Making her way up to the eaves, she put her cup of tea and plate of eggs on the makeshift fold-up timber table they’d set up for their painting gear, and unfolded a chair and she opened the huge arched windows and cold air rushed in.
As she sat there eating her breakfast and looking down onto a grey sea topped with angry little white waves breaking way out at the back, she thought about everything she had to do that day. It looked like she was possibly going to be the only one out and about. By the looks of it there wasn’t much going on in Pretty Beach. Way out the back of the sea she could just make out the Pretty Beach ferry turning the corner to Seafolly, but the weather meant there was not another boat or fishing trawler in sight.
Lottie tucked into the eggs and tea. Today was going to be a big day. With Dimitri’s help and Holly’s supervision, they were getting the back of the bookshop ready for the next event.
It was going to be a lot of work and Lottie was ready for, if not enamoured by, a day of lifting and sorting.
After the success of the first event, Lottie and Dimitri had carefully brainstormed and plotted the theme, menu, and branding for the second pop-up restaurant. Holly’s store was a beautiful old building to work from and Lottie had decided that the old antique display cupboards lining the back room were a beautiful backdrop, and that it would be a fitting place for a beautiful evening with lovely local food.
But it was no small feat to get it ready; they needed to get the place free of all the stock and storage boxes, plan what tables would work in what configuration, and work out the logistics of the kitchen and the decor. It didn’t sound much, but she knew from the last one at the Boat House the vast amount of work that was coming up.
As she thought about the day and how busy it was going to be, she remembered the alternative to trying to make her own business a success and not having to work for anyone else. She remembered the Hour of Power and Stephanie Beady and the stress cake. She shuddered at the memory of it alone. If there was anything that was going to make Lottie determined to work every hour she could, it was the memory of dreadful Stephanie with the wiry hair and incessant manic-like pushing of the plastic squishy cake.
Lottie’s vision for the bookshop had been simply to follow along with Holly’s lead. The colour scheme of coastal white and pale lemon was easy enough, and as she’d walked around the garden one morning, she’d gone through and worked out that the room could easily be filled with pale yellow and creamy white flowers from what was blooming in the garden. She was going to fill the room with vintage jugs stuffed and overfilled with pale yellow flowers and incorporate florals and edible flowers and a lemony feel into the menu. All done on a minimal budget and using everything she already had. It sounded easy. Anyone who had any experience in hospitality would know that it wasn’t.
Lottie walked back inside, had a shower, put on jeans, a navy-blue crew neck jumper, stuck her hair up in a tight pleat at the back of her head, hastily rubbed on a layer of tinted moisturiser, and added a pair of dangly intricate gold earrings at her ears. Done.
As she walked out of the front door with a huge bag holding cleaning materials and paraphernalia for the day, the howling wind whipped her fringe around and she pulled her wax jacket tighter around her and marvelled at the weather. One day the sun was beating down the next it was feeling like Winter again.
Lottie closed the gate behind her, headed down Strawberry Hill, walked through Mermaids down towards the Marina Club and along the beach to get some fresh air, doing a loop through the back of Pretty Beach so that she could pop into the Spar.
She pushed open the door to the supermarket, said hello to Deepa, owner of Pretty Beach curry house who was standing chatting at the counter, smiled in recognition at Sallie’s friend Nina who was pushing a pram, and continued walking all the way back to the fridges to get some milk.
Lottie opened the door of the milk fridge, selected a bottle of Jersey organic, and just as she was closing the fridge door, Suntanned Pete in shorts, a beanie, and flip flops turned the corner from the biscuits and tea aisle.
‘Lottie! Hello! How the devil are you? I was literally just talking about you!’ Pete announced.
‘All good I hope, Pete?’
‘Of course. No, I was talking to Sylvia Daylon. You know her, don’t you?’
‘Not really, but yes I know of her. She was at the first event at the Boat House too.’
‘Yeah. I know. That's how your name came up. She said it was one of the best nights she’s had for years. Coming from her, that's saying something.’
‘Oh wow! How lovely. I’m honoured.’
Pete lowered his voice. ‘Not being funny but she can be a bit of an old bat, on the quiet. Her sister stayed at the cottages last year and she had a dig about the fact that there were ants on the patio,’ Pete said laughing.
‘Oh right! Gosh, I’m glad I didn’t know that before then.’
‘If you’re getting Sylvia Daylon going around Pretty Beach telling everyone how fabulous the Secret Evenings are, then I reckon half the battle is won, don’t you?’
‘I don’t know about that, but I do know that word-of-mouth from someone like her is probably gold.’
‘You’re not wrong, my lovely. Hopefully she’ll tell everyone at the WI too. Those ladies would eat it up, literally.’
‘I hope I get more like her who enjoy it and tell all and sundry,’ Lottie said and smiled.
‘We’ll pray for you! How funny was the weather that day, though? All that rain and then that beautiful clear sky afterwards,’ Pete said as he peered into the fridge.
‘Yes, it was lovely and clear after that rain came sweeping through.’
‘Yep, lovely and clear for sitting down on the jetty looking over Pretty Beach at the end of the night,’ Suntanned Pete said, raising his eyebrows, smiling and cocking his head to the side.
Lottie smiled back, shaking her head. ‘Goodness. I thought I’d kept that quiet.’
Suntanned Pete smiled. ‘You’re joking! Keep things quiet in Pretty Beach. Oh, Lottie. I see all sorts when I’m walking the dog at night. This time though, I think I might actually know something before Holly. Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me,’ Pete said winking, taking a pint of milk out of the fridge and tapping the side of his nose.
Chapter 43
Lottie said goodbye to Holly and Xian and finished sweeping the floor of the back room of the bookshop. The shop had long since closed, the manager Phoebe had gone home, and the whole of the back section was looking like a completely different space.
The old, pale cream and lemon antique shop display units were now cleared of their boxes of stock. The floor to ceiling bookshelves lined with the pretty, yellow floral wallpaper were now clean, dusted and filled with colour-coordinated books and the smattering of small vintage factory pendant lights had been polished until they gleamed. It had been a hard day of lifting and organising. Dimitri had gone home for a shower and to go to the club and Holly had exclaimed that it had been a great afternoon getting a job out of the way that had been on her to-do list for way too long.
Lottie locked the back door, picked up her bag and manoeuvered around the yellow bike with the basket on the front as she walked through to the front door on her way into the laneway. She closed the door behind her under the pale yellow and white awning and pushed it to ensure it was locked and sighed happily. What a result. A day’s work and the place was looking like something out of a storybook. All she needed now was to sort out how to configure the tables and what tables they were going to use.
Suntanned Pete had told her when she’d bumped into him in the supermarket that he had a job lot of white cafe tables and matching chairs in storage in the garages at Seashells Cottages that were perfectly good but had been replaced by more weatherproof ones and she was free to have them for Secret Evenings if she wanted.
Lottie thought it was worth a look: white cafe tables would suit the whole aesthetic of the bookshop perfectly and more importantly save her
both any further brainpower on it and not affect the extremely tight and meticulously worked out budget.
Lottie walked along the laneway thinking about it all on her way to Pretty Beach Fish and Chips - with Dimitri at the Marina Club and the whole following day cooking for her dinners business, she was allowing herself a rare treat of fish and chips on the way home.
She strolled along lost in thoughts of the new business and smiled at the pretty pastel shops of Pretty Beach. Even on a blustery, grey day everything looked lovely and especially Pretty Beach Fish and Chips whose navy-blue and white colours and on-point styling ticked every box.
Just as she turned to approach the chip shop, Connor came strolling along on his phone. She slowed her pace so that he would see her. Connor raised his eyebrows in recognition, smiled, and held up his finger to say he was nearly finished on the phone.
Lottie tingled and stopped as Connor finished the call and felt the golden shimmer starting at her feet and slowly filling her whole body up with the dizzy glow.
Very, very easy on the eye. Very easy on everything in fact. Would be rather easy on other regions too, I don’t doubt.
Connor finished on the phone. ‘Hello. Fancy bumping into you! What have you been up to then? Looks like you’ve had a busy day,’ Connor said, pointing to the bags on each of Lottie’s shoulders and the box in her hand.
‘Ahh. I have, actually. A long, busy, tiring and extremely rewarding day. I’ve been getting the back of Pretty Beach Books ready for the next event.’
‘Right. Well, you look like you're bushed.’
Lottie hadn’t a clue what she looked like but she knew it probably wasn’t anywhere close to supermodel levels. She’d not even looked in the mirror since she’d slapped on the tinted moisturiser in the morning and put her hair up in a pleat.
‘How about I take that box from you and give you a hand?’ Connor asked.
‘Errm, well I’m on my way home. I was just popping in to get some fish and chips. Where are you off to, then?’
‘Out for a stroll to the Smugglers. I’ve had a whole day doing online training and lectures. I’ve been stuck behind a bank of computers for ten hours talking to people in the government. My eyes, my brain, and my back needed some fresh air and a pint.’
‘Sounds about as busy as my day. Though thank goodness I wasn’t stuck behind a screen.’
‘Why don’t you join me?’ Connor asked and gestured his head down to the end of the laneway.
Why don’t I join you as you shower me in your dazzling golden light? Don’t mind if I do. How can I resist?
Lottie’s mind flipped to when he had kissed her on the jetty and she did a sharp intake of breath.
‘Love to. I’m not really dressed for it though as you can see...’
‘Looking good to me, Lottie. Looking good to me.’
And you, my friend, are looking exceedingly good to me.
***
Connor Bally took the box from Lottie’s arms and offered to take one of her bags. Lottie passed the box over and he was surprised at how much it weighed. This tiny, gorgeous, on the odd side woman with the caramel hair and creamy skin, was doing something to him that he liked very much. He strolled along as she chatted about her day, the bookshop, and how hard they’d all worked that afternoon. Listening to Lottie’s voice, he was lost in thought remembering the first night when he’d sat in her greenhouse, and had felt a shudder ripple through him as she’d giggled and shown him an apparently unusual variety of lemon verbena that wasn’t normally grown in England.
Walking down towards the Smugglers, Connor smiled to himself at how well his plan had gone. He was very pleased with how his staged bumping into Lottie had turned out. It was as if it had been meant to be.
What Lottie Cloudberry didn’t know was that Connor had been standing out the front of Ben Chalmers Seaplanes having a cup of tea with Ben and Sallie talking mostly about Sallie’s bump when Holly had dropped off a bag of cinnamon buns to Sallie on her way home. Holly had told them all what a crazy afternoon she’d had clearing out the back of her bookshop with Lottie, and how it had needed to be done for years. She’d then proceeded to tell them that she’d left Lottie to it to lock up and was herself headed home for a long soak in the bath.
Connor had realised that Lottie would be leaving the bookshop soon, had finished his tea, strode quickly back to his workshop, washed his hands and face, splashed himself with aftershave, and hot-footed it down towards the laneway hoping to orchestrate bumping into the beautiful woman that he couldn’t stop thinking about as she finished up for the day and headed back to her house on Strawberry Hill.
Connor came back to the present moment, realising that Lottie had asked him a question and was looking at him waiting for an answer. He hadn’t the faintest idea what she had just said.
‘The Smugglers. Have you had their Locals Only pies?’ Lottie repeated a tiny frown between her eyebrows.
‘Oh, yes, sorry. I have. When I’ve been lucky enough to get one before they sell out.’
‘I heard from Holly today that they were in production this morning. Maybe we will be in luck,’ Lottie said chuckling.
‘I hope so! Which one is your favourite?’
There were only two different types of pies at the Smugglers: chicken or beef. There was certainly no messing around with different flavours and weird and wonderful ingredients. June, mother of James the barman, had been making them for years from locally sourced meat and her own secret recipe. You did not sway from chicken or beef. You did not ask her to add anything else.
Lottie pursed her lips in contemplation. ‘You know, I don’t think I could decide, but I do love the chicken. I have to tell you though, Connor. If on the odd occasion I’ve been in there and there are any left, I plump for both.’
Connor looked down at the tiny slip of a thing beside him and wasn’t quite sure where she would put one let alone two pies and smiled. Another thing she’d surprised him with. There’d been the seaweed in the hair and the clambering onto the jetty, the crawling backwards from under a car talking to herself and covered in mud, and the under the table episode with the earrings and the blood. Now here she was telling him she ate two pies.
And in all of those episodes he’d felt himself fall deeper and deeper into this pint-sized woman who he’d quite like to bottle, put on the chest of drawers by the side of his bed, and gawp at for, most preferably, the rest of his life.
***
Lottie felt as if every single person in Pretty Beach would see the glow emanating from her every pore as she strolled along bathed in the light of Connor.
They arrived at the Smugglers and he held open the door. As she walked in, her hand brushed his strong arm. My goodness. He is divine. Stuff the pies. I’d like to take him home, bypass the kitchen, and not resurface for a few days.
Lottie quickly shook her head. Get a grip on yourself. This tall, handsome man with the very serious job will want intelligent conversation, a witty and charming repertoire, not someone positively stuttering as she trembles and glimmers in front of him.
‘What can I get you to drink? Strawberry cocktail?’ Connor laughed.
‘Dear me, no! I won’t be having another one of those for a long time.’
‘They were lethal. I can vouch for that. Went down well, though. And led to a very nice end to the night. Stroking vegetables and all sorts.’ Connor winked.
Lottie felt the blood rushing up to her cheeks and blushed furiously. ‘Yes, that bit was a rather nice result of drinking far too much strawberry cocktail. I have to admit. I liked it very much.’
‘Well, I’m glad you said that because it’s the best end to an evening I’ve had in a very long time. Very, very long time in actual fact.’
‘Oh, really? Me too, Connor. It was such a nice time that I was very happy it happened again.’
Goodness. Now I’m the one flirting. What has happened to cold and aloof Lottie Cloudberry who doesn’t have the time to entertain the notion of a
man in her life? Where is this going to go? One place hopefully. One place involving a bed.
Chapter 44
Connor put Lottie’s basket and box on a nearby table and stood next to Lottie at the bar of the Smugglers as Lottie looked down at the handwritten menu.
The Smugglers was busy with a smattering of locals and a few odd tables of tourists in the window in the corner. James the barman walked along the bar and leaning on the ale taps beamed at Lottie.
‘Hey, my lovely Lottie. I haven’t seen you in here for a while.’
‘Nope. I’ve been up to my eyes.’
‘I’ve heard. Word on the street is I need to get myself booked in for one of your underground evenings,’ James said smiling and holding his hand out to Connor continued, ‘Hi Connor, mate. Not such a long time since I’ve seen you, though.’
‘Hi, James. How are you keeping?’
‘Good, mate. Another busy day with the pies though. Actually, that’s an idea for you Lottie - Secret Evening pies and your wine. They’d go down a treat.’
‘I’m not sure I would make it out alive if I tried to sell those pies other than here.’ Lottie laughed.
‘Good point indeed. Right, speaking of the pies, I think you’re out of luck. Want me to go out the back and check? And yes I know, Lottie, if there are any you’ll have one of both. Though I still to this day do wonder where you put it all. There are huge fishermen who come in here and can only manage one pie.’
‘You’re teasing us now, James. Fingers crossed, and yes I’ll have both,’ Lottie said with a chuckle.
James came back into the bar two minutes later from out the back and lowered his voice. ‘Two of each left right at the back. Yours if you want them?’
Lottie and Connor smiled and nodded and ordered a couple of drinks.
‘Okay, go and sit yourself down over there and I’ll bring them over when they’re ready,’ James instructed as he tidied away the menus and put a fresh beer mat out on the bar.
Secret Evenings in Pretty Beach Page 16
