, the bunting looked quite jolly. Along with the posters Stan had hung up on his return from wherever they’d all gone that morning, while Carrie had been working up in the Green Room again and thus unable to stop or question him, the dining room began to resemble a 1940s American army base. Complete, apparently, with its own Wren, ready to keep the soldiers company in return for some nylons.

“Cyb, that’s a...great costume.”

Cyb grinned at her from under her perfectly pin-curled hair. “Isn’t it? It belonged to my older sister, you know. She married an American during the war. Moved to Ohio when it was all over.”

“It certainly seems to fit with the theme,” Carrie assured her. “Are many dance nights so...Second World War centric?”

Cyb laughed. “Oh, no. Only the second Monday of every month.”

“Of course.” Because that was totally normal.

“We even have food like they’d have had on the American bases in Britain,” Cyb chattered on. “Jacob did some research for us on the internet and found all sorts of exciting recipes. And Stan runs old movies on the screen at the far end without the sound on. And we play all these wonderful thirties and forties songs to dance to. And—”

“Cyb?” Nate interrupted the monologue from the doorway. “I think Gran’s looking for you in the drawing room. She’s finalising the song list for this evening.”

Cyb bustled straight off, and Nate came in, apparently unconcerned by the sudden time warp.

“No costume?” Carrie asked, hoping to forestall the inevitable questions about Mr Norton’s visit, and Nate chuckled.

“I should be so lucky. Just wait until Gran gets done with Cyb.”

Carrie noticed the Donut Dugout sign in the corner, and suddenly felt more optimistic about the evening. If she could just distract Nate long enough for him to forget everything she’d told him about Anna...

Nate opened his mouth to ask something, but shut it again when Izzie appeared in the doorway calling for him. “We’ll talk, later,” he promised before disappearing again, with Izzie babbling something about ticket collection. Carrie sighed with relief. Only another three or four hours to go.

And tickets at least suggested people might be paying to attend the evening, which gave Carrie some comfort. But, since this was an official Avalon Inn event, did that mean she actually had to attend? She’d avoided last week’s, but she supposed she’d have to take part some time. Except it had been a long day, and she’d been looking forward to a night curled up in bed feeling sorry for herself…

Moira arrived next, carrying her iPod. “Finally, despite Stan’s best efforts, the playlist for the evening is ready.”

Carrie watched as she settled the iPod into a dock attached to the speakers on either side of the room. “I’m pretty sure they didn’t have those in 1944.”

Moira shrugged. “Bet the people running the dances wished they did, though. Much easier to look after than a band.”

“True,” Carrie said, wishing more brides were willing to be so pragmatic. It would make planning weddings a lot easier. “It really is looking pretty impressive in here.”

Grinning, Moira said, “Just wait until everybody gets here. Then you’ll see a sight. Speaking of which, time for me to go and get ready.” And with that, she bustled off through the door.

In the end, it was just too tempting. As a compromise, Carrie changed out of her black suit and into a brown cotton pencil skirt and cream blouse, and curled up in one of the leather chairs in the drawing room that provided her with a good view of the lobby. Flicking on her laptop, she pretended to work as she watched.

The coffee table in front of her started to vibrate with the ringing of her phone, and she reached forward to grab it before it bounced off onto the floor.

Dad.

The word flashed up on the screen, and Carrie heard You can’t do this, again in her head.

She hung up, placing her phone face down on the table again. She was busy. They had an event at the inn that evening. She was, technically, working.

And she really didn’t want to have the same argument with him, all over again.

Feeling vaguely justified in her decision, Carrie turned her attention back to the entrance, just as the front door opened again.

The dance night attendees arrived in ones and twos, and a rowdy group of four elderly gentlemen in what might have been their original service uniforms except they fitted too well. Carrie vaguely remembered that demobbing involved giving them back, anyway.

Each one in turn greeted Izzie on the reception desk with smiles and high spirits, handing over their tickets, or buying them on the spot if necessary. Izzie in turn was cheerful, efficient and obviously beloved by the guests.

Carrie was amazed.

And so, when the clock ticked over to eight o’clock, Carrie closed her laptop and followed the crowds into 1944. Suddenly, she wanted to know what kept the Seniors so tied to her inn.

* * * *

Nate didn’t know where his gran had found the costume, but he suspected eBay. She’d become quite the computer whiz since Granddad had died. Regardless, she showed up with it, every forties night, and wouldn’t leave until he put it on. He’d given up the fight by this point.

“Maybe you could ask Carrie if you could do this place up a bit,” Moira suggested, perched on the very edge of the summerhouse sofa. “If you decide to stay.” She was fishing. Gran always did like to know his exact plans, and he had to admit to finding a perverse pleasure in holding out on her.

“I think she’s got bigger things to worry about at the moment. As you told me.” And despite his reluctance to fall in with Stan’s plan, Nate knew he’d have to find out how much worse the situation had become since the lawyer’s visit that morning.

Nate sighed, straightened the collar of his ‘authentic replica American army shirt, circa 1944’ and tried to make his hair stay flat. If it wasn’t tidy enough to appease Gran, he knew from past experience she would come after him with a comb and some Brylcreem. He’d really like to try and avoid a side-parting tonight.

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