The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach: A gorgeous feel-good read from the bestselling author of One Day in December

‘What do you want me to say?’ He looked thoroughly unapologetic. ‘I like a simple life. I don’t do hearts and flowers.’

‘So what do you do?’ Winnie asked, trying to steer the conversation around to life on Skelidos because they’d got really quite deep into relationship talk, and that was weird given that this was their first real conversation.

‘With women? I do talking.’ He gestured between them to demonstrate man and woman. ‘And I do kissing. I do kissing really well.’ He laughed, as if that was sort of a given for a cool guy like him. ‘And I do sex, naturally. I’m pretty darn good at that too.’

Winnie wasn’t sure if she wanted to tip her cold water all over her own head or chuck it at him. It was definitely an inappropriate thing for him to say, and yet he said it so flippantly that it came over as cheeky rather than sleazy. He was a rogue; but at least he was upfront about it, and that was actually something of a relief after all of the underhand behaviour that had ended her marriage.

‘I wasn’t asking about your sexual technique,’ she said, drily. ‘I was asking what you do here on the island.’

‘Ah. My mistake.’ The glint in his eye told her that it wasn’t necessarily a mistake at all. ‘Well, as you so astutely observed, I farm olives and drink beer,’ he said. ‘And I sculpt.’

Now he’d surprised her. ‘You do? Sculpt as in …’ She made vague pottery movements in the air with her hands. ‘Pots and things?’

Jesse nodded. ‘I have a wheel for smaller stuff, but I mostly do bigger commission pieces. Animals, people, that sort of thing.’

‘Wow.’ Winnie was genuinely thrown. He seemed too much of a jock to be an artist, although she was self-aware enough to realise that her sweeping generalisation was small-minded. ‘Can I see?’

He huffed under his breath, as if she’d asked a stupid question. ‘No.’

She’d expected as much. Back home in the UK, Winnie had been forging a career for herself as a self-taught jewellery designer, and she’d never been keen on showing any of her pieces to people before they were finished. She’d worked alone from her tiny garden workshop, happy with just the radio and next door’s cat for company. Her silver and copper wire work didn’t cost the earth, but she’d been making a name for herself as a designer with flair and an eye for pretty gemstones. The last couple of summers had been especially busy with bridal commissions, but this year she’d barely touched her tools. Rory had stolen far more than her happiness; he’d tucked her creativity into his holdall alongside the aftershave she loved the smell of on his skin and the cufflinks she’d made for him as a first-anniversary gift.

‘One day maybe,’ Jesse relented, and Winnie realised that he’d probably misread her silence as having taken offence at his refusal to show her his studio.

‘No, it’s OK, really.’ Casting her eye around the kitchen, she wondered if he actually cooked in here. It didn’t look used. She was about to ask when something brushed against her legs, making her jump and glance under the table.

‘You have a cat,’ she said, laughing as the big black and white moggy bumped her hand when she reached down to fuss it.

‘Bandit,’ Jesse said, and the animal jumped up on his knees. ‘He isn’t mine, exactly. He lives a couple of farms across officially, but he spends most his time here.’ The cat scrubbed his head against Jesse’s five o’clock shadow, purring like a small generator. ‘He’s no looker, is he?’

Winnie considered the cat; he was missing a chunk of one of his ears and his fur in places seemed to have worn a little threadbare. He looked like he lived up to his name.

‘He’s characterful,’ she said in the end.

Jesse set the cat down. ‘I don’t mind him. He’s thorny and can be cantankerous, but he’s a hunter so he gets to stay.’

Winnie didn’t ask what Bandit hunted in case she didn’t like the answer.

‘It sounds to me as if you make a habit of collecting your neighbours’ animals.’

‘Come on now.’ He frowned. ‘I literally saved your ass. I can see that you’re struggling to say thank you.’ He sat back and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Take your time.’

In truth, Winnie could see that he had sort of saved their donkey, but she still hadn’t completely forgiven him for his earlier rudeness. ‘Who calls a donkey The Fonz, anyhow?’

‘Ah, now that’s a story.’

‘Another one?’

He looked at her. ‘For a different day maybe. You better come back again tomorrow and try to woo him.’

‘Do you think he’ll come around to the idea?’

Jesse shrugged. ‘I imagine he’ll come to tolerate you in short bursts.’

Winnie curled her lip, unsure if they were even still talking about the donkey. She pushed herself up onto her feet and dusted her hands down her skirt to smooth it.

‘I should go, before they send out a search party.’ She slid her hairband out and gripped it between her teeth while she finger-combed her ponytail back into place. ‘You didn’t make the best first impression.’

‘Can’t think why,’ he said, standing up and putting their empty glasses into the sink.

Winnie headed to the door. ‘Is there anything I can bring to encourage him to like me more?’

‘I think he likes bikinis and girls who can cook a good steak.’

Winnie shot him a sarcastic look over her shoulder, and he just shrugged and half laughed.

Pausing by the donkeys to give them both a quick fuss of the ears, she looked back towards the house. He hadn’t followed her out; she’d have been more surprised if he had.

One way or another, Jesse was going to be trouble.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘What, no donkey?’

Stella and Frankie looked up from behind the reception desk when Winnie walked back into the B&B and flopped down onto an armchair by a low coffee table cluttered with excursion leaflets.

‘He needs to be wooed, apparently.’

‘The donkey, or his irritable owner?’ Stella asked.

‘Jesse.’

Frankie lifted her eyebrows towards Stella. ‘It’s Jesse now,’ she said knowingly.

‘You’re planning to woo Jesse?’ Stella grinned. ‘You go, girl. I thought I sensed a spark.’

‘Behave, both of you. You know full well I mean the donkey.’ Winnie puffed stray hairs out of her eyes. ‘He’s stubborn.’

‘Who knew?’ Frankie murmured, earning herself a sarcastic smirk.

‘I’ll go back tomorrow and try again.’

Stella nodded. ‘You should definitely do that.’

‘Take him a sugar lump?’ Frankie suggested.

‘Or a beer,’ Stella added, nudging Frankie in the ribs.

Winnie scowled. ‘I know what you’re doing and it’s not going to work.’

The other two looked as innocent as schoolgirls. ‘No idea what you mean,’ Frankie said, shaking her head as Stella shrugged helplessly.

‘Me either.’

Winnie stood up, changing the subject. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and check ourselves into our rooms.’

‘This place badly needs a lift,’ Stella said, as they practically collapsed on the top-floor landing after hauling their suitcases up three floors. Winnie had fresh appreciation for the way Ajax had sprinted up and down the B&B stairs like a mountain goat; it had all seemed much easier with someone else to carry their bags.

‘Maybe we should employ a bellboy?’ she said, dragging her case to the door of the Bohemian Suite. They’d instinctively picked up the keys to the same rooms they’d occupied on their previous visit, subconsciously needing something familiar when everything else around them was alien, perhaps.

‘Can he be eighteen with a fit bum?’ Stella slid her key into the Seaview Suite. ‘I’ll do the interviews.’

Frankie was the least ruffled by the climb; her twice-weekly yoga classes at the local centre for the last few years had obviously paid off. Back home, those few hours a week had been a necessary respite from the grind of daily life; they were the only time Frankie could find relief from the crushing weight of being the one who held everything together for everyone else’s life to run smoothly. On the mat she was free and totally present in the moment; more than just the responsible adult whom everyone depended on to ensure that there was loo roll in the bathroom and dinner on the table and clean socks in the drawer. Much as she loved her boys, being finally freed from the routines that had shaped her entire adult life felt as if someone had opened the door of her cage and liberated her from captivity.

‘I might do some yoga on the beach in the morning,’ she said as she opened her door and pushed her case in ahead of her.

‘Really?’ Winnie glanced across from her own threshold.

Frankie nodded, suddenly determined. Back in England yoga had been her escape; here it was one of the few overhangs from her old life that she was happy to bring with her. There wasn’t much else on the keeper list; her mobile to stay in touch with Joshua and Elliott, the small photograph album at the bottom of her suitcase holding a dozen or so of her favourite pictures, and the letter Marcia had left with her solicitor. Her fingers absently touched her wedding ring, suspended on a gold trace chain around her neck. Much as the decision to end their marriage had ultimately been hers, untangling herself mentally from Gav was still a work in progress. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t fond of him; unlike Winnie’s husband he’d never have dreamt of having a torrid affair or intentionally hurting her. It was more that the passing of the years had turned them into friends rather than lovers, and it hurt her romantic heart to not be held at night or made love to as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The divorce had hurt them both deeply, and she wasn’t quite ready yet to let go of her ring completely. It had seemed wrong to keep it on her finger afterwards, so moving it to around her neck was sort of an interim step. Maybe she’d go all dramatic and throw it into the depths of the sea like that woman in Titanic. More likely she’d take it off because it reacted with some sun cream or else snap the chain whilst changing one of the beds, but for now she was content to keep it close by.

‘I’m going to go for a swim in my bathtub for half an hour,’ she said. ‘See you downstairs in a while?’

The others nodded.

‘I’m just about ready for my afternoon siesta,’ Stella said. ‘Cocktails on the terrace at sundown?’

Laughing, they stepped inside their rooms, clicked their doors shut softly and returned the villa to its peaceful afternoon slumber.

‘We really need to buy some food.’

Frankie stood staring into the empty fridge.

‘I think there’s some shops on the other side of the beach,’ Winnie said. They’d barely ventured further than the beach on their last flying visit to Skelidos, but from what she could remember the few shops and restaurants strung out on the far side of the sand counted as the centre of the small resort. The island in general was very low-key; it wasn’t on the hen-party radar or likely to appeal to the thrill-seeking crowd. It was left field of the beaten track, and Winnie for one was perfectly happy for it to stay that way.

‘That means that whatever we buy needs to be lugged all the way back across the beach,’ Stella groaned. ‘We’re going to have bigger muscles than Olympic shot-putters after a summer here.’

‘You know what we need?’ Frankie closed the fridge and picked up her purse. ‘A donkey.’

Winnie considered it. ‘God, yes! How charming would it be for our guests if The Fonz brings their luggage across the beach for them! Not to mention that we can use him to carry our shopping.’

‘Can’t we just get a car?’ Stella frowned.

‘Well, we could,’ Frankie said. ‘But where’s the fun in that?’

‘I’m worried people might mistake me for the Virgin Mary if I start riding a donkey around town.’ Stella made the sign of the cross on her chest. ‘They might all fall on their knees and worship me.’

‘I reckon you’re safe.’ Winnie eyed Stella’s legs. ‘I don’t think Mary wore hotpants.’

‘I’ll have you know that these hotpants were bloody expensive. They deserve a little bit more reverence, thank you very much.’ She flicked Winnie a sly look. ‘You can borrow them when you go back to woo the donkey, if you like.’

Choosing to rise above Stella’s obvious grin, Winnie looked around the big, airy kitchen, taking in the facilities.

‘We need food. Milk, sugar and coffee. And water, lots of water.’

‘Eggs. Breakfast pastries,’ Frankie added to the list. ‘And jam.’

‘And a big strapping man to carry it all back for us,’ Stella said, picking up the keys. ‘Come on, ladies. Let’s go and introduce ourselves to the locals.’

‘Two shops, a bar and one restaurant,’ Frankie said. They sat in a line on the low stone wall separating the sand from the beach. ‘It’s not going to rival Kavos any time soon, is it?’

‘Thank God,’ Winnie said, although privately even she had to admit that the resort was several steps beyond quiet.

‘I’m not surprised Ajax needed out,’ Stella said. ‘The bright lights of Athens must have been like beacons out there, attracting all the tourists.’

‘So. This store?’ Winnie looked up at the cherry-red canopies over the tiny local shop. ‘Or that one?’ She nodded a little way along the road to a similarly small place with yellow and white awnings. Each of them seemed to be a catch-all shop; convenience food, beach lilos and cheap sunglasses on stands outside, fridges full of cold drinks. Great for a day on the beach, not so fabulous to stock up your fridge.

‘We really need to find a supermarket,’ Stella said. ‘What I wouldn’t give for my car.’

They all looked up as a guy wondered out of the solitary bar and raised his hand in greeting.

‘Ladies, welcome to Skelidos!’ he said. ‘Gin and tonic?’

‘You’re so speaking our language,’ Stella laughed, jumping to her feet.

‘I’m Stella –’ she stuck her hand out as the guy drew nearer ‘– and this is Frankie, and Winnie. We just bought the B&B over on the other side of the beach. The pink one?’

‘The only one in the town,’ he said, his grin a slash of white teeth against his deeply tanned skin. ‘I’m Panos. We wondered when you’d come.’

‘Well, we’re here now,’ Frankie said and smiled.

He looked from one to the other of them. ‘Come in, come in. I’ll gather people up to come say hi to our newest locals.’

‘Now there’s that Greek charm and neighbourly hospitality we’d hoped for,’ Stella said, laughing and linking her arms through Frankie and Winnie’s as they followed Panos between the Coca-Cola sunbrellas shading the empty tables outside his bar.

‘Island gin?’ he asked, holding up a bottle of nectarine blush liquid as they each took a stool at the pine-topped bar.

They watched as he made theatre of pouring them each a long drink over ice, the tonic fizzing over the ice cubes to create the same rose-pink G&T cocktail they’d drunk so many of with Ajax a few weeks back.

‘Gin’s clear where I come from,’ Stella said, holding her drink up curiously.

Panos nodded. ‘Ah, but this one is special. Ajax used to make it for us.’

‘He did?’

‘He didn’t tell you?’ Panos frowned as they all looked nonplussed. ‘This is very bad.’ Turning to look over his shoulder, he called out for his mama.

They watched in silence as a small, slight woman dressed in black appeared. Panos let forth a stream of fast Greek smattered with their names, gesticulating across towards Villa Valentina in the distance.

Panos’s mother fired back something equally breakneck fast, speaking with her hands as much as her voice. Panos paused for a moment while he decided how to translate what she’d said.

‘She say that it’s always been brewed at the villa ever since she was a child. If you live in the villa now, you have to do it. It’s the law.’

‘The law?’ Winnie said, alarmed. ‘Are you sure?’

Panos’s mother nodded vigorously, speaking again, and they all waited for Panos to translate.

‘Island law,’ Panos shrugged. ‘The plants only grow in the garden at the villa. You make it, I sell it.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have a clue,’ Stella said, deciding that she much preferred drinking the gin to making it.

‘Is there even a recipe to follow?’ Frankie asked, unsure if they were being wound up, some kind of odd welcome-to-the-island ritual, sort of similar to how she’d been sent to buy a bubble for a spirit level when she was a fifteen-year-old Saturday girl at the jewellers in the local shopping precinct.

Panos asked his mother Frankie’s question, but it was clear from her facial expressions and shrugging shoulders that they weren’t going to get a clean-cut answer.

Winnie sipped her drink and closed her eyes. God, it was good stuff. ‘It isn’t right that the world should run out of this,’ she said. ‘It’s possibly the best drink ever.’

It was difficult to say what it was about the gin that made it so delicious. It was rhubarb-pink in colour but not in flavour, and aromatic from the stem of rosemary Panos had pushed through the ice cubes exactly as Ajax had.

‘We could try to find out from Ajax?’ she offered, although she wasn’t entirely certain that they even had his details.

‘You must, you must,’ Panos urged, opening a wall cupboard behind the bar. ‘This is all I have left and I’ve never run out yet.’

There looked to be a dozen or more bottles in Panos’s stash, all bearing a handwritten and illustrated label. They looked like magic potions.

‘Well, we’ll look into it,’ Stella said. ‘Maybe we should have another taste just so to be clear.’

Panos looked at her through narrowed eyes, and then started to laugh. ‘You will be the troublesome one. I see these things.’

Frankie and Winnie nodded as Panos obligingly topped up their glasses.

‘So you’re … sisters?’ He gestured between them.

‘No,’ Winnie said. ‘We’re great friends.’

‘And you will all stay here? You won’t just come for a few weeks and then run back home?’

Winnie nodded, Frankie smiled diplomatically and Stella sighed into her glass without comment.

Panos didn’t miss any of their reactions. ‘You will stay. Skelidos does that to people.’

‘Like Jesse?’ Winnie said suddenly, faltering when Panos’s eyebrows lifted. ‘We met him already. He … he looked after our donkey for a while.’

‘Jesse came for a summer too.’ Panos poured himself a beer. ‘But for him it was different. He was …’ Breaking off, Panos’s face relaxed into a wide smile as a woman came into the bar with a clatter of high heels and a cloud of dark curls bouncing on her shoulders.

‘So this is the new blood everyone is telling me about!’

‘Corinna,’ Panos said warmly. ‘Word travels fast as usual, I see.’

Winnie thought she detected the hint of an American accent behind the woman’s tone. Older than they were, forties at a guess, Corinna was one of the most naturally glamorous women Winnie had ever met. She could pass as Sophia Loren’s daughter, all dark eyes, lush lips and legs that went all the way up to her backside. It would have been easy to be intimidated were it not for her warm smile and the way she made a beeline to gather each of them in turn into an excitable, expensively perfumed hug.

‘Tell me, what are three gorgeous young women like you girls doing on a sleepy island like this? Are you criminals hiding from the mob?’ Her eyes glittered with humour. ‘Please say you are!’

As she spoke Panos poured her a drink and slid it over the bar to her.

‘Nothing quite that glamorous, I’m afraid,’ Frankie said. ‘It was just a good time for a change for all of us, for different reasons.’

Good-natured curiosity filled Corinna’s eyes. ‘Would it be too rude to ask what they were?’ she asked, and Panos immediately jumped in.

‘Absolutely, yes, it would indeed be very rude,’ he chided, shaking his head at them to let them off the hook.

‘I left my husband because we didn’t love each other any more,’ Frankie said suddenly, then took a huge gulp of her drink. ‘I’ve come here for an adventure.’

Some people might have felt uncomfortable at such a candid revelation from a stranger, but not Corinna. She clapped her hands, her gold bracelets jangling on her wrists. ‘Bravo for you, my darling! A marriage without love is a dead dodo!’

Stella nodded, a little morose. ‘And I got fired from my job. I came here because I don’t know what else to do.’

‘Ah, now that is interesting,’ Corinna said, looking intently at Stella. ‘Because you look to me like a woman who always knows what she should do. I think you’re here because you know that this is exactly where you need to be.’

In front of Winnie’s eyes, Stella’s shoulders straightened a little, as if Corinna had applied soothing balm to her injured pride. Winnie decided that she really quite liked Corinna. Emboldened, she threw her hat into the ring.

‘My husband was having an affair with the girl in the work canteen, even though we were trying for a baby and he claimed to be perfectly happy.’

The words left her in a rush, because they stung less if she said them quickly. Left to linger in her mouth they grew thorns and cut into her, leaving her raw and sore for days. Hence the fact that she hadn’t told anyone new her sorry story – not until now, anyhow. Surprisingly though, this time she found herself unscathed, and on closer reflection she might even feel slightly liberated from the long shadow Rory’s infidelity had cast over her.

Behind her, Panos clicked his tongue in disgust and poured an extra shot of gin into her glass.

‘Now, that is an unfortunate situation.’ Corinna shook her head. ‘But my darling, how much worse would it have been if you’d had a child before you realised that he was a feckless fool?’

Winnie nodded, downhearted. She’d thought the same herself, although she sometimes wondered if she’d pressured him too much about getting pregnant and that had been the reason for his affair. But what would that say about him if so? If the effort of supporting her was too much hard work to bother?

‘Pah. I expect he was a man with a little …’ Corinna crooked her little finger and winked, making them all laugh despite the gravity of Winnie’s marital woes. ‘And so now you’re all three footloose, fancy-free and ready for adventure. How delicious!’ Corinna rubbed her hands together and then turned to Panos, sparkly-eyed with mischief. ‘Panos here is one of our most eligible bachelors,’ she said. ‘He has the best bar on the island, and who wouldn’t fall in love with that face?’

Right now, that face had turned puce with embarrassment.

‘Corinna,’ he muttered, slamming clean glasses away onto the shelf above his head.

‘And there I was thinking I was the most eligible bachelor on the island,’ someone else said, and they all turned to see Jesse had strolled into the bar. Dressed in faded, frayed denim shorts and a lived-in T-shirt, he looked every inch the relaxed holidaymaker rather than the fiery, ill-tempered farmer who’d banged on their door earlier.

If possible, Corinna lit up even more, shimmying her way through the tables to pull Jesse into a hug. If there was one thing this woman did freely, it was hug, Winnie thought. Jesse seemed to take it well, and Frankie and Stella couldn’t have looked more surprised if Santa Claus had walked in and ordered a beer. They’d only met Jesse the grouch, and this was a completely different man.

‘Ladies,’ Corinna said, linking arms with Jesse to lead him across to them. ‘This is Jesse Anderson, Skelidos’s secret celebrity!’

Jesse rolled his eyes. ‘Hardly.’

‘Celebrity?’ Stella asked.

Corinna nodded, drawing Panos into the conversation. ‘Sculptor to the stars, am I not right, Panos?’ Placing her perfectly manicured hands on Stella and Frankie’s knees, she elaborated on several of Jesse’s better-known clients and what he’d been asked to make for them.

‘How long had you been there?’ Winnie asked quietly as Jesse came to stand beside her stool.