The Love Trilogy: Room For Love / An A To Z Of Love / Summer Of Love

Nate smiled down at her, and she felt something in her chest go just a bit gooey. “I told them all you love this place too much to sell.”

“Well, you’re right.” Carrie wondered why that was so disturbing. He’d only known her for a week, but he spoke as if he knew all her secrets.

“So, how did it go this morning?”

Too late, Carrie remembered she’d been trying to avoid getting into this position with Nate tonight. He asked too much, too close. She didn’t want to admit she was almost out of options.

“It could have gone worse,” she said tentatively, and Nate just looked down at her with raised eyebrows. “Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“That you are.” Nate rubbed a small circle at the small of her back, and Carrie felt blood rushing to her cheeks.

“Anyway, it was just a short visit. They told me about the offers. I said no.” She was babbling, Carrie knew, and likely to give away everything she hadn’t wanted to tell him. But it was just so hard to concentrate on anything except his skin against hers.

“So, they didn’t have any other magic solutions to the cash-flow problem, then?”

“Not exactly,” Carrie admitted. “But I do have a potential booking!”

“For a wedding?” Nate sounded disbelieving. “Here?”

“My cousin, Ruth. She’s always wanted to get married here. And her father would be willing to pay plenty for a decent venue…”

“Enough to fix this place up?”

“To make a start, at least.”

“Would they invest, do you think? Longer term?”

Carrie winced. “I don’t know.”

“Have you asked them?” Carrie shook her head against his chest. “Will you?”

“Not unless I have to.” Carrie sighed. “Look, I know you don’t understand this, but I don’t want a handout. I want to do this myself.”

Nate stopped the circles on her back. “Oh, I understand. I just don’t agree. You need help here, Carrie. Not because you’re not capable, but because nobody could do this alone.”

Silence fell between them as Bing kept singing. They were barely moving now, let alone dancing.

“So, when’s this bride of yours coming up to see the place?” Nate asked.

“Soon, I hope. I was thinking two weeks’ time? She wants a Christmas wedding for some godforsaken reason, so we don’t have long. She’ll probably bring her parents, as well as her fiancé.” As long as Ruth and Graeme hadn’t actually broken up over the choosing of the ring, of course. Oh, God, she was going to have to phone and check. “Uncle Patrick and Aunt Selena are the ones we’ll have to convince. Aunt Selena has…aspirations.”

“So you’ve got to make this place appealing to them with no money?”

“I have some savings,” Carrie said, because I have a credit card sounded so much worse. “We’ll just have to concentrate on the easy, cosmetic stuff for now, and promise bigger changes to the rest before the wedding.” After they’d paid a deposit.

The song drew to a close. They stilled, arms around each other, for a long, silent moment, only broken when Nate said, “Stan will be relieved, anyway.” He moved away, and Carrie felt a shiver of cold. “That you’re not selling, I mean.”

“Then you’d better go tell him. And all the others.” Carrie took a step nearer the Donut Dugout. At least Jacob and his sugary morsels of goodness didn’t try to understand her.

“Carrie,” Nate called, and her body turned to him despite her best intentions. “They’re just concerned, you know. They love this place. Now they know you’re staying, they’ll do everything they can to help you.”

She nodded to show she’d heard and turned away. After all, how much help were they really going to be? So far, all they’d done was book up her hotel on days when she could use it for more profitable endeavours, and turn back time to 1944. Neither of which was going to make a successful wedding venue.

And she couldn’t help but notice that Nate hadn’t said he’d help. He hadn’t even said he was going to stay.

Not that she cared, of course.

Time, Carrie decided, for another doughnut.

Chapter 9 (#ulink_75a193ab-72f4-5869-8462-a510a957e456)

“That was a lousy stunt, Stan,” Nate said, cornering the older man by the sound system. Cyb took one look at them and quickly found something important she had to be doing somewhere else, which Nate appreciated. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as unobservant as he’d always thought.

Stan gave him a sly smile. “Oh, I don’t know. You seemed to be enjoying it.” He chuckled at the face Nate pulled. “All right, I’m sorry. But you two need to work together. Why else would Nancy have left you control of the gardens? So, the important thing is, did it work?”

Nate sighed. “I asked her outright. No pretence.”

“And she said?”

Over at the doughnut stand, Nate could see Carrie laughing at something Jacob had said while she selected her next doughnut. Obviously not too scarred by the whole incident, then. That was something.

“Get Gran and Cyb and I’ll tell you,” Nate decided. “May as well get it all done and over with in one go.”

“Sounds ominous,” Stan grumbled, leaving to fetch the others.

It was only fair to let Stan suffer a little bit before he set all their minds at ease. After all, as enjoyable as dancing with Carrie had been, that wasn’t exactly the way he’d wanted to go about it.

Nate still didn’t know what, besides bloody-mindedness, had possessed him to kiss Carrie Archer that first night on the terrace. But he did know that, as each day went by, he found himself wanting to do it again, more and more.

Even when she was driving him up the wall.

“What’s the news?” Moira asked. The three Seniors crammed into the tiny backstage area where, hopefully, Carrie wouldn’t see them, get suspicious, and come to find out what they were up to.

Nate sighed. They were the worst plotters since Guy Fawkes and his cronies.

“She’s not planning to sell, whatever anyone says. Her plan is still to turn this place into a wedding hotel.” He paused for the resulting sighs of relief. “But there’s a lot of work to do here if she’s going to make it viable.” It had been running at a loss for the last six months, Nate knew, ever since Nancy took ill. Whatever Carrie said, it was going to need some serious investment, and it sounded as though her uncle might be their best bet—if he could persuade Carrie to swallow her pride long enough to ask. But first, they had to convince her cousin and her fiancé to hold their wedding there.

“The place is fine as it is,” Stan grumbled, causing both Cyb and Moira to roll their eyes, much to Nate’s amusement.

“You clearly haven’t seen the survey,” he told Stan. “It’s not just the cosmetic stuff—there’s some real fundamental stuff that needs fixing.”

“And this carpet really has to go,” Cyb added, prodding at the paisley carpet with the toe of her sensible-heeled shoe.

Nate ignored her. “Carrie is going to need a lot of help to make this work.” He wasn’t sure even she realised how much.

The Seniors all nodded, without apparently appreciating his point.

“She’s got maybe two weeks, no budget, and a bride who really wants to get married here. And us. That’s it. So we are going to give her all the help she needs,” he added in a firm tone.