‘I’m Jade, I own the bakery with my sister.’
He stopped dabbing and looked down at her and smiled. ‘I kind of realised that. And although I did expect to meet you today, I didn’t think it would be before mid-morning because Harvey told me you and your sister were both making the most of your lie-ins.’ He threw the spent piece of cotton wool into a bag for rubbish plonked in the corner of the kitchen before he grimaced. ‘Don’t tell me, youwereenjoying your lie-in right up until I woke you.’
‘Got it in one.’
He peeled the backings off a plaster.
‘Do you always disobey a direct order?’
‘Direct order?’ He stepped forwards to place the plaster in the right spot on her temple, his fingers brushing her skin and sending a little tingle all the way through her, a welcome relief from the feeling of a growing hangover. Perhaps the whack with the piece of wood might’ve hurt all the more if it wasn’t dulled by all the drinks still lingering in her system from last night. ‘That sounds dramatic, I’m not in the military.’
‘I told Harvey to tell you not to start early. He said he’d cleared it with you and that you were more than happy to start late for the first week.’
‘Never got the message.’ He zipped up the first-aid kit.
‘Harvey wouldn’t lie,’ she protested, a little taken aback this man would suggest it. He wasn’t proving himself to be much of an employee. ‘He said he’d told you a couple of weeks ago.’
He put the first-aid kit back where it came from. ‘Then I think I see where the problem might be. You think I’m David.’
‘You’re not?’ David was the man Harvey had put on his payroll for this job.
‘No, I’m not. David chose to have his own lie-ins for the next four weeks, on holiday in America. Last-minute summons from his mates, apparently, so he let Harvey down.’
‘Seriously?’
He seemed amused by her dramatic summation and repeated it. ‘Seriously. Between you and me, I don’t think Harvey will be putting any work David’s way again.’
‘I wouldn’t either,’ she agreed.
‘Harvey found me to step in at the eleventh hour, but in all the organising, I guess he forgot to mention not to start early. I couldn’t sleep so I came to make a start.’
‘Right.’ She supposed she should be grateful someone else had been available to step in. Harvey and the firm he worked for had done such a stellar job on the cottage converting the loft space, a job Harvey had been in charge of coordinating, that Jade and Celeste had been more than happy to employ his services for their workspace as he begun to get going with his renovations business with a view to becoming his own boss eventually.
‘I’m Linc.’ The man held out his hand to introduce himself formally. ‘Good to meet you, apologies again about the early start and the knock on the head. I assure you it’s not always so dramatic when I meet someone new.’
She shook hands with him and, aware of his attention and the fact she’d only just fallen out of bed, asked when Harvey would be joining him. She wished she’d had the foresight to put some deodorant on or check how bad the dark circles were beneath her eyes. The problem with porcelain skin from the family’s Irish descent was that it didn’t hide much at all, especially after a big night out.
‘I’m not sure what time Harvey will be around,’ said Linc. ‘All I know is that I’m fine to go ahead and rip stuff out – supposedly the easy part.’
He got back to what he’d been doing, either because he had a job to do or because he sensed her discomfort, she wasn’t sure which. He threw another piece of wood from a kitchen cabinet out of the door and onto the pile in the garden that stretched between home and workplace. ‘Do you want me to stop so you can go back to sleep?’
‘I’m awake now,’ she grumbled, suddenly remembering her mood when she’d come down here.
He was already on to unscrewing another pine cupboard door from what had at one time housed dry ingredients in a tall pantry lined with shelves that would likely be the next casualty. And while Jade would have loved to go back to sleep, she needed to fulfil the second part of her mission, to find her bag and purse.
She looked on the kitchen surfaces that had so far survived the cull. She lifted up a few pieces of stray wood, but no luck there. She could vaguely remember coming in here last night with Celeste as they talked business and recounted their plans to transform the bakery. They weren’t doing away with the village feel but nevertheless they did want to spruce up the interior and put their own stamp on the business. The frontage would remain the same – a beautiful Tudor-style exterior. They’d have the whitewashed stonefaçaderepainted now that it was summer, the deep timber panels could be restained and the criss-cross glass windows that had lasted well only needed replacing in a few of the weaker or cracked sections to bring them up to scratch.
Another bang reminded Jade of each glass of prosecco last night as Linc slung an old shelf out of the back door and it clattered to the ground with the rest of the pieces. ‘Are you looking for something?’ He watched her carry out her fruitless search, even peering down the side of the cabinet that was half-in, half-out as he progressed through the demolition. ‘I put it beneath the counter in the bakery. Your bag,’ he added when she regarded him suspiciously. ‘I thought it was better there than in full view. I found it sitting on the front counter. You’re lucky someone didn’t break in and grab it.’
She cringed. She’d left it in full view? Now that was the behaviour of someone who rarely let loose at the pub. ‘Luckily people around here are fairly honest.’
‘Hey, there are thieves everywhere, you can’t be too careful.’
His voice followed her as she went to retrieve her bag. Phone and purse were both inside, thankfully. She picked up the notepad beside it though and wondered if Linc had read what was on it. She had a patchy recollection of her and Celeste standing in here talking about the renovations and debating a name for the bakery, something they’d left rather late. They still had to inform the company making the new sign, and time was running out as they’d need a bit of notice for it to be ready for their grand reopening, but so far nothing had come close to being right. And the list on the notepad had some downright silly ideas, some of them suggestive, others embarrassingly rude. They’d started the list with Melissa and Tilly’s help at the pub. Tilly owned Tilly’s Bits’n’ Pieces, a shop a few doors down from the bakery that sold beautiful items for the home, and most of her recommendations involved the amalgamation of Jade and Celeste’s names, none of which sounded right. She’d then suggested All You Knead but Melissa thought it sounded like a massage parlour, and not a respectable one. Melissa had come up with Queens of the Cove but they’d rejected that outright as Celeste said people would think it was run by a couple of drag queens. Another few names were already taken, according to their Google searches, and the suggestion of Upper Crust not only was met with someone saying it’s already in use but also had Tilly in stitches having misheard and thought the suggestion was Up Her Crust. They’d left it there but Celeste and Jade had come back to the bakery and written down as many ideas as they could think of. But they were still no closer.
With her bag on her shoulder, Jade walked back past Linc with plans to return to her bedroom for at least another hour of lying in a horizontal position regardless of the banging. ‘Thanks for putting it somewhere safe,’ she smiled, and because she couldn’t not mention it and was pretty sure he’d seen it, she added, ‘Excuse the list, we’re not quite there yet.’
He briefly paused as he lifted the large door away from the corner storage cupboard where they kept the enormous bags of flour when they were delivered from the supplier and moved to lean it against the wall. Jade supposed the door might be wanted intact and that was why he hadn’t lobbed it out along with everything else. Good job that hadn’t come hurtling at her or she’d have had more than a little graze on her temple.
