“Sorrell!” Sorrell froze, about to head back to her cottage to get a shower after dealing with the breakfast rush. There would only be one more morning before she was closed for just over a week and it couldn’t come soon enough. The surprise busyness of the hotel had been great for the bank, but not so great for a hotelier who was new to the game and understaffed at the start. A crystal ball would’ve been great in about September.

“Is everything okay, Lena?” she said, supporting the two jugs that had been full of fresh orange juice with both hands.

“Yes, sorry, I could just do with a word. But it isn’t urgent. I can wait.”

I can wait was Lena’s slogan, Sorrell had noticed. She never thought to put herself first, which was useful when you worked in hospitality because every one of the guests came before you, but even when the two of them were talking she wouldn’t put her ideas forward and when she did, she minimised them and apologised.

“We don’t need to wait, there’s time now,” Sorrell said, turning around with the jugs. Cade, the Saturday help, could tidy them.

“But you have things to do. I know there are two bookings that you need to call back…” Lena said.

Sorrell pushed her arm through Lena’s and linked her, taking her through to the little room that had become the general office.

She’d noticed over the past few days that Lena had been more anxious, more unsettled. No one else, none of the guests, would have realized, but Sorrell had been trained to spot slight differences in people’s behaviours and she would hazard a guess that Lena was preoccupied. Something was bothering the girl and Sorrell wanted to help. It turned out you could take the therapist out of the therapy room.

“What do you need to ask me?” Sorrell said, knowing there was no point in providing opportunities for Lena to diminish the problem.

“I… oh God, this is embarrassing,” Lena said.

“It really won’t be,” Sorrell said. “I can honestly tell you that I have heard pretty much everything before.” And a lot of things you would never have imagined. Sorrell sat down on her office chair and gestured for Lena to sit too.

“I need somewhere to live. I don’t have the cash for a deposit on a flat or a house share—I don’t think I could do a house share.” The girl put her hands over her face. “I know there’s a really small en-suite room on the first floor. I think you mentioned it could be used for staff…”

“And there’s a bigger room on the second floor which you can move into. You can pay for it directly out of your wages and I can offer you a few on-call shifts to nullify the rate. Breakfast you can get here and if you complete your food hygiene certificate you can use the kitchen to prep your dinners. When we open the restaurant you can eat there—staff meals will be included for those on shift,” Sorrell said. She had been waiting for Lena to ask her this all week.

“That’s fine. You are happy with that?” Lena said. “I don’t know what to say. I’m happy for the smaller room…”

“Lena,” Sorrell said, her therapist’s voice now on. “Why do you think you find it so hard to accept that people want to help you?”

Lena sat up and inhaled. “You know my parents live at Felley Manor? That they’re part of the religious group there?”

Sorrell nodded. “Zack mentioned it. I wasn’t snooping—I just asked about where you lived in town.”

The girl shrugged. “I’ve been excommunicated because I went to university. They didn’t encourage it, preferring kids to get work doing jobs that would benefit the religious community and help each other. I wanted to study hospitality and meet different people. They didn’t like that idea in case I learned that their way wasn’t the only way, so I took my exams early and went to university with a grant when I was seventeen.”

“I didn’t realise that was what you studied,” Sorrell said, surprised at first, but then not. After her initial nervousness, Lena had shown she had a really good grasp of how a hotel ran.

She nodded. “I started a Master’s. That was what I dropped out of—I guess I needed a break. But I needed a job quickly and my aunt—who isn’t really part of the church—agreed to put me up.” She took a breath.

Sorrell let the silence hold her, giving her the space rather than filling it with words.

The little office became a safe space, a place where words and thoughts could be released and set free, to be understood and made sense of when the person feeling them was ready.

“My aunt doesn’t want me there because one of the men who used to be with the church keeps making contact with her, telling her she has to make me go back. It’s nothing sinister—I don’t have to marry anyone or anything like that; the church likes to keep everyone together. I’ve never quite understood why.”

Sorrell nodded. “Then move your things over today. It will be useful for me to have someone else here overnight, just in case.”

Lena’s eyes twinkled. “But you’ve had someone overnight a lot this week.”

Sorrell knew she was smiling and tried to turn it down a notch, but she couldn’t. “He hasn’t spent every night here.” He hadn’t. Just four out of the last seven, but who was counting? Apart from Lena.

“If he’s not stayed overnight, he’s turned up before or after breakfast just to see you. And then at lunch. Or he’s taken you to lunch.”

“You’re keeping a close eye on my love life, aren’t you?” Sorrell nearly choked on the L word. She liked him a lot but she wasn’t sure if this was just a reaction to having a man around who seemed to be into her after the man she’d chosen to tie her future to had so clearly been not into her.

“In the absence of having my own to keep an eye on, yes,” Lena said. “Zack is a really good man. I know loads of women who would promise their first child for a chance of having him, even for a couple of nights. He doesn’t seem to be able to leave you alone.”

“Will your moving up here curb you from listening to gossip in town?” Sorrell said.

Lena laughed. “Not a chance. Thank you, by the way.”

Sorrell shook her head. “You do a very good job here. The plan always was to make a couple of rooms available for live in staff—why shouldn’t you be the first?”

Lena’s smile was gratifying, and Sorrell felt as if another piece of a jigsaw had finally slotted into a neat place.