She wouldn’t have dreamt of showing a new staff member such a hovel, let alone expect them to sleep in it. She ran a tight ship at her last pub. She should have kept a better eye on the staff quarters, but she’d been flat out at the end of the season.
‘Wait here, please.’ Leaving him, she walked back outside, pushed open the door of the neighbouring studio and swore. The place reeked of unwashed clothes and lager. Maisie didn’t even want to cross the threshold. She was surprised her parents hadn’t realised, although it didn’t take long for a place to get rank if left. Both rooms needed a deep clean and she’d be the one rolling up her sleeves later.
‘Any better?’
She almost bumped slap bang into Patrick’s chest. Which wouldn’t have been unpleasant. In fact, it would have been pretty awesome. In contrast to the rooms, up close, he smelled of some kind of woody body spray.
‘I thought I told you to stay put?’ she said, half joking.
‘I thought the air was fresher out here.’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Mr McKinnon?’
He held out his hands. ‘Enjoying watching you getting worked up over nothing? Not really. Either of these places is fine if you’ll only let me help you sort them out. Or I can find somewhere else to kip. I’ve still got my tent. I can camp out here or Javid might let me stay on site and use his facilities.’
‘No! I’ll be the laughing stock.’
He frowned. ‘Why?’
‘People will say I can’t look after my own staff. Just because you can clean the place up doesn’t mean you ought to. I’ll get a cleaner in later and until then …’ Maisie was floundering. She wasn’t even sure herself why it had become so important to her to sort out a decent place for Patrick to stay. Maybe it was because she was trying so hard to prove to both of them that she was determined to be professional in their working relationship. She knew what people would say when they heard she’d taken on an attractive single Aussie who she knew next to nothing about.
She knew what her parents would think, let alone her neighbours. She could see and hear them now. Archie Pendower, Phyllis and Una and Jess Godrevy … oh shit, Jess, her best mate, was going to put two and two together and make at least a hundred and four. Maisie felt her cheeks growing warm and hated herself. The only way this arrangement was going to work was if it was kept strictly professional despite any previous encounters.
She closed the door to the second studio then opened it again. ‘It needs to air, before it has a proper clean,’ she said, and before Patrick could give her any backchat, she bulldozed on. ‘Look, I need to draw up a contract and check out the references you gave me. Obviously, with the time difference I don’t expect to hear from Judy or the other referees you mentioned until morning. However, if you wanted to help out in the bar tomorrow night, to see how we roll here, then that might be a good idea.’
Patrick beamed. ‘Great idea.’
‘Until then, can you keep yourself out of trouble? You’re welcome to make use of the pub kitchen to make some lunch and you can have some peace and quiet in the bistro upstairs. You can bed down up there overnight if I don’t get a chance to clean the cottages.’
Patrick saluted. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Maisie pretended not to be amused. ‘Just “boss” will be fine. Come on inside, and I’ll break the er … good news to Mum and Dad.’
Y ou’ve really gone and done it now, Paddy boy.
Later that afternoon, Patrick closed his laptop in the upstairs bistro and gave himself time to reflect on the crazy, impulsive decision that had led to him signing up for six months at the Driftwood Inn. He’d emailed Judy at the Fingle and the owner of the restaurant where he’d worked previously to warn them he would be staying in the UK over the winter and to expect his new employer to take up references.
He crossed to the window and took in the magnificent view over the channel towards Petroc. With its white sand, flowers and low-lying islands set in a turquoise sea, it could easily be Port Fairy in western Victoria. He’d not expected to find a place in England that so reminded him of home; but then again, the beauty of the place was the least surprising thing about the situation. He’d only been in the country a few days and here he was, staying for half a year.
If he made it that far, of course. If Maisie didn’t throw him out first, or he quit in sheer frustration.
Hazel and Ray Samson had been – how could you put it – ‘taken aback’ when Maisie had delivered the news and introduced him. Ray had shaken his hand warmly and seemed relieved that there would be an extra pair of hands around the place. The guy wasn’t well, his face was pale and drawn and he’d been breathless and sweating while he was up on that roof. Hazel was trickier to read. She’d recovered from the initial shock quickly and joked that Maisie hadn’t wasted any time in taking on new staff, yet there was something about the way she’d watched him, when she thought he wasn’t looking, that made his hackles rise. She didn’t trust him: and he didn’t blame her. If Hazel had been thinking that Maisie could do with a man, for practical and other purposes, he definitely wasn’t the right one in Hazel’s eyes. Patrick suspected that they might be bothered about his criminal record.
He could understand their concerns and was prepared to live with Hazel’s distrust but there was an even bigger hurdle to get over. Even as she was introducing him to her parents, he suspected Maisie was already kicking herself for giving him the job. Her discomfort radiated from every pore and showed in her tight smile as she introduced him; in the way she stood with her arms wrapped around her chest while her dad shook his hand and her mum made jokes about kangaroos and boomerangs. He had a feeling Maisie Samson was regretting letting him into her home, her business and her life and he didn’t think that was entirely down to his chequered past.
So why had she agreed to take him on?
And what bloody stupid idea had made him ask?
Six months he’d signed up for. Half a year at this tiny pub with this determined woman who already occupied his thoughts far too much. He’d never seriously thought she’d say yes to his offer to work for her. He’d been amazed when she’d agreed, even after he’d told her the worst of him: the jail, the drink, the drugs.
And yet a voice nagged at him. Gnawed at him. He still hadn’t told her the very worst about him, had he? He’d kept back the part that would freak her out. It would have got him thrown out of the pub, and off the island too, if she knew.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’
Patrick glanced up to find Hazel Samson standing a few feet away. She’d walked into the bistro from the upstairs flat and was carrying a plastic bucket with cloths and cleaning products.
‘They’re not worth as much as a penny.’
She gave Patrick a hard stare. Her red hair was greying at the temples and her face was weathered from long years working in the sun, but she still had her daughter’s slight frame and sharp green eyes that missed nothing. ‘I bet they are,’ she said.
He
