She had to...
It’s all on The List, she told herself, taking a deep breath. All she needed to do now was actually achieve everything on The List, and not give in to a massive panic attack.
When her heart had slowed down again, she glanced at The List and read just the top item. Baby steps. One thing at a time. Starting with, apparently, the lobby.
First impressions were important. She needed her guests to be besotted from the moment they walked in. Ruth would see past any problems because she loved the Avalon, but with Aunt Selena first impressions were everything. Graeme was an unknown quantity, but if he and Uncle Patrick liked the inn enough to let Ruth hold her wedding there, Carrie might be able to pay Matt the builder for all the work he’d need to do before it happened.
But all that could only happen if Aunt Selena agreed.
Carrie was under no illusions that either her cousin or her cousin’s fiancé would actually have the final say on where the wedding took place. It was a miracle Ruth’s plan had got this far. Now everything relied on Carrie and the Avalon Inn wowing Selena Archer.
Except the foyer wasn’t the first thing Selena would see, was it? The first thing she’d see was the driveway, with the overgrown shrubs, and the empty flowerbeds outside the front of the inn.
Damn. She needed to talk to Nate.
She found him already outside, kneeling beside the beds under the windows of the front drawing room, a tray of late-blooming bedding plants beside him.
“Thought the place needed brightening up a bit,” he said, smiling up at her as she paused on the steps.
“That’s...great,” she said, looking over at the suddenly neat shrubs along the driveway. He’d been working on them the other day, she remembered, but had stopped to take her to call Matt. When had he had time to finish them?
“Yet you don’t sound thrilled.” Nate dropped another bright pink flower into a hole he’d made in the soil. “Should I have checked with you about the colour scheme?”
“No, no.” Carrie winced as she caught another glimpse of the glaring pink. “They’re very...”
“Bright,” Nate finished. “I know. But they were, well, reasonably priced.”
Carrie blinked. She hadn’t even thought about that. “I’m sorry. Do you have access to the accounts? Or do you need me to...?”
“I’m fine,” Nate assured her. “Nancy used to give me a garden allowance every season. I’ve still got some of the summer’s left.”
Carrie wasn’t sure why she was so certain he was lying, but he was. But since she didn’t have any extra money to give him to pay for tastefully coloured flowers, she wasn’t going to argue.
“They look great,” she told him, sincerely. “I was actually just on my way out to ask you if we could do something with these beds. You taken up mind-reading in your spare time?”
Nate laughed. “No. But I’m afraid you have an inn full of eavesdroppers and gossips.”
“Oh?” It might have got her flowers, but otherwise that wasn’t in any way comforting.
“Jacob overheard your phone call yesterday. I understand we have a date for your bride and groom to visit. And maybe even some overnight guests?” Nate looked up at her again, his eyes a dark, dark grey in the autumn light.
Carrie thought of the ever-growing to do list and remembered Anna saying, “The first rule of management is delegation.” Nate was her employee, after all. He needed to know what was going on. And maybe he could take on one or two of the items on the list. Under her strict supervision, of course. But if she told him exactly what she needed doing, how badly could he mess up? And Nate had seemed fairly competent so far.
As long as she didn’t tell him exactly how awful Aunt Selena was, of course. Didn’t want to scare the poor man away.
She dropped to sit on the steps and watched his strong, muddy hands settle the hideous flowers into their new homes. “Ruth and Graeme could do with a little alone time,” she told him. “Wedding planning is very stressful, you know.”
“And they’re definitely still planning a wedding.”
Carrie nodded. “This one, Ruth will go through with. Even if it’s only to have her bouquet of Ecuadorian Cool Water Roses.”
“She’s a flower lover?” Nate looked around at the surrounding gardens. “Then I’m going to need some more plants.” He patted down the earth around the last pink flower and got to his feet, looming tall over Carrie as she sat. “Let me know what else I can do to help,” he said, wandering off towards his wheelbarrow, plant trays in hand, totally unruffled.
Carrie wondered what he’d say if he saw The List.
* * * *
With only three days to go until Carrie’s cousin and her entourage arrived, things were looking pretty good. Nate had done what he could in the gardens, given his limited finances and the fact that it was now October and most of the plants were ready for a long, peaceful sleep. Not unlike himself.
Carrie had been dragging furniture from one room to another, painting over the wallpaper in the bridal suite with a thick, creamy paint that would probably do for a week or two, until the pattern started to show through again. “I know we’ll have to do it properly later,” she’d said to him a few days earlier, as he helped her shift a chaise longue into the newly painted room. “But for now, I just want things to look clean and bright. We can work on actually making them that way when we have a bit more time and money.”
She was working on the lobby today, cleaning rather than painting, Nate had seen, passing through on his way to the kitchen. The unicorn tapestry was down and draped across one of the armchairs in the drawing room. He wondered if she was going to put it back.
The Seniors had been squirrelling around the inn for the last week and half, doing God only knew what. Nate had decided early on in the plan that the only way he was going to get through the whole enterprise without losing it with Stan or one of the others, or Carrie, was to let the Seniors get on with whatever they wanted, and to look after his area—the garden—and anything else Carrie needed him to do.
But today, he had a much better plan. Jacob was doing a trial run of his romantic three-course dinner for Ruth and Graeme, and Nate figured he’d need a tester, right? Unfortunately, it appeared he wasn’t the only one who’d had the idea.
“Let me guess,” Jacob said, defending the pan on the stove from Izzie’s wooden spoon. “You thought you’d come and see if I needed someone to taste the duck.”
“Many hands make light work,” Cyb said from her position next to the cheesecake. Nate used the distraction to sidle up to the rack where the duck was resting.
“Too many cooks,” Jacob muttered before smacking Nate’s hand away from the meat. “Not yet. Wait until it’s got the berry sauce on it.”
Nate obediently stepped back, knowing the full dish would be worth waiting for. “Did you make the garlic potatoes?” he asked. As he moved towards the staff counter to put the kettle on, something hit him at thigh level and held on.
“Uncle
