Christmas at the Little Clock House on the Green. Eve Devon

      Adding a smile and lending an ear if they wanted to talk seemed like fair exchange and came easy.

      The thought of finding herself in ten years time, with no good acting projects under her belt, no man in her life, no children … Her only true achievements a killer-flexible yoga body and a face that didn’t move, shook her.

      If she didn’t get her big break soon she really did have to call time on this dream and go find another. One that didn’t eat away at her psyche until she ended up like her mum – hard-wired for what was over the next horizon – never enjoying what she had.

      She glanced down as an email dropped into her inbox.

       To:WritingHer‌AcceptanceSpeech

       From: Kate Somersby

       Subject: NOT LETTING DREAMS GO

       Eat a gallon of ice-cream, down some cheap cocktails, watch a ton of tat TV in between pulling shifts at Bar Brand but then go to an Improv class, okay? Kate xx

      Emma stared at the screen. Letting dreams go was something Kate actually knew about. So was not letting them go, which was why her friend had audaciously risked returning to her home village of Whispers Wood to set about making one come true. Now, not only was Kate’s dream coming true, she’d also fallen in love.

      Emma reminded herself she was in love too.

      With acting.

      But as she reached for the bottle she wondered what would happen if she really did let the dream go?

      It shocked her when she wasn’t brought to her knees by the thought.

      Instead, it felt strangely as if someone was standing outside the front door to her heart and like The Walking Dead guy in Love Actually showing her large hand-written notices that said things like: ‘I’ll tell you what you want, what you really, really want …’ ‘You want Peace’, ‘Serenity’, ‘And … zigazig ha’.

      With a deep breath she hit ‘reply’ and typed: Confession: I think I’ve been awful tired of this acting-gig for an awful long time now…

      There!

      She’d said it.

      Out loud.

      Well, not out loud, but you know what she means.

      She waited for a reply.

      Waited some more.

      Maybe she shouldn’t have put that out there into the universe.

      Because honestly? If she gave up acting, who was she?

       Chapter 4

       Think Positivi-tea

       Kate

      Kate stared at the screen in front of her, feeling bad for her friend, Emma. She knew what it was like to feel as if the path you’d chosen was leading nowhere. All those years she’d been footloose and fancy-free, going where the next work assignment took her and never having to really unpack – either her belongings or her feelings. Never being in one place for long had started off being something she’d needed to do but how quickly had she led herself to believe that it was something she wanted to do.

      It had taken Old Man Isaac selling this place to get her to change direction and she was so thankful he had because despite feeling a tired she hadn’t known existed, it was very definitely a happy tired.

      Stifling a yawn she reached over and crossed-through number twenty-seven on her To Do List.

      As large hands came around her mid-riff to hug her from behind, she gasped, ‘Hey, mister. I know the owner of this establishment.’

      ‘So do I,’ Daniel’s voice trickled into her ear. ‘In fact I’m pretty sure I have a meeting with her in about—’

      ‘Thirty minutes,’ Kate smiled, spinning in her chair to face him. ‘I have this office booked until then and I’m determined to get through at least fifteen more emails.’

      ‘Just wanted to check how the interview went?’

      Kate grimaced. ‘Complete dud.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Trust me.’

      ‘Are you sure you’re not being too …’

      Kate raised an eyebrow in challenge.

      ‘Fussy?’ he stated bravely. ‘Only we’re running out of time to find someone to manage the place.’

      Kate was very aware they needed to find someone to manage Cocktails & Chai @ The Clock House ASAP.

      One of the conditions of buying the building had been to provide space the whole community could continue to use, but with the toddler group moving into the newly-built huts at the local school, that only left Trudie McTravers and her am-dram group using the communal space. Kate had promised Trudie the space would always be available for rehearsal and productions but she’d wanted to add something more.

      She’d wanted everyone in the village and anyone booking a spa treatment with her, or having their hair done by Juliet, or booking office space with Daniel, to be able to grab a cuppa or a glass of fizz too and when she’d talked over her plans to add a tearoom/bar in the reception room opposite Juliet’s salon she’d been overwhelmed by how much everyone loved the idea. Of course that probably had a little something to do with socking-it-to the neighbouring village of Whispers Ford because there were still a few residents who hadn’t got over the hotel opening and the village stealing ‘Best in Bloom’ out from under them. But she’d got the go-ahead and now with the last licence coming through, it was all systems go to organise staff before they opened.

      ‘So what was wrong with this candidate?’ Daniel asked.

      ‘Besides looking twelve?’

      ‘I’ll admit he did look a little young, but his C.V. said he was qualified.’

      ‘He asked me if I’d be fact-checking his previous employment.’

      Daniel mouthed the word, ‘Wow,’ and shook his head.

      ‘And, you know, his name was Harry Stiles,’ Kate added as if that explained everything and when Daniel looked at her as if that meant nothing, she rolled her eyes. ‘I can’t handle the disappointment when people realise the real Harry Styles hasn’t, in fact, given up his incredibly successful world tour to run a bar and tearoom in a quaint little village called Whispers Wood.’

      ‘You can’t not employ someone on the grounds they have a similar name to someone famous.’

      ‘So fortunate that he kept right on hammering in more nails, then,’ Kate replied. ‘When I asked him what he thought made him most qualified for the position, he responded with “Um, I like to drink?”.’

      ‘He didn’t?’

      ‘Oh yeah and not even “I like to drink, ha-ha, only joking, sorry that was wildly inappropriate, I’m just really nervous, here’s my actual answer,” oh no,’ Kate went on, ‘He said, “Um, I like to drink” … with a question mark at the end of it. Like he wasn’t even sure.’

      Daniel rolled his eyes in sympathy. ‘Yeah. Okay. Good call.’

      ‘How difficult can it be to find someone who knows how to make a martini as well as they make a matcha latte or a good old-fashioned cup of tea, not to mention someone who actually likes talking with people?’

      ‘We have to think positive. Quick, do your thing.’