The Little Village Bakery: A feel good romantic comedy with plenty of cake (Honeybourne Book 1) (10 page)

J
asmine stretched
her legs out across Rich’s lap as they sat on the sofa together. She was feeling particularly smug, but then she had a lot to be smug about. The craft fair had been a huge success, particularly Millie’s natural toiletries. Not only had it been a good business decision, but Millie’s presence on the stall had meant that Jasmine really enjoyed herself. She had arrived back home tired but happy, and excited for the next one.

The triplets were safely in bed now and Jasmine was cradling a well-earned glass of wine.

‘And before you say anything,’ Jasmine continued, ‘we will be doing it again. I really enjoyed having her there today. I feel like I’ve got a real business partner.’

‘But she’s not your partner,’ Rich reminded her. ‘And I think it’s safer that way, so don’t put ideas in her head.’

‘I know that. And I’m old enough and clever enough to make my own business decisions, thank you, Lord Sugar. I don’t know what you’ve got against her anyway.’

‘I don’t know either. Everyone in the village thinks the sun shines from her nether regions but that alone makes me uneasy. I saw Ruth Evans today when I was fetching the kids from school. She was spouting some nonsense about a miracle potion Millie had given her to cure her arthritis. Half the time that woman doesn’t make much sense, I know, but Millie must have given her something or said something to plant that idea.’

‘And that’s bad because…?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I get about her. Don’t shout when I say this… But I still think she’s got some secret past that’s not altogether as rosy as we might want to believe.’

Jasmine paused for a moment. But then she let out a sigh. ‘If I’m honest, I get that from her too. But not in the same way you do. I feel like there’s some darkness inside her, some great tragedy. When you said the other day that she was running from her past, I think you might be right. But that doesn’t make her a bad person, just damaged.’ She took a sip of her wine. ‘And let’s face it, we’ve all been damaged by life at one time or another.’

‘I just don’t want you getting too involved and dragged into something that will affect you. I know how sensitive you can be.’

‘Don’t worry… If she ties me up and keeps me in her loft as a sex slave I’ll ask her to let you come and watch from time to time.’

‘I’m being serious, Jas.’

‘I know you are. And I love that you care but you really are seeing problems that aren’t there. At the first sign of trouble, you have my word that I’ll be straight out of the way.’

‘Hmm, why don’t I believe you?’

Jasmine grinned. ‘Shut up and kiss me. Maybe I’m not so tired after all…’

Rich broke into a broad grin and reached for her. As he did there was a quiet knock at the front door.

‘Ignore it,’ he said. ‘Whoever it is can wait until tomorrow.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ Jasmine replied, handing him her glass and getting up from the sofa. Smoothing down her skirt she padded, barefoot, to the front door while Rich gave a frustrated grimace as he watched her go.

She returned a moment later with Dylan and Millie.

‘I was on the way over to give you this back…’ Millie handed Jasmine a money bag. ‘You left it in one of my crates. And Dylan was coming over to see you too so he walked with me.’

Jasmine tried not to frown at her brother, who simply shoved his hands in his pockets with an amiable smile. He never came to visit them unless she nagged him to and he certainly never surprised them. He had obviously been waiting for Millie to emerge from her house and the fact that she was on her way to see Jasmine was a valid enough excuse for him to tag along. This worried her. Millie had been hurt in the past. It was easy to see once you got close – the moments of sadness and introspection, the distance in her stare when she thought no one was looking, her unwillingness to share more than the barest of details about her life before Honeybourne. She had come to their village to get over it, and that was ok with Jasmine. But as much as she loved him, Dylan was not the man to have around at such a time. He was like opium – he made you feel wonderful, but too much of him would break you. Jasmine had seen it happen dozens of times before. Millie looked to Jasmine like a woman who wouldn’t take too much breaking. It was a mess that she didn’t fancy being caught in the middle of.

‘Aren’t you going to offer us a glass of that rather fine-looking wine you’re drinking?’ said Dylan, interrupting her thoughts.

‘How do you know it’s fine?’ Rich cut in. ‘I’ll have you know we’re on a budget. It’s Aldi’s finest or none at all in this house.’

‘As long as there’s an alcohol content I’m game,’ Dylan fired back with an impish look. Jasmine caught Millie’s glance at him, the look of desire mixed with what seemed to be almost fear, and her heart sank. Dylan was working his magic and Millie was already a lost cause. She couldn’t just sit by and wait to pick up the pieces of Millie’s heart once he was done smashing it to bits. And she couldn’t risk losing someone who was becoming a dear friend into the bargain.

‘Take a seat,’ Rich said, glancing at Jasmine, whose defeated shrug was barely perceptible to anyone but her husband. ‘I was about to open a new bottle anyway.’

‘Good man,’ Dylan said, vaulting over the back of the sofa like an Olympic athlete and patting the seat next to him. ‘Ladies… Come and tell me about your day.’

Jasmine rolled her eyes but made a point of sitting right next to him so that Millie couldn’t. ‘My days involve work and the mere mention of that nasty four-letter word makes you hyperventilate.’

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ Dylan laughed. He leaned across to where Millie had taken an armchair. ‘Ignore my sister. She doesn’t realise that a life plan takes time to perfect. I’m figuring out how to make my fortune before I dive in and make a hash of things.’

‘You’re saying I made a hash of things?’ Jasmine replied.

‘Only at the beginning, which you do admit yourself anyway.’

‘So, come on then, please share your grand plan to make your first million.’

‘I can’t tell you. If I did I’d have to kill you.’

‘That means it doesn’t exist,’ Jasmine said to Millie with a wry smile.

‘Just because you think you know everything about me, sister of mine, doesn’t make it so.’

‘Enlighten me then.’

Dylan looked up with a nod as Rich handed him a glass of wine. ‘Actually, a very interesting proposition has come my way.’

‘Sounds intriguing,’ Rich said as he handed Millie a glass and then took the last remaining armchair.

‘I’m going into business with Bony.’

‘The builder?’ Jasmine said, her eyebrows flying up her forehead. ‘You’re going to be a builder?’

Dylan nodded. Rich let out a guffaw but Dylan seemed unconcerned by the reaction to his news.

‘What in the world made you decide this? You’ve never shown the slightest interest in building before.’

‘Bony’s a mate, and we’ve talked about it a few times. I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to take it seriously before. But I’m twenty-eight now and I feel like I need to start making something of myself. We’ve got plenty of work lined up too so he’s more than happy to have me on board.’

‘You have? But you don’t know the first thing about the trade.’

‘I’ve got muscle and I’m a fast learner. I don’t see what’s so hard about it.’

‘I’ll remind you of this conversation after your first week on the job,’ Rich said. ‘So when do you start?’

‘Bony’s sorting it out. Maybe next week.’

Jasmine smiled at Rich. Perhaps Dylan was finally growing up after all. ‘If you’re serious about it then I think it’s great.’

Dylan looked across at Millie, who had been silently following the conversation, her expression closed. He gave her a huge smile. ‘And it also means that I’ll be able to help you out with getting the bakery shipshape. I’ll talk to Bony about doing it at cost.’

Jasmine’s expression darkened. And there it was: the ulterior motive. How could she have been so silly? Dylan was still Dylan… charming, fun and handsome – but always looking for the next conquest. She was about to open her mouth when Rich glanced across at her, gave his head the tiniest shake, and then began a new conversation with Millie.

‘So, Ruth Evans was telling me today that you’re some herbal remedy whiz.’

This time the shadow crossed Millie’s expression. ‘It was just a sleeping draught… something very simple that beginners in apothecary skills could make. It was nothing to get excited about.’

‘Ruth certainly seemed to be excited.’

Millie took a gulp of her wine. ‘This is lovely,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Rich laughed, ‘I just open the bottle and drink it.’

The tension in the room suddenly became palpable. Jasmine sensed another change of subject was needed, but no conversational territory seemed safe.

‘Who’s hungry?’ she asked brightly, jumping up from her chair. ‘I’ll get some nibbles on the go.’

Jasmine heaved a sigh as she stuck her head in the fridge to see what she could rustle up. As she brought hummus, salads, pitta bread and cheese over to the counter, she painted on a smile. ‘Rich, why don’t you get the Scrabble out? We might as well have a laugh watching Dylan try to convince us that words that don’t actually exist are real, as he usually does.’

Dylan let out an exaggerated guffaw. ‘You’re just jealous because my vocab is so much bigger than yours.’

‘I don’t need a dictionary to tell you to bog off, loser-boy.’

Rich went off to a cupboard and Jasmine smiled at her brother. She was going to salvage what she could of this night if it killed her.

J
asmine woke
the next morning with a mouth like a sandpit and a head full of rocks. She had been determined to turn the uneasy mood of the previous night and judging by the amount of wine they had got through – the evidence of which lay along the kitchen counter in the form of empty bottles – she had succeeded with far more aplomb than she had intended. It was lucky she didn’t have to get the kids up for school; she didn’t think her delicate state would survive their morning squealing and bickering. As it was, Jasmine had woken early, a wave of nausea dragging her from her bed, and raced to the bathroom; the triplets slept on, for now at least.

She sat with a cup of hot, sweet tea, staring out at the rising sun that coloured the sky rose and gold. She needed to see Dylan as soon as she was able to pull herself together. Last night they’d simply had good, clean (relatively clean, anyway) fun. But the threat of disastrous sexual conquests wouldn’t have been banished so easily.

She bolted upright in her chair, recalling now that Dylan had staggered away from their house, bound for his own, some time after one. He had refused their offer to sleep on the sofa, as had Millie, who had left with him. How could Jasmine have been so stupid? What if they had gone home together?

Jasmine raced up to the bedroom and gently nudged Rich awake.

‘What’s up?’ he mumbled, releasing a cloud of wine-fuelled breath into the air.

‘I’ve got to see Dylan.’

Rich pushed his eyes open to peer at her. ‘Right now?’

She nodded. ‘He went home last night with Millie.’

‘He didn’t go with Millie; he walked her back to her place. He does live right across the road from her, you know.’

‘They were both drunk.’

‘And they’re both consenting adults.’

Rich pushed himself up and patted the edge of the bed for Jasmine to sit down. He stroked an errant curl away from her face. ‘You worry too much. Besides, one of these days Miss Right will come along and Dylan will settle down. I think he likes Millie a lot. Perhaps she’s his Miss Right.’

‘This is my brother we’re talking about.’

‘All men want to spread their seeds when they’re young. But in time they find the perfect field to sow them in and they build a farmhouse there.’

‘Sometimes…’ Jasmine said with a wry smile, ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Well, you did wake me up at the crack of dawn with a raging hangover.’

Jasmine got up from the bed and pulled a blouse over her head without reply.

‘If you ask me, it’s Dylan who needs protecting from her, not the other way around,’ Rich said.

‘What? You’re not still going on about that?’

‘I’m just saying, we know him a lot better than we know her.’

‘I’ve spent time with her and I am an excellent judge of character.’

He gave her a lopsided grin. ‘Not that good – you married me, didn’t you?’

‘Everyone is allowed the odd lapse in judgement,’ she replied, poking her feet into a pair of silver flip-flops.

‘Just promise me you won’t make a big fuss if they have… you know… done the deed. Dylan won’t take kindly to you shoving your nose in his personal life, no matter how well intended it is. Remember how shitty he got last time you did it.’

‘If he behaved like a decent human being then I wouldn’t have to.’

‘Give the guy a break, Jas. He’s your brother and your parents’ loss affected him just like it did you. The difference is you both dealt with it in your own ways. Have you ever stopped to think that he might find it hard to form real relationships because of it?’

Jasmine paused at the door and sighed. ‘I know. But this spiral of self-destruction isn’t going to help him get over what happened. I know what you’re saying and you’re probably right, but there is more than one person involved in this mess and I have to think about her too. I just need to talk to him.’ She skipped back over and kissed Rich on the forehead. ‘I’ll be an hour, tops. If the kids wake up, feed them and then reapply the restraints.’

Rich grinned. But it faded as quickly as it came. ‘Seriously, I hope you don’t make things worse,’ he muttered.

But Jasmine had already gone.

M
illie opened her eyes
. Summer sun poured into her bedroom, as it had every morning since she arrived in Honeybourne but, somehow, the light seemed to be in the wrong place. Not only that, but her head didn’t usually hurt this much. Her eyes roved around the room, taking in the unfamiliar furniture – an old mahogany wardrobe sitting incongruously alongside a flat-pack set of beech-effect laminate drawers, bottles of aftershave, many of them almost empty and coated in a thick layer of dust, ranged along its top. A wash basket overflowed with dark clothing interspersed with what looked like boxer shorts, the one pair she could see properly depicting Homer Simpson’s distorted yellow face. Wherever she was, the owner had taste, she reflected with a wry sense of irony. Or she would have done, had her faculties been quite in the working order they usually were.

She screwed her eyes shut, burying her nose in a pillow that smelt as strange and different from her own as everything else. Snapshots of the previous evening bounced around her brain. She remembered arriving at Jasmine’s with Dylan, both of them in good spirits. She recalled a lot of wine… Then they had made the decision to stagger home rather than take Jasmine and Rich’s offered bed and then…

She bolted up in bed.
Oh God, she was in Dylan’s house!

What had happened when they got here? Millie threw back the bedcovers and heaved a sigh of relief as she saw she was still fully dressed in the clothes she had worn the night before. It was coming back to her, but hazily, and not nearly fast enough to ease her panic.

They had stayed up a while longer to drink some ancient alcohol he kept in a dusty cupboard, the identity of which they hadn’t known or cared about, and had flirted like crazy, she knew that much. And she had liked it more than she ought to. Had they kissed? She seemed to have some recollection of the way his lips tasted: warm and spicy and deliciously pliant. His hands – firm yet playful and dextrous – had explored her breasts… Or was she embellishing the memory now? She shook her head, angry at herself. Where had they gone after kissing in the kitchen? He didn’t seem the type to let an opportunity for sex to pass him by but Millie didn’t feel as though she
had
had sex. She’d know, surely? That last glass of odd amber liquid had been a very bad idea. But unless he had shagged her whilst she was unconscious and then replaced her knickers – and he didn’t seem very capable of either of those tasks the state he had been in – then perhaps she was overreacting after all. But she was still angry with herself for letting him get that close, for finding herself in his bed this morning.

Where had Dylan slept, she wondered, as she now pondered the fact that she was alone and the house was in silence.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, Millie scanned the floor for any sign of her shoes. Other than some rather fluffy, balled-up socks and a few men’s interest magazines stacked in a corner, there was a distinct lack of familiar footwear. With a sigh, she nudged open the bedroom door, which gave with a stubborn creak, and ventured onto the tiny landing.

The only other rooms upstairs were a bathroom and a wee box room stuffed with exercise equipment and boxes of unidentifiable junk. The cottage really was the tiniest of places. Millie remembered Jasmine saying that their parents had left the house to her and Dylan in their will. She wondered if this had been the family home before that; it would have been an interesting, if somewhat cramped, living arrangement.

Not finding what she needed upstairs, or any sign of Dylan for that matter, Millie crept down to the ground floor. She poked her head into what she thought was the sitting room and found, instead, a musty bedroom, complete with a carelessly made bed. This explained the extra room the family must have needed… She crossed the hall to another door and found a tiny conservatory-style living space with a sofa and TV. There was a shout from what could only be the kitchen: ‘The kettle is on!’

Millie shuffled, somewhat sheepishly, to the source of the noise. The room was flooded with early morning light and Dylan was grinning as he leaned against the worktop, arms folded across his broad chest.

‘Who lives in a house like this?’ he drawled in his best fake American accent. ‘Did you enjoy your little tour? You only had to ask and you could have had the guided version.’

Millie scowled, half mortified that she had been caught snooping and half irritated at his eternal cockiness. ‘I was looking for my shoes and I had no idea where you were to ask you.’

‘They’re under there,’ he replied, nodding towards the kitchen table, his humour in no way diminished by her belligerence. Even more annoyingly, he looked fresh and rested, not like someone who had drunk his own body weight in alcohol the night before. Millie was fairly certain she didn’t look quite as good. ‘Coffee or tea?’ he asked.

‘You’re making an assumption that I want to stay.’ Millie ducked under the table and retrieved her shoes, slipping them on. ‘I have tea and coffee across the road.’

‘True. But not the riveting company. Or… a hot shower.’

As he said the words
hot shower
, he raised his eyebrows provocatively. It was meant as a joke but the subtext wasn’t wasted on her. A proper shower did sound very tempting though. It was all very well feeling martyred as she roughed it in the old bakery, swilling down in bowls of water every day, but sometimes a girl needed a little luxury.

‘You want it, don’t you?’ he grinned. ‘My hot shower, that is… I knew you couldn’t resist.’

‘Dylan…’ she began, ‘about anything that might have happened here last night—’

‘I know,’ he cut in, ‘you were drunk and it didn’t mean anything. It’s cool.’

Millie gazed at him. His words were flippant and yet behind his eyes there was something else. Was he hurt by her rejection? She nudged the thought from her head. It didn’t matter either way – a relationship with anyone was not on her agenda and one with him would only end badly for both of them.

‘I like you,’ she said, aware that she was in danger of launching into a full-scale babble, ‘but just as a friend. I’m not in the market for anything else right now and I can’t say any more about it than that.’

Dylan tipped his finger to his forehead in a sloppy salute. ‘Got it. Ask you no questions and you’ll tell me no lies.’

The kettle clicked off behind him and he pulled two mugs from a cupboard, blowing into one of them. Millie tried to hide her grimace while he busied himself making tea.

‘A shower would be fantastic,’ she said into the silence.

‘Not a problem. The bathroom door locks, by the way.’ He turned to her, his familiar grin back in place. ‘So you don’t need to worry about being interrupted.’

‘I wasn’t worried,’ she said, taking a mug of tea from him.

‘I wasn’t joking about the building work on your bakery either,’ Dylan added as he took a seat across from her with his own mug.

‘I can’t expect you to take on a task like that. I—’

‘I know you’re going to refuse me, and I understand why. But you need all the help you can get and I want to. When you talked about your hopes and dreams for the future last night, well…’ He stared at the opposite wall, and then seemed to shake himself. ‘It made me think, that’s all. It made me realise just how much it means to you, and I think the least I can do is help make your dreams come true.’

Millie stared at him. Where the hell did that come from? ‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘But you’re still going to say no?’

‘I can’t expect you to drop everything and besides, what would your friend say about it? Have you even asked him yet? It doesn’t exactly make good business sense, and you know I don’t have much money to pay you.’

‘Bony will be alright. He’ll probably leave most of your jobs to me and I can handle them if he gives me the right instructions and the odd helping hand with the bigger things. It’ll be like an apprenticeship – on-the-job training – and you won’t have to pay me for it.’

Millie’s eyes widened. ‘You’d do it for free?’

‘I’d need money for materials. But I’m in no rush for a wage. I still have a bit of inheritance to live on for now.’

‘It won’t last for ever and you won’t make a successful business out of free work.’ Millie frowned.

‘I’ll start to charge once I can justify it by having some kind of building knowledge. Jasmine will tell you that it’s not very often I’m moved to help anyone, so why don’t you let me?’

Millie smiled. ‘I don’t think that’s true. I think you let people believe that so you don’t seem as soft in the middle as you really are.’

He leaned forward with a conspiratorial air. ‘Maybe. But don’t tell anyone, will you?’

‘Anyway, don’t you have to go to college, do courses for this sort of thing?’ Millie continued, biting back a huge grin.

‘Nah, that’s all a con to keep teachers in jobs.’ He lifted his cup to his lips and took a gulp. ‘How hard can it be?’

Millie thought about arguing for a moment but then let it go. She was quickly learning that Dylan inhabited his own peculiar planet with his own peculiar brand of logic and he was perfectly happy there. She was a little envious; Planet Dylan seemed like a nice place. She wished she could be equally divorced from the sharp edges of the real world; that she could sail through life without giving a damn.

Her glance travelled to the cooling mug of tea in front of her. It looked like dishwater and didn’t really taste much better. Dylan might have been a man of many talents, but tea-making wasn’t one of them.

‘Maybe I can get that shower?’ she asked, suddenly feeling awkward at the request and hating her weakness, her desire for so frivolous a luxury. She felt it put her at a disadvantage, that accepting Dylan’s offer chalked up another debt to repay, and she was racking those up fast enough already since her arrival in Honeybourne.

He leaned back in his chair and appraised her with an easy smile. ‘You already know where the bathroom is. There’s a stack of clean towels in the airing cupboard. The soap’s a bit manly, I’m afraid, but it does the job. Unless you want to nip home and fetch some of your homemade stuff to use?’