The Little Clock House on the Green: A heartwarming cosy romance perfect for summer

‘Okay, letting you up now… Although I feel obliged to mention, that in order for me to let you up, you’re going to have to unwrap those gorgeous long legs of yours from around me first.’

For a second, she looked like she didn’t really want to and he really liked how that made him feel, so much so that when, a few moments later, he felt her legs loosen their hold around him, disappointment punched him in the gut.

Rising to his feet, he pulled her with him.

‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’ he asked. ‘No wooziness? No sprains? No serious damage done?’

She smoothed her hands over her torso and then down her long, long legs, making him completely lose his train of thought. ‘I think I’m good. You okay?’

‘Me? Oh, I’ll live. Had a perfect landing, didn’t I?’

‘I guess it’s not every day you get taken down by a whirling dervish in wild wellies. Sorry about that, by the way.’

‘Apology most definitely accepted. Daniel,’ he said, by way of introduction, taking her hand to make a formal handshake.

‘Daniel,’ she said, as if testing out the feel of his name on her tongue. She shook his hand firmly and then, with a tip of her head, queried, ‘Not Dan? Danny?’

Daniel went from being super-aware of the sound of his name on her lips to being on the back foot. He never went by Dan and certainly never Danny. Danny Westlake was his father. ‘Just Daniel,’ he reiterated, waiting to see what she made of that.

She hesitated, as if she could tell there was a story behind his insistence, and then seemed to accept that it wasn’t her right to know that story. It only made him like her more.

‘Okay, Just Daniel. I’m Kate.’

‘As in, Kiss me, Kate?’ he rallied, determined to settle his heart-rate back to a more normal rhythm. Unless he had the worst luck in the world and Kate was a racing-car fan, he doubted she’d have put the name Danny and the name Westlake together and come to a confirmation that meant their budding acquaintance was over before it had really begun.

‘As in, just Kate,’ she answered, although he could swear she was holding back a smile.

‘So, Just Kate, are you the owner of this beautiful building?’

‘I am. Well, what I mean is that I’m going to be.’

‘You’re interested in buying it?’ He tried to hide the disappointment, worried he could feel so let down at the news when he’d only been in the building less than thirty minutes.

‘I’m going to buy it,’ she said, with complete confidence.

She couldn’t be more than mid-to-late twenties. He wasn’t much older than that. His gaze slid over her attire. She didn’t look like the horse-and-hound set, who came from money, were schooled privately and then lived in Chelsea for a few years before moving back home to add to the country pile, so how could she possibly afford it?

‘Sounds like you have some sort of special advantage,’ he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

‘I guess you’d call it a home advantage.’

Daniel frowned. ‘Is that what the current owner is looking for? Someone who knows the area? I’d have thought they’d be more interested making as much money from the sale as possible.’

She shook her head. ‘The owner of this particular building isn’t like that. At least, I’m banking on that being the case,’ she admitted.

So maybe she didn’t have the funds and was getting a little ahead of herself? Daniel let the prospect sink in. If the owner wasn’t looking for top market value – just wanted to get shot of the property as quickly as possible, he was probably still in with a chance of buying it himself. His inner-sensible did a double-take. Buying a building because someone else was implying he couldn’t was even crazier than wanting to buy it in the first place. ‘Maybe the owners are more interested in someone being able to make something of this place,’ he said, almost to himself as excitement in his business idea notched up a gear.

‘That’s what I intend to do. Make something of it, I mean,’ Kate declared, sliding her hands into the frayed pockets of her exquisitely short shorts.

She looked so wonderfully brave and naively defiant standing in front of him that he found a grin starting at the corners of his mouth and spreading.

‘Well, this is going to make life interesting,’ he told her, ‘because so do I.’

Her jaw dropped open. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I intend to make something of this place too. Soon as I walked in, I knew,’ he said, making himself ignore the shock streaking naked through her eyes. Telling himself that business was business and if he’d been more assertive with West and Westlake then he might have stopped everything from turning out like it had. ‘This place is perfect.’

‘Perfect for what?’

‘For me.’

‘For you? You’re seriously interested in buying The Clock House?’

‘I’m seriously intending to buy The Clock House.’

‘But you can’t,’ she spluttered.

‘Why not?’

‘Because…’

‘Because?’ For a moment he was worried those lovely chocolate brown orbs were going to fill with water and he’d be lost, but after a few seconds a fire sparked the amber flecks reminding him of a phoenix bursting into life again.

‘Because I know the owner. And I know he’ll sell to me.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ she answered.

‘You’re convinced then that you can get together the capital needed to buy a place of this size?’

She smiled.

No, grinned.

Like a Cheshire cat.

And he should not find that sexy!

He began to revisit his theory that she was some sort of multi-millionairess. Maybe this is what she did – went about playing at businesses, trying to find one that took her fancy. Well, not this time, sweetheart, he thought, as resolve settled in his guts.

‘You should probably start looking at other properties,’ she said, her tone consoling.

‘But I like this one.’

‘I’m quite sure that there are other fabulous properties all over the country.’

‘And I wish you luck in finding one,’ he said, grinning.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You know, it occurs to me we haven’t bumped into each other before today. Exactly how long have you lived in Whispers Wood?’

His grin slipped a little. ‘Technically, I guess it would be fair to say I don’t actually live here.’

‘Really? Well, good luck. I hope you know how to deal with disappointment.’

‘Disappointment’s not something I’ve really had to get used to in life,’ Daniel lied as the last year flashed before him in ego-smashing 4-D detail. ‘Disappointment’ didn’t even begin to cover this last year… and yet he’d come out the other side eventually, hadn’t he? And now he felt the fight lift him. ‘So, I certainly hope you won’t be too upset with me when I buy this place.’

‘You’re really that sure that you will?’

‘You’re really that sure that you will?’ he countered.

Again, that super-sexy smile transformed her face, making her button-brown eyes sparkle with delight.

‘I guess this is “Game-On”?’

‘I guess it is,’ she said. She moved towards the front doors, almost as if she knew he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to watch those hypnotic hips swaying as she walked out on him.

When she turned and found him staring she gave him a cheeky smile. ‘Oh, in case I forgot to say it already, welcome to Whispers Wood.’

Daniel tipped his head in a thank you, his eyes glued to her as she turned and walked out of The Clock House. He stared after her for a couple of seconds after the door shut and then, with a shake of his head and a huge smile on his face, he got out his phone and punched in the number on the front of the For Sale sign. He hadn’t felt this upbeat and optimistic about things in ages. When he got through to the independent estate agents he was told that if he wanted to discuss terms they would be happy to make an appointment for him with the owner.

It was a little strange, but he actually liked the idea of taking a business meeting for the first time in a year. At least this one would be about new beginnings instead of wrapping things up.

He was about to leave the room when he saw something glinting on the floor, where he and Kate had tumbled to the ground.

Walking over, he picked up the necklace, and intrigued, opened the locket dangling from the chain.

On one side was a watch. The screen had a huge crack running right through the centre of it and he was only just able to work out that the time had stopped at 1:23pm.

Well, damn.

He felt awful that he’d obviously broken her watch as he’d fallen on top of her.

He frowned as his gaze fell on the photo on the opposite side of the watch.

It was a photo of a man and little girl, arms wrapped around each other and staring up at the camera laughing.

Well, double damn.

He could have sworn there’d been some chemistry between him and Kate. But thinking about it, she hadn’t said anything overly flirty at all. All the smiling had been about buying this property.

God, his instincts really were shot to hell.

Chapter 9

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

Juliet

‘Exactly how long are you going to leave it before you tell Kate why you put the idea into her head with all those postcards?’

‘Mum, please.’ Juliet fished out the teabag from her Cath Kidston ‘Garden Birds’ mug and stuck the teaspoon into the hedgehog mug with slightly too much vigour. As the teabag split, she swore softly under her breath, poured the whole lot down the kitchen sink and stuck the kettle back on to boil. ‘I appreciate your concern, but I have to do this in my own way, and in my own time.’

‘You wait much longer and you’re going to lose that offer from the bank.’

‘So then I’ll go and get another one,’ she said, moving to open the fridge for the milk and staring inside at the contents, kind of hoping her eyes would light upon a jar labelled ‘patience’.

She loved her mum, she really did. They had a wonderful relationship, especially considering they worked together every day. But some days… The days where her mum was usually right… They were sometimes the hardest.

Juliet was super-aware that time was running out on the loan offer she had from the bank and she wasn’t exactly confident she’d be able to get another if this one expired, but now that Kate was actually home? Well, it felt only fair to give her at least a couple of seconds to adjust to being back.

Setting down a fresh mug of tea in front of her mum, she joined her at the small kitchen table. ‘Kate and I are going to talk tonight. I promise.’

‘Good stuff. And I’m sorry. I know you’re not the sort to intentionally keep secrets, so I know you’ll get around to telling her.’

Juliet’s mouthful of tea hit her windpipe at completely the wrong angle and splurted back out of her mouth. As she tried to drag in air, Cheryl jumped up to grab a couple of pieces of kitchen roll for her.

Head down, unable to look her mother in the eye, she took the proffered kitchen roll and set about mopping up. When her mum remained silent as she sat back down again, Juliet wondered if maybe she did know her daughter’s dirtiest secret, but out of motherly love, chose to keep quiet.

‘I’m trying to think about everyone,’ her mum said as Juliet took another careful sip of tea, grateful when it went down the right way. ‘I don’t like keeping this from Sheila. It should come from Kate, anyway, even with everything they need to work through and, well – I don’t want you getting caught in the middle and getting hurt.’

‘I know.’ Juliet laid a hand over her mum’s and squeezed it gently before returning it to her mug. ‘But I really think Kate wouldn’t have come back to stay if she hadn’t thought carefully about what that would mean. I know she’s impulsive but she’s never ridden roughshod over people’s feelings.’

‘True,’ Cheryl agreed and then added almost to herself, ‘if anything, everyone has tended to ride roughshod over hers. Or ignore them entirely.’ There was a small sigh and then Juliet felt her mum studying her carefully. ‘You really think Old Man Isaac is going to go for all of this?’

‘Of course,’ Juliet answered, determined to keep the faith. ‘It’s a brilliant idea and who else is going to buy the place?’

At the sound of the front door slamming, Juliet looked automatically at the kitchen door, where Kate appeared. From her breathing and the glow about her, she looked as if she’d run all the way back from The Clock House.

‘Okay,’ Kate asked them, ‘so who on earth is the guy who arrived in the village, like, three seconds ago?’

Juliet looked at her mum, who looked at Kate and said with a mystified expression, ‘You’re going to have to be more specific.’

‘Mr Tall Dark and Handsome,’ Kate said, staring at both of them. When neither Juliet nor her mum said anything, she added, ‘Mr I’m All Done Working-Out So Now I’m Just Chilling Until Marvel Films Call.’

‘Do you know who she’s talking about?’ Juliet asked, turning to her mum and getting more interested by the second at the look in Kate’s eyes.

‘Nope. Don’t know of any superhero lookalikes around here,’ chimed in Cheryl.

‘That’s it?’ Kate pouted, her face getting redder. ‘What’s happened to this place? A complete stranger waltzes in and none of you thinks to start up the phone-tree? Nobody finds out where he’s staying, assembles the SWAT team, goes in and applies the thumb-screws and switches on the spotlight so that they can watch him sweat as he slowly divulges every credential to his name?’ She stared in askance at both of them and then, in true Kate fashion, a look of determination came into her eyes. ‘Well, somebody has to take responsibility here. Auntie Cheryl, I want you to phone Trudie and find out what she knows. If it’s nothing, I want you to get straight on the phone to Crispin Harlow.’

‘And should I use your exact description…?’ Cheryl asked, with a raised eyebrow.

‘Oh,’ Kate faltered. ‘No. Um, he said his name was Daniel,’ she tacked on helpfully, and Juliet was surprised to see the pink still hanging about on her cousin’s cheeks deepen a shade further.

‘So where did you bump into this Mr TDH? Was it at,’ Juliet mouthed her last words, ‘The Clock House?’ even though her mum’s back was turned as she grabbed her bag to look for her phone.

Cheryl opened the kitchen back door and stepped outside, presumably for peace and quiet when she delivered the gossip to Trudie that her niece hadn’t even been back a week and had already quite possibly lost the plot.

Kate nodded. ‘He was standing in the open doorway, presumably waiting for someone to walk into him. I mean who does that?’

Juliet had to hide her smile when Kate belatedly looked around, realised she was standing right in the doorway and moved to take her mum’s place at the kitchen table.

‘I didn’t stand a chance,’ Kate continued. ‘There I was, wandering back in through the garden doors at a completely leisurely pace when I, well, I ran right into him. You’d think he’d have had the good sense to remain upright, because it isn’t as if he isn’t well-built – but no – instead he tries to do the hero thing and reach out to help me and instead we both fall to the ground.’

‘Wow. You called him Mr Tall Dark and Handsome,’ Juliet said, grinning delightedly. ‘You said he was well-built. You’re all… breathy and flushed.’

Kate grimaced. ‘Yes, well, it’s unusually hot for the middle of May.’

‘You think he’s gorgeous,’ Juliet sing-songed. ‘You want to date him… you want to hug him… you want to kiss him… you want to marry him.’

‘Oh my God, thank you, Gracie Hart, can you bring Juliet back now,’ Kate pleaded with a roll of her huge brown eyes.

‘Sorry, not sorry,’ Juliet shot back, laughing and trying to remember if she had ever seen Kate so flustered about a man. She’d occasionally talked about Marco in her emails, but only lightly. In fact, so lightly that by the time Juliet had realised she’d stopped mentioning him altogether, so much time had passed that Juliet hadn’t wanted to open up any wounds by asking what had happened. ‘So what was this guy doing at The Clock House, and how did it go when you got there?’ Juliet’s hand snuck under the table to tightly cross her fingers.

‘He–’

‘Right,’ Cheryl said, coming back into the kitchen, and cutting Kate off, ‘Trudie couldn’t actually remember this Daniel’s last name.’

Kate threw her hands dramatically up into the air. ‘Fabulous. How am I supposed to Google him now?’

‘Why do we need to Google him?’ Juliet asked.

‘So, if I could finish…?’ Cheryl said, nodding her head when Kate and Juliet turned to look at her. ‘She can’t remember his last name, but if you had actually gone to visit your mum like you said you were going to, you could have found out everything you needed to know for yourself because this Daniel chap is staying with her as a guest while waiting for his car to be repaired.’

Kate’s eyes widened to saucers. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered, ‘he’s infiltrated enemy camp already. Oh, this is not good. Not good at all.’

‘Okay,’ Juliet interrupted calmly. ‘Let’s suppose both Mum’s and my Kate-interpreting skills are a little rusty. Start at the beginning. You went to The Clock House and…?’

Kate took a couple of calming breaths. ‘Sorry. And sorry, Aunt Cheryl – I know I said I was going to see Mum, but I–’ she dragged in another calming breath, ‘I went to The Clock House instead. I haven’t been back there since,’ she swallowed and Juliet’s heart broke at the bleak light that had crept into her cousin’s eyes. ‘I haven’t been able to go back there since Bea died and so, well, that’s where I went. At first the memories where overwhelming but, then it was almost as if it knew what I could handle, you know?’ she looked up at both Juliet and Cheryl for confirmation and all Juliet could do was smile gently back. ‘Anyway, it was good. Great actually…’

Juliet’s heart leaped.

‘…I mean there was a middle bit where it wasn’t,’ Kate continued. ‘Where I started thinking I can’t do this. I can’t be here. And I definitely can’t follow old dreams and open the place back up as a business. And I was thinking how on earth am I going to tell you, Juliet?’

Juliet felt Kate looking at her and hoped she couldn’t see the blood draining from her face. Kate was the strongest person she knew and she really thought that tempting her into coming back was the right thing to do. But the angst in her voice, the fine tremble in the hands she’d clasped together in front of her…

‘But then,’ Kate continued, ‘I walked out into the courtyard and through the moon-gate – and I saw Bea’s bees. They are Bea’s, aren’t they?’

Juliet nodded.

‘Are you looking after them?’ Kate asked her.

Juliet shook her head and tried to find her voice. The pretty little beehives that had stood in the meadow backing onto The Clock House remained because of one person. And darn it – why did she always lose the ability to speak when it came to him?

‘Is it–’ Kate looked from Juliet to Cheryl, ‘Is it Oscar that’s looking after them?’

Juliet felt the weight of her mother’s stare, despite it being so gentle. Oh, good grief, she knew.

‘It is, Oscar, yes,’ Cheryl said.

Juliet watched Kate’s eyes close as if to absorb what that meant and her hand snuck under the table again, this time to pick nervously at the hem of her dress.

‘Okay, well, that’s good,’ Kate eventually whispered, shaking her head a little, presumably to put the unshed tears back in their place. ‘It’s good to think of them being looked after. Bea loved them so.’

Juliet couldn’t bear it. Getting up from the table, she said, ‘It’s got to be wine o’clock somewhere in the world, right?’

Kate sniffed. ‘Don’t bother on my account. I’m okay. It was just a shock to see them, that’s all. But, oh – I haven’t even told you… It was seeing the bees that made me think everything might be okay after all.’

‘It was?’ Juliet felt those little wings of hope flutter inside her chest.

‘Yes. I don’t know if Bea ever told anyone, but she came up with all these wonderful recipes for using honey in her organic beauty treatments. That’s why she kept the bees.’

‘That hair conditioner she used to make,’ Cheryl murmured. ‘She was always telling me there was a secret ingredient. Must have been the honey.’

‘It was,’ Kate admitted. ‘And when I saw the bees it reminded me about how she went to see Old Man Isaac to ask him if she could site them there and how he was so kind to her. After seeing them, all I could think was that I wanted to use Bea’s honey. I want to open the day spa. I have to do it. Somehow. Which brings me to the teeny-tiny thorny problem…’

‘Whatever it is, I’m sure we can fix it,’ Juliet immediately said. ‘I’ll help.’

‘You have no idea how much I love you for saying that,’ Kate replied. ‘It’s this Daniel… he wants to buy it!’

‘Buy what? Bea’s bees? The honey?’

‘No. He wants to buy The Clock House.’

‘But whatever for?’ Juliet asked, feeling all her plans slip away.

‘Not sure. Can’t let him get it, though. I need to phone Old Man Isaac and organise a meeting, or do you think it would be more professional to go through the estate agent? No. Business is all about using your contacts, right?’

Juliet’s mum stood up. ‘I think I’ll love you and leave you both. You have a lot to talk over together.’

Juliet winced. She would have to be blind and in another room not to pick up on her mum’s pointed comment.

As Cheryl went to leave she put a reassuring hand over Kate’s. ‘I’m so happy for you, lovey. You’ve done all your firsts now. I think you’ve picked a lovely reason to stay. And I know your mum will want to hear about this. But when you’re ready, okay?’

Kate quickly wiped a tear away. ‘You really think she’ll be okay with me being back? I don’t want to hurt her – make it worse for her.’

‘Give it time. You have that if you’re back now. I know it’s easier on you not to expect anything. But she is trying. Truly. Juliet, if you need to go to any business meetings with Kate phone me early enough that I can shuffle my day around and fit your clients in.’

‘Um, thanks, Mum.’

‘Thanks, Auntie Cheryl,’ Kate smiled up at her and then Juliet felt her turn her attention to her. ‘And thank you, Juliet. If you hadn’t sent me those postcards…’ and then, as if what Juliet’s mum had just said had filtered through, she frowned and then laughed, ‘I appreciate your support, but you certainly don’t have to come to any meeting with me.’

‘Actually,’ Juliet said, clearing her throat, ‘about that…’

Chapter 10

And the Cats Just Keep on Coming…

Juliet

‘Juliet?’ Kate asked, the moment her mum had left the cottage. ‘What was your mum going on about? Why would you want to be in on a meeting about buying The Clock House?’

Juliet let out a breath and wondered how on earth to explain, without having to really, you know, explain.

‘Sod it,’ she muttered and got up to search for that bottle of Dutch courage. She pulled an opened bottle of white wine out of the fridge, but it was when she went to pull the cork out with her teeth that she realised Kate was staring at her with a mystified expression on her face.

‘Is the alcohol for celebrating with or commiserating with?’

‘Can it be both and still be okay?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kate said carefully. ‘Have I got this all wrong? Did you not send me those postcards because you wanted me to come home and buy The Clock House?’

‘No, you haven’t got that wrong,’ she answered and with a sigh stuck the cork back in the bottle because maybe it would be better to save the alcohol for Kate’s reaction, rather than being half-sozzled before she’d even finished explaining.