He’d have to ask Jacob to join him at Red Lion later, and pray his cousin could find someone to watch Georgia. Because he might be a single dad whose girlfriend walked out on him and their baby for some banker guy, but Jacob was still better at the whole relationship thing than Nate. And Nate needed all the help he could get.
“What were you swearing about in there?” Moira asked as soon as he emerged from the summerhouse.
“There was a bee in the room,” Nate lied, not particularly convincingly, and set out for the tool shed.
For the first twenty minutes or so, Moira seemed content to sit on a nearby bench and watch Nate dig, which was about eighteen minutes longer than Nate had expected her to manage. Finally she said, “So, Nate. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”
Out of breath from the effort of turning soil, Nate merely shook his head. He had a feeling this was probably one of those conversations that didn’t actually require him to say anything, anyway.
“About you and Carrie?” Moira prodded, and Nate shrugged, his back to her.
His gran gave a heavy sigh. “I thought I brought you up better than this, Nate.”
“Better than what?” Nate asked, ignoring the fact that Moira had only actually had him living with her for one summer, fourteen years earlier, while his mother had managed the other seventeen years he’d lived at home. It was that summer that had changed his life, and Moira and Nancy who had managed it. He was happy to give credit where it was due.
“Leading that poor girl on! She’s Nancy’s granddaughter, Nate. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does!” Nate turned to face her, leaning against his shovel. “And what makes you think I’m leading her on?”
Moira gave him a despairing look. “Exactly how naive do you think I am? I saw the two of you disappearing upstairs together last night, and I know full well you didn’t come back to your summerhouse until this morning. And it’s not as if the two of you could have anything serious. I don’t know what kind of life Carrie’s been living in the city, but it seems to me...”
“How do you know it isn’t serious?” Nate interrupted, surprised to realize he really wanted to hear her answer. Gran knew about people. And love. Maybe she could shed some light on whatever was happening with Carrie. Maybe he wouldn’t need to resort to Jacob after all.
“Come on, Nate.” Moira gave him a funny half smile, disappointed but resigned. “I know you. You’ve never really been one to settle down. Even that producer woman in London couldn’t keep you.” Nate glanced away, but Moira carried on. “Two years at the Avalon is the longest you’ve ever managed. Do you think I don’t know you’re only here for me? And I won’t be here forever, Nate. What then? Don’t you think it’s rather unfair to make Carrie think you’ll be sticking around, when you might be on the next train to London?”
She doesn’t think that, he wanted to say. And even if she did, maybe this time I’ll stay. But he couldn’t say either of those things, because he just didn’t know if they were true.
So, instead, he changed the subject. “The producer woman called the other day.” He heard Moira tut, and knew what she was thinking–that he’d been leading Carrie on when he was still involved with another woman. But it was all too hard to explain, really, when he didn’t even know how he felt about it all himself. So he stuck with the dry facts, and the inn and money, rather than emotions and people, which were considerably messier. “She wants me to go back to London for a new show.”
“And are you going to go?” What amazed him most about his gran, Nate thought, was that all through his life, even as she’d lectured him, told him to think about others, reminded him how easily he could hurt people without realizing, she’d never judged him and she’d never tried to make his decisions for him. She might disagree with the things he did, but he always knew that she loved him anyway. And she let him make his own mistakes.
All his life, he’d never found another person who did that. And he’d been looking. Maybe if he did, he’d stay.
“No,” he said, and heard a small sigh of relief. “I told her this was my home, now.”
“That’s...good.” Moira still sounded wary. “Because of Carrie?”
Nate shook his head. “Because of you, and the Avalon, and Cyb and Stan, and Jacob and Izzie, and my gardens. And Carrie, too. But mostly because the Avalon needs me, and Nancy would never forgive me if I left it to crumble.”
“You can’t stay because of a ghost, Nate.” Gran sounded concerned, now, and Nate tried to find another way to explain it her.
“Maybe it’s more I’d never forgive myself.” Nate put down the shovel and sat beside his grandmother on the bench. “I love it here, I really do. It gave me a chance in life. I owe it the same back, don’t you think?”
Moira put one wrinkled hand over his. “So what will you do here? Is Carrie going to let you go ahead with your plans?”
“I hope so,” Nate said, thinking again about the accursed conversation from the night before. “We need to, uh, hammer out some of the details.”
“I think it would be good for you. And for the inn.” Moira stared off into the gardens. “You’ve only ever really kept the place tidy, maintained what was already there. There was always so much else Nancy needed you to do. If you want this place to be your home... Well. Maybe it’s time to start making it one.”
She was talking about the gardens, he knew, about really making his mark on the grounds, using his talent again to design something really stunning. After he’d left London and the program, he’d had enough of garden design for a while. He’d been happy to just watch things grow and give them a helping hand now and then. But maybe it was time to get back to it.
But more than that, Nate thought about his summerhouse, and the way the wind rattled through it in the winter. It wasn’t made for permanent habitation, not really. Even when Nancy had suggested it to him, it was supposed to just be for the summer. Two years and two bone-chattering winters on, maybe it was time to think about something more...homely.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said, as his gran patted his arm and headed up to the inn. He went back to his digging, wondering if Carrie had any plans for the old gatehouse at the end of the driveway, and had just found his rhythm again when he heard the feet racing down the garden path. “Nate?”
Izzie sprang out from between the trees, hair coming loose from its ponytail and her cheeks flushed. “Oh, thank God.” She stopped at the edge of the garden and rested her palms against her thighs, breathing hard. “I thought I wasn’t going to find you.”
“What’s happened?” Nate led Izzie over to the bench, but she refused to sit down.
“No time. We’ve got to get back up to the house.”
“Why?” Nate’s head spun with the sheer number of things that could have gone wrong up at the Avalon. “Is it Carrie? Gran? She just left. She was fine...”
“Anna bloody Yardley,” Izzie said, between breaths. “She just showed up this morning, after you came down, but before Carrie.”
“And you didn’t go get Carrie?”
“No answer at her door, or her phone.” Izzie grabbed for his hand. “Now come on.”
“Must have been in the shower. You’re sure it’s her?” Because that was very bad indeed. He wondered if anyone had even gotten around to cleaning up the bar after the night before.
Izzie gave him her rarely used I’m not an idiot look. “Just get up there!”
“What can I do?” He was the gardener, for heaven’s sake.
“Just...” Izzie straightened up and waved her hands around a bit. “Help her.”
And that was what it came down to, he supposed. Carrie needed his support. And regardless of what else might be going on between them, she was going to get it.
Dropping his shovel, and ignoring the sweat stains and mud on his clothes, Nate ran for the Avalon Inn.
* * * *
“Still using the old element of surprise tactic, then Anna
?” Carrie asked, smiling, even though it was the last thing she felt like doing as she stepped down the last few stairs into the lobby. And she’d actually believed that Anna trusted her. When really it was all just one long, impossible test.
Anna returned the smile, and Carrie wondered how she’d spent so long not realising how fake her smile was. “Only way to know if a venue is truly as good as it looks,” she said, clasping Carrie’s hand and planting a powdery kiss somewhere in the vicinity of her cheek. “Don’t give them time to prepare.” From her oversized bag, she pulled out a bottle of champagne Carrie felt certain was left over from somebody else’s wedding. “To celebrate your first booking,” she said, handing it over.
Carrie wanted to say something confident about how the Avalon was always at its best, but she wasn’t sure all the empty bottles had even been cleared out of the bar after the party yet, so instead she took the champagne and placed it on the reception desk.
“Why don’t you take a seat in the drawing room,” Carrie said, looking around her only to realize that Izzie was nowhere to be seen. “I’ll just pop down to the kitchen to ask them to bring us some refreshments.”
“Couldn’t that little receptionist go?” Anna glanced rather obviously around the lobby. “Oh. Now, where did she go?”
Carrie forced another smile. At least that meant Izzie had made it in that morning. “I’ll be back in just a moment,” she said, opening the door.