The Love Trilogy

Carrie’s head jerked up at his words, but Nate could tell she didn’t really see him. Her attention flicked away again, drawn to a photo on Nancy’s dressing table, a picture of a child in a summer meadow. Carrie, he assumed.

“She loved that photo,” Nate said, feeling something catch at the back of his throat.

“It was the most perfect day.” Carrie’s voice sounded very far away. “We chased butterflies through the field and had ice cream on the terrace. Just me and her. She even let me use the cut-glass cocktail glasses for ice-cream bowls.”

Suddenly, unexpectedly, Nate realised he might have something in common with Carrie Archer after all. She missed her grandmother. Maybe even as much as he did.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said. He stepped closer to her automatically, though he stopped himself from reaching out to touch her.

But then, he didn’t move away, either.

“Why didn’t you call us?” Carrie’s question was abrupt, and Nate could hear real pain in her voice, this time. “When she got sick. We could have...”

“She didn’t want anyone to know.” Nate’s jaw felt tight, making him force the words out. “She didn’t want...pity, I suppose. She wanted to face it alone.”

“She let you help,” Carrie said, sounding bitter.

Nate shrugged. “I’m paid staff. It’s different.” He sighed, and tried to find the right words to explain. “You know what she was like. She didn’t want to interrupt your lives with her problems.”

“You should have told us anyway.”

The accusation in Carrie’s voice broke Nate’s reserve. She could not, would not blame him for this. “If you’d visited—hell, if you’d even paid attention when you called—you’d have known. It was blindingly obvious to anyone who loved her.”

Stark silence followed. Carrie flicked her gaze to the photo and it stayed there, as if she were living in some half-forgotten yesterday. “She sounded tired.” Her voice sounded very small, now. “But I thought... She was old, Nate. I just thought it was age. I saw her when she visited Dad’s at Christmas and she seemed fine. And I thought if something was really wrong that she’d tell me...”

“She was a stubborn old thing,” Nate said fondly. Carrie huffed a laugh and put the photo on the dressing table. But when she looked up and met his eyes, she still seemed to be watching something very far away in time.

“Do I know you?” she asked, her voice faint.

Nate blinked, and was just considering the best way to deal with what appeared to be some sort of weird stress-related amnesia, when Carrie shook her head, her cheeks pink, and went on, “I’m sorry, I mean, have we met before? You just look familiar, somehow.”

Letting out a breath of relief, Nate grinned. “You know, a lot of people say that to me.”

Carrie smiled back, faintly. “Guess you’ve got one of those faces. What about the people downstairs? Stan, and Moira and...”

“Cyb,” Nate finished for her. “The Seniors... They’re old friends of Nancy’s.”

Carrie nodded slowly. “Ye-es, that’s what Izzie said. But what are they doing here?”

Nate resisted the urge to wince, while he tried to think of the best way to put it. Perhaps best to start out softly, he decided. “Well, they’re all very attached to the inn, and they live locally. And I know they were all looking forward to meeting you.”

All of which was scrupulously true, if slightly misleading. Nate liked to avoid outright lies whenever possible. But he wasn’t above a bit of misdirection.

Carrie seemed to be buying it, anyway. She ran a hand down her skirt to straighten it, and Nate could almost see her packing away her feelings and getting back to the task in hand. “Right, then. I’ll have plenty of time for this later. What do you want to show me next?”

It was too late, though, he thought. He’d seen that she cared. There had to be a way he could use her emotional attachment to preserve Nancy’s inn.

“Why don’t we head down to the drawing room?” he suggested. “Like I said, Nancy left some papers and things to be given to you. Might as well make a start sooner as later.”

And if words from beyond the grave didn’t guilt Carrie into doing the right thing by the Avalon, he’d just have to find something else that would.

* * * *

It was only once they started touring the rooms that Carrie realised how inaccurate her original impression had been. Not only had the Avalon Inn changed, it hadn’t been for the better.

She’d remembered the bedrooms as cozy and charming, but the ones Nate showed her were just shabby. The dining room looked tired, and no one would want to hold their wedding reception on a carpet so hideously patterned. Even the drawing room and library were filled with lumpy chairs and paperback novels missing pages or covers.

She couldn’t help but think that Anna would hate every inch of the place, if she saw it. The Avalon Inn would never be good enough for a Wedding Wishes booking. In fact, as it stood, Carrie was very afraid it wouldn’t be good enough for anyone’s wedding. Which left her plans stuck rather behind square one.

And, if that weren’t bad enough, Carrie’s bag sat in Nancy’s bedroom, not the tiny boxroom she’d made her own in childhood. Nothing was as it should be.

Carrie had arrived expecting a dream wedding venue. What she’d got instead was fast approaching a nightmare. And apparently the decor was only a part of it.

“There’s a lot to be done,” Nate said, dropping into the leather wingback chair opposite hers, framed by the bay window of the front drawing room. The Seniors appeared to have scampered off to wherever they came from, probably for tea and a nap, much to Carrie’s relief. She looked up from the notebook where she’d been creating her Avalon Inn To Do List as their tour threw up new problems and jobs.

“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. Of course he’d seen it. Nancy had obviously trusted him. Still, the idea of someone else knowing her inn better than she did made Carrie want to grind her teeth. Especially since it looked as if 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 find a way to pay for the structural work, she’d need to give the place a thorough facelift to have any chance of earning the money back.

“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. She put it to one side, and turned to the next paper in the stack—a copy of Nancy’s will.

There, in black and white, signed by her grandmother herself, was the proof that Nancy hadn’t believed that Carrie could save the Avalon on her own. With the proviso that Nathanial Green be given full control of the gardens, for as long as he wishes it.

Perfect. Well, at least he didn’t get any say in what happened inside the inn. However much he obviously thought he should.

Nate braced his hands against the arms of his chair and pushed himself to his feet, his gaze still fixed on the will in her hands. 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.”

For the first time, Carrie felt properly in charge. But it was spoiled rather by the sarcastic lilt Nate put on the words ‘Miss Archer’. “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 anyone mentioned, but I live on-site,” he said, as if he couldn’t decide whether telling her was a good idea or not. “I’ve got the summerhouse, down by the woods. So I’ll be around later if you want to discuss anything.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Carrie told him, and he nodded and left.

She’d be damned if she needed to ask Nathanial Green for help any time soon.

Chapter 3

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 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 recognise it now. Of course, he’d been gone a very long time. He might not recognise 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 as if 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 now she’s here, and 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, Cyb supposed.

“Carrie seemed perfectly darling to me,” she 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?” Cyb shook her head. Threatening Nate and Jacob was a step too far.

“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. Especially Nate. Why else would she leave him the gardens?”

“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? Besides, Nancy only left Nate control of the gardens while he wanted it. If he feels pushed out by Carrie…you know what he’s like. The boy will walk. Again.”

“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 as if she belonged there, with her blue jeans low on her hips and her blonde 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 other 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 help out so much, especially when Jacob was working weekends, he’d probably never be able to afford the childminder to cover the afternoons when Georgia wasn’t with her mum.

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 people who didn’t know him as 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 wilfully 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.”

The table fell silent. Cyb tried to imagine good, honest Nate ‘putting the moves’ on anybody, and failed. Of course, Harry always said she hadn’t much of an imagination. It wasn’t that Nate wasn’t good-looking, of course, although far too tall really, which couldn’t be helped. No, the issue was, he really only cared about three things: his garden, his grandmother, and Nancy. Cyb knew Izzie had been excited when he’d first arrived, but he hadn’t shown any interest at all. And Izzie, with her blonde hair and big blue eyes, was far prettier than Carrie Archer. Unless...

“He must have a thing about redheads,” Cyb said absently, and Stan glared at her. Not a lot of time for romance, Stan. Which was a shame, really.

“We’re not here to discuss Nathanial’s courting habits,” he said, his tone curt. “Now, what was Carrie doing?”

Izzie shrugged. “Looking through papers in the drawing room. I think they’re the ones Nancy left.” She paused. “She didn’t look very happy with them.”

Silence again. Even Cyb knew what those papers said.

Moira let out a loud sigh. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Perhaps there were other papers, too. Financial ones. Not just the ones about us.”

“I’m not sure that’s any better,” Stan said, his voice ominous. “No, Moira, I don’t like it. We need a battle plan. And for a battle plan to work, we need to have better intelligence.” He turned to Izzie. “Izzie-girl. You’re our eyes and ears backstage at the inn. I need you to watch everything, listen to everything, and report everything back to me. Everything. You got that?”

Izzie’s blue eyes were wider than ever as she nodded. Cyb wondered if Stan had really thought this through. Even she could see he’d probably get more reports about Nate’s possible attempts to seduce Carrie than anything else.

Maybe he should. Maybe Carrie would be the one thing to make him stay. Moira would like that.

Nancy would have, too, actually. Cyb smiled. Maybe the old girl had known exactly what she was doing, leaving that confusing will behind.

“Good. Then, with that sorted, I call to a close this meeting of the Avalon Inn Avengers.” Stan banged his empty pint glass on the wooden table, and Cyb sighed. Perhaps Moira was right. They really should have spent some of the meeting trying to come up with a better name.

* * * *

Carrie sat staring at the envelope in front of her long after Nate had shut the door behind him. Then, using only the tips of her fingers, she removed it from the pile and leaned it against the lamp on the table beside her.

It contained Nancy’s final words to her. It was only right to save it until last.

Instead, she started in on the stack of papers below it. They didn’t make for any happier reading.

First came a financial summary, which was every bit as bad as Carrie had feared. Mortgage documents lay beside insurance policies and details, along with notes on why none of them would pay out for the things that needed fixing. There were some builders’ quotes for most of the work detailed in the survey and, underneath, a letter of refusal from the bank, not sounding very sorry at all that they couldn’t extend Nancy’s existing loan with them to cover it. At the bottom was the Avalon’s latest bank statement. In credit, at least, she supposed. But the balance wasn’t anywhere near enough to cover everything that needed doing.

Carrie sighed. A project like this was going to need financial backers, and she was the one who’d need to find them and convince them to invest.

Well, she’d wanted to prove herself. Now she knew how she could do that.

Time for the next folder.

This one, labelled in Nancy’s sprawling hand, boded a little better. “Current bookings,” Carrie read aloud, and smiled. If people were willing to stay at the Avalon when there was a good chance it might fall down around their ears, just wait until Carrie had finished with it.

Flipping the folder open, she started reading, her smile slipping with every word.

It wasn’t a long list, but what there was would take up a great deal of the inn’s resources, with very little recompense. It also explained why Nate’s Seniors had been loitering around earlier, without even the excuse of a flamenco lesson. They were waiting to see which way she was going to jump.

“‘Bridge night, every Wednesday evening, in perpetuum. Dance night—themed—every Monday evening, in perpetuum. Sing-songs, in bar, at will and as needed.’ Who makes bookings this way?”

Carrie slammed the file shut. Not one decent, proper booking in the lot. There wasn’t even any information on what the groups paid for the use of the inn.

“Oh, God, what if she wasn’t charging them at all?” Carrie let out a moan, and dropped the folder to the floor.

How was Carrie supposed to turn an old people’s home into a designer wedding venue?

She leaned back in her chair, rubbing circles at her temples with her index fingers, and considered. The most important thing was keeping the inn. To do that, she needed money, and apparently the banks weren’t likely to provide it. So she needed someone else. Someone who would put up the money but not get involved in the running of the inn.

“It’s my inn, now,” Carrie reminded herself. “So I’m going to have to run it my way.”

It might upset the Seniors, might even upset Nate and the rest of the staff. But the Avalon had been losing money for months. If they wanted to keep it going at all, there were going to have to be some big changes.

“Maybe they can have a dance night once a month. And move the bridge club to lunchtimes.” That sounded fair. A compromise. At least, to start with. Carrie was pretty sure she could phase them out, after the first few months. There had to be other, more suitable inns around willing to accommodate them.

Feeling better for having one thing decided, Carrie glanced up at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, and realised the evening was almost gone. She should think about going to bed.

Except…she remembered her bag, lying on Nancy’s brightly coloured patchwork bedspread.

It made sense for her to stay there, Carrie knew. The bedrooms would be needed for guests, and, before that, for decorating. Nancy’s attic was the only room in the whole place not required to earn its keep.

But did she really have to sleep there tonight? Did she really have to deal with the memories, and the guilt, and the scent from the bottle of Nancy’s perfume still on the dressing table, so soon? Couldn’t it wait, until she’d cleared out the room, packed away all the history?

Of course it could. There were a dozen empty bedrooms in the inn, after all. One of those would do for one night. Or even longer.

Decision made, she gathered her papers together and stood, planning to head into the reception. But glancing back at her chair, she spotted Nancy’s letter leaning against the lamp, circled by the glow of its light.

“What if I’m not ready yet?” she whispered to the empty room, already knowing the answer. It didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter because Nancy had written the letter for her. And how could she begin to work on the Avalon without knowing what Nancy wanted her to do? It was her inn now, but it would always be Nancy’s first.

Carrie dropped into her seat, hearing the leather sigh beneath her, and fumbled with the envelope, eventually pulling out three thin sheets of writing paper, all covered in Nancy’s sprawling purple ink.

The first page was, as she’d expected, a message of love from her grandmother. The second bore an entreaty to treat the Seniors well, and to trust the staff Nancy had put in place.

Carrie’s mouth twisted up into a half-smile. Nothing unexpected there, either, given that Nancy had included the Seniors’ bookings with the most important inn documents. And she had always loved her staff.

Nate will help you, if you let him. Trust him. He’s a good man now. I wouldn’t have left him in charge of the grounds, otherwise. You need him, Carrie. And he needs this place.

Just as she’d thought. Nancy hadn’t thought she could do it alone. But why did she think Nate needed the Avalon? Did the guy have nowhere else to go? So much for hoping he might get bored and move on.

The third page was about the Avalon itself. And about Carrie.

I know you love this place every bit as much as I do. And I know you’ll want to make it your own. Just remember, the Avalon is, and always has been, a home, first and foremost. Make it earn its keep, certainly. But never lose that love.

Carrie folded the pages and returned them to the envelope, blinking against threatening tears. How could Nancy think the Avalon would ever be anything but home to her?

She just needed it to be profitable, too.

He needs this place.

Why? Carrie couldn’t stop herself asking the question. What was it about the Avalon that Nate needed? And how much was it going to get in the way of her plans for the place?

She sighed, shuffling the papers into order. At least she knew where she stood now. She needed a backer. Needed to talk to the bank, the accountant, the lawyer, the builders… She needed to talk to Nate. As much as she hated it, they were going to have to work together on this, at least to start. Not because she couldn’t do it alone, but because Nancy had made it very clear she shouldn’t. Wedding venues needed gardens and outdoor space, for photos and drinks receptions and everything else that went with it.

Nate controlled the gardens. But Carrie was in charge of the Avalon Inn. They had to work together.

Just as long as he remembered that she was the boss.

Tucking the letter from Nancy back inside her folder, Carrie gathered her patience and went to talk to Nate.