by Beth Good
But she could clear up in the morning, she decided. Her arms and legs were simply refusing to work right now.
Irene had been absolutely right. She’d broken her leg falling down the stairs.
Mercifully it was a clean break, the doctor had said. They would put her leg in plaster, and keep her in hospital for a day or two in case of delayed concussion.
‘So much for not being cursed,’ had been Irene’s parting shot as Charlie said her goodbyes and left her employee in the accident and emergency department.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Charlie had kept saying.
‘Oh, don’t worry. I won’t be suing anyone over this,’ Irene told her, seeing her ashen face. ‘My own stupid fault. The stairs weren’t wet. I was hurrying and missed my footing, is all.’
‘Thank you,’ Charlie said gratefully, ‘though I’m sure the insurance will pay out for your time off work. I’ll check the policy again when I get home.’
Her ginger tom, Benjamin, rubbed himself against her legs as she fed him. Then she stripped off and crawled into bed without even taking a shower first.
‘Too tired,’ she mumbled at the cat when he jumped up onto the bed and began kneading the pillow beside her. He wanted some attention after a long day alone, poor thing, but she was too exhausted even to stroke him. ‘Tomorrow, yeah?’
She pulled the pillow over her head to shut out the daylight, dislodging an indignant Benjamin in the process.
‘Sorry, Benji,’ she whispered, and closed her eyes.
Oh, Aunt Pansy, she thought wretchedly … I’ve let you down, I’ve let my staff down, I’ve let the whole village down …
Yet none of today’s blunders and mishaps had been her fault, surely? Some of it could have been avoided, of course, with better staff training and more clearly stated Health and Safety procedures. That was something she would have to review, and urgently too, before the place reopened. Assuming it would ever reopen, she thought grimly, given that she had lost all her staff in one afternoon.
Equally though, there was an element of sheer bad luck behind the series of disasters that had been her Grand Reopening day.
Perhaps the tea rooms were, in fact, cursed. Just as Mrs Trevellyan had said.
Charlie woke early next morning to the sound of somebody knocking at the shop door below. Surfacing from sleep, she gasped and threw back the covers. Could this be the insurance assessor already?
Tumbling out of bed, and nearly landing on Benjamin, asleep in a patch of sunlight on her bedside rug, she wrapped herself in a sheet and ran to the window.
Throwing it open, she leant out, calling breathlessly, ‘Hello?’
Charlie gaped in shock, staring down into a ruggedly handsome face. Because it wasn’t a man in a suit with a briefcase. Not even close. This man wore faded jeans and a tight black T-shirt, and had tattoos on his muscular arms and an ancient rucksack on his back.
‘Mr F … Fishbourne?’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘My name’s not Fishbourne,’ he told her, his eyes drily amused by the expression on her face. ‘It’s Gideon.’
‘Gideon?’ she repeated in a daze.
‘Gideon Petherick.’
She clutched the sheet closer to her chest as she realised his gaze had dropped from her face to a point rather lower on her body. ‘Oh,’ she managed to say faintly, and hoped he couldn’t see her blushing from down there.
Which surprised her, as Charlie wasn’t the kind of woman who was easily embarrassed. She might only be twenty-seven, but she’d been around the block a few times, and down the road too, and she knew a fair amount about the opposite sex. In and out of bed. But there was something about this guy’s eyes that made her a bit … hot under the collar, frankly. If she had been wearing a collar. Which she decidedly wasn’t.
She also didn’t know this man. And she knew most of the inhabitants of the village, at least by sight. It wasn’t a big place.
‘I’m sorry but the tea rooms are closed.’
‘So I can see.’ He raised his eyebrows, studying her a little too closely for her comfort. ‘I take it you were expecting a Mr Fishbourne?’
‘He’s the insurance assessor.’ She hesitated. ‘We had a bit of an incident yesterday. That’s why the tea rooms are closed. Someone was coming out to discuss the claim.’
Gideon Petherick nodded calmly. ‘I heard about that.’
‘From whom?’
She was instantly on the defensive.
He smiled. ‘Just a few people. In the pub last night.’
‘Talking about me?’
Her voice was a squeak now.
Again, he smiled. ‘About the tea rooms. Not you specifically.’ Gideon looked through the windows into the decimated tea rooms, then back up at her. There was a slowness about the way he spoke, a kind of drawl that was designed to put a woman’s back up, it had so much confidence about it. ‘Anyway, it sounded to me like you could do with a hand.’
‘A hand?’ she repeated, now even more hot-cheeked. Her temper was rising. If there was one thing she disliked more than being the subject of gossip, it was being thought of as helpless. ‘A hand or a man?’
His smile broadened. ‘Both, perhaps.’
‘Well, no thanks,’ she said tartly, and reached over to shut the window. The sheet slipped, and she had to clutch at it to avoid displaying her worldly goods to the impudent man below. ‘Damn.’ He laughed, and she sucked in an angry breath. ‘Go on, get lost. I don’t need any help from you or any man. And you can tell your bloody mates in the pub that.’
Slamming the window so hard that the glass shuddered in the frame, Charlie stormed to the bathroom for a wee and then a quick shower. It was time she got up anyway.
The tea rooms needed to be thoroughly cleared before the assessor arrived, otherwise she was concerned that him finding the place in a total mess might delay the process. Unless it would mean he changed his assessment because it looked better than described over the phone?
Oh, she didn’t know what to do. All she knew for sure was, as far as the business was concerned, as long as the electrics were basically sound, she wanted to reopen as soon as possible.
The sprinklers had not been on for long, thank goodness. She had hit the emergency shut-off button within about a minute of the system activating. But it had still been long enough to drench most of the fixtures and fittings. However, if the insurance paid out promptly, she might be able to get everything replaced or dry-cleaned in time for the start of the summer season.
The only problem would be if the kitchen electrics needed to be stripped out.
That would be a headache, and no mistake.
So her first phone call after dressing would be to a local electrician, to come round and give her his opinion of the damage.
Hurrying downstairs to the tearooms in skimpy shorts and T-shirt about an hour later, wearing only cheap plastic flip-flops on her feet, she was shocked to find Gideon Petherick still waiting outside.
Unable to take no for an answer, or what?
She unlocked the double entrance doors, and stared at him angrily.
He had been sitting on the low wall near the roadside, his rucksack by his feet, apparently enjoying the sunshine on his uplifted face, eyes closed, somehow rooted there in solidity, like a great oak. But when she opened the doors, Gideon Petherick stood up and shouldered his pack again, turning to face her.
Now she was no longing looking down on his head, but straight at him, at face-level, the man’s sheer physical attractiveness hit her like a wall.
Charlie had intended to give him a piece of her mind. But for a moment after throwing open the glass doors, she simply gawped at him like an idiot and couldn’t say a word, because she couldn’t breathe properly.
Bloody hell.
How old was he? Hard to tell, but the younger side of thirty, she’d guess. Old enough to be experienced in the ways of the world, from the knowing smile as he gazed back at her, but young enough to look like he could go all
night.
Charlie almost blushed. What a wicked thought!
He had strong black hair. Short but with the odd dark wisp curling behind his ears and at his nape that made her long to clutch and tug.
Dark brooding eyes, exactly like Poldark.
A chiselled chin – she’d thought they only appeared in films, not real life – with just the right sprinkling of stubble to make him rugged, without appearing unkempt.
He had a light bronze tan too, the kind of weathered look she associated with men who work outdoors all summer.
And muscles to go with the tan.
Rucksack slung over one powerful shoulder, impressive biceps on show, forearms to die for, especially with the tattoos, which she could see now was a thick, black Celtic design, plus a scorpion higher up on the other arm.
‘I thought I told you to get lost,’ she said, her chin up.
‘Hard to do,’ Gideon said coolly, as though taking her seriously, ‘in such a small place as Tremevissey. I could wander to the end of the main street, I suppose. Though it’s not very far. Or down to the harbour. There are a few narrow tracks leading up the cliff there. But the chances of getting lost are still slim. Unless,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘you meant it metaphorically?’
She counted silently to ten, then asked, ‘What exactly do you want?’
‘I told you, I was informed you might need a hand.’
Charlie folded her arms protectively across her chest. Not that he was looking at her chest, but there was something about him – a kind of uber-male presence – that made her instantly aware of her most female attributes.
And he had peeked when her sheet slipped during their conversation earlier. He had most definitely peeked. She had seen the flicker in his eyes.
And that husky laugh.
Stop thinking about him like that, she told herself crossly, and met his eyes with another defiant tilt of her chin. Which was entirely the wrong thing to do, of course. Because he was smiling now. Smiling in that particular way that told he knew exactly what she was thinking. That look of unholy amusement in his eyes …
‘I’m fine.’
‘Okay.’ He glanced past her into the damp tea rooms. ‘Though I must have a different definition of that word to you. Because that doesn’t look fine to me.’
‘I can’t pay you,’ she told him bluntly.
His dark wandering gaze came back to hers. She met it with a slight sense of shock. Like her body and mind had to readjust to a new reality every time she registered his presence.
This man is too damn sexy for his own good, she thought furiously.
Her arms tightened across her chest.
He still wasn’t looking though. Which piqued her. Most men would have looked by now. After the embarrassing sheet slippage incident. But not him.
Perhaps he wasn’t interested.
She felt heat enter her cheeks, and her voice hardened. ‘This has probably wiped me out. We had to open yesterday to make the most of the season. Even a few days of closure will throw my earnings forecast for the bank out of the window. The last thing I can afford is to take on more staff. So you’re wasting your time here.’ She went to close the door again, adding belatedly, and with a surprisingly genuine sense of regret, ‘Sorry.’
He stuck his foot in the door. A size ten, at least, in sturdy hiking boots.
‘You can pay me later,’ he said.
‘Later?’
‘At the end of the season.’
‘But how will you live?’ She could not let go of his gaze. ‘How will you pay your bills?’
‘You’ve got rooms above here, haven’t you?’
A vision flashed through her head. A vision of him in her bed. Only without his jeans and T-shirt.
Good grief.
Her chest was so tight, her voice came out as a tiny squeak. ‘Rooms?’
‘I’ll sleep on the sofa, if necessary. Or on the floor if you don’t have a sofa. I’m no trouble.’ His smile grew as he took in the faint blush she knew must be staining her cheeks. ‘You’ll barely know I’m there, I promise. I’ll work for food at first. Food and a roof over my head. Then later, when profits pick up, you can pay me. How’s that?’
She got a grip of herself, banishing that mental image of Gideon Petherick naked and tattooed, lying among crumpled white sheets …
‘Why?’ she demanded, raising her chin again. ‘Why on earth would you want to do that? There must be other places, other jobs … ’
‘But only one Pansy.’
She stared, speechless for once. When her voice finally returned, she heard it stammering the obvious question, ‘You … You knew my aunt?’
CHAPTER FIVE
Gideon’s voice was level. ‘I knew her, yes. Though not well,’ he added. ‘But I owe her this.’
‘You do?’
He hesitated. ‘She was kind to me once when I was a boy,’ he said, clearly reluctant to say more, and then a shuttered look came over his face.
Gideon halted and looked away, gazing blindly into the morning sunshine, and she had the feeling that he was looking back in time, back to when her aunt was still alive and running these tea rooms.
‘Very kind,’ he continued softly. ‘And I made a promise back then. To myself, to look after this place if ever … ’
‘If ever?’
He said nothing, still staring down towards the cosy little harbour of Tremevissey, the last place her aunt had been seen on this earth before she swam out into the sea forever.
‘If ever … what?’ she pressed him.
Charlie could not help probing for the truth, despite the intensely private look on his face. She could tell he wasn’t keen on being probed, but if probing was what it took to get him to open up …
There was some secret here. But what?
‘Anyway, life moved on, and later I had to go to London to study and work,’ he continued under his breath, as though she had not spoken. His averted profile was suddenly tense, uncommunicative, his eyes dark with some grim remembrance. ‘I was away from Cornwall longer than I’d hoped. Too long, as it turned out. By the time I came back, this place was closed and Pansy … ’
‘Was dead,’ she finished for him in a whisper.
‘Yes.’ For a moment, she thought he would add something to his tale. Something revealing. Something about her mysterious aunt Pansy. But then Gideon shook himself, like a dog coming out of water. And looked round at her again, his mocking smile firmly back in place. ‘And now I find you, Charlotte, here in her place. In a bit of a mess, if you’ll forgive me saying so.’
Charlie raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. She was in a mess, after all. She could hardly deny it.
‘So I’ll keep that promise by helping you,’ he continued.
‘In return for food?’
‘And lodging.’
Again he looked up at the window where she had leant out earlier, stepping back slightly as though to see it better. God, he was attractive.
‘About that … ’
His gaze lowered, narrowing on her face. ‘No room at the inn?’
‘I … ’
His eyes locked with hers.
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ she finished huskily.
His smile broadened.
‘Excellent,’ Gideon said, and held out his hand. She hesitated, then took it. His fingers tightened around hers. It was a not unpleasant sensation. Though probably very dangerous, she told herself sternly.
‘Only one thing,’ she began, but stopped when his gaze snapped back to her face, those dark eyes suddenly sombre and watchful.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Charlie,’ she told him. ‘Not Charlotte.’
‘That’s a shame. Charlotte is a lovely name.’
‘Yes, if you’re a Jane Austen character.’
He grinned, his entire demeanour shifting to relaxed and amused, which to her shock was even more attractive than dark and dangerous. ‘Which you’re not, I take it?’
�
��I’m about as far from a Jane Austen character as it’s possible to be.’ She indicated her cheap flip-flops with a rueful expression. ‘Charlottes don’t wear plastic footwear. They don’t flood their businesses on the first day of trading. And they definitely don’t hire strange men on the spur of the moment for food and lodging.’
‘I can provide references,’ he told her promptly, serious again.
‘Maybe later,’ Charlie said, gesturing him inside.
‘Okay.’
She took a few hurried steps backwards as he approached, landing straight in a puddle, her flip-flops squelching loudly.
‘For now, there’s too much work here for me to worry about paperwork.’ She waved a hand at the appalling mess in the dining area. ‘Grab a mop and bucket, see what you can do. There are dehumidifiers arriving later this morning. And an insurance assessor.’
‘Mr Fishbourne,’ he agreed. ‘Who wasn’t me.’
‘That’s right.’ She hesitated. ‘Is it all right if I describe you as a friend to Mr Fishbourne, rather than an employee? I don’t want him to think I’m employing someone under the counter, as it were.’
‘Of course, Charlie,’ he said smoothly.
She liked the way he said her nickname. Slow and husky, like a caress. Charlie. She had always thought of it as a tomboyish name. But in his mouth …
‘Thanks.’ She hesitated, trying to hide her attraction for him. ‘Well, we’d better get to work, I suppose.’
Gideon nodded and headed unerringly for the mop cupboard, as though he knew exactly where everything was. Which was odd, but lent credence to his tale about having known Pansy when he was young. She started moving tables to one side, but watched her new employee warily as he stowed his rucksack, then set to work with a mop, his movements both swift and efficient.
Gideon Petherick.
It was a strange name, even given the Cornish connection. Kind of old-fashioned, like something out of the Bible.
But Gideon looked strangely out of place here in Tremevissey, like a cuckoo left in another bird’s nest. Not a farmer, she guessed. Nor a fisherman. There was something incisive and whip-sharp about the way he spoke and held himself that told her he was an educated man. Accustomed to getting his own way too. Possibly he’d been wealthy once. A man of influence.