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Well, that and the Mill.
When they were kids, the Mill, with its rotting beams and mossy walls, was the only place to be on a summer afternoon. And as teenagers, it was perfect for hiding out with a bottle of cheap cider and a few mates, or to take a girl for a little privacy.
At seventeen, he’d ruled that shambles of a building. At thirty, he was morbidly keen to see what was left of it after he’d grown up and moved away. Did Nate’s cryptic comments mean it had finished falling apart, finally?
Cresting the hill out of the town, the Mill rose up ahead, whiter than Alex remembered. He frowned, but kept walking. Maybe he should have asked Nate exactly what had happened to it. What if some rich couple had bought it and renovated it? More to the point, why hadn’t he thought of doing that? Well, apart from the fact that the place had to be a money pit. It had been on the verge of collapsing in on itself for years. Why else would they all have been so keen to hang out there as kids? The danger was half the fun.
About halfway between the town and the Mill, Alex saw the first sign. ‘Felinfach Arts and Heritage Community.’ So, not a Grand Designs project, then. A business, instead. And one that suddenly held a great personal interest for him.
Increasing his pace, Alex found himself at the entrance to the Mill in no time. The rusty chain-link gates that had never kept them out were gone, replaced by something tasteful in wrought iron, presumably commissioned from one of the Arts and Heritage Community themselves. Another sign, this one decorated in flowing blues and greens, stated the intentions and motives behind what seemed to be a co-operative of artists. And a piece of paper stuck to it declared one empty unit, waiting for the right creative person to fill it.
Alex had never thought of himself as a creative person. His family would laugh at the very idea – in fact, his dad had, the first time he plucked up the courage to mention it. He was a numbers man, all about the hard facts and figures. But then, during a two-week holiday – his first in three years, and forced upon him by his boss to, in his words, “stop you burning out, you idiot,” – he’d picked up a camera and gone looking for things to photograph. And suddenly, as simple as that, Alex had found something he loved more than numbers.
He’d taken a couple of courses since then, and spent his limited downtime improving his technique. He’d stopped staying out late, so he could get some good shots of the morning light on the Thames. He’d stopped dating his usual kind of women, because they always wanted him to photograph them. It wasn’t that he didn’t like taking shots of people, but he wanted them to be real. His girlfriends always wanted to be posing, perfect and unreal. Alex wanted to take photos that showed who they really were.
For some reason, they never liked that very much.
He hadn’t told anyone yet, but the accountancy thing was only to keep the finances ticking over while he fixed up his new home. In the long term, he planned to be a photographer. Like he’d told Cora, his dad’s death might have speeded things up, but this had always been his plan – and knowing it was a plan his father had supported, once he’d got over his surprise, made him all the more determined.
He’d intended to take it slowly, build it up a bit at a time. He didn’t need to rush, not while he could still make money the old way. But seeing that opening at the Mill… What better place for him to set up a studio?
He shook his head and stepped back from the sign. He was moving too fast. Being able to make split-second decisions might be an asset in the City, but not always in real life. So he’d take some time to think it through, look at his plans and budgets, and move when the time was right for him.
Except that strategy was the same one that meant he hadn’t managed to move home properly until after the funeral. And, since he was there anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to look.
Inside, the bright and airy feel of the Mill matched the sign outside. The outbuildings had been built back up from their crumbling state, forming the main artisan units, housing studios and shops, all with wares on display outside in the sunshine. In just a casual glance, Alex spotted a glassblower, a blacksmith, a painter. The Mill building itself, on the edge of the rushing river, looked to be a cafe-cum-gallery, with whitewashed chairs and tables outside, and a chalkboard proclaiming the best Welsh Rarebit in the county.
There were customers and patrons enough wandering around to give the place a buzz; apparently art was thriving in Felinfach. Tucked away in the corner sat an antiques shop – presumably providing some of the heritage the signs boasted of. And next to it…
‘Tiger Lily Jewellery,’ Alex read from the hanging metal sign. The words curved around a stylised white lily, a reminder of a much younger girl than the one he’d seen the day before. Still, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt to whom the shop belonged. And it was about time he paid her a visit.
* * * *
Even tea hadn’t been enough to improve Lily’s day.
She struggled to open a tiny silver jump ring with her straight-nosed pliers, just enough to slip on the earring hook and a sparkling crystal star charm, cursing when the whole damn lot slipped out of her grip and clattered to the scarred and marked work table. With a deep breath and a sigh, she checked the clock above the shop door for the umpteenth time that morning. Still only twelve-thirty. And she still thought just writing the day off and going back to bed might be the best thing she could do.
Except Edward would probably wake her up to talk weddings when he got home, even if she had the duvet over her head and her headphones in.
Gathering up her beading tools and trinkets, Lily finally had to admit the avoidance tactic had run its course. Pretending the engagement hadn’t happened, or that it didn’t mean there ever had to be an actual wedding, wasn’t going to work any more. Which meant she had to make some decisions. Did she marry Edward, or did she call the whole thing off? Admit that she was too scared to go through with it?
Time to own her decision and face the consequences.
On the face of it, an easy choice. She loved Edward, had spent the last seven years building up their relationship to this moment. They were comfortable together. She knew exactly what her life would be if she married him. It would mean she’d finally grown up and settled down. Would show the town she wasn’t the girl they remembered any more. It would make her mother happy, her friends happy, and Edward happy.
But the wiggling uncertainty in her belly told her it might not make her happy.
Of course, she’d been wrong about that sort of thing before. Once upon a time, she’d been certain that the only thing in the world that could make her happy was Alex Harper noticing that she was a woman. Since she’d been fourteen at the time, with the benefit of hindsight she knew it was just as well he hadn’t. Then there was the time at seventeen when she’d been sure that moving out of her mum’s house and in with her much older boyfriend would make her life complete. It had lasted three weeks.
Lily tossed the last of the findings back into her box and tried to stop her mind replaying the list of stupid decisions she’d made from the age of twelve to nineteen. It was lengthy, embarrassing and old news now, anyway, for all that her mother liked to relive them regularly. They didn’t matter now. None of the idiotic things she’d done as a teenager did. She was twenty-six, for heaven’s sake. She owned her own business, took care of herself, and was engaged to a successful businessman who loved her very much. She wasn’t that disappointment, that failure, any more.
Straightening her shoulders, Lily decided a new mantra was in order. ‘I am a grown up,’ she told herself. ‘I am a successful person, not defined by my past.’ She grinned; it felt good, not just to say
it, but to believe it.
But then the shop door opened and Alex Harper walked in, bringing her past bang up to date with her present.
‘Lily Thomas,’ Alex said, his smile broad and warm. ‘You’ve turned into a veritable entrepreneur while I was gone.’
Rolling her eyes, Lily reminded her fluttering insides of her mantra. A decade-old crush on her best friend’s dishy older cousin really had no place at all in her grownup life. ‘Hardly. I rent my space here, sell my jewellery, and still owe the bank my soul.’
‘Still, quite the set-up you’ve got here.’ Alex turned slowly around, making a big show of taking in the room, with its glass display cabinets along one wall, and the workbench at the back. People liked to see how her jewellery was made, Lily had learnt early on. She couldn’t do everything out on show in the shop – anything remotely dangerous or involving heat she kept for the studio behind the main shop. But during trading hours, she liked to work on smaller, simpler and cheaper pieces out front. It still amazed her how many times someone had watched her make a pair of earrings, then bought them on the spot.
‘I like it,’ she said, shrugging. For some reason, she didn’t want Alex to know how much the place meant to her. Hadn’t ever wanted anyone to know, really. If they knew she really cared, they’d just be watching, waiting for her to screw it up. Same as always.
‘Really, Lily. This place is something else.’ She looked up into his eyes as he spoke and, to her surprise, saw real meaning there. Biting her lip, she smiled up at him, and he grinned back. Then, in a burst of movement, he was off investigating her window display. ‘I mean, look at these!’ Grabbing a champagne flute full of rings from the display, he brought it over to her workbench and tipped them out onto the surface she’d just cleared. ‘They’re all so sparkly. Are they white gold?’
Lily looked down at months of work, learning to shape, then stamp or engrave the perfect ring, then exploring the best ways to add stones and gems. Rings were still a fairly recent addition to her collection, but she was building up a bit of a local demand for individually designed rings. If someone intended to wear a piece of metal around their finger forever and ever, it made sense that they wanted something personal, something they’d chosen. Edward obviously hadn’t understood that.
