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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 (#ulink_e1015776-7136-5907-bf48-dc71da282705)
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.
