The Hotel at Honeymoon Station : A totally heartwarming romance about new beginnings

by Tilly Tennant

  Emma saw how earnest her expression was and the worries of the previous day melted now. Perhaps she’d been overtired and anxious about nothing much at all.

  ‘Then go and get yourself some fun,’ she said. ‘If anyone deserves some fun it’s you.’

  ‘It’s both of us.’

  Emma shook her head with a wry smile. ‘I’ll get my fun pulling up the weeds and knocking old tiles off the station roof – it’s far less likely to break my heart.’

  Tia had already eaten so finished getting dressed before making a packed lunch for them while Emma ate and got dressed herself. Then they headed to the station to meet the builders they’d contracted. The plan was for Purcell’s to spend the first day on site making preparations to start work – erecting scaffolding, etc. – while Tia and Emma saved money by doing the kinds of labouring that didn’t require much in the way of skills, like clearing the ground of weeds, carting old furniture and rubble away, and general fetching and carrying.

  With a new day and the overwhelming strangeness of their arrival in Honeymoon behind them, although the place still looked as neglected and forlorn as it had the day before, somehow the prospect of tackling the work needed to restore the station didn’t seem so daunting.

  Tia checked the time on her phone as they walked the area again to take stock and work out what to tackle first.

  ‘Purcell’s said they’d be here by eight thirty,’ she said. ‘It’s almost nine.’

  ‘Hmm. What builder has ever been on time?’

  ‘True,’ Tia said. ‘But it’s annoying. We can’t really get stuck into anything until they’re here.’

  ‘We could do a bit.’

  ‘But we’d just get into it and then have to stop again, and that’s a pain.’

  ‘We’d probably be in the middle of pulling a weed… I’m not sure that’s a time-sensitive task.’

  Tia burst out laughing. ‘See – I said you were the brains of the outfit.’

  ‘Well you’re definitely the muscles,’ Emma said.

  ‘At least I won’t miss the gym – there’s plenty enough working out to be had here, that’s for sure.’

  ‘And it’s free.’

  ‘Apart from the thousands we had to pay to buy the place?’

  ‘Ah, well, yes… apart from all those thousands. Let’s not think about that too often.’

  Tia checked the time again. ‘I’m going to call them,’ she said. Before Emma could offer an opinion either way she had dialled the number and put her phone to her ear.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said a moment later. ‘Not picking up.’

  ‘Maybe they’re en route.’

  ‘And they don’t have hands-free in the van? Purcell is running a business – that’s the least he should have.’

  ‘You think that because you’re very good. Maybe he’s not quite as efficient as you are.’

  ‘That on its own isn’t a good sign. If he’s not here by nine thirty, which is an hour late, I vote we fire him and find someone more reliable.’

  ‘We can’t do that! Who are we going to find at such short notice? There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for them being late – roadworks or anything.’

  ‘Yes, there may be, but most people would call ahead to warn us.’

  ‘Perhaps they weren’t able to for some reason.’

  ‘Well I think it’s poor. If this is the first day I don’t hold out much hope for the days after this.’

  Emma looked askance at her friend. This new ruthless Tia was someone she hadn’t seen before. It was probably a good thing – one of them needed a ruthless business head – but she wasn’t sure she was a fan.

  ‘I still say we can’t just fire them without giving them a chance,’ she insisted, and she felt she was right. Tia might have had a point about professional courtesy, but Emma believed in fairness and giving the benefit of the doubt. Not to mention the time and effort they’d have to expend finding someone else – time they didn’t have and effort they’d be better putting into the renovation work.

  Unless…

  Emma’s thought processes paused momentarily as she struck on perhaps the real reason Tia was so keen to get rid of the company they’d booked already. She quickly dismissed it – surely Tia wasn’t that shallow, and surely she wouldn’t play so fast and loose with this project, the thing that was about to change both their lives forever. Whether that would be for better or for worse it was impossible to tell right now, but a lot was riding on the decisions they made about it.

  ‘Why don’t we at least mark out what we want to get cleared today,’ Emma said. ‘The skip will be here soon and we’re paying by the day – we might as well make full use of it.’

  Tia looked at her phone again and then relented. ‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Let’s get started.’

  An hour later Emma was covered in sweat. Her arms and back ached, her hands were blistered, despite the heavy gardening gloves, and she was covered in tiny scratches. She was fairly sure she had a few bug bites too, and it would be fun trying to sleep with those itching like mad later. But she was happy now, fulfilled, doing a task that felt like something more worthwhile than any poxy overtime spreadsheet she’d filled in at Burnbury’s.

  Taking a moment to stretch her arms and back, she took off a glove to wipe her brow and looked across at Tia, who was now stripped down to leggings and sports bra and looked like the sort of goddess you saw on the athletics track at the Olympics. She was currently wrestling with a thick-stemmed weed that was taller than her. Emma had no idea what it was but it wouldn’t have looked look out of place in an old Star Trek episode, planted on the landscape of an alien planet.

  Seeming to sense Emma’s gaze on her, Tia stopped what she was doing and looked across.

  ‘What time is it?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Time Purcell was here,’ Tia said shortly.

  ‘Should we try phoning again?’ Now even Emma couldn’t deny that their contractors had had plenty of opportunity to let her and Tia know they were going to be delayed and what time they planned to get there. And if they couldn’t predict a time, they could at least offer an explanation for it.

  Tia yanked off her own gloves and took her phone from a thigh pocket in her leggings. Emma watched as she made the call and saw her forehead begin to wrinkle into another exasperated frown as it rang out again. It wasn’t the most auspicious start to their venture – Emma only hoped it wasn’t a bad sign.

  Tia put her phone away with a thunderous expression that needed no commentary.

  ‘OK,’ Emma sighed. ‘I suppose if we don’t hear anything today we’re going to have to do something about it.’

  ‘It’s not a great start, is it?’

  ‘Just what I was thinking.’

  ‘Still’ – Tia put her gloves back on and faced her towering weed-foe once more – ‘I suppose it’ll all work out eventually.’

  Emma couldn’t help a smile. Her friend had already stopped worrying about it, and Emma was beginning to feel that Tia’s faith in nothing in particular was infectious, because as she turned back to her own toil she decided not to let it bother her either. After all, getting angry wasn’t going to bring those contractors over any quicker.

  By the time lunch arrived Emma had completely forgotten she wasn’t going to worry or get angry and was now very concerned about their contractors’ no-show.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked. ‘We need some kind of contact from them and nobody is picking up on that number you have. Is there another one you can try?’

  ‘I tried it,’ Tia said. ‘First thing I did.’

  ‘You did?’ Emma asked, wondering when Tia had called it because she hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Yes, and they didn’t answer that one either.’

  ‘What kind of terrible management is that?’

  ‘I know.’ Tia opened a pack of crisps and shovelled a handful into her mouth. ‘God, I’m starving!’

  Emma perched on an upturned wheelbarrow. ‘Me too.
What flavour crisps do we have?’

  ‘I put ready salted and chicken in.’

  ‘Bit of a random selection.’

  ‘First ones I grabbed this morning. Which ones do you want?’

  ‘I’ll have chicken.’

  Tia tossed a pack over from her hamper. ‘I suppose we could ask the Ronson brothers if they could fit us in,’ she said carelessly.

  Emma looked up from her crisps. ‘I still think we ought to find out what happened to Purcell’s first. It’s going to be very awkward if we employ someone else and then they turn up to do the job after all.’

  ‘They should have turned up when they said they were going to and then we wouldn’t have to get anyone else. Besides, they won’t turn up if we tell them to stick it.’

  ‘Still…’ Emma said lamely, though she knew she was already losing this battle. She also had to agree privately that Tia had a point, though the force with which she was driving it home made her suspect an ulterior motive.

  ‘And I only said we could ask if they could fit us in,’ Tia continued. ‘Nell at the shop said they’re busy all the time so they might say they can’t, in which case we’re back to plan A.’

  ‘Whatever the hell that is now,’ Emma said.

  ‘Something will turn up.’

  Emma raised her eyebrows in mild disbelief. ‘I wish I could share your optimism.’

  ‘I think the boys will find a way to fit us in. After all, it’s months of steady work right on their doorstep – that’s got to be an attractive prospect.’

  ‘That’s probably not the only attractive prospect,’ Emma said wryly.

  ‘Well,’ Tia said with a grin, ‘I’d be lying if I said our original builders letting us down wasn’t a bit serendipitous.’

  ‘Look at you with the fancy words!’

  ‘Just trying to keep up with you.’ Tia got up and dusted down the back of her leggings before folding her empty crisp packet and stuffing it into the pocket of their cool bag. ‘I’m going into the village – want me to get anything for you while I’m there?’

  ‘You’re going now?’

  ‘Yeah, I want to go to the shop.’

  ‘What for? You’ve brought loads of stuff.’

  ‘I could murder a cola.’

  Emma frowned. ‘How are you such a toned goddess? I’ve seen you eat crisps and cake and now fizzy drinks… I thought people like you lived on nuts and the rarefied air of gym-cooling systems.’

  ‘I used to,’ Tia said with a grin. ‘But that was all Jerome’s doing. Now I’m going to let myself go, and I’m going to enjoy it.’

  ‘Really? Undo all that work it took to get your amazing body?’

  ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ Tia said carelessly, ‘it was Jerome’s idea to be at the gym every day. He was the one measuring obsessively and nagging me to do more. I like a workout as much as the next reasonably healthy person, but I hated being there so often. I hated the protein shakes and the detox diets and the macronutrient counting. I only did all that because Jerome told me it was so important all the bloody time. While I intend on staying this size, I figure I deserve to relax a bit now we’re not together. Anyway, I think most men don’t actually mind buns that are a bit squidgier, so if mine are less steel and more sponge cake, I don’t think it will matter all that much.’

  ‘When you put it like that…’ Emma dug her hand into the pack for another crisp.

  ‘So what are you going to ditch now that you’re not with Dougie?’

  ‘Men.’

  Tia raised her eyebrows.

  ‘You don’t believe me?’ Emma asked. ‘I know you’re ready to move on, but I have a track record. I don’t know if it’s me, but all the men I’ve been with turn out to be Dougies in the end. He lasted a bit longer than the others but he ended up being the worst. I have no faith in my ability to choose a man so I’m better off not doing it at all.’

  ‘Maybe you should let someone else choose for you.’

  ‘Well they couldn’t do a worse job than me.’

  ‘Let me do it.’

  Emma narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh no, I know where this is going. Absolutely not!’

  ‘You don’t know what I’m going to suggest.’

  ‘You go after Blake and then you fix up some serendipitous’ – she waggled her eyebrows to accentuate the word – ‘scenario where I date his brother and we all live happily ever after. Let me put you straight now – never going to happen.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s attractive?’

  ‘I’d be mad to think otherwise but that’s not the point. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.’

  ‘God, you’re so pessimistic sometimes.’

  ‘And if it ends badly and we end up needing to employ them at some point in the future to work on the hotel… well that would be horribly awkward, wouldn’t it? Sorry, Tia, but forget it.’

  Tia shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, but I think you’re missing out on a golden opportunity.’

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ Emma said. ‘One golden opportunity at a time is more than enough for me to handle.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was Emma’s turn to cook, but she was exhausted and sore and she wondered if she went to Honeymoon Café and asked very nicely, Darcie or Tariq might take pity on her and plate up something nice to take away for supper. Tia was in agreement, as she didn’t fancy cooking either, though they also agreed that they wouldn’t be able to do this too often because regular takeaways would cost money they couldn’t really spare. But as it had been their first day on site and a heavy one at that, they both figured they deserved to take a night off from the kitchen. The café was closer than the pub, and at least they knew they’d have a warm welcome from its owners. Besides, it would be a good opportunity to take a stroll through the village. There wasn’t much to see, but perhaps it would start to feel like home a lot quicker the better they knew it.

  So Emma gathered what little energy she had left and took a walk out into the evening. It was cooling rapidly, and a fresh breeze rolled down the high street, rattling the swinging sign of the Randy Shepherd pub, rustling through the leaves of the old oak tree that stood proud in its own special enclosure at the centre of the village, and sending streams through the grass of the tiny village green. Emma took it all in. Pretty as it all was, and hard as she tried to manifest the feeling of home, it still felt very alien. She felt like a traveller passing through, as if Honeymoon were somewhere that would soon be a pleasant memory as she moved on to the next place. It was hard to shake the feeling of transience even though she wanted to; harder still to shake the notion that, somehow, she didn’t deserve to live in such a beautiful place, that fate would soon realise its mistake and take it all away from her.

  Darcie was pleased to see her and only too happy to oblige her request. She recommended a smoked-salmon quiche made at her cousin’s bakery and Emma took it, knowing they had fries in the freezer that they could throw in the oven for a no-fuss meal. She also took a couple of slabs of Madeira cake (they too had been made at the bakery) and, after a brief chat with Darcie and Tariq, filling them in on her day and bemoaning the absence of the contractors they’d been expecting, she headed home with her goodies.

  When she arrived at the cottage, Tia was just ending a phone call.

  ‘That was Purcell’s,’ she said, following Emma into the kitchen.

  ‘Oh?’ Emma put the bags of food on the dining table and went to get a baking tray for their oven fries. ‘What did they say? I hope you got a decent explanation out of them.’

  ‘They’d run behind on a job they’d been doing last week and had to go and finish it today.’

  ‘And they couldn’t let us know? Thoughtful of them.’

  ‘That’s what I said. Purcell said he’d asked one of his guys to give us a call. He said he’d look into why it didn’t happen.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why he personally didn’t return any of the calls we made to his phone. He must have seen them.’


  ‘I said that too.’ Tia began to unwrap her quiche while Emma put the fries in the oven; she’d switched it on before heading over to the café. ‘He told me he’d been so busy he hadn’t noticed any calls come through.’

  ‘And he’d been that busy until…’ Emma looked up at the clock. ‘Seven p.m.? Well I suppose we ought to be thankful he called eventually. Is he planning on coming tomorrow?’

  ‘He said so.’

  ‘You don’t think he will?’ Emma turned to her. ‘Surely they wouldn’t let us down again?’

  ‘I don’t buy the story he gave about today. It’s hardly the way to start a professional relationship.’

  ‘Where could they have been then?’

  Tia shrugged.

  ‘I suppose you’re right, but we don’t have a lot of choice but to take it at face value and give them another chance.’

  ‘We do, actually. So I told him he was fired and not to bother coming tomorrow.’

  Emma stared at her. ‘You did what?’

  ‘Em… we’re two women. We have to work harder to get respect from these people. If someone like that thinks they can play us for fools and get away with it things will go downhill from there pretty quickly and the piss-takes will get worse and worse. Every sunny day, every heavy night, every more lucrative last-minute job that comes in… there’ll be excuse after excuse for them to turn up when it suits them and to leave us in the lurch when it doesn’t. We have to start as we mean to go on – we take no bull and show that we mean business.’

  ‘That may be but you should have consulted me before you did anything – we’re supposed to be business partners.’

  ‘We are, but, Em, I’ve been in business before and you haven’t. You’re too nice and too soft, which are lovely things to be in life but not in business. Trust me, you can’t afford to be forgiving when it comes to people like Purcell.’

  Emma turned back to the oven and peered through the glass door to check on the food. She didn’t like what Tia was saying, but she couldn’t deny the logic of it. She looked round again.

  ‘So what are we going to do?’ she asked, though she had a feeling she already knew the answer to that question.