Page 49 of Welcome to Pennycress Inn

‘In that case, that would be lovely.’ Laura glanced up as Miss Cooke came and hovered between their stools.

‘Jill, darling, why don’t you go and tell Vivienne all about the new puppy you’re getting? I think it’s time Laura and I had aword.’ Miss Cooke’s voice was friendly but firm as Jill stood up and scurried away.

Laura glanced across at Jackson, who was serving a couple at the bar. Catching his eye, he gave her the thumbs up. She had a feeling she might need more than that. From what she’d witnessed at the village meeting, Miss Cooke, or Mayoress Cooke, ran the village.

‘Laura— Can I call you that, or do you prefer Mrs, Miss or Ms Price?’ Slipping onto the stool so shortly vacated by Jill, Miss Cooke clasped her hands together on the bar.

‘Laura is fine, thanks.’ Laura took a long sip of her drink, forcing herself not to glug the whole thing down. What did the mayoress want from her? Jill had told her that Vivienne had been singing Laura’s praises, but she had a feeling Miss Cooke wouldn’t be so easily influenced.

‘Good, good. In that case, I want to offer the warmest welcome to the wonderful village of Meadowfield on behalf of myself and all the villagers.’

‘You do?’ Laura shut her mouth quickly. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, and definitely not in a tone laced with sarcasm. ‘Sorry, I mean, thank you.’

Lifting her hands from the bar, Miss Cooke inspected her nails before looking back at Laura. ‘I can imagine you’ve not had the best introduction to village life and I also want to offer you my sincerest apologies.’

‘Oh, right, thank you.’ Laura shuffled on her stool. ‘Yes, things have been a little… difficult.’

‘As I said, my apologies. You see, we were working on information given to us about you instead of passing our own judgement. That was wrong and I regret it. I hope you’ll see this as a fresh start?’

A fresh start? Laura looked into her drink. It was almost empty, a centimetre of wine left at best. Could she really forgivethe way people had treated her? Yes, they’d been misinformed about her intentions, but did that excuse their behaviour?

She looked around the pub. A group suddenly cheered raucously from the far end of the room and a table of people at the other end burst into singing ‘Happy Birthday’ as the bartender lowered a cake to the table. These were good people. Or they looked it. Jackson said so, too. Maybe she should just forgive them and put everything that had happened down to someone spreading rumours. After all, from what she’d gleaned from Vivienne, the villagers had only been sticking up for the elderly woman and wanting Pennycress to remain an independent inn rather than be taken over by some huge hotel company.

She nodded slowly.

‘Good, good. Any problems or issues with anything, then please come to me and, as your mayoress, I will do my very best to resolve them.’ Standing up, Miss Cooke held out her hand.

‘Great. I will do, thanks.’ Taking the proffered hand, she smiled as Miss Cooke shook hers firmly. After watching her retreat to Vivienne’s table, Laura turned and stared into her wine glass. These were the same people who had been shunning her and yet, after a few words from Vivienne, they had made a complete one-eighty. She couldn’t quite believe how much things had changed in the space of one evening.

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Jackson sidled up to Laura, his eyebrows raised as he nodded towards Miss Cooke’s retreating back. ‘High praise indeed if the mayoress was talking to you. Unless she was asking you to leave town of course?’

‘Haha, no. She apologised for the way people have been ignoring me.’ Laura looked behind her before meeting Jackson’s eyes again. ‘I don’t really know what to make of all this. It’s great that people are now being nice to me, or seem to be being nice to me, but that doesn’t really excuse the way they behaved towards me, does it? I’m supposed to suddenly forgive and forget because Vivienne has put a good word in for me?’

‘People were misinformed…’

‘Yes, I know that, but they still shouldn’t have made me feel as unwelcome as they did. They didn’t know me then and they don’t suddenly know me today.’ She picked up her glass, bringing it to her lips before realising it was empty.

Holding out his hand, Jackson took the glass and poured in some more wine before placing it back in her hand.

‘Thank you.’ Taking a long sip, Laura shook her head. ‘I would never treat someone like that. And then to expect me to just pretend it never happened?’

Leaning his elbows on the bar, Jackson placed his chin in his hands. ‘It’s a tricky one, yes, but they thought you were working for Mr Yates and had evicted Vivienne for no reason other than to turn their beloved inn into a chain hotel or whatever. How they treated you was wrong, but perhaps they thought they were doing the right thing. Making a stand to support a local villager?’

Laura twisted the stem of her glass with her fingers. ‘Umm… I don’t know. Jill seemed nice, genuinely nice, and she actually tried to say hello to me the other evening.’

‘There you go then?’ Jackson nodded.

‘One person. Jill is just one person out of the whole village.’

‘Do you know what my advice would be?’

She reached out and took his hand. ‘What would you do? Would you forgive them all or, I don’t know, bar them from forever setting foot inside Pennycress Inn?’

Jackson chuckled. ‘One thing’s for certain, I definitely wouldn’t advise you to refuse their money.’

‘Yes, you’re right there. Okay, would you forgive, or would you jack up the price of tea and cake whenever they walked through the door?’

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