Eve Devon - The Little Clock House on the Green

‘And should I use your exact description…?’ Cheryl asked, with a raised eyebrow.

‘Oh,’ Kate faltered. ‘No. Um, he said his name was Daniel,’ she tacked on helpfully, and Juliet was surprised to see the pink still hanging about on her cousin’s cheeks deepen a shade further.

‘So where did you bump into this Mr TDH? Was it at,’ Juliet mouthed her last words, ‘The Clock House?’ even though her mum’s back was turned as she grabbed her bag to look for her phone.

Cheryl opened the kitchen back door and stepped outside, presumably for peace and quiet when she delivered the gossip to Trudie that her niece hadn’t even been back a week and had already quite possibly lost the plot.

Kate nodded. ‘He was standing in the open doorway, presumably waiting for someone to walk into him. I mean who does that?’

Juliet had to hide her smile when Kate belatedly looked around, realised she was standing right in the doorway and moved to take her mum’s place at the kitchen table.

‘I didn’t stand a chance,’ Kate continued. ‘There I was, wandering back in through the garden doors at a completely leisurely pace when I, well, I ran right into him. You’d think he’d have had the good sense to remain upright, because it isn’t as if he isn’t well-built – but no – instead he tries to do the hero thing and reach out to help me and instead we both fall to the ground.’

‘Wow. You called him Mr Tall Dark and Handsome,’ Juliet said, grinning delightedly. ‘You said he was well-built. You’re all… breathy and flushed.’

Kate grimaced. ‘Yes, well, it’s unusually hot for the middle of May.’

‘You think he’s gorgeous,’ Juliet sing-songed. ‘You want to date him… you want to hug him… you want to kiss him… you want to marry him.’

‘Oh my God, thank you, Gracie Hart, can you bring Juliet back now,’ Kate pleaded with a roll of her huge brown eyes.

‘Sorry, not sorry,’ Juliet shot back, laughing and trying to remember if she had ever seen Kate so flustered about a man. She’d occasionally talked about Marco in her emails, but only lightly. In fact, so lightly that by the time Juliet had realised she’d stopped mentioning him altogether, so much time had passed that Juliet hadn’t wanted to open up any wounds by asking what had happened. ‘So what was this guy doing at The Clock House, and how did it go when you got there?’ Juliet’s hand snuck under the table to tightly cross her fingers.

‘He–’

‘Right,’ Cheryl said, coming back into the kitchen, and cutting Kate off, ‘Trudie couldn’t actually remember this Daniel’s last name.’

Kate threw her hands dramatically up into the air. ‘Fabulous. How am I supposed to Google him now?’

‘Why do we need to Google him?’ Juliet asked.

‘So, if I could finish…?’ Cheryl said, nodding her head when Kate and Juliet turned to look at her. ‘She can’t remember his last name, but if you had actually gone to visit your mum like you said you were going to, you could have found out everything you needed to know for yourself because this Daniel chap is staying with her as a guest while waiting for his car to be repaired.’

Kate’s eyes widened to saucers. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, ‘he’s infiltrated enemy camp already. Oh, this is not good. Not good at all.’

‘Okay,’ Juliet interrupted calmly. ‘Let’s suppose both Mum’s and my Kate-interpreting skills are a little rusty. Start at the beginning. You went to The Clock House and…?’

Kate took a couple of calming breaths. ‘Sorry. And sorry, Aunt Cheryl – I know I said I was going to see Mum, but I–’ she dragged in another calming breath, ‘I went to The Clock House instead. I haven’t been back there since,’ she swallowed and Juliet’s heart broke at the bleak light that had crept into her cousin’s eyes. ‘I haven’t been able to go back there since Bea died and so, well, that’s where I went. At first the memories where overwhelming but, then it was almost as if it knew what I could handle, you know?’ she looked up at both Juliet and Cheryl for confirmation and all Juliet could do was smile gently back. ‘Anyway, it was good. Great actually…’

Juliet’s heart leaped.

‘…I mean there was a middle bit where it wasn’t,’ Kate continued. ‘Where I started thinking I can’t do this. I can’t be here. And I definitely can’t follow old dreams and open the place back up as a business. And I was thinking how on earth am I going to tell you, Juliet?’

Juliet felt Kate looking at her and hoped she couldn’t see the blood draining from her face. Kate was the strongest person she knew and she really thought that tempting her into coming back was the right thing to do. But the angst in her voice, the fine tremble in the hands she’d clasped together in front of her…

‘But then,’ Kate continued, ‘I walked out into the courtyard and through the moon-gate – and I saw Bea’s bees. They are Bea’s, aren’t they?’

Juliet nodded.

‘Are you looking after them?’ Kate asked her.

Juliet shook her head and tried to find her voice. The pretty little beehives that had stood in the meadow backing onto The Clock House remained because of one person. And darn it – why did she always lose the ability to speak when it came to him?

‘Is it–’ Kate looked from Juliet to Cheryl, ‘Is it Oscar that’s looking after them?’

Juliet felt the weight of her mother’s stare, despite it being so gentle. Oh, good grief, she knew.

‘It is, Oscar, yes,’ Cheryl said.

Juliet watched Kate’s eyes close as if to absorb what that meant and her hand snuck under the table again, this time to pick nervously at the hem of her dress.

‘Okay, well, that’s good,’ Kate eventually whispered, shaking her head a little, presumably to put the unshed tears back in their place. ‘It’s good to think of them being looked after. Bea loved them so.’

Juliet couldn’t bear it. Getting up from the table, she said, ‘It’s got to be wine o’clock somewhere in the world, right?’

Kate sniffed. ‘Don’t bother on my account. I’m okay. It was just a shock to see them, that’s all. But, oh – I haven’t even told you… It was seeing the bees that made me think everything might be okay after all.’

‘It was?’ Juliet felt those little wings of hope flutter inside her chest.

‘Yes. I don’t know if Bea ever told anyone, but she came up with all these wonderful recipes for using honey in her organic beauty treatments. That’s why she kept the bees.’

‘That hair conditioner she used to make,’ Cheryl murmured. ‘She was always telling me there was a secret ingredient. Must have been the honey.’

‘It was,’ Kate admitted. ‘And when I saw the bees it reminded me about how she went to see Old Man Isaac to ask him if she could site them there and how he was so kind to her. After seeing them, all I could think was that I wanted to use Bea’s honey. I want to open the day spa. I have to do it. Somehow. Which brings me to the teeny-tiny thorny problem…’

‘Whatever it is, I’m sure we can fix it,’ Juliet immediately said. ‘I’ll help.’

‘You have no idea how much I love you for saying that,’ Kate replied. ‘It’s this Daniel… he wants to buy it!’

‘Buy what? Bea’s bees? The honey?’

‘No. He wants to buy The Clock House.’

‘But whatever for?’ Juliet asked, feeling all her plans slip away.

‘Not sure. Can’t let him get it, though. I need to phone Old Man Isaac and organise a meeting, or do you think it would be more professional to go through the estate agent? No. Business is all about using your contacts, right?’

Juliet’s mum stood up. ‘I think I’ll love you and leave you both. You have a lot to talk over together.’