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.
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
