Lottie got to the end of the laneway, turned left to walk down the narrow service road running behind it, got to Pretty Beach Books, and unlocked the gate. The whole of the yard was now clear, the stand-up paddleboard now stored safely in the shed and one of Suntanned Pete’s cafe tables sat to the side with a lemon-yellow and white striped sun umbrella over the top and two large white pots either side filled with lavender bushes.
She heard the creak of the gate behind her as she had just taken the broom out of the shed to sweep the path.
‘Good morning! You’re up bright and early,’ Holly said as she stuck her head around the gate.
‘Morning. Yep, I’ve just come in to do the final checks. I thought it would be nice and quiet down here and I didn’t want to disturb Phoebe too much today while the shop is open.’
‘That’s not a problem. She’s fully briefed on it all. I think the most she goes out the back is to make a cup of tea anyway.’
‘I can’t thank you enough for all this, Holly.’
‘No worries. When I’m an old lady I expect you to come round and spoon feed me your amazing food until I’m nice and fat and content, and my face has started to move again.’ Holly cackled.
Lottie laughed in reply. ‘Did you see how it looked yesterday now that it’s all been laid in there? I’m so pleased with it.’
‘No. I didn’t get a chance. I had to take Mum to Seafolly and then I collapsed when I got home. It’s been a long week.’
‘Come and have a look.’
Lottie put the broom down and Holly followed in behind, and they stood in the entrance looking at the bookshop’s back room. Suntanned Pete’s white cafe tables and chairs were perched into the corners, in the centre a larger table sat covered in a thick white linen tablecloth and at each table setting, vintage white and pale yellow plates sat next to yellow hobnail wine glasses.
The old antique display units at the side were beautifully stacked with books from the shop, pale yellow candles and piles of Lottie’s vintage linen collection in coordinating colours. From above antique lanterns tied with yellow grosgrain bows hung in differing lengths.
‘Wow! Those lanterns really make it.’
‘I know. The little battery tealights are amazing. I’m hoping that the whole place will feel a bit like a bookshop fairytale.’
‘It will. Gosh you’ve worked hard. And then you’ve had to do all the food on top of all of this. You deserve the success, Lottie. You really do.’
‘Not just me. Dimitri has been working all hours behind the scenes too.’
‘Yep. He told me that at the Marina Club.’
‘Once we get the next few events done and the money in the bank, he’ll be able to lay off a bit with the actual waiting of tables. Although I think he actually enjoys that bit. He had more fun than the customers last time!’
‘He did. He was brilliant. A natural at it and that’s precisely what you want in hospitality. Rightio. I’ll be off. Good luck for tonight. Let me know if you need anything,’ Holly said as she walked out of the back door and made her way down the path.
Lottie stood and looked around and read her way down the old vintage door leaning on the side which had been turned into a blackboard. Written by Sallie in beautiful calligraphic white chalk, Lottie’s menu and a Secret Evenings note welcomed guests.
Welcome to Secret Evenings in Pretty Beach.
Our truly unique and intimate dining experiences in magical locations all around Pretty Beach.
This evening, we’d love you to sit back and absorb the amazing atmosphere of Pretty Beach’s gorgeous old bookshop and enjoy our bespoke set menu sourced mostly via a kitchen garden on Strawberry Hill.
Enjoy the finest ingredients of the season as you relax in our candlelit room and are served by our very own Pretty Beach locals.
*
Rustic rosemary chicken galette
Layered cucumber, dill and mint with handmade yoghurt dressing
Charred vegetable and goat’s cheese lasagne
Limoncello, mascarpone and raspberry trifle with chocolate shavings
Bejewelled biscotti
Blooming flower tea or coffee
Lottie read down the menu, going through everything in her mind. Chicken galettes were all ready and needing only to be warmed through. Their presentation was also sorted with each guest being served an individual brown paper wrapped galette to their table. Everything was ready for the cucumber salad course, the herbs from Lottie’s garden picked fresh ready to top it all off, and the yoghurt she’d made from Pretty Beach milk.
Each table had a shared charred vegetable lasagne which were all sitting in their vintage baking dishes in the fridge and would simply be warmed and served for sharing straight to the table. The bejewelled biscotti was tightly wrapped and ready to go, the dried flowers for the tea in place, and the limoncello trifle prepared with Lottie’s carefully perfected limoncello and frozen raspberries from the summer glut from her garden the year before would be served from large vintage footed trifle dishes.
Lottie walked over to the blackboard whilst getting her phone out of her pocket and going through her checklist. She methodically went through the list, nodding as she went. Everything was done. All she had to do now was get through another evening, hopefully this time without any secret vegetarians making their announcements at the last minute.
But this time there was a little bit of added exhilaration. The anticipation of being sprinkled with gold every time she saw Connor walk into the kitchen. Lottie’s heart flipped as she thought about it and picked up her bag.
Just as she went to open the back door her phone pinged.
Hi. Just confirming I’m all good for this evening. Looking forward to seeing you in action. See you later. Connor x
Lottie smiled and sent back a love heart emoji before she could change her mind and walked out onto the lane.
Chapter 54
Lottie had spent the whole afternoon finishing off the remaining prep for the bookshop function and everything was now in place. She’d been out the back of the bookshop for most of the afternoon, then shot home for a shower, washed her hair, made an attempt at making her face presentable, and quickly popped on the Secret Evenings uniform. There were two little additions to the uniform that she hadn’t worn on the first event - the lucky diamond earrings she’d worn on the canal boat evening and the new, M & S underwear underneath.
Not that I’m hoping that Connor will be seeing my new underwear again. Of course not.
After squeezing her car into a spot just off the laneway near the Boat House and carrying the remaining few bits into the bookshop, Lottie stood back and looked around at how it had all turned out.
The beautiful yellow and cream flowers from her garden had finished it off perfectly, and as Lottie looked around she felt extremely grateful for both Holly’s loan of the bookshop and Dimitri’s hard work. Without his vision and insistence that Lottie could pull it off, she had to admit that the whole thing would probably not have got off the ground in the first place.
The lanterns hanging from the ceiling topped off the whole pretty scene and as Lottie walked around adjusting the vintage creamy floral plates here and there, and picked up a stray piece of greenery that had dropped from a vase, she felt both proud and fortunate.
Life had really looked up - a new business that was appearing as if it was going to be successful, a house on Strawberry Hill that she was going to be able to keep, three healthy boys, and, dare she even think it, a new relationship with a gorgeous, intelligent, handsome, and kind man. Did it get any better? She thought not.
Lottie walked into the small kitchen put on her apron and fiddled with the speaker and set up Spotify with a playlist aptly named “tunes for a bookshop” and soft French jazz filled the old building.
As Lottie put the finishing touches to the cucumber salad Luke arrived on his bike parking it out in the lane, Dimitri arrived on foot with his laptop, tablet, and phone all charged and his lists ready
to go, and finally Connor arrived. As Lottie saw him walk in the gate from the tiny window in the kitchen her heart flip-flopped for the umpteenth time.
Blimey. He’s gorgeous. Take me now. Up the little steep steps to the room upstairs.
An hour or so later, with some help from Phoebe, the bookshop manager, and Xian, who was now sitting in the corner of the kitchen on a tiny chair with her special drink and instructing everyone via Dimitri’s lists everything was ready, and the guests finally started to arrive.
Lottie, busy in the kitchen with Luke and Xian, could hear the oohs and ahhs as Dimitri and Connor welcomed people into the room. They could hear Sylvia Daylon and the WI crew taking their seats and discussing the cream roses, Nel the bus driver had arrived with what looked like a date, and just as nearly everyone had taken their seats, the last guest turned up to a seat at the large table in the centre.
Xian suddenly jumped up, hearing the man’s voice. ‘Ooh. Gossip. I think I know who that is,’ she said shuffling to the kitchen door, opening it a tiny crack and looking out into the packed lantern-lit room. ‘Yes, I was right. I’d know his voice anywhere. Lottie, you have the one and only Lucian McIntyre in the house.’
Lottie looked around from the little white dishes of cucumber salad she was dousing with freshly chopped herbs. ‘Lucian MyIntyre? I’m not sure I know him. Oh, yes, I do! The one Sallie did the podcast interview with. Wow!’
‘Yep. That one, indeed. Owner of Where the Heck is Pretty Beach? I wondered how long it would be before he booked in to get a piece of this pie. This sort of thing is right up his street.’
Lottie continued chopping and sprinkling. ‘So, not only have I got to live up to the standards of the WI and Sylvia Daylon this evening, I now have a guest who probably has more influence than the biggest newspapers in the land. No pressure or anything.’ Lottie chuckled.
Xian took her hip flask from the pocket of her huge fluffy pink cardigan and sat back down on the chair in the corner. ‘You’ll be fine. They are going to be enthralled by it all. I know I was last time and I’m not easy to please either. As you well know.’
***
A few hours later, with Lottie having to constantly remember to keep her mind on the job in hand and not stop and stare at the delight that was Connor Bally coming in and out of the kitchen with arms full of plates, and the evening had gone well.
No last-minute vegetarian announcements were made but there had been a smattering of drama when one of the women from the WI had drunk just a little too much of her sherry and had bumped into the table holding the limoncello trifles on the way back from the loo, and the whole lot had nearly hit the floor.
Connor, Luke, and Dimitri with Xian dishing out commands from the corner as if she had been made for the job, had worked brilliantly together. Luke had gone home after the coffee had been served because he had an early shift at the hospital, and as Dimitri had seen the last guest out through the front of the shop, he’d sat down next to Xian.
‘You look like I feel,’ Xian commented as she closed Dimitri’s tablet and took a sip of her special drink.
‘I’m feeling it tonight. That was full-on.’
‘Holly’s going to be here any minute to pick me up if you want a lift home?’
Dimitri looked at Lottie. ‘Are you okay with that? Will you be alright to do the last of the clearing up on your own?’
Lottie stood in front of Dimitri and Xian with her hands on her hips and smiled. ‘Of course, there’s not much to do now. Luke and I did as much as we could as we went along.’
Dimitri nodded, took off his apron, Xian got up as she heard a car horn beep from the lane and they both kissed Lottie goodbye and walked out the back door of the shop.
Lottie began unloading the third lot out of the dishwasher, piling all the plates and dishes up on the worktop as Connor came back in from the loo.
‘Looks like it’s you and me then,’ Connor said as he popped his arm around Lottie’s waist and kissed her tenderly on the lips.
What a shame it turned out like that.
***
It had been an hour or so since Dimitri and Xian had left to go home. Lottie and Connor had gone through the whole of the back of the bookshop cleaning and tidying up and were both ready to get home.
Lottie stood leaning up against the old antique shop dresser and looked through her phone. Lucian McIntyre had tagged Secret Evenings on social media in a picture he’d taken of the decor. The lanterns, the creamy yellow flowers and the vintage plates looked fabulous and so had his picture of the chicken galette wrapped in brown paper.
She scrolled through to her email app and saw that bookings were coming in thick and fast for the events for the future. Events that were so secret that she didn’t know where they were going to be held because they hadn’t worked that bit out yet. Lottie put her phone in her pocket and decided to worry about that tiny detail later. There were much more interesting things to think about for the rest of the evening in hand. Interesting things like being swirled in gold.
Lottie put the last of the lanterns in the huge basket by the door and finished off sweeping the floor. Connor came in the back door after a run to her car with a big plastic tub full of coffee and teacups.
‘Right. I think we’re about done then, aren’t we?’ Connor asked.
Lottie’s lucky earrings twinkled as she leant on the broom. ‘Yep. Thank goodness. I’ll come back in the morning and get the last few bits finished up and give it a proper vacuum and mop,’ Lottie replied.
‘I don’t know about you, but I’m ravenous. I didn’t even think about food before I left home and then suddenly realised that I didn't have any dinner.’
‘I am too,’ Lottie agreed, nodding her head.
‘Curry house and back to mine?’ Connor asked.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever had a better offer.’ Lottie laughed picking up her bag and following Connor out the back door.
As they walked over to Connor’s car, Lottie was feeling the evening in her feet and her back. A tiny little part of her in the back of her mind was actually thinking that she’d love a shower, her pyjamas, and to get in bed. She had been prepping and organising all week, and been on her feet all day, and even walking to Connor’s car it felt like hard work putting one foot in front of the other.
‘You look tired. Do you want me to just drop you off home?’
No! I absolutely do not! I want to be doused in your gold for the rest of the night. Rest of my life.
Lottie tried to perk herself up. ‘Ah, no, I’m fine. That was just a big night. I’d love a curry.’
‘I can run in and get the curry and I’ll take you home and leave you in peace, if you’d prefer?’
‘Nope. All good.’
Connor nodded his head, drove his car down the laneway under the lights and bunting of Pretty Beach and pulled up outside the busy-with-late-night customers curry house.
Connor reached over and patted Lottie on the leg.
‘Okay, Princess. You stay right there while I get this sorted. Anything in particular that you like?’
‘I like everything in there. Whatever you fancy will do me too.’
‘Too easy. Won’t be long.’
Fifteen minutes later, with a carrier bag of takeaway containers and what looked like a bag with naan breads, Connor passed it all over to Lottie who placed it on her lap and Connor turned out of the laneway, drove down Seapocket Lane, turned left at the end, made his way to the end of the road, and indicated left to park.
‘I just realised I don’t even know where you live,’ Lottie said.
‘Well, you do now. Here we are.’
‘You live on Seafolly Passage?’
‘I do.’
‘You never mentioned that before. It’s like gold dust to have a house on here.’
‘It never really came up, did it, but yes I’ve lived here for a few years now.’
‘Nope, it didn’t. Lucky you. It’s a great spot,’ Lottie replied as she look
ed out at the house they’d pulled up in front of.
Connor took the carrier bag from Lottie’s lap, got out of the car, came around the other side to the pavement, and helped Lottie out of the car as she looked up at the house. An elegant four-storey Victorian end-of-terrace with huge sash windows to the front, a tiny patch of front garden which was hardly big enough for a bench, and two chimney stacks with four pots each. Lottie gulped.
Even his house is gorgeous. Connor Bally - the golden gift that keeps on giving.
Connor pushed open the gate and led Lottie up a few steps to the front door, he swiped his phone across a pad, and opened the door.
They walked through the ground floor of the house to a cosy sitting room at the back with overstuffed sofas, a beautiful old fireplace, and lots of lamps.
‘It’s beautiful in here, Connor. You didn’t tell me you were into interior design.’
‘Pah! I’m not. The woman I bought this place off was some famous architect and this was one of her holiday homes. She had it styled for the sale and I bought the lot. Job done.’
Lottie giggled. ‘That makes a whole lot more sense then.’
‘Are you trying to say that you are surprised that I am this stylish?’ Connor joked.
‘Not at all.’
‘How are you feeling, now?’ Connor asked as Lottie plonked herself down on one of the pale grey sofas.
‘Good. I just feel a bit grubby and smell of food after all that.’
‘Look, how about you go and have a shower upstairs? I’ll get you some other soft clothes? I’ll put the curry in the oven to keep warm.’
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