Page 84 of A Recipe for Love
‘So it is a kink? The working in pairs thing?’
‘When you’re properly up and running people will mostly come with a friend won’t they? So they’ll probably prefer it anyway.’
Bella wasn’t sure about that at all.
‘Seriously, stop pacing pet. You’re ready.’
‘Am I?’
‘You’ve put the sign up for where to park?’
Bella nodded. ‘Where’s Dipper?’ The vision of a very excitable Labrador bounding into the kitchen and deciding to ‘help’ popped into her head.
‘Spending the day with Hugh and Queen Latifah. She’ll be spoiled rotten.’
‘Maybe I should check the ingredients?’
‘You’ve checked a million times,’ Flinty pointed out. ‘Unless someone’s crept past us in the last ten minutes and eaten a whole bag of raw potatoes, you’re fine.’
‘Sorry.’ Bella sat herself down. ‘I really want this to go well. Like, this would be a proper business. I’d be making a proper contribution, you know.’
Flinty nodded. ‘That matters to you, doesn’t it?’
‘’Course.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why does it matter? I mean I’m not being rude pet, but this isn’t your loss is it? If this place was sold. You’ve only been here ten minutes. You’d move on. Might even help Adam move on too.’
Bella felt herself tense. This was just another version of Veronica’s talk about how she didn’t belong here. She was doing everything she could. There was a problem here – the estate needed to generate more income – and Bella could help to solve it. That was what mattered. ‘I want to help.’
‘Fair enough.’ Flinty’s tone suggested she didn’t entirely think that was the whole explanation.
‘I want to be helpful.’ That was closer to it. ‘And Adam belongs here, doesn’t he?’
Flinty shrugged. ‘Right now I suspect he’d turn the clock back and slip into his life in Edinburgh in a heartbeat if he could.’
No. Adam belonged here. She’d seen it when he’d explained to her about the link between the castle and the village. ‘He’s just struggling a bit at the moment.’
‘Aye. Well I’m sure you know best.’ Bella already felt she knew Flinty well enough to doubt that. She didn’t think Flinty had ever thought anyone else had known best about anything.
Bella’s phone vibrated with a message from her nan. Still in Somerset, debating a jaunt down to Cornwall, or possibly over to France, depending on whether she could beg a lift down to Dover in time to meet the friend of a friend who was catching the ferry.
Bella tapped back the quickest of quick replies.
Still in Scotland. Tomorrow the world x
She stuffed her phone into her pocket and looked at Flinty. How to head off another round of questions about her intentions towards Lowbridge? ‘Anyway, what about you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean…’ Was she pushing her luck here? ‘Adam said you’d retired but you’re here every day. Veronica and Darcy would barely manage to boil the kettle without you.’
‘Ah well…’
‘Ah well?’
