Page 44 of The Village Inn of Secret Dream

Hearing the rain lash against the windows, he glanced outside once more. It was hard to see in the darkness, but in the soft light of the street lamps, he could see the large willow trees that were dotted along the riverbank swaying in the high wind.

‘I’m locking the front door,’ he announced.

He turned the key in the lock before sliding the top and bottom bolts shut.

As he turned around, he found Belle frowning at him.

‘You don’t really think that anyone’s going to come out tonight, do you?’ he asked.

She shrugged her shoulder in response. ‘They might,’ she replied.

Pete laughed. ‘We could shut for a week and I don’t think anyone would notice.’

‘That’s because you don’t understand what it means to people around here,’ she told him. She sighed. ‘Coming in here for an evening or two each week reduces the loneliness for some people. People like Frank and Stanley. And Ned too. Not that I’d expect you to understand about that.’

‘About loneliness? What makes you think that I haven’t been lonely?’ he asked, suddenly keen for her answer.

‘I understood that you worked every day and then were out in some fancy restaurant or bar each evening,’ she told him. ‘At least, that’s what you’ve been telling me. Not much chance of being lonely then, is there?’

‘Then you’ve obviously never been lonely in a crowd,’ he blurted out.

Belle gave a start as she looked at him with those big brown eyes of hers. To his surprise, a blush filled her creamy cheeks.

‘Have you?’ she asked, softly.

He nodded.

‘Me too.’

The words were so soft that he almost didn’t hear them above the noise of the storm outside.

The front door rattled on its hinges with another gust of wind, breaking the moment and their eye contact.

Belle shivered and turned around to head over to the fireplace to put on another couple of logs. He watched her as she stared down into the flames for a moment.

‘You go upstairs, if you’re tired,’ he heard her say. ‘I’ll stay down here for a bit. Just in case anybody needs us.’

‘Why would they need us?’ he asked, bemused.

She looked up at him in surprise. ‘Of course,’ she murmured, almost to herself. ‘You weren’t here last year during the storm when the village flooded.’

Pete had heard all about it from his mum, of course. The shop and inn had become beacons of light for the villagers who had been flooded out. Everyone had banded together. His brother had been some kind of hero, helping out stranded elderly villagers in particular.

Pete still felt shame that he had never done anything so heroic in his life. He had been safe and warm in Singapore. As always. Until that moment, he had never felt as if he had been missing out on village life. Then he thought about everyone helping each other in times of need and realised that perhaps something was absent in his life after all.

Sensing that Belle was watching him, he merely nodded and said, ‘But I understood that some new flood defences have been built further upstream.’

‘Hopefully they’ll hold,’ she said, nodding. ‘But that wind is liable to cause some damage.’

‘What happened to the inn in the storm last year?’ he said, suddenly feeling vulnerable and glancing at the front door.

‘The cellar flooded, but that was all,’ she told him.

‘I see.’ The overhead lights suddenly flickered and he looked at Belle, who was smiling at his reaction.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s the same every time the wind gets up. You never know when it will…’

The electricity suddenly cut out completely and the inn was plunged into darkness.