by Eve Devon
She’d been in LA since age nine when her parents had divorced and her mother had taken Emma’s ‘One day I’m going to be a famous actress’ and run all the way to Hollywood with it. LA felt like home now but eighteen years was a long time to try and make it.
She’d had some successes when she was younger.
Trouble was as you got older, straddling that line between wanting more and getting desperate, was becoming increasingly harder to stay on the right side of.
At least bartending was simple, honest work. People came in to get a drink. She provided them with the drink.
Simples.
Adding a smile and lending an ear if they wanted to talk seemed like fair exchange and came easy.
The thought of finding herself in ten years time, with no good acting projects under her belt, no man in her life, no children … Her only true achievements a killer-flexible yoga body and a face that didn’t move, shook her.
If she didn’t get her big break soon she really did have to call time on this dream and go find another. One that didn’t eat away at her psyche until she ended up like her mum – hard-wired for what was over the next horizon – never enjoying what she had.
She glanced down as an email dropped into her inbox.
To:WritingHerAcceptanceSpeech
From: Kate Somersby
Subject: NOT LETTING DREAMS GO
Eat a gallon of ice-cream, down some cheap cocktails, watch a ton of tat TV in between pulling shifts at Bar Brand but then go to an Improv class, okay? Kate xx
Emma stared at the screen. Letting dreams go was something Kate actually knew about. So was not letting them go, which was why her friend had audaciously risked returning to her home village of Whispers Wood to set about making one come true. Now, not only was Kate’s dream coming true, she’d also fallen in love.
Emma reminded herself she was in love too.
With acting.
But as she reached for the bottle she wondered what would happen if she really did let the dream go?
It shocked her when she wasn’t brought to her knees by the thought.
Instead, it felt strangely as if someone was standing outside the front door to her heart and like The Walking Dead guy in Love Actually showing her large hand-written notices that said things like: ‘I’ll tell you what you want, what you really, really want …’ ‘You want Peace’, ‘Serenity’, ‘And … zigazig ha’.
With a deep breath she hit ‘reply’ and typed: Confession: I think I’ve been awful tired of this acting-gig for an awful long time now…
There!
She’d said it.
Out loud.
Well, not out loud, but you know what she means.
She waited for a reply.
Waited some more.
Maybe she shouldn’t have put that out there into the universe.
Because honestly? If she gave up acting, who was she?
Chapter 4
Think Positivi-tea
Kate
Kate stared at the screen in front of her, feeling bad for her friend, Emma. She knew what it was like to feel as if the path you’d chosen was leading nowhere. All those years she’d been footloose and fancy-free, going where the next work assignment took her and never having to really unpack – either her belongings or her feelings. Never being in one place for long had started off being something she’d needed to do but how quickly had she led herself to believe that it was something she wanted to do.
It had taken Old Man Isaac selling this place to get her to change direction and she was so thankful he had because despite feeling a tired she hadn’t known existed, it was very definitely a happy tired.
Stifling a yawn she reached over and crossed-through number twenty-seven on her To Do List.
As large hands came around her mid-riff to hug her from behind, she gasped, ‘Hey, mister. I know the owner of this establishment.’
‘So do I,’ Daniel’s voice trickled into her ear. ‘In fact I’m pretty sure I have a meeting with her in about—’
‘Thirty minutes,’ Kate smiled, spinning in her chair to face him. ‘I have this office booked until then and I’m determined to get through at least fifteen more emails.’
‘Just wanted to check how the interview went?’
Kate grimaced. ‘Complete dud.’
‘Really?’
‘Trust me.’
‘Are you sure you’re not being too …’
Kate raised an eyebrow in challenge.
‘Fussy?’ he stated bravely. ‘Only we’re running out of time to find someone to manage the place.’
Kate was very aware they needed to find someone to manage Cocktails & Chai @ The Clock House ASAP.
One of the conditions of buying the building had been to provide space the whole community could continue to use, but with the toddler group moving into the newly-built huts at the local school, that only left Trudie McTravers and her am-dram group using the communal space. Kate had promised Trudie the space would always be available for rehearsal and productions but she’d wanted to add something more.
She’d wanted everyone in the village and anyone booking a spa treatment with her, or having their hair done by Juliet, or booking office space with Daniel, to be able to grab a cuppa or a glass of fizz too and when she’d talked over her plans to add a tearoom/bar in the reception room opposite Juliet’s salon she’d been overwhelmed by how much everyone loved the idea. Of course that probably had a little something to do with socking-it-to the neighbouring village of Whispers Ford because there were still a few residents who hadn’t got over the hotel opening and the village stealing ‘Best in Bloom’ out from under them. But she’d got the go-ahead and now with the last licence coming through, it was all systems go to organise staff before they opened.
‘So what was wrong with this candidate?’ Daniel asked.
‘Besides looking twelve?’
‘I’ll admit he did look a little young, but his C.V. said he was qualified.’
‘He asked me if I’d be fact-checking his previous employment.’
Daniel mouthed the word, ‘Wow,’ and shook his head.
‘And, you know, his name was Harry Stiles,’ Kate added as if that explained everything and when Daniel looked at her as if that meant nothing, she rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t handle the disappointment when people realise the real Harry Styles hasn’t, in fact, given up his incredibly successful world tour to run a bar and tearoom in a quaint little village called Whispers Wood.’
‘You can’t not employ someone on the grounds they have a similar name to someone famous.’
‘So fortunate that he kept right on hammering in more nails, then,’ Kate replied. ‘When I asked him what he thought made him most qualified for the position, he responded with “Um, I like to drink?”.’
‘He didn’t?’
‘Oh yeah and not even “I like to drink, ha-ha, only joking, sorry that was wildly inappropriate, I’m just really nervous, here’s my actual answer,” oh no,’ Kate went on, ‘He said, “Um, I like to drink” … with a question mark at the end of it. Like he wasn’t even sure.’
Daniel rolled his eyes in sympathy. ‘Yeah. Okay. Good call.’
‘How difficult can it be to find someone who knows how to make a martini as well as they make a matcha latte or a good old-fashioned cup of tea, not to mention someone who actually likes talking with people?’
‘We have to think positive. Quick, do your thing.’
‘Thing?’
‘Your positivity rain dance, thing.’
‘Ugh. I’m too tired.’
‘Nonsense. This is important. You want the next candidate to be the one, don’t you?’
Kate gave a tired smile. ‘You do realise how dangerous it is to pander to my quirk?’
‘What can I say, I live for danger.’
Biggest fib, right there, Kate thought because while she knew Daniel thought nothing of taking calculated risks, she also knew the chaos he’d grown up with. Livi
ng for danger was not what he was about at all but she loved making him laugh and so she rose to her feet and did some over-the-top stretching motions.
‘Remember you asked for this,’ she warned and wafting her hands up and down like she was trying to take-off, she turned around in circles clockwise and then counter-clockwise chanting nonsense about positivity under her breath in a poor imitation of the dance she’d made up after one too many honey martinis had made her feel invincible. At the end of it she plonked herself back down in her chair, knackered. ‘That’s the next candidate for the job sorted, then,’ she said, trying not to worry that she didn’t actually have anyone lined up. ‘By the way, thank you for letting me book an office. Mine’s got a massage table in it that I’m certain wasn’t in there last night.’
‘So what’s the verdict on the tech?’ Daniel asked, with a nod to the set-up she was sat in front of.
Kate swung her chair back to the computer in front of her and sighed appreciatively. ‘I’m appropriately jealous. Everything up here seems higher-spec than we put in downstairs.’
‘You don’t need clients geeking-out over the I.T. downstairs. You want them sighing with pleasure over treatments. You were right to keep the set-up on the lower floors unobtrusive. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the compliment though.’
Kate grinned with pride for him.
He’d done a fantastic job of matching the aesthete of the spa and hair salon without making Hive @ The Clock House feel too girly. The attic rooms had been beautifully converted so that they now housed an open-plan area for hot-desking, a kitchen area with a long table in, and five meeting rooms with full conference facilities. The original oak flooring had been sanded and re-varnished, so that it set off the white furniture to its best. The clock mechanism had been encased in thick glass walls and formed the centre-point of the cleverly-thought-out space. Throughout, Daniel had added potted trees to soften the look. He’d married the country-chic feel of downstairs with the industrial-loft look perfectly.
‘I thought the demented pigeon dance would get rid of some of these knots,’ Daniel said, lowering his hand to her shoulders to start rubbing at the tension. ‘But you need a good massage. Smooth out some of the stress-kinks.’
Kate purred. ‘The problem with learning all these new skills is I can’t do them on myself.’ She thought of the half a dozen workbooks on her bed back at the cottage. Was she completely mad to be studying for her diploma in beauty therapy while opening her business? And, yet, she thought, taking Daniel’s advice and determinedly channelling positivity, the sooner she completed her qualification, the sooner she could add those skills to her business degree and ensure the spa ran as smoothly as possible.
Daniel leaned down to whisper in her ear, ‘Hey, you know we’ve got time until our meeting. Forget those emails. I’ve an idea or two of how we can work out some of these kinks.’
‘You have?’ Kate’s grin turned sultry as she spun around in her chair again and lifted her arms to lace around his neck. ‘Oh,’ she said as her ever-working mind remembered something else she’d written on her list. ‘I meant to ask you, don’t you think maybe we should have put in some of those standing desks up here?’
Daniel reached out and cranked a lever under the desk, laughing as the desk Kate was sat in front of, rose smoothly up into the air.
‘Wow, that’s—’
‘Impressive?’ he said knowingly. ‘Now this,’ he said picking her up with an ease that she found exciting and lowering her onto the higher surface of the desk, ‘is a much better height for what I have in mind.’
‘You mean for not putting your back out,’ she said with a laugh.
‘Practicality—’
‘Looks so sexy on you,’ she finished for him.
‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, did you decide what you wanted to do about asking your mother down for Christmas?’
Daniel lifted his head. ‘Wow. Did you just ask about my mother while I was getting ready to unbutton your blouse?’
‘God, I think I did. I’m sorry. I’ve got too much stuff going on up here,’ she said pointing to her head. ‘As soon as I stop thinking about one thing, the next comes to the surface.’
Daniel tilted her jaw and rubbed the pad of his finger across her bottom lip. ‘Perhaps if I occupy these for a while, the message that you’ve got to stop stressing about absolutely everything will get through.’
She pretended to think before replying, ‘I suppose we could give your plan a go,’ and then her grin turned into a wince of regret as her phone alarm went off with another reminder that she should be doing anything else but sneaking a little time with the man that could make her heart beat crazy-fast. ‘We’ll have to wait until later.’
The pout on Daniel’s face was comical. ‘Why did I have the feeling you were going to say that?’
Kate’s mouth turned down to match Daniel’s. ‘Because I always seem to be saying that, lately? I know. It’ll get better.’
Daniel chuckled. ‘You do know it’s actually going to get worse, right?’
‘I know. But—’
‘We’ll always have after hours.’ He leaned in to kiss the hollow of her left cheekbone.
‘Yes.’ Although to be fair, with all the work they both still needed to do to ensure they opened on time, the nights were getting shorter as well.
‘My place or yours tonight?’ he asked, playfully nipping at her lower lip.
Kate hesitated and distracted him by kissing the underside of his jaw. His place was right next to hers so technically what did it matter? They both had the exact same size bed – the only ones that would fit into the size rooms their side-by-side cottages had. But hers…
She really liked waking up in hers. Liked taking comfort from being unpacked and seeing her things carelessly dotted around.
‘Mine, I think. Is that okay?’
‘Hey, I’m happy anywhere you are.’
Kate smiled. Of course if they moved in together he could be with her all the time.
‘You think we’ll still have the energy for “after hours” when we’re working even longer hours?’ Daniel asked.
‘We’d better. I refuse to let Mum and Big Kev outshine us in the romance department.’ Her mum had been seeing Big Kev who ran the corner shop for months now. Although for some reason she refused to give out the confirmation memo, so everyone still had to pretend he wasn’t romancing her after hours amongst the bakery goods. Oh, that reminded her … Kate still needed to ask her mum if she’d be interested in doing the baking for Cocktails & Chai when business slowed down at the B&B which she ran.
‘Rain-check, then?’ Daniel asked.
‘Til tonight.’
‘Tonight. Your place. And to tide us over—’
‘Kate, you up here? Oops. Sorry,’ Juliet apologised as she reached the top of the stairs and spied them mid-clinch.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s fine,’ Kate assured.
Daniel cleared his throat and smiled. ‘Kate and I were just testing out the system.’
‘Right,’ Juliet gave a knowing nod. ‘Oscar and I need to do some of that.’ A blush formed across her cheeks. ‘Not your systems, obviously. What I meant was—’
Kate grinned. ‘What you meant was that you’re both feeling the strain of working long hours and hardly ever seeing each other, as well.’
When Oscar had discovered, this summer, Juliet’s plans to work so closely with Kate, he’d gone into full protective mode, making it impossible for Juliet to hide her feelings for him. The sparks between them had got the whole of Whispers Wood noticing and even though Juliet had moved out of her beloved bijou Wren Cottage and into the barn that Oscar had converted within weeks of them finally getting together, Kate was willing to bet that between Juliet setting up her salon and Oscar finishing up all the building renovations around here, they probably hardly got to see each other outside of work, either.
‘Anyway,’ Juliet said, ‘I wanted to tell you I talked over th
at other thing with Oscar and he agrees that Jake would be the perfect choice.’
‘Jake?’ Daniel queried.
‘Jake Knightley,’ Kate explained. ‘I thought I’d ask him to take a look at the courtyard. Come up with some plans for re-landscaping the space come spring.’
Daniel frowned. ‘Will he have time now he’s taken over the running of Knightley Hall?’
‘I think he’s looking for all the work he can get,’ Juliet said. ‘Knightley Hall is kind of expensive to run.’
‘Okay, I’ll try and set up a meeting. Let me write it down, or I’ll forget. As you’re here and Daniel’s here, shall we start the meeting now?’
‘Works for me,’ Juliet said. ‘Have notebook, will meet. So, are we employing Harry Stiles or what?’
‘Nope.’
‘Melody’s going to be so disappointed.’
‘Trust me, she really isn’t,’ Kate said.
‘Hey, why don’t we show Juliet what we put up in reception, before we start the meeting?’
Kate jumped off the table excitedly. ‘Oh. Yes. Perfect. Juliet, come with us,’ and grabbing her hand before she could sit down, she steered her down the two flights of stairs until all three of them were standing at the reception desk in the main foyer of The Clock House.
‘What do you think?’ she asked, pointing to the newly placed vintage photo frames that she and Daniel had put up behind the reception desk the night before. ‘I thought it would be nice to have them up,’ Kate explained, looking at the three postcards Juliet had sent her at the beginning of the year, explaining that The Clock House was going up for sale. ‘You know – a permanent reminder.’
Juliet nodded. ‘So when we’re super-successful and absolutely rolling in it we can look at these and think: Jennifer Lopez, ‘Jenny From The Block’.
‘What? No, so we can—’
‘Oh, I get it,’ Juliet interrupted fist-bumping her heart and then pointing her hand up to the sky and launching into Take That’s ‘Never Forget’.
‘Oh my God. Stop that. I just meant I wanted a lovely reminder of how this space came to be. Of where we started. Of all the hopes you had. All the hopes I had. Of how you tapped into that and started this whole thing.’