Kate
‘Are you kidding me?’ Kate clung to the ladder, dropping a handful of lametta so that it glooped instead of cascaded onto the top branches of the Christmas tree she and Juliet were decorating.
If anyone had asked her she’d have said lametta went out with sherry and charades but Juliet said she wanted The Clock House Christmas trees to look like they were positively dripping in vintage Victoriana jewels. And kudos to Juliet because somehow the silver strands went perfectly with the baubles in shimmering rose copper, frosted pale green and glittery white. Strands of pearls and crystal droplets helped the light bounce from decoration to decoration but Kate’s absolute favourites were the antique-jewelled bees, complete with tiny gossamer wings that Juliet had found to represent Bea’s bees behind The Clock House moon-gate.
Decorating The Clock House for the grand opening was a lot of work when tasked with hanging each strand of lametta to hang just so. Thank goodness Juliet had come up with a handy spreadsheet to ensure her vision could be achieved in the only day they had available before they got busy organising their stand for the tree-lighting ceremony. But even with Juliet’s military precision and two trees still to go, she’d been in a really great mood until about thirty seconds ago.
Juliet winced. ‘You promised you wouldn’t shout.’
‘That was before Emma used you to try and kill me.’
‘I really don’t think that was her intention.’
Kate snatched two of the mini baubles off the top branches of the tree, shoved them into her mouth and giving it her best Don Corleone, said, ‘And that she would send you to do the deed.’
‘I think you should think about it,’ Juliet said, looking up at her. ‘And, eew, take those out of your mouth and put them back exactly where I told you to.’
Reluctantly, Kate removed the baubles from her cheeks. She was just going to have to be the Don without the chipmunk face. ‘And do you want me to have this think while I’m up here placing each bauble that you hand me just so because what if I forget to concentrate on placing each decoration on the exact branch and facing the exact angle that you direct me to?’
‘Okay, so trimming the tree makes me a little Martha Stewart. You’ll thank me when everyone’s saying how good it looks.’
‘Are you even going to let Melody near the tree at the barn?’
‘Of course. She’s old enough to decorate it properly.’
‘Because you’ll be giving her a spreadsheet to follow too? What on earth are you going to do when you have all your babies and they get old enough to want to see their toilet-roll-Santas on the tree?’
Juliet smiled a smile that suggested to Kate she’d thought about this. ‘Easy. I’ll have two trees. One they can go to town on, and one I can.’
‘Something tells me your babies are coming out with glue-gun attachments anyway!’
Kate thought that once Juliet had a baby she probably wouldn’t care how the tree was decorated and again noticed how tired she looked. All Juliet’s gorgeous red hair came with a pale complexion but even from all the way up the ladder Kate could see there was now a new translucent quality to her skin.
‘Hun, are you sure you’re not coming down with something?’ she asked, trying not to panic because she so didn’t have a plan for if they all got ill right before they opened.
‘Positive,’ Juliet replied. ‘I’m taking every vitamin known to man and I have zero time to be ill.’
After they’d finished decorating today, Kate was going to insist on some pampering as a thank you and work out a way of bringing the conversation around to how Juliet needed to start delegating once they were open.
Spotting movement out of the corner of her eyes, she whipped her head around to see Emma sneaking quietly out of the kitchen area behind the bar. ‘Emma Danes, I don’t know what you paid for that invisibility cloak but you were fleeced. We can both see you. Come here and explain yourself.’
Emma, looking guilty, sidled up to Juliet. ‘You asked her then?’
‘Oh my God,’ Juliet exclaimed, looking up to where Kate was staring down at the both of them. ‘You can’t tell by the way she’s frothing at the mouth?’
Emma put a hand to the side of her mouth and mock whispered, ‘I’m too short to see all the way up there.’
‘Well,’ Kate informed her, ‘let the dribble that’s about to land on your shoulder be clue number one.’
Emma reached out to catch a few of the strands of lametta floating down and held them up for Kate to reposition. ‘So it’s a flat-out “no” then?’ she asked, the corners of her mouth turning down.
‘Yes,’ Kate said, adding an emphatic nod, and tightening her grip on the ladder.
Emma immediately turned her frown upside down. ‘It’s a yes?’
‘No it is not a “yes”, oh for— one of you hang on to the ladder, I’m coming back down.’
At the bottom of the steps she popped her hands on her hips and said, ‘I want you to explain, in words of one syllable, and possibly via the medium of mime too, why on earth you think I’d agree to such a crazy idea?’
Emma shuffled her feet and mumbled, ‘You asked me to hire someone.’
‘Someone,’ Kate confirmed. ‘Not the Wicked Witch of Whispers Wood.’
Emma pouted. ‘She just put her name as Gloria on the application form.’
‘You gave her an application form, already?’ Juliet gasped. ‘I thought you were just mooting the idea.’ She turned to Kate, a rising note of panic in her voice. ‘We have to interview her, for real?’
Emma reached out and poked one of the beautiful antique bee decorations dangling from the nearest branch so that it swung back and forth. ‘Come on, guys. Everyone deserves the chance to fly.’
‘Hey,’ Kate tapped the ladder behind her, ‘I’ve already been defying gravity today. And how is it possible that you’ve turned into Glinda, the Good Witch of the South? If you arrived here on a bubble this morning, I’m afraid I’m going to have to burst it. Because there’s just no way…’
‘But why not?’ Emma asked.
‘Why not?’ Kate repeated, shaking her head in wonder. ‘Well for a start, I think there’s an actual law that requires staff to be human.’
‘I think it’s only on S.H.I.E.L.D. that they’re funny about that. Gloria’s—’
‘Also,’ she added, ‘staff need to be the right fit and, honestly, how could you possibly think that Gloria would fall into that category?’
Emma straightened as if that extra half an inch would help her stand her ground. ‘You gave me a chance—’
‘Don’t you dare say when no one else would,’ Kate shot straight back, hating hearing Emma’s voice change from confident to small and hesitant. That her friend could feel she was second-best or some sort of consolation hire when she hadn’t taken a step backwards since the moment she’d walked in and made them all feel as if working hard at The Clock House was going to be a pleasure, not a chore, wasn’t a nice feeling at all.
The days were hectic in the countdown to opening, but how could she excuse missing Emma feeling so raw still after not getting that part she’d so badly wanted? ‘Ems, if you hadn’t come here, you would have got back up on that horse and landed a role you were perfect for and you would have been the studio’s first choice – their only choice.’
If she had her way, Emma would happily stay at The Clock House running Cocktails & Chai, but she had to place the ball firmly in Emma’s court.
Her friend had to choose. Really choose what she wanted because Kate didn’t want her to feel trapped here. That wasn’t what coming here was supposed to have been about. ‘It’s okay to tell me you’re missing your old life, you know. I can find a way to work things out here, if you need to go back?’
Emma swallowed. ‘Do you want me to go back?’
Kate heard the underlying uncertainty. Her friend never faltered when it came to enthusiasm and positivity and Kate realised it was the highest form of people-pleasing. She didn’t want Emma to stay out of gratitude. She wanted her to stay because she felt she belonged.
She’d seemed so happy and confident in her decision to come here but now all Kate could think was how Emma had flown thousands of miles leaving behind her passion and everyone she was close to.
‘Do you want to go back?’ she forced herself to counter.
Emma shook her head emphatically and, relieved, Kate let out the breath she’d been holding. ‘Good. Because the minute you mentioned you were thinking of giving acting up, you became my top choice to run Cocktails & Chai. And it’s more than being about you having handy work experience. It’s about this feeling I have that you’re going to be exceptional at it.’
Emma swallowed and Kate saw her eyes fill with tears. ‘Thank you. You have no idea how much I needed to hear that. And, maybe because of that,’ she said, clearing her throat and pulling herself up tall again, ‘I’m going to push my luck and tell you that I really think Gloria might be an asset to the team. We’re all here because we wanted to make a change in our life. A change for the better right?’
Juliet aimed a soft smile at Kate. ‘Why do I feel as if we’ve been hoist with our own postcards?’
Kate thought about the postcards hanging up at reception and heard her resolve let out a whimper as Emma’s expression took on a pleading quality.
‘I think Gloria’s at that stage where she’s looking to make a change too,’ Emma said. ‘At least let me interview her. I’ve interviewed heaps of candidates before.’
Kate felt one of her eyebrows arch up.
‘A few. I’ve interviewed a few,’ Emma said, with a winning grin.
Kate’s eyebrow lifted higher. In none of her plans for The Clock House had Gloria Pavey ever featured.
‘Okay I’ve only ever carried out one interview,’ Emma confessed. ‘But that went really well and she got the job.’
Kate folded her arms and thought that now would be a really, really good time for Bea to give her a sign or whisper in her ear what she should do.
Silence.
Great.
Never around to answer the really tough questions.
‘But why would Gloria want to work here?’ Juliet murmured.
Emma thought for a moment and said, ‘She’s lonely, I think.’
‘We can’t give someone a job because they’re lonely,’ Kate automatically replied, and then swallowed because wasn’t that partly why they’d given her mum the baking for The Clock House?
She looked at Emma. Was this why she’d only taken one of her days off? Maybe it was less about having too much to do and more about not wanting to spend the time alone.
The last thing Kate wanted was Emma thinking that if she just kept busy the holes and wounds inside her would automatically fill up. She knew that didn’t work because she’d spent years simply going through the motions after Bea had died. It hadn’t been living and she didn’t want that for anyone. Even Gloria, she admitted quietly to herself.
‘Okay,’ Kate sighed. ‘She can have a trial period. If—’
Emma brought her hands together in a clap of glee and broke into a little victory dance.
‘—If she comes in first for a chat. Tell her she’s going to have to eat a serious amount of crow.’
Emma stopped mid-dance. ‘How serious is a serious amount?’
‘Enough for me to be satisfied our customers aren’t going to have to worry they’re being served afternoon tea by the woman who accidentally-on-purpose insulted them in the corner shop only hours before.’
‘Okay.’
‘I mean it,’ Kate said putting on her serious boss face. ‘I’m not interested in seeing her come through those doors for the wrong reasons.’
‘That’s fair. That’s more than fair. She’s trying really hard to put her behaviour behind her. You’ll see. Even Eeyore—’
Kate’s antenna shot up. ‘Eeyore?’
Emma grabbed hold of a couple of bee decorations and scrambled up the ladder as if heading for higher ground. ‘I mean, Jake – even Jake seemed to get on well with her.’
‘I knew it! You feel bad your matchmaking didn’t work and guilty because Jake rumbled your little plan.’
Emma sighed with bemusement. ‘Gloria doesn’t seem upset at all that Jake isn’t interested. But, yes, okay, Jake was a little,’ she stopped, dragged in a breath, ‘upset at my match-making. I have to go on a date with him as punishment.’
Kate looked from Emma to the chandelier shining brightly from the centre of the ceiling, the glass droplets seeming to wink at her. She’d loved the chandelier since she’d been a little girl and seen it in glamorous black and white photos from the 1920s that Old Man Isaac used to display in the foyer.
When Daniel and Oscar had brought it down from the attic and re-fitted it in this room for the summer village fete it had felt to Kate as if it was hanging once again in its rightful home. But she hadn’t really given much thought to the folklore surrounding it being back up at The Clock House again until she’d seen Jake Knightley standing under it with Emma, the day he’d come to talk about his designs for the courtyard.
With a huge grin she turned back to Emma and said, ‘I don’t think you’re going to find your date a punishment, and if you’re hoping Jake will, I think you’re wrong on that score too.’
‘Speak of the devil,’ Juliet said, looking out the window.
‘Oh no,’ Emma moaned, running a self-conscious hand over her hair. ‘What’s he doing here?’
Seconds later they all heard the main doors open and a man’s footsteps approach.
‘Jake,’ Kate announced, swallowing her grin and throwing Emma an innocent look, ‘fancy seeing you here?’
‘What do you mean?’ Jake asked, somewhat grumpily as his gaze took in the large Christmas tree taking up most of the window, ‘you phoned me and asked if I could bring all my lights.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember now,’ Kate said and tried not to react to Juliet’s ‘please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing’ face as she walked over to him. ‘Here, let me take those for you.’
She went to take the boxes but he didn’t release them and she grinned in delight as she watched his gaze seem to get stuck on Emma.
‘See something you like?’ she whispered to him.
‘What?’ Tearing his gaze from Emma, he shook his head a little, clung onto the boxes, and said, ‘I take it you wanted these lights for the outside of the building?’
‘Mmmn, Daniel and Oscar have done the front. These will be great for the courtyard.’
‘I’ll go and give them a hand.’
‘Thanks.’ When he stayed where he was, she leaned forward and added, ‘You’ll probably want to move in order to do that.’
‘Right, um,’ he slid his gaze to Emma again and said, ‘While I was here, I thought I’d have a quick word with Emma.’
‘Sure,’ Emma said.
‘In private?’ he said.
Oh, no way was he about to tell the girl who went in to bat for everyone and thought of herself last that now he was sober and had had time to think … With her grip still on the boxes, Kate tugged until Jake was standing more underneath the chandelier and gave him a don’t-even-think-about-it-mister stare.
‘Juliet and I were just telling Emma how if there was one thing she didn’t have to worry about, it was you,’ she said.
‘You were?’ his gaze narrowed and if she’d been anyone other than Kate Somersby she might have felt as if she was wading into dangerous waters.
‘No you weren’t,’ Emma said glaring down at Kate.
‘You weren’t?’ Jake asked again.
‘We were about to, weren’t we Juliet?’
Juliet’s eyes said ‘why am I being dragged into this?’, but her voice said, ‘Oh, definitely.’
‘We wanted to reassure her you weren’t one of those guys who reneges or,’ Kate paused, ‘chickens out on stuff.’
Jake stared back at her like he was only a couple of heartbeats away from telling her exactly what she could do with her meddling.
Kate’s gaze didn’t waver.
Juliet always understood exactly what she was saying without having to actually say it.
Men!
So incredibly dense.
Jake’s gaze filled with a dangerous glint. ‘Did you just say I was incredibly—’
Kate had no choice and unleashed her best don’t-be-a-dick stare on him and finally must have got through because his jaw slammed shut and she could see the ticking muscle there.
Tough.
To send her point sailing home she said, ‘Yes. I mean, we all know it’s been a while. Of course the first person you asked out wouldn’t be out of pity or anger or alcohol.’
With a deep breath in, he moved slightly so that Kate was out of his immediate sight line. ‘Emma, are you free on Thursday?’
‘Thursday?’ she parroted.
‘I thought I’d cook dinner for you.’
‘Dinner?’
‘You do eat, right?’
‘Do you cook?’
‘I can handle myself in the kitchen.’
‘Great.’
He turned to look at Kate with a ‘happy now?’ lift of his eyebrows and when Kate made a ‘keep going’ motion with her hand, he rolled his eyes and turned back to Emma. ‘Come early so that I can give you that tour of the gardens while it’s still light.’
‘About 3-ish?’
‘It’s a … date.’
‘Fabulous,’ Kate said, grabbing the boxes from him. ‘Give the man a gold star—oh, wait, I actually have one of those, can you grab it from the crate of decorations and pass it to Emma for the top of the tree? Juliet and I will see how they’re getting on in the courtyard.’
A couple of hours later, everyone stood in the courtyard. Technically the big switch on would happen on the tree-lighting night, but they had to test their lights worked and it seemed extra special with only her and Daniel, Juliet, Oscar, Emma and Jake.
As the lights flicked back off and their spontaneous burst of applause died down, Kate suddenly grinned and breathed out a happy, ‘Oh.’
‘What?’ Daniel asked.
Kate inhaled. ‘You smell that?’ she said, looking up to the sky.
‘Smell what?’ Emma asked.
‘Breathe in,’ Kate told everyone.
‘I don’t smell anything,’ Oscar said.
Kate simply looked up at the sky.
Jake snorted. ‘You’re not one of those weirdos who thinks they can smell snow coming, are you?’
‘Just call me Lorelai,’ Kate said.
‘Never heard of her,’ Jake commented and at Juliet’s, Emma’s and Kate’s collective gasp of outrage added, ‘What? Is she some famous meteorologist?’
‘Lorelai Gilmore?’ Emma giggled. ‘Yeah, of sorts.’
‘From where?’ Jake asked suspiciously.
‘Hartford.’
Daniel laughed. ‘She’s not even a weather presenter. She’s an innkeeper.’
‘Some friend of your mother’s then?’ Jake asked Kate.
‘She’s not even real,’ Daniel informed him.
Emma looked like he’d just sworn like a trooper. ‘Lorelai Gilmore is so real.’
‘Mark my words,’ Kate said, looking at Jake and Emma. ‘Something special is coming.’
‘Whatever it is, it isn’t snow,’ Jake said under his breath.
Kate laughed.
She had a feeling Jake wasn’t about to know what hit him.