Page 1 of Spring Dreams at the Cornish Bakery

Chapter One

‘Nope. I’ve told you. I’m going straight to the bakery.’ Gripping her mobile to her ear, Lynsey Lucas stepped out of her car and walked the short distance to the low wall encircling the restaurant car park before peering down to the beach below. The Victorian lampposts illuminated only a small area, but she could make out the sandy beach and gentle ocean waves beneath the low-hanging moon.

She was here.

Home.

Her new home.

‘Earth to Lynsey!’

Her sister’s voice tore her from her thoughts. ‘Sorry, Nina. I’m just looking out across the bay and, well, it’s gorgeous, even in the near dark! You’ve so got to see this.’

‘Believe me, as soon as Oscar’s school breaks up for Easter, me, Gary and Oscar will be down there to visit in a flash. But you’re changing the subject. Why aren’t you going to take a look at your new house before going to the bakery?’

Lynsey shrugged. There were a million reasons why she’d decided to arrive this evening and get settled in at The Cornish Bay Bakery before going to look at her new home, but the biggest reason was she simply wanted to savour the moment. Yes, if she hadn’t got stuck in traffic and taken a million wrong-turns, then she’d have arrived when it was light and she probably would have headed straight to her new home, but it was dark, she was tired and she didn’t want to spoil the moment of finally stepping foot into the first home which would truly be hers, just hers.

Plus, there was the small fact of the break-up. It had been eight months now since the home she and Ross had owned together had been sold, the home they should have been raising their future children in. And even though in some respects it felt like a lifetime ago, there was still a tiny part of her which was worried memories she’d tried hard to bury would come rushing back to the surface and the last thing she wanted was to turn up for her voluntary role at the bakery with puffy eyes and red cheeks. And she wanted to get her first day of work out of the way too. She laid her free hand on the seawall, the rough surface resting against her palm. There was too much to explain, to unpick, and she didn’t want to tarnish her first view of Penworth Bay with regrets and memories from the past. ‘I just want to savour the moment. Besides, I have a builder meeting me there tomorrow after work to give me a quote.’

‘I still think you’re crazy buying a place from an online auction without having even seen the outside of the place in person. It could be completely derelict for all you know.’

Lynsey laughed. She’d heard it all before, but the truth was she was playing with half the equity of the house she and Ross had worked hard for, and there was absolutely no way she’d have been able to buy a place down here for the money she’d had if she hadn’t bought from an auction. ‘It’s not going to be derelict. The auction house had stated it had been inhabited until four months ago. Not much can have gone wrong with it between then and now. I’ve got a good feeling about it. Plus, the photos on the auction house’s website were fine.’

‘There were three photos. One of the outside, one of one room, and then the view from the back garden. It’s not exactly much to go on.’ Nina huffed before speaking again. ‘Why are you getting a builder if it’s in such great condition, anyway?’

‘Because I want to knock down an internal wall, open up the kitchen and the small dining room into one larger room.’Lynsey grinned as she closed her eyes and listened to the waves splashing against the sand on the beach below. Yes, there was work she wanted to get done, but the cottage had been an absolute steal.

‘Okay...’ The apprehension in Nina’s voice couldn’t be missed.

‘Hey, you and Gary did it. You bought your house at an auction. I never questioned you.’ Lynsey tried to keep her tone light. She didn’t want to show her sister how frustrated she felt. Ever since she’d told her family her plans, they’d been trying to put her off, trying to talk her out of making such a monumental move, and buying a property she hadn’t seen in real life.

‘Umm... a couple of things, though. One, we’d seen our housebeforewe bid on it, so our eyes were well and truly open. We knew what needed doing and what we were taking on. Two, we didn’t move a million miles away, like you. We still have Dad on our doorstep. And three, we had the money set aside to do it up. We knew we could get the work done.’

Lynsey shifted position, turning to look along the promenade. A row of shops clung to the edge of a cobbled street just ahead. The bakery might be one of those shops. Not that she could make any signs out in the dark, but the advert for the voluntary position she’d answered had promised sea views. Sighing, she turned her attention back to the conversation. ‘Right, one, yes, I haven’t seen it, but the photos look fine, and it was only sold three years ago through an estate agent, so it can’t be that bad. And I checked out the old pictures online.’

‘And?’

‘And it looked okay. It needed a lot of updating. It was obvious it had been owned by someone for years before that and hadn’t had much work done for the last few decades, but that will be why the new owner bought it – to do it up – so it’ll likely have had a new kitchen and bathroom installed at the least.’

‘I know I’m nagging you, but I’m just worried. You know that, right? I want you to have your new start. I just want it to be an easy one, especially after what happened with Ross. You...’

‘I know.’ Lynsey spoke quickly, cutting her sister off. The last thing she wanted was for Penworth Bay to become tainted with the memories of what had happened with Ross. As her sister said, it was her fresh start. Her chance to move past those events, not languish in them. ‘Anyway, I’d better go. It’s almost half nine and if I don’t get to the bakery now, the owner is likely to give up waiting for me and go to sleep.’

‘She knows you’ve been delayed, then?’

‘Yep. I kept her posted.’ Lynsey nodded as a flush of embarrassment blushed across her cheeks. She’d rang the owner of The Cornish Bay Bakery - Elsie – after almost every wrong turn she’d taken. After telling her she’d be arriving at lunchtime, in time for the afternoon shift, she’d been so worried about letting her down that she hadn’t wanted to leave her wondering when she’d be arriving, but it wasn’t exactly a great start, admitting how absolutely incompetent she was, even at following directions. She took a shuddering breath in.

‘Hey, you’ll be fine. You’ll smash the job.’

Lynsey pulled her knitted scarf up higher around her neck in an attempt to protect herself from the cold breeze blowing in from across the ocean. ‘Huh, that’s easy for you to say. It’s not you who has been out of a job for over a year.’

‘No, but that’s not your fault. You just need to remember that. Besides, taking this voluntary position will be the perfect way to get back into the work environment. As well as having something up-to-date on your CV.’

‘Yep.’ Lynsey wrapped the strands of purple wool from the frill of her scarf around her fingers. She knew Nina was right, but it didn’t make the idea of working in the bakery any less daunting.

‘Just remember, up until the break-up and... everything that happened... you were working two jobs. Give it an hour or so and you’ll feel as though you’d never stopped working.’

Lynsey held her mobile from her ear as a piercing scream travelled down the line.

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