Escape to Oakbrook Farm: A wonderfully uplifting romantic comedy (Hope Cove Book 2)

by Hannah Ellis

  “I’d definitely like to get some more beach days in before winter arrives.” She glanced outside and caught the sway of branches in the breeze. It was gusty but bright and sunny. “I might take Charlie and Macy out for another walk. Get a bit of exercise and fresh air after being stuck in the car for so long.”

  “I’ve made lasagne for later.” Annette stood and put the mugs in the dishwasher. “I wouldn’t mind a breath of fresh air too. If you don’t mind the slower pace.”

  Josie insisted she didn’t and they spent a good hour wandering the familiar hills and fields. She couldn’t help but glance in the direction of Sam’s house when they were down that way. She wondered what he was doing and imagined him working on some furniture project with that intense look of concentration on his face.

  By the time they got back to the house, she was ravenous and devoured a huge portion of lasagne. In the evening, she curled up on the couch with Charlie and Macy and told Annette tales of working in the café. She tried very hard to drop the TV work into the conversation, but she was happier talking about Brenda and Stella and the regulars who frequented the café.

  She was exhausted when she crawled into her old bed that night. After six weeks on Emily’s couch it was absolute bliss, and she was asleep within minutes.

  Chapter 42

  Josie woke with the birds and smiled as she got up and dressed. In the kitchen she stretched her neck and felt utterly refreshed. “I haven’t slept so well in ages.”

  “Still no luck finding your own place?” Annette said. Josie had told her on the phone that she was trying to find alternative living arrangements. Somewhere she had a bed would be good.

  “It’s hard. Everywhere is so expensive, and I really want to stay in the same area so I’m close to work.”

  Annette looked puzzled. “I thought you said it was an hour on the train to work.”

  “No, it’s —” She stopped short, realising Annette was thinking of the TV studios. Josie had been referring to Brenda’s Kitchen. “It’s a bit less than an hour,” she said quickly, “which isn’t far by London standards.”

  They ate breakfast together and then Josie stood automatically. “I’ll see to the dogs.”

  “Don’t be daft.” Annette clicked her tongue. “You’re here for a visit. You don’t need to work. You should put your feet up.”

  “I’m happy to walk the dogs,” she insisted. “I’d like to. It doesn’t feel like work.”

  Annette shook her head in amusement, and Josie pushed her feet into her shoes and set off to the barn with Macy and Charlie running happily around her. She did a quick walkthrough, checking how may dogs there were and if she knew any of them. At the fourth kennel she stopped and stared. There was a grey two-seater couch that she’d never seen before. Surely Heather hadn’t taken over her furniture hunt? She smiled to herself, suddenly sure that it was Sam’s work. She’d ask him when she saw him. It made her anxious thinking about seeing him again. Her emotions were all over the place. She loved the thought of seeing him and hated it all at the same time.

  Pushing Sam from her thoughts, she spent a pleasant morning walking the dogs. The fresh air and peaceful surroundings made a refreshing change to city life. It was almost lunchtime when she arrived back at the house. Amber and Tara were waiting for her on the patio.

  “I thought we were meeting in the pub for lunch,” she said as she hugged them tightly.

  “We just couldn’t wait to see you!” Tara said. “And Annette’s offered to make us lunch now.”

  Josie turned her attention to little Kieron, who was patting the dogs with slightly too much force. “Look at the size of you!” Josie said, tickling him. “He’s grown so much.”

  “Calm down,” Tara said. “You’ve not been gone that long. You sound like some elderly aunt! Come and tell us all about the celebrity life.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” Josie said. “It’s long hours and a lot of time waiting around doing nothing.”

  “It’s going well, though, isn’t it?” Amber asked.

  “Yeah. It’s all fine.”

  Tara frowned. “No red carpet events yet?”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” Josie promised. “What have I missed around here then? Fill me in on the gossip.”

  She was hoping the conversation would come around to Sam. Someone would surely mention how miserable he is without her. They didn’t, though; he wasn’t mentioned at all. The girls talked about some of the locals, and Tara talked about work and the latest saga with her boss, James. Apparently he’d been flaunting his new girlfriend and Tara was sure it was an attempt to make her jealous. She claimed it didn’t work, but Josie wasn’t so sure that was the truth. There was a glint of vulnerability in Tara’s eyes that vanished as quickly as it appeared. It didn’t escape Josie’s notice.

  Annette whipped up sandwiches and salad for them and they ate lunch together on the patio.

  “Where did the new couch in the barn come from?” Josie asked eventually.

  Annette chuckled. “Sam found it at one of his car boot sales. He said it was a bargain and he couldn’t resist.”

  Josie’s thoughts drifted to the day she’d done the car boot sale with him. It had been so much fun. That was also the day Jack had turned up with the letter from StarSearch that had set her on a course away from Sam. She automatically glanced around. He’d said he’d see her before she left, and she kept expecting him to casually wander over and join their little get together.

  “Are you driving back tonight?” Amber asked.

  “Yeah.” With a sinking feeling she checked the time. “I should probably get going before too long. It’s a nightmare drive. I’ve got to be up early tomorrow too.”

  “What time do you have to be on set?” Tara asked eagerly.

  “I need to be in make-up at six. Filming won’t start until a bit later.” Hours later, in fact, and Josie was sick of all the waiting time. Thankfully, it looked like she’d only have one day of filming for the week and could be at the café for the rest.

  Tara was suitably impressed by talk of the TV studio. It made Josie feel like the biggest fraud ever but she indulged her nonetheless, giving her snippets of info, dropping all the right jargon and buzzwords that she knew Tara would enjoy.

  The afternoon flew by, and suddenly Amber was talking about getting Kieron home for dinner. Tara left at the same time, after a round of hugs and goodbyes.

  Josie stayed on the patio after they left, staring out over the fields. She should really be on the road already.

  “I can feed the dogs before I leave.” She stood purposefully as a couple of dogs howled in the barn.

  “Leave it,” Annette said. “I’ll do them.”

  “It’s fine.” She didn’t stop to argue but set off to the barn. She’d leave as soon as she’d fed the dogs. Auto-pilot seemed to kick in, and the dogs were fed in no time. For a moment she imagined Sam wandering in to see her, like he’d done so many times before. After convincing herself she was over him in the last weeks, being back at Oakbrook and seeing him again had set her back. She still missed him so much. Again, she looked for him as she made her way back to the house and was disappointed that there was no sign of him.

  “I better hit the road,” she told Annette when she arrived back in the kitchen. She declined the offer of staying for dinner, but Annette insisted on making more sandwiches for the journey.

  She set off back to London with a heavy heart and spent the long drive contemplating what a mess she’d made of things.

  Chapter 43

  The weekend at Oakbrook had been bittersweet, and Josie spent the following days feeling sorry for herself.

  “Can’t you just go back if you miss it so much?” Stella asked on Wednesday morning.

  “No, she can’t,” Brenda hissed. “What would we do without her?” She beamed at Josie. “You’re not going to leave us, are you?”

  “No. I’m not going back. I can’t.”

  “But if you love
this Sam fella” – Stella chopped vegetables as she chatted – “and he was happy to see you again, can’t you just go back and work things out?”

  Josie shook her head. She couldn’t, even though part of her wished she could. “I can’t go back to him. I miss him but I’m still angry with him. He should have been supportive about my job offer. I hate that he wouldn’t look at it from my point of view and wasn’t willing to make any sacrifices. It’s not the sort of person I want to be with. Even if I do love him.”

  “And you do love him?” Brenda said.

  Josie slouched against a kitchen unit. “It’s irrelevant. Relationships don’t always work out. Ours didn’t and I’ve moved on.”

  “Really?” Stella asked. “Because you spent all day yesterday looking like the world was coming to an end.”

  “Not because of Sam. I moved to London for my career but I hate the TV work. It’s not the career I wanted it to be and it’s never going to be.”

  “Oh, hang on,” Brenda said playfully. “It sounds like you are thinking of leaving us.”

  “I love working here,” she said. “I just want something more fulfilling. Something where I can grow and develop.”

  Brenda squeezed her arm reassuringly.

  “What about doing a college course or something?” Stella suggested.

  “I’ve no idea what I want to do, though. I was so sure I wanted to be an actress. Now I need to find a new career path.”

  She was still mulling it over that evening when her phone rang. Sam’s name flashed on the screen. To say she was surprised would be something of an understatement. She answered hesitantly.

  “Is it a good time?” he asked. “I didn’t know if you’d still be at work.”

  “I just got home.” Why was he calling? What did he want?

  “How was filming today?”

  She rubbed her eyes. Did he just want to chat?

  “Work was fine.” She didn’t want to lie but she also didn’t want to tell him that she actually worked in a café most of the time. “Tiring. I was just about to go to bed. Did you need something?”

  “Heather logged herself out of the Twitter account and couldn’t find the password. I told her I’d ask you.”

  She pressed her lips together. Either Heather was completely useless or Sam was making up excuses to call. “It’s on the corkboard in the study. All the passwords are up there. Heather knows that.”

  “She must have forgotten.”

  “She could also have called me herself,” she said tersely.

  “Aren’t I allowed to call you?”

  She paced the room. “I’d rather you didn’t, to be honest.”

  “I thought we could still be friends.”

  She gave a short humourless laugh. There was no way she could be friends with Sam. Being in the same room with him felt like torture.

  “No. We can’t be friends. And I find it really weird that you’d call and ask me about work since you didn’t want me to take the job and broke up with me when I did.” She swallowed hard and hated the tears which pooled in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was full of emotion.

  “I don’t care if you’re sorry.” She couldn’t help crying and her words were muffled. “You didn’t want to be with me any more. You don’t get to be my friend. I don’t need friends like you.”

  “I was an idiot,” he said quickly. “And I miss you—”

  “I don’t want to know!” She stopped pacing and wiped tears from her cheeks. “Don’t call me again.” She spat the words out and then ended the call with trembling hands. Sinking onto the couch, she sobbed. It was the last thing she needed. Every day it was an effort not to think about him, to push away thoughts of going back to him. Knowing that he missed her too, and that he wanted her back, made it so much harder.

  She needed to look forward and think about her future, not dwell on the past.

  ***

  In the following days she forced herself not to think about Sam. It was made more difficult by his daily phone calls. She didn’t answer them and focussed on figuring out how to get her life back on track. She knew she needed to make some big changes, she just wasn’t sure what.

  It was a week later while opening the café that she saw the woman with the toddler and the noisy golden retriever stop outside. Josie went out and made a big fuss of the dog and then held the door while the woman lugged the buggy inside. The dog obeyed when Josie told him to sit.

  “Did it take you long to learn that?” The woman parked the buggy next to a table and took a seat. “The dog training stuff.”

  “Not really,” Josie said vaguely.

  “You just did a course or something, did you?”

  Josie looked slightly confused. “I just learnt on the job when I worked in a kennels.”

  “That’s good. I thought you’d have to do some sort of training if you were working in a kennels.”

  “No,” Josie said thoughtfully. It had never even occurred to her.

  “I keep thinking I’ll sign up for one of these doggy schools. You know the ones, they meet in the park and teach you how to control your dog. I just never get round to it.”

  Josie took her order and wandered back to the kitchen. The day passed in a bit of a blur, and the conversation with the dog owner played on her mind. Josie got her laptop out as soon as she got back to the apartment that evening.

  “Did you know you can do courses in dog training?” she mused aloud as Emily flicked through the TV channels beside her.

  “I can’t say it’s something I ever thought about much. But I suppose that makes sense. Why?”

  “It just never occurred to me that you could train in this kind of thing. I always thought it was something you were either good at or you weren’t.” She scanned the course list for a small local college which specialised in animal care. “There are courses in dog grooming, dog nutrition, health and well-being. All sorts of stuff.”

  Emily mumbled a vague response, clearly unimpressed by the revelation.

  Josie’s mind raced.

  Her phone lit up and vibrated round the coffee table.

  Another call from Sam.

  She ignored it.

  Chapter 44

  Quitting the acting job became Josie’s obvious next step. She’d really come to hate it, and even the thought of it made her anxious. She was nervous about telling Michaela but she resolved to do it.

  Unfortunately, Michaela called her first. It was the middle of August but you’d never know it was summer given the grey sky and drizzle. Josie looked out of the living room window of Emily’s apartment as she answered the call. It wasn’t much of a view, just a busy street filled with traffic and people hurrying through the rain.

  “You’re going to love me!” Michaela said excitedly.

  “Really?” Josie replied sceptically. “What’s happened?”

  “They’re finally giving you some lines to say! I was just talking to Sally at the studios and she told me. Didn’t I tell you it would end up being a speaking part?”

  “I was going to call you today,” she said flatly. “I’m quitting. I don’t want to go back there.”

  “Don’t talk crazy. You were the one who always wanted a speaking part. Don’t run away now you’ve got it. It’s not stage fright, is it?”

  “No! I just don’t like the job. It’s not enough hours. And I’m thinking of a career change.”

  “But you’re expected on set first thing tomorrow.”

  “I wasn’t planning on going.” She should have let Michaela know sooner, but she didn’t really care.

  “Of course you’re going. It reflects badly on me if you fail to show up without warning. You’ll at least have to go in tomorrow.”

  “I don’t have to,” Josie said, swirling the dregs of coffee in the cup. “But if you ask nicely I might.”

  There was a loud exhalation of breath. “Fine! Please will you go to work tomorrow?”

  “Hmm. Okay. Only tomorrow,
though. Then you’ll have to tell them I quit.” She’d been adamant she’d already done her last day of filming, but she was a little intrigued by the fact that she’d have lines to say, and one last day wouldn’t hurt.

  The next morning as she sat in the holding room, she even felt a little nervous. What if they were actually giving her character a storyline? Would she really walk away now if it was finally becoming a real acting job? She decided she probably would.

  Eventually, the assistant director came to talk to her. She seemed distracted and kept glancing over her shoulder as she spoke to Josie. “At the start of the scene, if you can just lean over the bar and ask whoever’s in front of you what they want to drink. Not too loud or anything. Just be natural. Okay?”

  Josie’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s it?”

  “It’s not a problem, is it? You can manage that?”

  Josie was about to tell her where she could shove her one measly line, but Jack appeared and slid into the seat beside her. She smiled and the woman went away again.

  “I didn’t know you’d be here today,” she said cheerfully. She hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks, but he was quite good at calling her or sending the odd message. He hadn’t mentioned he’d be working with her again.

  He shrugged. “I quite enjoy it. And work are happy for me to have the odd day off. It works quite well. What did she want?” he asked, nodding at the retreating assistant director.

  “They’ve finally given me something to say.”

  “Great!”

  “Not really. One crappy line. I wasn’t even going to come today. I’m going to quit.”

  “What will you do? Keep working in the café?”

  “I don’t know.” She couldn’t find the energy to discuss it and glanced at the door when it opened. “Lauren’s here,” she said quietly. It was the woman Jack had been on a date with. Jack took a sudden interest in his coffee until she’d passed. “She hates you,” Josie remarked.

  “She’s a psycho!” He shook his head. “I really know how to pick ’em, don’t I?” She gave him a friendly shove just as they were called down to the studio. “What do you have to say then?” Jack asked as they walked. “Have you got it all memorised?”