‘We’ll still probably need a map, transport help, and all of that sort of stuff.’
Lottie sighed slightly as she scooped potting soil out of a large green bag. ‘Do you think it’s all too much? Too much work? Do you think I would be better off to take that cleaning job at Seashells Cottages?’
‘Absolutely not! That’s what I’m here for - you do the menus, the cooking, and making everything look good. I’ll do the rest. We’re a good team, Lottie. We will make this work and it will be extraordinary.’
‘You’re too good to me, you know that, Dimitri? How lucky I am to have you in my life.’
‘Ach, I’m not, you’re worth it and I live in your house. And I want it to remain that way,’ Dimitri replied in Greek with a smile.
Lottie finished levelling off the potting mix on top of a plant pot and walked over to the timber tray filled with little compartments holding rows and rows of seed envelopes all neatly marked on the front. She rifled through to the back and took out a packet of seeds for black tomatoes and one for cherry tomatoes on the vine. Dimitri continued to add things to the list of items that they would need to add to a website.
‘Do you know what would be good? If we could make it somehow invitation-only once it got going,’ Dimitri said.
‘That’s an idea. It would be very exclusive then, but would we get the interest in the first place?’
‘We would soon find out. Once I’ve got the site up and running I think we should put a post up on Facebook and an enquiry button on the website. We’ll get Holly on board too, and I’ll tell people at the club.’
‘Ahh, sounds all very serious and real now Dimitri. I’m really apprehensive...’ Lottie said as she poked seeds into a long line of seed trays.
‘It will be amazing. All you have to worry about is the food. I reckon it will sell itself.’
Lottie finished pushing the tiny tomato seeds into the potting mix and then started to gently water them in. ‘The food is the easy bit for Secret Evenings in Pretty Beach. It’s all this that’s the tricky part. And whether or not people will book,’ Lottie said, pointing to the list on Dimitri’s laptop.
Dimitri patted Lottie on the back of her hand and replied in Greek, ‘Oh trust me, Lottie. They’ll book to eat one of your meals alright. We just need to get the wheels on this in motion.’
Chapter 12
Lottie, her arms full with bags and a huge bouquet of flowers and greenery she’d picked from her garden, crunched across the pebble driveway of the Boat House. She just about managed to raise her hand to Sallie who was getting into Ben’s car outside his house, and Dimitri was following along behind her, also laden down with boxes and bags.
‘Yeah, this is lovely,’ Dimitri called out in Greek as they approached the cottage basking in dappled light from sunshine filtering through from just behind the clouds.
‘Yep. I told you it’s divine. A bit small really but it will work for the first one until we’ve got the buildings sorted out.’
‘Not a bad setting. It’s definitely going to make it attractive to have it here. If we could guarantee the weather I would even say it would be better to have it outside. Imagine lots of little cafe tables popped here and there.’
‘I’ve thought that, Dad. But I just don’t want to add on that pressure for the first one. I mean, imagine if it pours down with rain. It would be a disaster in every sense of the word; the money involved, the brainpower, the cooking, but most of all the marketing.’
Dimitri put his bags down underneath the little bull-nosed porch admiring the old clinker rowing boat standing up by the side of the wall while Lottie punched in the numbers on the keypad.
‘No wonder Sallie’s doing well. This whole place is like a storybook. Look at the old Boat House now! She turned that round with some vision, didn’t she?’ Dimitri commented as he stood with his arms folded observing the old building in front of them.
‘I know. Goodness, I remember how bad it was just a few years ago and now she’s got that, the Orangery, the marquee and the renovations have started on the ground floor for her cafe.’
‘I love it,’ Dimitri replied in Greek looking around as they stepped into the tiny old cottage.
‘Me too.’
‘Phew. It’s going to be a bit of squeeze, though. Twenty guests in here...’ Dimitri said trailing off and scratching his chin as he stepped into the cottage.
‘Ten will be on one of those trestle tables over there,’ Lottie said pointing to an old weathered timber table standing on its end by the back door. ‘Then the others will be dotted around with the sofas pushed back. That will make a bit more space.’
‘So, the guests who book for the trestle table will share? I remember that dinner club we read about in Cheshire; they said that the sharing tables were part of the attraction for some of their customers.’
‘Let’s just hope it’s the same for us,’ Lottie said, smiling and walking into the kitchen she put the plug in the sink, ran the tap and placed her gigantic bundle of flowers into the water.
She walked back in, hands on her hips, and started trying to visualise how it would all look both on the evening and for the photos they were about to take for the website.
‘Dimitri, I have no idea what I’m doing here really. I guess we’ll just have to learn as we go.’
‘I don’t think it’s going to be too tricky to get a photo in here,’ Dimitri said nodding his head and looking around at the beautiful cottage decor.
‘Right, let’s push these sofas back, put the coffee table around the back, pull the trestle table into the middle there where the coffee table is and then I’ll start putting the linens on and setting the tables. We need to get those cafe tables from the car and Sallie said we could use that one from the porch, too.’
An hour later and the tiny cottage had been transformed. The old weathered trestle table ran through and to the left of the sitting room and they’d set up the rest of the tiny tables to the right with one down the far end and one tucked under the window.
Lottie had brought her vast collection of vintage cream tablecloths with Battenburg lace and laid them carefully on the tables. On each table she’d placed three different sizes of white jugs and filled them to the brim with the flowers from her garden. Each place setting was set with a mismatch of vintage lace-edged napkins, old French plates and antique candlesticks. The result was spectacular.
Dimitri stood back and read from a post he’d got ready for social media.
‘An immersive dining experience in a secret location in Pretty Beach. A sumptuous feast in a divine setting... be ready to be dazzled.’
‘Ooh, I like it! Look at you with your marketing speak. I think you missed your vocation in life.’
As Lottie finished off buzzing around laying the tables, adding the silver knives and forks and tweaking the flowers, Dimitri opened his tablet and spreadsheet.
‘Lottie, it would be a great marketing plan if the decor runs along simultaneously to the location.’
‘Sorry, I’m not with you.’
‘Well, look what you’ve got here - all cream, the French plates and then the over-abundance of greenery and flowers... It goes with the colour-scheme in the cottage, but I think it might be good to add something coastal to it seeing as it’s sitting virtually on the water. And then the next pop-up could have a different look and feel altogether.’
Lottie stood back and looked at it all. Maybe Dimitri was right. There was something missing. Maybe pulling in a bit more of a coastal feel would add to the aura of it all.
‘Yep. I don’t know. Some driftwood, shells or something like that, I think. Maybe a few pebbles in my old Mason jars. I don’t want it to look cliche. I cannot stand that overdone beside the seaside thing.’
‘Driftwood would be just right,’ Dimitri said, nodding his head.
‘I’ll go and have a look around outside. There’ll be loads down by the public jetty,’ Lottie said, grabbing her jacket from the back of a chair.
Lottie walke
d out of the tiny cottage with her basket over her arm, slipped her shoes on from the porch and walked down past the cottage, alongside the marquee, hopped up onto the jetty on the right and looked down at the bench at the very end. The tide was out and she would be able to jump down onto the sand and see what driftwood and flotsam and jetsam she could find.
Walking briskly over the old timber boards of the jetty she watched the waves rhythmically lap on the shore in the distance. A seagull squawked and swooped down into the water, and an old fishing boat trundled past on its way out to sea.
Arriving at the end of the jetty she looked down onto the shoreline. An abundance of driftwood in all sorts of shapes, textures and sizes met her eyes. Perfect.
She jumped down onto the sand, popped her basket on the side and started to peer down at shells, seaweed and odd pieces of driftwood. About ten minutes later, the basket was full with enough driftwood to lay on the tables and she made her way back to the jetty.
Just as she was placing the basket above her back onto the jetty she heard a voice.
‘Oops, a strange emerging basket full of driftwood and a few bits of seaweed. Mysteriously appearing out of nowhere.’ Whoever the voice was couldn’t see her from above as Lottie placed the basket up onto the jetty overhead.
Lottie climbed onto the bottom rung of the jetty and started to heave herself up. She looked up and standing right there in front of her with his left hand cupped around a mug of tea was no other than Connor Bally. Connor Bally with the piercing blue eyes.
Lottie fumbled and stumbled as she went to pull herself up. Not the most ladylike of poses to find yourself in. Just as she thought she was done, her foot slipped and she didn’t make the heave up onto the jetty and she fell backwards.
‘Here, take my hand,’ Connor said and held out an extremely well-formed arm.
‘Thank you,’ Lottie replied with a smile, grasping his hand firmly and using his strength to balance she heaved herself up onto boards of the jetty.
‘Err, you’ve a bit of seaweed in your hair, here let me,’ Connor said, pulling a piece of seaweed from Lottie’s hair and shaking it to the ground.
Lottie, trying desperately not to appear flustered and embarrassed, released her hand from Connor’s, brushed down her jeans, and looked up and nearly gasped.
She had not been mistaken before. Not only was Connor Bally absolutely gorgeous, the eyes did something to her. Something that she had never known existed but now she’d felt it very much and wanted to explore it further.
Chapter 13
Lottie strolled along the jetty next to Connor, trying to keep her voice on one level and still sounding relatively sane. When in fact, she felt far from it. Was her skin actually tingling? She shook her head quickly from side to side to banish the thought from her mind. It is. It really, actually is. Oh. My. God. Who is this beside me? Take me now. Lift me up, put me over your shoulder and never let me go.
‘So, not wanting to sound rude, but is there any reason why you are down on the beach collecting a basket full of driftwood on your own?’ Connor said with a smile. ‘Firewood? Though you do know that’s against the Pretty Beach laws, don’t you?’ Connor continued with a smile and a wink.
‘Ha, it’s not quite as nuts as it looks. I’m not some crazy old cat lady collecting stuff. You won’t see me on the laneway trying to sell this to the tourists,’ Lottie responded wondering why her voice had hit a note it never had before, and why she was speaking at a hundred miles an hour. Blithering, I think they called it, yes, that was it.
Connor laughed as they approached the end of the jetty. ‘Well, come on then. I’m intrigued. What could you possibly be collecting driftwood for?’
‘I know it sounds a bit odd, but it’s actually for decoration,’ Lottie replied chuckling as she pulled a piece of the silvery driftwood out of her basket, and held it up to the light.
‘Oh, right. I didn’t realise you helped Sallie with the weddings and decor.’
‘No, not for the weddings. I’m actually having a bit of a function in the Boat House cottage myself,’ Lottie replied, alarmed at the high-pitched tone of her voice.
‘Ahhh, yes, the pop-up restaurant. Sallie told me about it when I went over to her new house. Sounds like a great idea. And in this setting, it will be amazing. You’ve virtually a licence to print money if you ask me. Not that you are,’ Connor replied.
Lottie was slightly taken aback that this gorgeous tall man with the dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and quite frankly fabulous aura had remembered Sallie mentioning to him about her tiny, little business idea.
‘They’re all the rage now, apparently. Sallie was telling me all about it - she said she went to one with Ben up in town,’ Connor said as they came to the end of the jetty and stood there chatting in the sunshine, Lottie squinting up at him. Losing herself in the beautiful, blue eyes.
‘So I’ve heard. I’ve done quite a bit of research into it now, and it seems that if you get it right it could prove to be a winner.’ Oh that sounded a bit better. Less high-pitched lovestruck teenage girl. More approaching forty-year-old woman starting a business empire.
‘I guess if the food’s good and you’ve a location like this that’s half the battle won,’ Connor replied, gesturing to the cottage and Boat House behind them.
Lottie looked down the jetty at the sparkling water and watched as it lapped onto the shore.
‘It will certainly help, I think. I'm going to give it a go, anyway. You don’t know if you don’t try, as they say.’
‘Do you have a background in catering then?’ Connor enquired.
‘Not at all! Far from it in fact. I would never in a million years call myself a caterer. I’ve just always loved cooking - it’s in my blood, I think.’
‘Right. So how are you going to run it all?’ Connor asked, seemingly very interested in her and her idea.
‘Come over and have a quick look if you like, if you’ve got time? I’ve been setting it up with my step-dad. We could do with another opinion on what it’s like, to be honest.’
Connor Bally turned over the extremely chunky diving watch on his right arm and checked the time.
‘Yep, love to. I’ve certainly got time. I love a new business too. Always up for a new idea. That’s how I’ve ended up where I am.’
Lottie, with her heart somersaulting over and back again and nearly doing flips out of her mouth, strolled along with the basket of driftwood across the pebble driveway and to the cottage door with the amazing specimen of Connor ambling along at her side.
Lottie pushed open the door and Connor ducked down under the doorframe. Lottie stood back and looked at the beautiful old cottage and all the pretty tables with new eyes since she’d been down at the beach.
The Battenburg tablecloths looked beautiful against the soft whites of the cottage. The patina of old-fashioned faded silver candlesticks nestled next to the greenery and the lovely old French plates and vintage glasses set the whole thing off perfectly.
‘Wow! You don’t do things by halves. It looks amazing!’ Connor said as Lottie showed him in.
‘Thank you.’ Lottie laughed, tucking her hair behind her ears as Dimitri came walking in from the tiny little door at the back.
‘Dimitri. This is Connor. He’s a friend of Sallie and Ben. You know, who are moving in on the hill soon.’
Dimitri looked up at Connor, ran his eyes all the way down and then back up again, broke his old tanned face into a smile and held out his hand.
‘Nice to meet you, Connor. I’m Dimitri, Lottie’s step-dad,’ Dimitri replied.
‘I actually met Connor at Sallie’s a while ago,’ Lottie trilled. Oh no! The voice again. Who even am I?
‘I think I remember. It must have been the time I asked if you’d seen a ghost,’ Dimitri replied in Greek.
Lottie Cloudberry opened her eyes really wide, shooed Dimitri away, and continued chatting with Connor about how he knew Sallie and Ben.
As she stood there in the tiny cotta
ge looking up at him the flip-flopping of her heart made her wonder quite what was going on.
Chapter 14
Lottie had sorted everything out for her new business. The five-course menu had been carefully chosen to incorporate as many things as she could from the garden to keep her costs down. The table settings they’d used on the trial-run in the cottage were all ready to go, the photos had been taken and were up on her website, and the run sheet for the days leading up to the date was meticulously planned to within an inch of its life.
Lottie pulled the laundry out of the washing machine in the utility room next to her huge kitchen and started to hang things up to dry. Then she walked into the kitchen over to the Sheila Maid in front of the Aga, pulled the rope to let it down, and started to pop a few of her delicates on it. Just as she was hoisting it back up, the kettle whistled and she reached up on the dresser, grabbed her favourite tea tin, spooned out a couple of scoops of Assam tea, and poured boiling water on top.
As Lottie sat there waiting for the tea to brew she thought of two things; her new business and Connor Bally. Why she was thinking of him she did not know. She knew next to nothing about him and had no idea if, or when, she might ever see him again. But it was the eyes, the bright blue eyes, and the dark hair. Something about him had flicked a switch somewhere in the deep and very dark recesses of Lottie’s being and sprinkled her in gold. And reached a part of her that she had quite happily resigned herself to never coming to the fore again.
Dimitri came shuffling into the kitchen in a blue checked shirt tucked tightly into expertly pressed jeans, his tablet in one hand and phone in the other.
‘Good. The tea’s on. Right. Let’s get this started then,’ Dimitri said in Greek.
‘It’s now or never. I can’t make any further excuses. We need to release the date out into the universe.’ Lottie chuckled.
‘We do. Everything is ready. There has been no stone left unturned. All we need now are the punters and to start actually making some money.’
Secret Evenings in Pretty Beach Page 5
