“So I can see,” she said, adding, patch drawing room chairs when her left hand found a hole in the leather of her seat.
“More than just the cosmetic,” Nate clarified. He pulled open the file drawer in the desk beside him, and handed her a thick wodge of paper. “This is a survey of the inn your gran had done last year.”
“You’ve seen this?” Carrie asked Nate, leafing through the pages.
Nate nodded, his face sympathetic. And not without cause, Carrie thought. It looked like the surveyor hadn’t found a single part of the inn that didn’t need something done to it.
“New windows, rotting terrace... Possible roof issues?” Carrie sighed. “Well, this is going to be fun.”
Nate winced. “Yeah. Looks like your redecorating might have to wait.”
Carrie couldn’t quite decide if he sounded pleased. “It all needs doing, sooner or later.” Nate might not like the idea of updating the inn, but if Carrie managed to convince Anna to pay for the structural work, she would definitely want to redecorate, too.
“There are some other papers, too,” Nate said, his voice softer. He held a small pile of letters out before him, and Carrie reached across, feeling some resistance when she tugged them out of his hands.
On the top sat an envelope marked ‘Carrie.’ She’d have recognized the handwriting anywhere in the world. But here at the Avalon, there was only ever one person it could be from.
Carrie swallowed around the lump that had taken up residence in her throat and wondered how long it would take her to work up the courage to open it.
Nate braced his hands against the arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet. Carrie glanced up. He looked even more absurdly tall when he was the only one standing.
“Well, you don’t need me here for this,” he said, just as Izzie stuck her head around the door from the bar, saying, “Nate? Jacob’s got some kind of childcare crisis, and he’s supposed to be giving me a lift home. Can we...”
“Yeah, sure,” Nate said, with a wave of his hand. “I’ll walk you out. I need to talk to Jacob about menus for next week, anyway.” He stopped by the door and turned back to where Carrie waited patiently for him to realize his mistake. “If that’s okay with Carrie. I mean, Miss Archer.”
It was fun to see a grown man truly flustered, Carrie decided. And it took her mind off what they needed menus for next week. She’d find out soon enough. “Fine. I’ll see you both tomorrow, Izzie.”
The receptionist disappeared into the bar, but Nate still hovered in the doorway. “I don’t know if Nancy mentioned, but I live on-site,” he said, with such a meaningful look that for a moment she wondered if he was hitting on her. “I’ve got the summerhouse, down by the woods. So I’ll be around later if you want to discuss anything.”
Carrie glanced at her papers as he left. Apparently there was more bad news still to come.
* * * *
Cyb wasn’t sure she liked the Red Lion very much. She’d never had cause to go there before. Why would she, when the Avalon Inn was so friendly? Even when her Harry was alive, they’d gone away to hotels, or nice restaurants, and to the theatre. Never to a sticky pub on the High Street. And didn’t it used to be a hardware store? Surely she remembered Harry buying a new broom there, once. He wouldn’t recognize it now. Of course, he’d been gone a very long time. He might not recognize her either.
No, Coed-y-Capel had changed in fifty years, and Cyb wasn’t all that interested in living in it now. Much better to remember how things were, and recreate them as best as possible at the Avalon.
“Now, then,” Stan said, getting to his feet on the beer-stained floorboards. What kind of a place couldn’t even afford a nice carpet? Cyb tried to pay attention to Stan, as she always did, but really, with all the flashing lights and the pounding music, who could stay focused? “I call to order the first official meeting of the Avalon Inn Avengers.”
Across the table, Moira raised her hand just enough to get Stan’s attention and said, “Can I just be very clear on one point? The Avalon Inn Avengers is a stupid name.”
Stan’s face reddened, but he had good manners so he didn’t shout. Cyb liked that about Stan. He always looked like he might bellow, but he never did. A good quality in a man. “Your opinion is noted, Moira,” he said instead. “But until such time as we have a better suggestion, or until the group is no longer necessary, we will stick with what we have. Yes?”
Moira nodded but Cyb thought she might have been smiling, just a little bit. Moira didn’t really appreciate Stan. Not the way she did.
“It is clear to me,” Stan said, leaning his hands against the table, “that our way of life, our inn, is being threatened. I’d hoped Nancy’s granddaughter would have better sense than to change what has worked for decades. But from what I saw today...”
“What exactly did you see today?” Moira asked. “I noticed you’d sloped off when Cyb and I headed home earlier.”
Stan bristled. “I thought somebody should take responsibility for keeping an eye on what was going on at the inn.”
“You mean you followed Carrie and Nate around on their tour.”
“Not exactly.” Stan’s gaze darted away. “But I can report that she didn’t look happy with what she saw.”
Of course, Stan wasn’t perfect. He did get worked up about things, sometimes, when it really wasn’t necessary. A sign of a passionate nature, though, she supposed.
“Carrie seemed perfectly darling to me,” Cyb said, without really thinking, and felt her cheeks getting warm as Stan turned his stern gaze on her. “Of course, we only just met...”
“Exactly. Who is to say that tomorrow she won’t close the inn and start making it all...froofy.” Stan waved a hand on the last word, as if to say you know what I mean. Cyb thought she did, anyway.
She usually did–even when Stan was blustering and fussing, she knew it was all for show.
Moira, however, obviously felt the need to question. As usual. “Froofy?”
Stan sat down with a sigh and turned his full attention to the dissenter. “Tell me, Moira. Do you want to lose your Bridge nights? Or our dances? Or your garden patch?” Cyb sucked in a breath at that. Stan really was bringing out the big guns if he was threatening Moira’s garden. But he wasn’t done. “Do you want your grandsons to lose their jobs and for Nate to go back to London?”
“Nancy said she’d take care of all those things,” Moira said, but even she looked doubtful now. “She said she’d make sure we’d all get to stay.”
“Nancy said,” Stan echoed. “And I’m sure she did her best. But the inn is Carrie’s now. How much do you think she’ll respect her grandmother’s wishes?”
“Sorry I’m late,” Izzie said, slipping into an empty chair at the table. Cyb hadn’t even noticed her enter the pub. She, at least, looked like she belonged there, with her blue jeans low on her hips and her blond hair swinging across her shoulders. Cyb had looked like that once. Without the jeans, though, of course. “Jacob had to get home so the childminder could leave, so I just got him to drop me off by the park and walked in from there.”
Moira jerked half out of her chair at her grandson’s name. “Does he need me to...”
Izzie shook her head. “He’s fine. Just worried about leaving a bad impression with Miss Archer.”
“Why didn’t he call me?” Moira asked. “He knows I would have gone and got Georgia.”
Looking awkward, Izzie shrugged. “He just didn’t want to bother you again, I think.”
Something else new, that. A single father raising a little girl, and on a chef’s wage. Nancy couldn’t have been paying him much. If Moira didn’t have Georgia three days a week, he probably couldn’t even afford the childminder for the other two.
It wouldn’t have been like that in the old days.
“Never mind that, Izzie-girl.” Stan leaned far enough across the table to make the poor girl actually move her chair back a little. Stan forgot sometimes how intimidating he could be to pe
ople who didn’t know him like Cyb did. “Tell us what’s going on up there.”
“I thought Nate was coming with you,” Moira said, wrinkling her forehead. Cyb really should remind her to stop that. It wasn’t as if they didn’t all have enough wrinkles already without willfully making things worse.
Izzie gave a secretive grin. Or, rather, the sort of grin Cyb knew meant she was about to share a good secret. “He was. He walked us to the gate, but then he said he had to get back and do some job or another urgently.” The grin got wider. “And I heard him tell Miss Archer he’d be around later. If she wanted to talk. Even told her where his room is.”