The Little Clock House on the Green: A heartwarming cosy romance perfect for summer. Eve DevonЧитать онлайн книгу.
clients. Spend my days doing semi-waves and sets. But I want more than that. I appreciate that this is Whispers Wood and the clientele is somewhat older. But with the right location and the right ambience… which is The Clock House all over if you buy it and open it as a day spa… Well, in a nutshell, I want to be able to rent some space from you. If I open in The Clock House I could attract clients from outside Whispers Wood. I know I could.’
‘I know you could too. That’s not what I’m worried about.’
‘Oh.’ From her earliest memories Juliet had somehow understood she’d always be just on the periphery of the bond Kate and Bea had shared. She fiddled with the corner of the file she’d been clutching. ‘Is it – is it that this was all yours and Bea’s dream? Not the salon part but the spa, and you think to do it with anyone else wouldn’t be right. That she wouldn’t have liked it?’
‘No. No not at all. I’m worried that you’re incredibly polished and professional… and I’m not. I have the idea and that’s it. I need to spend hours working out if this is all properly doable. I guess I’m worried that if it isn’t… there wouldn’t be anything to hold me here.’
‘If you don’t want to take the risk, I need you to know I’m going to do this anyway. That’s how serious I am about this. I have a loan from the bank – it’s not huge, but it would be enough to open a tiny salon in one of the empty shops on the green. It won’t be the same, but this is what I really want.’
‘You see? You’ve spent proper grown-up time coming to this conclusion. I’m pretty sure pebble-tossing didn’t even enter your head as a decision-making process.’
‘But Kate, you have thought about this more than that. All those years you and Bea dreamt about opening up the spa. You haven’t forgotten all of that. You’ve just filed it away in a box marked ‘difficult’. You access all of that thinking and you’ll find you’re already halfway there. And I bet you’ve done some thinking these last few weeks. You just don’t want to admit how much.’
‘Okay. Say you’re right – say I’ve had some… thoughts about what it would be like running my own business. Say I think that having a hair salon along with a day spa would only benefit us both…What happens now?’
‘You phone Old Man Isaac and make an appointment with him.’
‘It’s as simple as that?’
‘I think it has to be. If we keep focusing on how big a thing this is, then we might not follow through. And, Kate? I really want the both of us to follow through on this.’ Juliet knew she had to do something to drag herself out of fantasy-land and into fulfilling-a-lifelong-dream-land.
‘I guess there’s no time like the present,’ Kate said, suddenly standing up so that she could push her hand into her pocket. Out came a folded-up piece of paper. ‘It’s the estate-agent deets. I’ll make the call now.’
Juliet smiled. ‘I’ll get us set up in the lounge, there’s at least another four inches of space in there!’
She could hear Kate on the phone as she set about clearing her sewing machine from the coffee table. They were really going to do this. She hadn’t felt this fluttery, excited feeling since… a pair of sinfully gorgeous green eyes popped into her head and with practised concentration she shooed them away again so that she could focus on the task at hand.
‘I’m all set for visiting Old Man Isaac tomorrow morning at ten,’ Kate told her when she re-entered the kitchen. ‘We’re going to have to work our arses off to prep before then. I need to come up with a solid plan as polished as yours in case he asks what I want to do with the place. Hey, you know what we need?’
‘Another batch of martinis?’
‘Nope. Cake. Can you make one of your famous Victoria sponges? Is that still his favourite? I’ll take it with me when I go tomorrow.’
‘Ooh, good idea.’
‘It’s these kinds of little touches that are going to help win him over.’
‘That and the fact that I’m going to lend you one of my dresses.’
‘No daisy-dukes at the meeting?’
‘You want to impress him with your business prowess, not give him a heart attack.’
Kate tipped some of her remaining honey martini into Juliet’s jam jar and slid it back to her before picking hers up and holding it aloft. ‘To Gloria, then’ she said, making a toast.
‘To Gloria,’ Juliet agreed, holding her jam jar aloft. ‘And all the cats,’ she added, as Catty McCatface made an appearance in the kitchen.
Kate grinned as she looked at him and then started singing, ‘Memory, all alone in the moonlight…’
Juliet tipped the last of the alcohol down her throat and joined in.
Catty McCatface looked derisively at the humans as if to say that the sooner cats developed opposable thumbs, the sooner the human slaves would remember their place.
Birdsong, Baskets and Business Plans
Kate
Kate stood in Juliet’s kitchen, nervously trying to make sure that every single one of the butterflies swarming inside her stayed inside her and under control. If she could just keep a lid on them a while longer, then she had every chance of getting through this meeting and coming out the other side of it with her offer on The Clock House being accepted.
So, no biggie, then.
When she’d been standing in front of the full-length mirror that hung on the back of Juliet’s bedroom door, staring at her reflection with a critical eye, she’d thought that she looked good in the white dress covered in tiny violets. She’d thought she’d looked pretty and professional or at least pretty professional.
But now that she was waiting for Juliet to get back with the cake all she could see as she smoothed her hands down the front of the nineteen-sixties-styled dress, with its gorgeously swishy skirt and nipped-in waist, was her chest.
She frowned. She was a little, and for a little, read a lot, fuller in the bust area than Juliet and as she dragged in a shaky breath and felt her diaphragm push tightly against the material of the dress, she was very grateful there weren’t any buttons that could ping off mid-meeting.
‘I’m back, panic over,’ Juliet said, breezing in through the cottage.
‘Who was panicking?’ Kate harrumphed, feeling sick. She’d only glanced at the kitchen clock eleven million times in the twenty minutes that Juliet had been gone.
‘My bad,’ Juliet said dryly, putting the box she’d purchased down on the kitchen counter in front of Kate. ‘There you go. One perfectly factory-formed Victoria sponge from Big Kev’s.’
Kate stared at the box. Even the photo on the front didn’t look as good as the kissed-by-angels, light-as-air, yummylicious Victoria sponge stuffed with home-made strawberry jam and clotted cream that Juliet had made yesterday. If only they hadn’t eaten it at one o’clock this morning when they were tired, hungry and had needed the pick-me-up.
‘Right, open it up and pop it on this plate,’ Juliet said, putting a pretty floral china plate down on the counter, ‘we’ll have this ready to go in a jiffy.’
Leaning forward, Kate slid her finger under the corner of the cardboard box and pushed it along until the flap popped open. A quick tussle with the cellophane wrapping and then she was plopping the cake onto the plate.
She stared down at it. ‘Um… maybe it