Linda Mitchelmore - The Little B & B at Cove End

‘Pretty much,’ Cara said with a yawn – the last thing she wanted was to pursue this conversation, but poor Josh was looking genuinely contrite now, and concerned. ‘Mae’s laptop. Her jewellery. And a fair bit of my stuff’s gone as well.’

‘Look, Mrs Howard,’ Josh said. ‘I can see you want me to go. I can see you’re both pretty shook up and tired by events. It’s true I saw the police car and panicked a bit, wondering what it was Mae might have said about me earlier, but I was on my way here anyway. When I sobered up, I remembered stuff. So I’ve got something I have to tell you. Before Mae hears it in the village. Bailey Lucas is spreading rumours. Look, can I speak to you on your own, Mrs. Howard?’

‘No!’ Mae shrieked. ‘Everyone treats me like a baby and I’m not. Anything you have to say to Mum you can say to me. Right, Mum?’

‘What do you want to tell me?’ Cara asked.

‘Not in front of Mae,’ Josh persisted.

‘Oh, stuff it!’ Mae said. ‘That Bailey Lucas is just making trouble because I finished with him. I only went out with him a couple of times anyway so it’s not like we were an item! Whatever he’s saying it’s probably nothing much, nothing even worth staying here to listen to anyway. I’m going to have a shower and wash my hair because the thought that strangers have been through my stuff is making me feel dirty. Get it? Let me know when I’m old enough to be in your company, Josh Maynard!’

Cara watched her daughter go, waited until she heard the shower running. Josh put his hands in the pockets of his jeans and took them out again at least half a dozen times.

‘So?’ Cara asked when the shower had been running for a good two minutes – Mae would be in there at least fifteen minutes.

‘Bailey Lucas is saying that Mae’s dad had a huge gambling habit and owed money and that half the goods from this house are in pawn shops all over Devon or sold to whoever would buy them. Pub landlords mostly.’

Cara put her hands to her mouth. What could she say? She’d kept Mark’s gambling from Mae until now. But even she hadn’t known about the selling of her household goods in pubs until Rosie had told her. But pawn shops? Cara didn’t even know where there was one – or what you had to do to use one. But she didn’t doubt what Josh was saying was true – Mark’s addiction had been so great she’d often wondered if he’d sell his own body to fund it. Why, she wondered, was all this coming out now, two years after Mark’s death? Respect, perhaps, for when she was newly widowed had stopped people saying anything before, but now time had passed, tongues were loosening up again?

‘Do you have proof Bailey Lucas is saying these things?’

‘Well, um …’

‘You haven’t, have you?’

‘Must be him. We met him in Meg Smythson’s earlier and he was, like, confrontational. His sister, Xia, works behind the bar …’

‘That’s not proof, Josh,’ Cara said. ‘And I think it would be a good idea not to spread that particular rumour yourself. But it is true my husband gambled.’

‘But Mae doesn’t know?’

‘No. Not yet.’

‘I won’t say a word,’ Josh said. ‘But she needs to know. Soon.’

‘Of course. But I have to find the right moment. Come with me.’ Josh followed as she led the way into the kitchen. ‘You probably noticed the patches on the walls that hadn’t faded like the rest of it … where paintings had been. It’s the same in here. Mark took the paintings, little by little, to sell them to fund his gambling. He left me – us, Mae and me – choosing gambling over his family. And it seems the Hines have taken what Mark left behind: my mother’s silver, which was valuable.’

Cara knew she might be taking a risk telling Josh, but he seemed more man than boy. And he was the son of a vicar. He had to be used to his father being told things that would go no further.

‘Lowlifes,’ Josh said.

‘More than,’ Cara agreed. ‘But I can’t risk telling Mae any of that, Josh …’

But then Mae came back into the kitchen in the towelling robe that had been her dad’s – her comfort robe she’d called it, wrapping it around her the night Cara had told her that her dad had been killed, and using it at every opportunity since; it drowned her, making her look so vulnerable, so small somehow, although she was already five feet six inches tall, almost as tall as Cara. Mae fiddled with the towel wound around her wet hair, loosening it then winding it tight again.

‘Can’t tell me what?’ Mae said.

‘That you’re very beautiful when you’re angry,’ Josh said, grinning at them both. ‘The biggest cliché of them all but hey, it’s true at the moment. Forgive?’ he finished, making a prayer gesture with his hands to Mae, and Cara remembered how Meg Smythson had said Josh could charm the birds from the trees. Was that a flutter of Mae’s eyelashes?

‘I might consider it,’ Mae said.

‘Another chance?’ Josh asked.

‘Try me?’ Mae said, which served for Cara’s heart to plummet to somewhere down around her feet that she hadn’t given Mark another chance – all this wouldn’t be happening if she had. ‘As long as alcohol isn’t involved.’

‘Not a drop will pass my lips,’ Josh said. ‘That was one wake-up call tonight.’

‘Yeah, but just remember,’ Mae said, ‘that actions speak louder than words. Right?’

Josh’s eyes widened in surprise at Mae’s words, which made Cara want to laugh. But how proud she was in that moment of her feisty daughter, coming back from her shock and commanding the situation.

‘Indeed,’ Josh said, pulling himself up tall, and looking directly at Mae. ‘I was wondering if you fancy going sailing next weekend?’

Mae shrugged. I dunno, the shrug said, but Cara could tell by the light in Mae’s eyes and knowing how she loved sailing with Mark that she was considering it.

It seemed Josh had come to that conclusion too because he said, ‘If, you know, you haven’t got any gear any more you can borrow a lifejacket from my sister. And even her Helly Hansen. She won’t mind. That okay with you, Mrs Howard?’

‘As long as Mae’s comfortable with it,’ Cara said. Rosie’s voice came into her head asking her what the hell she was thinking agreeing to let her daughter go off with someone who was obviously a professional charmer, because hadn’t he turned the situation around, barging in scared out of his wits about what Mae might have told the police about him, and when he found she’d said nothing at all and that Cove End had been robbed by the Hines, he’d come over all concerned for her and Mae to suit his own ends? ‘Mae?’

‘Yeah. Fine,’ Mae said. ‘Maybe I need the diversion? Text me, eh? Saturday or Sunday. Whichever’s best for tides and weather.’

Cara let out an audible sigh of relief that Mae had water safety uppermost in her mind.

‘Yeah, will do,’ Josh said. ‘Better let you get your beauty sleep, then. Not that you need it, Mae.’

‘Oh give over, Maynard,’ Mae laughed. ‘I’m getting the drift. You’re sorry. You’re making amends, and I think you might be making my mother sick with all your smarmy charm, but it doesn’t fool me. Any more and I’ll change my mind about the weekend.’

Mae yawned theatrically and it was all Cara could do not to burst out laughing. Mae might not have a father around to look out for her any more, but she was learning how to stick up for herself and Cara had to be thankful for that.

‘You’re too kind,’ Josh said, laughing. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

And then he was gone.

‘You can change your mind if you want to, darling,’ Cara said. ‘You know, when you’ve had more time to think things through. If you think Josh might just be saying things he wants us to hear?’