Room For Love. Sophie Pembroke

seventy for a dinner dance. Maybe a hundred, a hundred and ten without the dance floor, then cart everyone off to the bar while they turned the room around for the disco, with tables around the outside. A healthy number.

      “Maybe the bridal suite and the dining room first, then,” she muttered to herself, adding another note to her list.

      “If you mean room twelve, then it needs new windows,” Nate said, and when she turned around he was actually peering over her shoulder at the list. Carrie resisted the urge to cover her notes with her hands and wondered why he didn’t seem in the least embarrassed about the previous evening.

      “They all need new windows.” Carrie’s gaze flicked involuntarily back to the huge book of a survey. Many of them needed a great deal more.

      “Yeah, but the bridal suite frames are rotted through. One of the perils of wooden frames.” Nate reached down and snagged half a muffin from her plate. Carrie was starting to think the man really had no concept of appropriate work relationships. “And the terrace isn’t looking great, either. I started patching up the kitchen end yesterday, but I noticed last night the left side’s sagging something awful too.”

      Carrie wanted to ask if that was before or after he’d attempted to stick his tongue down her throat, but that wouldn’t be very appropriate, either. By the time she’d come up with an alternative response, Nate had already left.

      Carrie slumped back in her chair and twisted her pen around her fingers. She wasn’t sure what bothered her more: the fact that he’d kissed her at all, or the way he really hadn’t tried to make it in any way passionate. Rather, it had been the sort of a kiss a brother might give, only on the lips rather than the cheek. Nothing like the inexperienced first kiss she’d received on the same spot.

      And apparently he’d been thinking about the bloody woodwork the whole time, anyway. Really, she’d have thought being kissed by a devastatingly attractive man would be better for the self-esteem.

      Not that relationships had ever been particularly good for her self-esteem. Her best ever relationship, lasting a full three years, had been the result of a blind date arranged by her cousin. She couldn’t even find love by herself. And look at what a disaster that had been, anyway. Turned out working a lot of weekends gave guys time to look for better options.

       I don’t have time for this. Remember?

      Even if she did have time for romance, Nate would not be her first choice. Or any choice. He admitted himself that he didn’t stick around. Hell, she actively wanted him to leave so she could have control over the whole inn! Not the best basis for a relationship.

      She just had to wait him out. He’d leave eventually. That sort of person always did. Wasn’t her own mother proof enough of that?

      Back to the list. Carrie pulled the survey onto her lap to see what else might be wrong with the bridal suite, besides the lilac walls and the hideous bedspread.

      Apart from the windows, the room was pretty sound. And, actually, perhaps all the windows should be number one on the list. She’d hate to decorate, only to have to redo it once the windows were in, all because some cowboy of an installer had chipped her paintwork.

      Finally, she was getting somewhere. Starting a new page, she wrote: 1. Windows.

      She put her pen down. What next?

      “Have you seen Nate?” Moira wandered into the drawing room, waving around a Tupperware box of the sort Carrie recognized from the staff fridge. It even had the label, which explained a lot. “I’ve brought him some lunch.”

      “He was here a moment ago,” Carrie told her, picking up her pen again, in the hope of conveying an ‘I’m very busy here, don’t disturb me’ vibe. “I’m not sure where he went, though.”

      Izzie appeared at the other door. “Nate’s sorting out some dinner-booking thing over in Reception. But Stan’s looking for you, Moira. Said something about the music for tomorrow.”

      “Oh, dear.” Moira handed Carrie the Tupperware box. “Can you give this to Nate for me, dear? Or just put it in the fridge for him. I’d better go and see what Stan’s broken now.”

      They were both gone before Carrie could argue that packed lunches really weren’t her job, and before she realised sorting out booking problems probably was.

      It was so tempting just to let Nate deal with it. But if she wanted to run the Avalon Inn, she had to actually run it. So she packed up her lists, her survey and Nate’s lunch, and headed for Reception.

      * * * *

      “But we sent you all our menu choices three weeks ago!” The man on the other side of the reception desk wasn’t getting any less irate since Nate had taken over from a very flustered Izzie.

      “So I understand,” Nate said, in his calmest, most understanding voice. “Only we don’t actually have any record of your booking, and we don’t have a set menu at the moment we could’ve sent out for you to choose from.”

      The man wasn’t listening. Neither were the large group of his closest friends and family who’d come to help celebrate his wife’s sixty-fifth birthday.

      “I’ve got the email right here!” Nate took the opportunity and grabbed the piece of paper that the man waved around the lobby.

      Suddenly the problem became much clearer. “Um, sir, I think I understand what has happened here.”

      “Well, I’m glad somebody does! I want to talk to your manager.”

      Which was, of course, the exact moment that Carrie Archer chose to walk into the lobby. Carrying one of his gran’s bloody packed lunches to boot. “What seems to be the problem here, Nate?”

      Nate glanced down at the email. “Mr, uh, Jenkins, this is Carrie Archer, owner of the Avalon Inn. Carrie...”

      But Mr Jenkins wasn’t waiting for an explanation. He looked a little taken aback, whether at Carrie’s timely arrival, or her age, Nate wasn’t sure. Regardless, his demands hadn’t become any quieter. “I booked this private lunch three months ago. I paid a deposit. I sent menu choices. And now your staff are telling me they can’t find my booking!”

      “I am so very sorry, sir.” Carrie shot a glare at Nate, and he clenched his jaw and stared down at the email. She wanted to handle it all on her own? Let her. Maybe it would help convince her that everyone needed a little help sometimes. “Why doesn’t your party come through to the bar for a complimentary drink while I try and resolve this issue for you?”

      Mr Jenkins looked faintly mollified when Carrie led them all into the main bar, gave instructions to Henry the part-time barman to hand out as much free booze as necessary, then shut the door on them before coming into the lobby.

      “Before you say anything—” Nate started, but Carrie was already talking over him.

      “You’re not talking now,” she said, her voice much sharper than it had been in the dim light of his summerhouse the night before. “I don’t know how my grandmother ran this inn, and I know I’ve only been here one day, but my understanding is that your domain is the garden, and your input should end at the front door. A fact that was made abundantly clear by your treatment of our customer. So from now on, I would appreciate it if—”

      “He isn’t our customer,” Nate broke in, attempting to keep a tight hold on his anger. Never mind that he’d been practically running the place since Nancy got ill and wouldn’t tell her family. No matter that he’d held everything together while they waited for Carrie to pack up her life in the city and grace them with her presence. Never mind that Mr Jenkins was an idiot.

      It stopped Carrie’s tirade for a moment, anyway. “What?”

      “Mr Jenkins. He’s not our customer.” Nate pushed the printout of the email across the reception desk and waited for Carrie to reach the hotel name in the signature.

      “Arundel