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
