Page 72 of Welcome to Pennycress Inn

Turning, Laura fled out of the room. How could he? After everything?

‘All okay?’ The nurse looked up from her paperwork as Laura hurried past.

She didn’t have the will to answer. She couldn’t. Picking up the pace, she half walked and half ran through the maze of corridors and back outside to her car. She’d been right. Evie held a torch for Jackson. The entire village had noticed that, but what she couldn’t understand was why Jackson had pursued her, Laura, and told her he loved her, if he was still involved with Evie.

Unless… She dropped the car key and knelt to the ground, her knees against the cold tarmac of the hospital car park. Unless it had all been an extravagant game, unless Jackson was working with Evie in an attempt to run her out of the village?

Standing up, she clicked the keys, grateful to hear the lock release. Pulling the door open, she slipped inside.

But Jackson wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t be so cruel, and he had genuinely seemed pleased she had moved in next door to him. And the time they’d spent together, the cuddles, the kisses, the ‘I love you’s. No, Jackson wouldn’t want to hurt her. Not intentionally.

Turning the key, she ground the gears into reverse. There must be another explanation for why Evie was there, at the hospital with Jackson. Maybe she should have given him the chance to explain. Then again, whatever he said, how would she know she could believe him? But Jackson had seemed happy to see Laura.

She shook her head. Why would Jackson have been pleased to see her if he felt nothing for her, if he was with Evie?

Nope, nope, nope. She hit the steering wheel. She wouldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to, and she wouldn’t. She knew Jackson and he would not have told her he was in love with her if he had Evie hovering in the wings. No.

Then again maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did? She just didn’t know what to think anymore.

With her shoulders slumping, she let the tears fall. It was a good job they hadn’t told her family, told Richie. It would have caused all that upset, for what? For nothing.

32

Gripping the arm of the sofa, Laura pushed herself to standing and dropped the empty cookie dough ice cream tub and spoon onto the coffee table before calling out to the incessant ring of the doorbell, ‘Coming.’

For once, she was grateful for its weak tune. She’d spent the night curled up in bed, wide awake, and her head ached with the lack of sleep. And guilt. She’d planned to get on with some of the renovating this morning, her idea being that it might help take her mind off Jackson, but she just hadn’t been able to face it. She’d got so far as to take the lid off the paint tin to begin the woodwork in the hallway and quickly decided it was ice cream she’d needed rather than a lungful of paint fumes.

She glanced towards the carriage clock on the mantelpiece and groaned. It was two in the afternoon already and her family was here. Looking around the vast sitting room, she shrugged. She should have been more organised and tidied, but she really didn’t have an ounce of energy in her body to care. When her mum had rung last night and told Laura she’d arranged for the family to come and visit, she hadn’t the energy or the space in her brain to protest. All she could think about was Jackson andall she could picture in her mind’s eye every time she’d tried to go to sleep was Evie Taunton click-clacking her way into Jackson’s hospital room.

Her parents could come, Jenny and Richie and their families could come, but nothing would change what had happened yesterday.

The doorbell sounded again, barely audible this time, and, taking one last redundant look around the sitting room, Laura walked through the hallway to the door, trying to plaster a fake smile on her face before pulling it open. ‘Hi, welcome to Pennycress Inn.’

‘Oh, Laura. I can see why you fell in love with the place now. It’s a stunning building and Meadowfield is such a cute, quaint village.’ Her mother bustled in, two huge picnic bags in her hands, and leaned over to land a kiss on Laura’s cheek before pausing in the middle of the hallway.

Propping her foot against the door to hold it open, Laura greeted the rest of her family with a smile she hoped they didn’t realise was false, before closing the door. ‘Mum, you didn’t have to bring food. I could have made something.’

‘Don’t be silly, sweetheart. I can’t expect you to drop all your tasks for the morning and prepare lunch for us. Besides, it’s just a little something – bread, olives, hummus, cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, a little sweet treat for the kids…’

‘Thanks.’

‘So, do we get the grand tour this time?’ Jenny grinned as she pulled Tammy’s trainers from her daughter’s feet. ‘I know we’ve been before, but, in a way, I feel this is our first time, as all we got to see was the kitchen and hallway.’

‘Umm…’ Laura looked longingly towards the kitchen. She needed caffeine. ‘Why don’t you two, Tammy and Toby, show everyone round? You had the chance to explore the last time you came, didn’t you?’

‘Ooh, can we?’ Tammy clapped her hands together.

‘Yes, you’d be doing me a favour.’ Laura smiled as her niece began ordering people to get into pairs and queue up at the bottom of the stairs. ‘No sliding down the banister though, it’s still not fixed, so you’ll likely end up in hospital again, okay?’

‘Okay.’ Toby nodded solemnly before joining his sister at the head of the queue.

‘What have you found there, Jasper?’ Jane picked up her son as he ran from the sitting room into the hallway. ‘Here, I’ll have that, poppet.’

Reluctantly releasing the ice cream tub and spoon, Jasper rushed to join Tammy and Toby by the bottom of the stairs.

‘Are you coming to help, Jasper?’ Toby leaned down to his little cousin’s height and took his hand.

‘Here you go, Laura. Sorry, nothing’s safe with Jasper around.’ Jane laughed as she passed her the tub and spoon.

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