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

by Tilly Tennant

  ‘I can imagine,’ Patricia said. ‘I very much get that impression from talking to her today. Very excitable.’

  ‘But it’s going well?’ Dominic asked. ‘You’re happy?’

  ‘Of course,’ Emma said, trying not to think about how wretched she’d felt that morning and how she’d been thinking more and more about home in Wrenwick and how she felt like this project was bigger than she could cope with and she was convinced she was going to fail and lose all her dad’s money. ‘It’s going great,’ she said. ‘If you want I’ll take you to have a look.’

  ‘We’d love that,’ Dominic said. ‘But it won’t hold you up?’

  ‘There’s not much going to happen today,’ Emma said, and she couldn’t mask the tone of defeat she’d been trying so hard to hold back. Her aunt and uncle exchanged a worried look that she didn’t miss. ‘I’m OK,’ she added. ‘It’s just taking so much longer than we’d planned. Honestly. I don’t think we’ll be ready this year, let alone this summer.’

  ‘These things always take longer than you think they will,’ Dominic said sagely.

  Darcie came back with their drinks and cake.

  ‘Now this is what I call breakfast!’ Dominic accepted his slice from Darcie with a smile.

  ‘I’d say we’re closer to elevenses now,’ Patricia said.

  Emma glanced at the clock with a vague agreement, though it only reminded her of how much of the day they’d already wasted. It was lovely to see her aunt and uncle, of course, but it was hard to relax and enjoy their company knowing how much work she had to do, that every lost hour let the schedule slip further and further out of reach. Later, she was going to have to talk to Tia about putting in some evenings and weekends on the site, and she knew Tia wasn’t going to like that one bit if it stopped her from seeing Blake.

  ‘Your friend could have stayed a while,’ Patricia said. ‘It would have been nice to get to know her.’

  Emma gave Darcie a grateful smile and watched for a moment as she returned to the counter to give them some privacy. ‘I expect she’s keen to get some work done. It’s very frustrating having the ground flooded and all this stupid rain.’

  ‘I expect it’ll dry out soon enough,’ Dominic said.

  ‘That’s what Aidan told me this morning.’

  ‘These men…’ Patricia poured some tea from the pot. ‘They’re reliable? You had trouble with your first ones, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh, Blake and Aidan aren’t like that at all – they’re really good,’ Emma said. ‘They’re local too, so they’re always close at hand and know the area well.’

  ‘Hmm, sounds like they’re quite a find.’

  Emma nodded. ‘They are.’

  ‘I suppose they’ve got family here then?’ Patricia asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Emma said. ‘Honeymoon born and bred. I haven’t met their parents… I suppose it might be a bit weird if I asked. They just work for us after all.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Patricia agreed. ‘No children?’

  ‘No, they’re both single… though, of course, Blake isn’t technically single now.’

  ‘It does make things easier when there are no ties – they can concentrate on the job and give you more time if you need it,’ Dominic said.

  ‘I suppose so…’ Emma stirred some milk into her tea.

  ‘So you haven’t met anyone since you’ve been here?’ her aunt asked.

  Emma frowned slightly. ‘You know I would have told you – I tell you everything.’

  ‘I know, I know…’ Patricia smiled slightly. ‘But still, I don’t expect you to and I was just asking… So no burly Dorset farmer has taken your fancy?’

  Emma laughed. ‘No.’

  ‘Well you’ll be pleased to know that Dougie is out of your hair for good now.’

  Emma looked up sharply, fork dug in her cake.

  Patricia nodded. ‘He’s moved in with an older lady… I think she’s a good ten years older actually. Two kiddies tagging along, so I don’t imagine he’ll be spending his days at the fishing lake for much longer. He’ll have to get a job now too, I expect.’

  ‘We all have to grow up eventually,’ Dominic said. ‘Even your Peter Pan.’

  If they’d been trying to make Emma feel better about Dougie they’d failed in a spectacular fashion. Far from better, she felt worse. She’d been doing well, trying to keep Dougie from her thoughts and succeeding most of the time, but now he consumed them once more.

  It hadn’t taken him long to move on, and already it sounded like he was willing to give more to this new woman than he ever had to her. Had that been her fault? Was there something about her that said: Please use me – please take advantage of me because I don’t matter? What had this new woman got over Emma? Dougie had told Emma he’d loved her – had he ever even meant it once? They’d been engaged – had that meant nothing to him either? If she couldn’t even trust the truth of that, how could she trust anything?

  ‘That’s good,’ was all she could say. ‘I’m glad he’s sorting himself out.’

  ‘You’re better off without him,’ Dominic said, patting her hand. ‘He’s someone else’s worry now.’

  Patricia regarded her steadily for a moment. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you about that…?’

  Emma forced a smile. ‘It’s fine. It doesn’t bother me what he’s doing – why would it? I left him; why would I care what he does now? I can be a grown-up about it and wish him well… I’m glad he’s settling down with this woman. She might be a better influence than I ever was.’

  ‘But you were very fond of him,’ Patricia said gently.

  Fond. Emma supposed she had been fond of him. But you were fond of a dog that constantly seemed to find mud to roll in whenever you took it out, or a naughty little cousin who always got crumbs on your sofa, or a forgetful great-aunt who embarrassed you in front of your friends. You shouldn’t be fond of the man you’re supposed to be marrying; it ought to be so much bigger than that.

  Looking back, she and Dougie had never been suited. They’d had nothing in common, no shared goals or dreams, and should never even have been together, let alone engaged. She’d been lonely and lacking in self-esteem; he’d been lazy, homing in on a handy opportunity, and somehow, for a while, that had been enough for them both. She had to wonder now what had possessed her to think it could work, and thanked her stars that they’d never got as far as marriage after all.

  ‘This cake is good,’ Dominic said. ‘I could move to Dorset just for this cake.’

  ‘Darcie’s are the best,’ Emma said, shaking herself from her destructive musings. They were serving no purpose and were ruining her time with her aunt and uncle and she wasn’t going to let them. Dougie was welcome to his woman and her kids, and good riddance.

  ‘That’s the young girl?’ Dominic asked.

  ‘Actually, I think she’s about twenty-six, but she looks as if she could still be at school, doesn’t she?’ Emma sipped at her tea.

  ‘I thought she was the Saturday girl when she came to serve us,’ Dominic said.

  ‘It’s not Saturday,’ Patricia said, and Emma laughed.

  Dominic pushed his plate away and patted his belly. ‘Lovely – just the ticket after a long drive.’

  ‘You must have started out early,’ Emma said.

  Patricia rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t we always? It’s your uncle’s obsession with being on the road before anyone else wakes up.’

  Emma laughed. ‘Oh yes. I remember those day trips well – getting up almost before we’d gone to bed.’

  ‘It’s lucky for you,’ Dominic replied, looking faintly wounded at Emma’s remark. ‘It means we’re here nice and early so we don’t hold you up.’

  ‘True,’ Emma said. ‘Thanks for thinking of me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if he thought of me once in a while,’ Patricia said. ‘I don’t want to be dragged out of bed with the lark.’

  Dominic drank the last of his tea and looked expectantly at his wife. ‘I’m done. Ready
to move on when everyone else is.’

  ‘Give me a minute to finish,’ Patricia huffed.

  ‘Don’t rush on my account,’ Emma said. ‘I’m happy to wait. I’ll warn you, though, the building site is very muddy… If you have a pair of waders in your luggage, now might be the time to get them out.’

  Emma managed to lay some spare plywood down, and although the ground was boggy, there was at least a path through to the entrance of the station house. The rain had eased off too, and she was hopeful it might mean they could resume work once Patricia and Dominic had gone. For now, she was excited to show them around, the sour mood she’d started the day with chased away by their arrival and the chance to make them proud. She’d always been the disappointing niece, the non-achiever, while Elise had flown high. Just for once, maybe Emma could be the achiever, and her aunt and uncle might leave today approving of what she was doing here.

  ‘It’s smaller than I thought,’ Patricia said. ‘It looks bigger in the photographs.’

  ‘It’s only a rural station,’ Dominic said. ‘It was never going to be big.’

  ‘We’re going to get some train carriages as extra rooms,’ Emma said. ‘They’ll be parked up alongside the main building where the track used to run. Tia’s been trying to source some.’

  ‘They’ll be popular,’ Dominic said. ‘People love those; you see them on travel shows all the time.’

  ‘I hope so,’ Emma said. ‘Want to go inside?’

  ‘If we can,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you can.’

  Emma smiled and led them across the little plywood bridge she’d laid. It wobbled, and mud bubbled up around the edges, but it held firm. The front door had been taken off to protect it while they did structural work. It was in the corner of the room standing against a wall, and when they were able to put it back up it would be stripped and repainted. Emma frowned slightly as she walked in and she noticed water running down it from a gap in the roof, but there was little she could do about it right now. That wasn’t the only gap in the roof or the only leak. She tried not to think about what damage the water might be doing.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked as she ushered Patricia and Dominic in through the yawning entrance.

  Patricia scanned the room. ‘There’s not much in here.’

  ‘Well no,’ Emma admitted. ‘We had to take the furniture and a lot of the old fittings out for now. It’s in storage until we can sort what’s good to keep. We’ve got gorgeous rosewood counters and tables – we’re just hoping we’ll be able to clean them up and make them good as new again so we can put originals back in. It’ll be cheaper to do that too.’

  ‘I know you said you were a bit behind,’ Patricia said, ‘but I thought you’d be further along than this… When did you say you wanted to open?’

  Emma hesitated. ‘Maybe autumn… with a fair wind and a good sail,’ she added, repeating a phrase Aidan had used.

  ‘It’s not far off autumn now,’ Dominic said, wandering over to gaze up at the rafters where a pigeon was huddled.

  ‘You don’t think we’re going to be anywhere near ready?’ Emma asked.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he replied.

  ‘But you were thinking it?’

  ‘Of course not…’

  ‘I think what Dominic is trying to say,’ Patricia cut in, ‘is that it just looks very far off to us. But then, what do we know? We’re not builders. I expect it’s only because it’s empty. It’s hard to imagine it finished when there’s just a shell here. Will there be much trade when you open? Won’t you have missed peak season?’

  ‘Well yes…’ Emma said. ‘But we’re going to try for some Christmas bookings to see us through. We thought we might put on special events and Christmas dinner and things like that. It means I won’t be able to come home for Christmas of course, but…’

  ‘I’m sure your dad will understand, and he can come to us for Christmas lunch,’ Patricia said. ‘Who’s going to cook it for your guests? Surely not you?’

  ‘Thank you for that endorsement of my cooking,’ Emma said with a wry smile. ‘We’ll have to find a chef, I expect.’

  ‘Do you have many chefs round here?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Emma said, realising that it hadn’t even occurred to her to check how she might go about employing a chef for their hotel at all.

  ‘I expect there will be someone willing to travel,’ Patricia said soothingly.

  ‘And then you’ll be empty after Christmas?’ Dominic asked. ‘Until the summer?’

  ‘I suppose we might not be very full in low season,’ Emma said.

  Dominic was thoughtful for a moment. Emma watched him walk the space. ‘If you needed to loan some money to keep going we might be able to spare a little,’ he said, glancing at his wife, who nodded her agreement.

  There was a peculiar, crashing feeling in Emma’s stomach as the realisation of what he was saying hit her. If he’d hoped to reassure her with his offer, it’d had the opposite effect. They both clearly thought things were so bad she’d need bailing out. They didn’t think the hotel would be ready on time. They didn’t think she knew what she was doing. Now that they’d seen it with their own eyes they thought it was a mistake – they thought this enterprise was doomed to failure.

  What if they were right? What if she did fail? What if she lost all her dad’s money? What kind of madness had made her believe she could do this?

  Panic bubbled up in her. Patricia exchanged another loaded glance with Dominic.

  ‘We didn’t mean to infer you couldn’t manage,’ she said. ‘We only meant just in case… If things were worse than expected…’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Emma said quietly. She drew a breath. ‘It’s kind of you, thanks, but… Anyway… do you want to see where we’re going to put the kitchens?’

  ‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ Patricia said, and Emma began to walk them to the area where the café had once been filled with travellers bidding farewells to their loved ones over tea served in Wedgwood china. Once, the idea of that would have made Emma proud and excited. When they’d first arrived, that enthusiasm for the station’s romantic past had had her waxing lyrical to anyone who’d listen. But now, her heart just wasn’t in it, and she didn’t even mention the travellers or the Wedgwood china. She looked at the bare brick walls and the concrete floors stripped of their beautiful tiles and a roof that still showed patches of sky and she realised that her aunt and uncle were right. They were never going to be open on time at this rate. And if it dragged out much longer, they were going to run out of money and Honeymoon Station Hotel might never open at all.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  By the time Emma had seen her aunt and uncle on their way, having spent the morning looking as bright and optimistic as she could manage for their benefit, she was emotionally spent. She’d arranged to meet up with Aidan, Blake and Tia back at the café, feeling as despondent and heartsick as at any time since her split with Dougie. She’d loved seeing Patricia and Dominic, of course, and was happy they’d made the effort, but almost everything they’d said had made the bad mood she’d already been in worse, even if they hadn’t meant to.

  ‘Hello!’ Tia said as she walked in. ‘I thought you might have brought your aunt and uncle back to say hello.’

  ‘Oh, they had to get on,’ Emma said, although that wasn’t strictly true. They’d been too polite to ask if she had more time to spare, wondering aloud if they were holding her up, and she’d been so dejected that she hadn’t corrected them. So they’d gone off to their holiday chalet with a kiss and a promise to see her on the way back if she had time. She’d felt rude and inconsiderate afterwards, regretting that she hadn’t made more of an effort, but they were on their way and the damage had been done now, and she just hoped they wouldn’t be too hurt.

  ‘That’s such a shame,’ Tia said. ‘Well I expect they’ll come to stay lots at the hotel when it’s open.’

  ‘You mean in 2090?’ Emma asked.

  T
ia exchanged a puzzled look with Aidan and Blake.

  ‘Is everything alright?’ Aidan asked. ‘You’re still upset about the flooding on the site?’

  ‘No.’ Emma sat down at their table. ‘I mean, that’s not helping but I’ve accepted that there’s nothing we can do about it.’

  ‘Emma… about Hank…’ Tia began, and for the first time since they’d come to Honeymoon together, she sounded nervous.

  Emma glanced between the three of them. Aidan and Blake had obviously filled Tia in on her reaction to the news they’d booked their timber specialist without her agreement.

  ‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘It’s done. We can’t very well cancel him now because if we decide we do need him further down the line he’d probably turn us down for messing him around in the first place.’

  ‘But I’m sorry,’ Tia said. ‘I should have—’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Emma said. ‘Can we move on? We’ve got other things to talk about, haven’t we? I’m going to get a coffee.’ She got up. ‘Darcie?’ she called at the unmanned counter, assuming that the café owner was in the kitchen out back. ‘I don’t suppose you could make me a drink?’

  ‘She’s on the phone to her cousin,’ Aidan said from behind her. Emma turned to him. ‘Tariq’s at the wholesalers. I told her I’d keep an eye out for customers. I know where everything is – I’ll make you a coffee.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What did your aunt and uncle have to say?’ he asked as he busied himself behind Darcie’s counter. ‘It was good to see them, I expect?’

  ‘Yes,’ Emma said in a dull voice.

  ‘Hmm… I’d have thought you’d sound happier than—’

  ‘I am happy,’ she cut in, in a tone that suggested she’d never been happy in her life and didn’t even know what the word meant.

  ‘OK…’ Aidan said slowly. ‘I’m glad we got that cleared up. You know, if you’re getting stressed about the build you can talk to us. Blake and I would do our best to put your mind at ease without bulling you. We’ve always been transparent and honest with you, haven’t we?’