Room for Love (17 page)

But apparently he wasn’t convincing enough, because Mel said, “I’ll call you, then. Seriously, Nate, think about it. It’s a great opportunity. For both of us.” She hung up, leaving Nate staring at the phone.

It
was
a great opportunity. But Nate wasn’t sure if it could trump everything the Avalon Inn had already given him.

Nate looked around his garden, trying to imagine which bit of it he could bear to part with and failing. Which section would Carrie want to get rid of? The woods, with their bluebell walks and wildlife, or the fountain, or the rose garden, or the pagoda or... It didn’t matter. He couldn’t lose any part of it.

Which meant he’d just have to find a way to make every inch of the gardens earn their keep. Then Carrie would see how important they were.

She had to. Or he couldn’t stay.

Chapter 6

A phone call from Ruth was a highlight of a normal day but the last thing Carrie wanted to deal with after telling Nate he might be losing half his gardens. But even as her heart clenched at the number on her mobile phone screen and she wondered if this call would be the one to say the wedding was off, she knew she had to answer it. After all, Ruth was family. And even if she wasn’t, her wedding might be the only thing that could save not only the gardens but the whole inn.

“Hi Ruthie,” she said, making an effort to sound cheery. “How are things in Manchester?”

“Carrie, I’m so sorry. We’ve got a problem.” Ruth wasn’t one to beat around the bush.

Carrie dropped into the chair behind Nancy’s desk. “Tell me.”

“Graeme can’t make the next show ’round either.” Ruth sounded thoroughly fed up. Carrie really didn’t blame her.

“Then we’ll change the date. When can he do?”

“That’s the problem. The only date he can do between now and the wedding is a week on Thursday.”

A week earlier than they’d planned, and they were still cutting it very fine for a Christmas wedding. Carrie saw her carefully plotted schedules collapsing before her. But if that was what it took to make this wedding happen... “Then that’s when we’ll do it.”

“Are you sure? It won’t screw up your plans?”

“It’ll be fine,” Carrie promised, and hoped she wasn’t lying.

Ruth sighed. “Great. He’ll love the Avalon once he sees it, I’m sure. He’ll be excited then. And I’m sure Mum will come ’round.”

That was even more worrying. “Selena doesn’t want it here?”

“Oh, you know. She’s seen some posh hotel up in the hills. I think some film star got married there in, like, the seventies, so she thinks it will be better.”

“Well, we’ll just have to convince her the Avalon Inn is superior,” Carrie said, with more confidence than she felt.

“Too right. So, Thursday the eleventh, then?”

“Definitely. And you’ll all stay over, have dinner at the inn?”

“That would be lovely,” Ruth said. “I cannot wait to get the hell out of Manchester and camp out at your inn for a couple of days.”

Carrie rang off, and added a few more notes to her list. Then she went to find Cyb. If the family were all having dinner, they were going to need more of that ‘darling china.’

Quickly.

* * * *

“So we’re going to be serving my family and our potential financial saviors dinner on charity shop plates,” Carrie said, her voice flat, as Cyb picked up more floral-patterned side plates and added them to the growing pile on the counter.

“I thought you said they liked them,” Cyb said, a puzzled look creasing her forehead. She held out a green and blue forest scene dinner plate for Carrie to see. “This one’s very pretty.”

“They’re all pretty,” Carrie admitted, adding the plate to the counter. “I just...”

“Well, where else would we have got so much china on short notice?” Cyb asked, her voice perfectly reasonable. “Really, we were lucky Stan was able to make a deal with the Hospice shop in Felinfach. That’s where most of it came from.”

Carrie hadn’t really thought very hard about where the china had appeared from. If she’d been pressed, she’d probably have guessed it was all cluttering up the cupboards of the Seniors and their friends. “What sort of a deal?”

“Oh, he traded in his old sideboard for all the cups and saucers the shop had, and a few other bits and bobs, like the vases.” Cyb selected another plate from the shelves, setting aside a few items of stoneware. She’d explained to Carrie earlier that only china would work. ‘It’s an issue of class perception,’ she’d told her, without further elaboration.

“His sideboard?” It seemed an unusual object to barter with.

“It was his grandmother’s,” Cyb said, still leafing through china plates. “Not in terribly good condition, but the hospice should be able to sell it for something, so everybody wins.”

“Except Stan, who’s out a sideboard.” Carrie moved over to look at the discard pile, wondering if she could ascertain what made them unsuitable for the Avalon Inn. She couldn’t.

Cyb shrugged. “He was never very fond of his grandmother, anyway.”

Which wasn’t really the point Carrie was trying to make, but it did lessen the guilt a little. “Still, it’s very generous. You’ve all been very kind. And helpful.”

Packing the last plate on top of the teetering To Buy pile, Cyb turned to Carrie and smiled. “Well, you’re Nancy’s granddaughter.”

Carrie tried to return the smile, rather than sighing. Part of her wished they were helping her for other reasons–believing in her plans, for example, or even because they liked or trusted her. But perhaps that would follow in time.

“And you think she’d approve of what I’m doing at the inn?” she asked instead, turning to lift the top half of the stack of plates down to the counter for extra stability. It was an offhand question, and until Cyb paused before answering, Carrie wasn’t really concerned about what she might say. Because of course Nancy would approve. She’d approve of anything that kept the Avalon alive and Carrie happy. They were the things she cared about most.

But apparently Cyb knew different. “Well...” she said, trailing off again, even after her long pause.

“Speak, Cyb,” Carrie said, losing patience.

Cyb shrugged. “It’s just not the way Nancy would have done it, that’s all.”

Blinking, hard, Carrie said, “Nancy would have done whatever was necessary to save the Avalon.”

“Maybe,” Cyb said with a smile and a shrug, and turned away again. “Shall we start in on soup bowls, now? I don’t think we’ll have so much to choose from, there.”

She was already moving across the charity shop, clearly on a mission, and Carrie could do nothing but follow her.

Carrie waited until they had four mismatched soup bowls before asking, “What do you think Nancy would have done?”

Cyb shrugged again. “What do I know?” she asked, diving into another basket of crockery.

“You knew my grandmother,” Carrie said. “You knew her well. So, what do you think she would have done?” Cyb might act dumb, Carrie had noticed, but she wasn’t as slow about people as she was about facts. And Nate said most of the help the Seniors had provided so far had been Cyb’s idea.

Cyb paused, soup bowl in hand, and sighed. Finally she turned to look at Carrie. “Nancy’s philosophy was
If you don’t like it, tough
. The Avalon was an extension of herself. She wanted people to love it because of what it was, not to try to change it to suit other people.”

Carrie put down the small pile of soup bowls before she dropped them. “You’re right,” she said, eventually. Because Nancy had never conformed, never changed a thing about herself to make people happy. It used to drive Carrie’s dad up the wall.

Putting her soup bowl on top of the pile, Cyb reached out and brushed her fingers against the sleeve of Carrie’s coat, an oddly comforting gesture. “But that doesn’t mean you’re doing the wrong thing.”

Carrie looked up, skeptical. Because wasn’t that exactly what Cyb had just said? That she wasn’t doing as Nancy had intended, when she left her the inn.

“Nancy was a force of nature,” Cyb went on. “People came to the inn for her personality more than anything else. But she’s gone on now and, sooner or later, the rest of us will be, too. You need to find out what the Avalon Inn will be without us. What
you
need it to be.”

With a small nod, Carrie returned her attention to the great china hunt. Apparently Cyb wasn’t nearly as daft as she looked. “Thanks.”

Cyb shrugged. “Now. Since we’ve got all that sorted out, I’ve got something to ask you.”

“Anything,” Carrie said, with a helpless gesture.

“What do you think about Stan?”

“Stan?” Carrie echoed, confused.

“Well, more precisely, Stan and me.”

Carrie blinked. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware there was a, well, a Stan and you.”

Cyb waved a hand vaguely, rather closer to the piles of crockery than Carrie was entirely comfortable with. “Oh, neither is he, yet. I’ll tell him when he’s ready.”

“He doesn’t know you’re…in a relationship?” Carrie didn’t really want to think about how that would even work, but morbid curiosity made her ask.

“Well, we’re not yet, of course. But I’ve decided, I think, that it’s a good idea. We’ve both been alone a long time and neither of us can really have all that much longer left. It’s important to make the most of the time we do have, don’t you think?”

“Well, yes,” Carrie said, thinking of Nancy.

“So you agree then? It’s a good idea?”

“I don’t think it’s really my approval you need, Cyb.”

“Oh, Stan’ll come round, when he’s ready.” Cyb stared off into the middle distance. “I wonder what he’s like in bed.”

And that, Carrie decided, was quite enough of that conversation. “Do we need soup bowls?”

Cyb ignored her. “In lots of ways, I suppose we’re just like Jacob and Izzie.”

Carrie blinked again. “Jacob and Izzie?”

“Yes. She’s been crazy about him for years, of course, which is rather different. But I rather think he might be coming around to her way of thinking now, if you know what I mean.”

“Really?” Carrie asked, still blinking in what appeared to be becoming an uncontrollable manner. “I hadn’t really noticed. Or, you know, thought about it.” Should she have? Surely part of being a good manager was thinking about her staff.

“Well, you’ve had a lot on your plate,” Cyb said, but her tone made it clear that only a blind man wouldn’t have thought there was something going on. “What about your cousin and her man, then? Stan said you had to change their visit date to suit him. Are they going to be happy together, do you think?”

“Of course they are,” Carrie said, before pausing and considering. She’d been so concerned with making sure Ruth actually got married this time, and at her inn, she’d forgotten to make sure that Ruth getting married was the right thing for Ruth. “I hope so,” she said, and swallowed hard. “I haven’t met him yet. I’ll have a better idea after their visit, probably.”

“I’m sure we all will,” Cyb said. “Now, which do you prefer?” Cyb asked, and Carrie looked over to see the other woman holding up two different styles of soup bowl.

“Um, the bluey-green one,” she answered, still thinking about Ruth’s endless childhood practice weddings and the three broken engagements. How would she ever be sure she was doing the right thing?

* * * *

Nate had tried plotting out all his ideas and plans on paper, but they didn’t look real in two dimensions. And besides, he couldn’t get a proper feel for how something would work without standing right there in the middle of it and imagining. So instead, he’d got out his red garden twine, his seed markers, and some plastic windmills past guests had left behind several summers ago, and started work.

And now it was time for the grand unveiling.

“I don’t understand,” Jacob said, squinting at the empty bed planned out with twine, and with two foil windmills turning lazily in the breeze.

Nate sighed, and turned to his grandmother for better comprehension. Moira shrugged. “Why don’t you walk us through it,” she suggested.

“Okay.” Nate jumped out of the flowerbed and onto the grass between them, and wrapped an arm around each of their shoulders. “Imagine this.” He motioned to the bed before them. “Roses.” He spun them through ninety degrees and gestured to the next empty bed. “Lilies.” Another turn, another bed. “Chrysanthemums.” They spun again to the last bed. “Greenery.”

Nate glanced between the faces of his companions. They both still looked utterly baffled. Dropping his arms, he sighed. “It’s a cutting garden! Perfect for arrangements for the inn, of course, but also for wedding flowers, bouquets and buttonholes and stuff.”

Now they were starting to look interested. “And who’s going to put together all these bouquets and stuff,” Moira asked, eyebrows raised.

“Well, I’m sure Carrie could learn.”

Moira rolled her eyes. “Like she’ll have time. I’ll do it, of course.”

“Excellent.” Nate nudged them forward, out of the cutting garden and into the next area. “Jacob, this one’s for you.”

He watched as they gazed around the carefully laid out markers. On top of the moss-infested grass, rows of red twine were interspersed by seed markers. Jacob knelt down to read one, then looked up in amazement. “A vegetable garden?”