Last Words at the Star and Sixpence

by Holly Hepburn

  She almost dropped her glass of champagne as she stared first at him and then at the ring. The breath caught in her lungs, she couldn’t speak. The air around her seemed to freeze. The birds stopped singing. And then a gurgle of wild delight bubbled up from somewhere deep inside and she gasped out her reply. ‘Yes! Oh, yes, I will!’

  The glass was taken from her hand then and Owen was kissing her, his lips gentle and adoring. Seconds later, he drew back and took her left hand in his, easing the ring onto the third finger where it sat as though it had been made for her. She gazed at it in awe for a moment, then up at him. ‘Is this real?’

  He smiled and kissed her again. ‘I hope it’s real. I’ve been waiting a long time to ask that question. I’m glad you said yes.’

  Letting go of her hand, he collected the champagne flutes again and passed one to her. ‘Here’s to new memories,’ he said, touching his glass to hers.

  ‘Here’s to us,’ she whispered back, as tears of joy tumbled down her cheeks.

  Chapter Six

  It took Sam less than five minutes to work out what was different about Nessie when she came back after the picnic. The first clue was her slightly dazed expression; for a few seconds, Sam worried she and Owen had fallen out again, but there was a glow in her sister’s eyes that suggested otherwise. Maybe they’d done more than just picnic in the fresh air, she thought in amusement; good for them. And then Nessie reached for a pint glass to serve Henry and a flash of green caught Sam’s eye. She swallowed a squeak of excitement, checking to make sure it had been Nessie’s left hand, and then hovered impatiently at her elbow until she’d finished serving Henry.

  ‘What?’ Nessie said, meeting Sam’s avid gaze with an air of not-quite-suppressed happiness.

  ‘You need to take a coffee break,’ Sam said in a firm tone.

  Nessie laughed. ‘I’ve only just come back from lunch!’

  Sam glanced along the bar to where Tilly and Laurie were chatting with Father Goodluck. ‘They can manage for a few minutes.’ Her gaze dropped to the ring sparkling on Nessie’s finger. ‘I want to hear every detail. Every single one.’

  A hint of rosy pink tinged Nessie’s cheeks and she buried her hand behind her back. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘It’s far too late for that,’ Sam said, grinning. She ran a hand over her swollen belly. ‘Come on. If I can’t have a love life of my own, at least I can get a vicarious thrill through yours.’

  Nessie refused to say a word until they were sitting around the kitchen table upstairs. Even then, she checked Joss and Gabe were nowhere to be seen before she relayed the details of Owen’s proposal.

  ‘Oh,’ Sam said, her eyes moistening when Nessie told her what he’d said about making new memories. ‘Oh, Ness, I’m so thrilled for you. Congratulations!’

  ‘We’re keeping it quiet for now,’ Nessie said, staring down at the ring as though she was surprised to find it there. ‘Obviously, we want Luke to know first, and Kathryn when she gets here tomorrow.’

  Sam’s mouth quirked. ‘Good luck with hiding it from Ruby. She can spot a diamond at a hundred metres.’

  Nessie sighed. ‘I should take it off, shouldn’t I? But I like seeing it there – it reassures me I didn’t dream the whole thing.’

  ‘It’s either that or wear gloves for the next twenty-four hours,’ Sam replied. ‘But your secret is safe with me, as long as you promise not to have a whirlwind engagement.’ She gestured at her stomach. ‘I don’t want to look like this in the wedding photos.’

  ‘Deal,’ Nessie said. ‘You will be my maid of honour, won’t you?’

  Sam laughed. ‘I think it’s a bit late for me to be maid of anything, Ness. But I’d be honoured to be part of your day.’

  And now it was Nessie’s turn to laugh. ‘Matron of honour, then.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Sam said. ‘I can channel my inner Hattie Jacques. Be very afraid for the hen party!’

  *

  By six o’clock, the cider festival was well underway. Sam watched from the doorway of the marquee, noting the pleasingly packed benches and crowds around the pumps. The beautiful weather was doing its part; outside, Gabe was already doing a roaring trade at the Sausage Fest stand and the smell alone was enough to make Sam’s stomach rumble. Ferrelli’s, the Cornish ice-cream stall, was doing a brisk trade too – Sam made a mental note to try their Afternoon Cream Tea gelato before the weekend was over. But right now, she couldn’t wait for darkness to fall so she could switch on the twinkling fairy lights that wreathed the trees and hear the music and laughter that would fill the air; it was one of her favourite things about the Star and Sixpence events that spilled out onto the village green.

  ‘It’s not looking too bad, is it?’

  She turned to see Joss at her shoulder, gazing around with an attitude of obvious satisfaction.

  He winked. ‘I obviously haven’t lost my touch.’

  Sam laughed in spite of herself. ‘Yes, it’s all down to you. How are things in the cellar? Has Connor kept up to your exacting standards?’

  ‘He runs a tight ship,’ Joss said approvingly. ‘I’ve got no complaints.’

  ‘Good,’ Sam said. ‘We were lucky to get him after you left. The fire brigade’s loss is our gain.’

  Joss gave her a sideways look but said nothing. They stood in companionable silence; it might have taken some adjustment, Sam reflected, but been good for both of them to work together again. And it didn’t hurt to be reminded how well they’d got on professionally before emotions and jealousy had soured everything; apart from anything else, it gave her hope that they might make a decent job of parenting too.

  Joss obviously felt the same way because he touched her arm. ‘It’s great to be back, Sam. Thanks for letting me help out.’

  ‘There wasn’t anyone else for the job,’ Sam said, smiling. ‘As much as it pains me to admit it, you are the best cellarman I know.’

  He accepted the compliment with an uncharacteristically modest shrug. ‘I know. But I appreciate the gesture.’ His blue eyes met hers and he hesitated. ‘Thanks for letting me be part of your life again.’

  Sam rested a hand on the top of her bump. ‘You might not feel that way when you’re up to your eyes in dirty nappies and you haven’t slept for a month.’

  His gaze was steady. ‘I’m pretty sure I will.’

  The baby chose that moment to kick. Impulsively, Sam reached out to guide Joss’s hand to her stomach. ‘Feel that?’

  Joss’s eyes widened. ‘Yes! Wow, that’s some kick – is it that strong all the time?’

  ‘Not all the time,’ she replied and pulled a face. ‘Usually only at three o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Oh,’ Joss said, not moving his hand. ‘I had no idea. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ Sam said gently. ‘I like it. It’s as though he or she is reassuring me that everything is okay.’

  He opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by a meaningful cough. Gabe was standing nearby, his expression unreadable. ‘Sorry to disturb you, but Tilly says the Thirsty Bishop needs changing.’

  ‘No problem,’ Joss said easily, his hand falling from the stretched fabric of Sam’s T-shirt. ‘I’ll get right on it.’

  With a swift smile at Sam, he made his way out of the tent. Gabe made to follow, but Sam stopped him. ‘Everything okay at Sausage Central?’

  He nodded stiffly. ‘Fine. Bucky is putting his big brown eyes to good use – you won’t need to feed him all weekend.’

  ‘Oh, is he being a pest?’ Sam exclaimed. ‘I can take him inside if he is.’

  Gabe shook his head. ‘People love him. And Luke is looking after him – they’re practically inseparable.’

  Sam laughed. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that boy plans to steal Bucky away someday.’

  But Gabe didn’t join in with her laughter. Instead, he stared at the ground, lips tight. ‘You and Joss seem to be getting along well.’

  ‘We are,’ Sam said, feeling the st
art of a frown tug at her forehead. ‘I don’t think we have much choice.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Gabe answered, just a little too fast. ‘Especially since we are all flatmates now.’

  ‘Temporarily,’ Sam said, staring at him. ‘Until Connor comes back.’

  He looked at her then. ‘And when the baby comes? I don’t know about Joss, but if it were me, I’d want to be as close as possible to my newborn child.’

  It was a question Sam had given some thought to, not least because Joss had suggested more than once that he and Sam should consider getting back together for the sake of the baby. ‘It’s true that he plans to move back to Little Monkham,’ she told Gabe. ‘But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll live at the Star and Sixpence. We don’t have room, for a start.’

  Gabe was silent for a moment, as though trying to work out how to frame his words. ‘You would if I moved out.’

  The thought almost caused Sam to rock back on her heels. ‘Move out? But that’s not . . . I don’t . . .’ She stopped and took a breath. ‘Why would you even think that?’

  His brown eyes were candid. ‘It makes sense, Sam. You and Joss need the space and I don’t really need to be on the premises overnight.’

  But I need you to be there, Sam thought desperately, but pushed the thought away. Maybe Gabe was sick of being at her beck and call 24/7. Maybe he’d grown tired of cooking her breakfast each day, saying goodnight every evening. Maybe he’d lost interest in her.

  ‘Of course you can move out, if that’s what you want,’ she said, and now it was her turn to sound stiff. She tried to soften her voice, ‘I’d miss you, obviously.’

  Several seconds passed before he answered. ‘That’s the thing,’ he said, so quietly that she had to lean forward to hear. ‘I don’t think you would.’

  He was gone before she could respond, leaving her to stare after him in hurt and bewilderment. She’d known for some time that her own feelings towards Gabe were jumbled and complicated and much more than platonic, but she hadn’t suspected he might feel the same about her. Could it be that he was jealous of Joss, of the role he would undoubtedly play in her life once the baby came? And short of confessing to Gabe the tumultuous mess of feelings she had for him, what on earth could Sam do about it?

  *

  Sam didn’t see much of Joss or Gabe for the rest of the evening, something she was wearily grateful for. At Nessie’s insistence, she’d gone over to a deserted Snowdrop Cottage and spent a blissful few hours dosing on the sofa and failing to follow the latest BBC crime drama. By the time Owen and Luke came home and woke her, it was almost closing time. Stretching, she gathered up the glossy magazine that had slithered to the floor as she slept, thanked Owen for the use of his sofa and made her way over to the Star and Sixpence to help close up.

  ‘Leave that,’ Nessie told her, when Sam eased behind the bar and reached for a cloth to wipe down the sticky surface. ‘Laurie can do it. Go and sit down.’

  ‘I’ve been sitting down all evening,’ Sam said, looking round for something else to do. There was no sign of Gabe; she assumed he was either finishing up in the kitchen or had taken himself off to bed so he wouldn’t have to look at her. Joss was conspicuous by his absence too, although the sound of distant clattering suggested he was busy in the cellar. ‘Is Laurie still here, then?’

  ‘Somewhere,’ Nessie said as she extracted the till drawer and balanced it on one hip. ‘Tilly has taken Bucky for a quick walk around the green.’

  ‘She’s a good girl,’ Sam said and nodded at the cash drawer. ‘So how is it looking?’

  Nessie followed her gaze. ‘Pretty good. I won’t know for sure until I’ve checked the figures from the marquee system, but there were certainly plenty of happy faces around tonight.’ She threw Sam a sympathetic look. ‘You missed Sax Appeal’s set – they seemed to go down well with the crowd.’

  ‘I’ve heard them before,’ Sam reminded her. ‘The band I don’t want to miss is Kathryn’s tomorrow night – I won’t be sprawled out on your sofa then, believe me.’

  Nessie nodded. ‘All the more reason to get some beauty sleep now. Go on – it’s been a long day and tomorrow will be even busier. We can manage down here.’

  Sam couldn’t deny she was tired; somehow, dozing all evening had only made her more exhausted. ‘Okay, thanks. See you in the morning.’

  She hesitated when she reached the top of the landing, craning for a sound that would tell her Gabe had opted for an early night too, but everything was still. With a heavy sigh, Sam opened her door and went to bed.

  *

  ‘We need to talk, Sam.’

  Joss met her in the kitchen doorway early the following morning, his expression tense. Sam felt a stab of anxiety when she saw Gabe behind him, looking equally grim-faced. Had they argued? Was she about to discover they couldn’t bear to be in the same room?

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, glancing back and forth between them as Bucky snuffled at her hand in greeting.

  Joss waited until she was seated and Gabe had placed a mug of decaf coffee in front of her before speaking again. ‘Remember how bad the pub’s electrics were when you first moved in? How the fuses used to trip at the worst possible times?’

  She nodded. ‘Of course. The electrician who did the rewiring said he was amazed the place hadn’t burned down years ago. Why?’

  ‘I think it might be happening again,’ Joss said. ‘I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I figured I’d go downstairs and do a stock-check.’

  ‘Joss!’ Sam exclaimed, amused in spite of the seriousness in his voice. ‘Only you would count beer bottles instead of sheep.’

  ‘It was a good thing I did,’ he went on, unsmiling. ‘The cellar fuses had tripped – every single one of them, including the cooling systems. If I hadn’t gone downstairs, our kegs would be far too warm to serve today.’

  Sam felt her mouth fall open in dismay. ‘Oh no!’

  Joss raised his hands. ‘It’s okay, I switched everything back on and disaster was averted. I’ve checked this morning and the fuses seem to be behaving themselves.’ He paused and rubbed the fair hair of his beard. ‘But it’s the timing that worries me most – I can’t work out what made them trip in the first place. I was in the cellar just after Nessie closed the pub door and everything was fine then – the load on the electrics would have been minimal. So what caused the problem?’

  An awful suspicion crossed Sam’s mind. ‘You’re thinking rats.’

  Gabe nodded. ‘The man from the pest control company did say they often gnawed through electrical cables. It could be that there are still some rats inside the building.’

  ‘And that has big implications,’ Joss added. ‘Although I can see from the reports that Simply the Pest have done a pretty thorough job in laying traps and poison. You won’t necessarily have to close down again.’

  Sam thrust her head into her hands and groaned. ‘It’s just one bloody thing after another, isn’t it?’

  ‘Hey, I might be wrong,’ Joss said, dropping his hands to rub her shoulders sympathetically. ‘It could be a one-off. I’ll keep a closer eye on things – make sure there’s no danger of the kegs overheating.’

  Gabe frowned and looked away. ‘But you should probably call an electrician, just to be safe.’

  Sam couldn’t tell if it was Joss’s familiarity or the situation with the fuses that made him look so thunderous. ‘I will,’ she said, sighing. ‘Thank you both.’

  On the floor beside her, Bucky licked her palm and gazed up at her with liquid brown eyes.

  ‘Thank you to you too,’ Sam said, ruffling his fur. ‘And no, I don’t have any sausages to give you.’

  Chapter Seven

  The electrician scratched his head and shrugged at Nessie.

  ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ he said, once he’d completed his check of the Star and Sixpence. ‘There’s nothing wrong that I can see – no obvious equipment issues, no dead spots or ove
rloads. I can’t even see any evidence or rodent activity, although that could be inside the walls, I suppose.’

  Nessie cast an uneasy glance around and decided she’d ignore the idea of rats running riot behind the walls. ‘So there’s no reason for the fuses to trip, that’s what you’re saying?’

  He nodded. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. Maybe you just had a localised power surge that caused the safety mechanisms to engage.’

  She sighed. On one hand, it was reassuring that there was no apparent reason for the problem in the night. But, on the other, it was just another mystery to add to a growing list of unexplained things that seemed to have been happening lately. ‘Thanks for coming out on a Saturday.’

  The electrician smiled. ‘No problem. I’ve been hearing good things about the Somerset Scrumpy you’ve got on sale here – it’d be rude to leave without having a quick taste, right?’

  That raised Nessie’s spirits. ‘Tell the guys over in the marquee that your first pint is on the house,’ she said warmly.

  Joss kept a sharp eye on the fuse box for the rest of the day, but it showed no sign of causing them any further problems. Nessie was glad; the sun was even hotter than it had been the day before and they needed the cellar’s cooling system to keep doing its job, not to mention the hundreds of other systems that relied on a steady supply of electricity. It was something they took entirely for granted until it stopped, Nessie thought.

  By the time the fairy lights came on that evening, the atmosphere on the village green was merry. Everywhere Nessie looked, she saw strangers mingling with Star and Sixpence regulars, laughing and drinking. Ruby seemed particularly taken by a group of scruffy-looking men whom she introduced to Nessie as detectorists, because the hobby that brought them together was exploring with metal detectors.

  ‘And drinking,’ a white-bearded man called Jim said, raising his pint of amber cider in salute to Nessie. ‘We love that too.’

  ‘But mostly old stuff,’ another said. ‘If it’s old, we like it.’

  Ruby winked at the group. ‘That must be why you darling gentlemen are so taken with me.’