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‘Look what you started,’ he grinned to Hazel and Lucy, and off they went to find a table.
‘He’s right, you know.’ Lucy slipped her credit card into her purse. ‘It can’t all be work. Don’t get me wrong, work is a great distraction, I know that as well as anyone, but it’s not everything.’
With an eye roll, Hazel followed Lucy outside and into the beer garden. It was way too nice to sit inside, and right at the back they found a spare table. Some of the oldies probably didn’t want it because local teacher Linc was playing his guitar and they might not be able to hear one another, but for the girls, the music simply added to the atmosphere.
‘Talking of work, how’s business?’ Hazel enquired of Lucy. ‘You always seem to have people popping in and out of the workshop.’
‘I get lots of commissions, which I love, because with those I can start from scratch, sketch out what they want.’
‘I’m still in love with my wine rack, by the way.’ Hazel sipped her beer as the sun sank a little lower in the sky.
‘Glad to hear it’s being used, good choice by your brother.’
The Christmas before last, Arnold had commissioned Lucy to design and make a gorgeous wine rack which was made by joining horseshoes together and held a couple of wine glasses upright as well as a couple of bottles. Unbeknownst to Arnold, that same Christmas, Hazel had already asked Lucy to make a boot scraper for her brother, and the ornate piece that sat at the door of the office worked perfectly to rid boots of dirt and mud. He’d loved it, although she was sure she used it more than him because she was the one who handled most of the paperwork in the office while he did the majority of the teaching at the riding school. It had always been the intention that brother and sister would both teach and know their way around the office, just as their parents had done. But Hazel had backed away from the former in a big way. The Heritage View Stables were renowned for teaching beginners, and though it was key to their business, it was something Hazel just couldn’t manage these days.
They talked about Arnold for a while, but Hazel didn’t let on that her brother was growing increasingly frustrated at her refusal to teach more classes. It didn’t exactly make for a harmonious, or tenable, family business.
‘He’s still single,’ Hazel smiled at her friend. ‘I always thought he’d settle down first out of the two of us and I’d end up being the spinster living in the big old house with her brother and his wife.’
‘What happened to the girl he hung around with last summer?’ Lucy asked.
‘She was nice, clever too,’ Hazel replied. ‘So clever she decided on a career change and took herself off to university in Edinburgh. She wants to be a vet.’
‘Talking of vets, did you hear about the new village vet practice opening up on the same road, up past the florist, any day now?’
Hazel made a face. ‘I hadn’t heard. Or I had, but I’ve forgotten.’ This was why Lucy, amongst others in the village, was trying to get her out and about more. She spent too much time in her own head with her own problems and, because it was easy to cite the business as a reason to do little other than spend time in the office or busy at the stables, she was missing out on village life.
‘You spend a lot of time thinking about work… too much time,’ Lucy said.
Hazel didn’t deny it, but she also didn’t add that it wasn’t only thinking about work all the time, it was worrying that she was stuck in a rut. ‘Is the new practice opening in the old key-cutting place?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘Way too small for a vet’s – and I think Valerie from the florist has her eye on that place to expand her shop. There has been some talk amongst the younger girls around the Cove that they might like a nail salon in the village.’
‘I’ll bet Barney would have something to say about that,’ Hazel laughed as the music filled the night air and Linc began to take requests. ‘Not much gets past him and I’m pretty sure a nail salon wouldn’t.’
‘Tilly tried to wind him up, said there were some real plans being drawn up.’
‘Trust Tilly to tease him, although given how close they are since Tilly took over her gran’s shop and turned it into Tilly’s Bits ’n’ Pieces, I suppose she’s allowed to. And I’ll bet he didn’t believe her.’
‘Exactly. He’s far too switched on to have been fooled, don’t you worry.’
‘So where’s the new veterinary practice going to be then, if not in the old key-cutting place?’
Lucy explained that it would be in the run-down, bay-windowed old bungalow that had sold a while back. ‘Harvey and Melissa said that if they didn’t live in Tumbleweed House, they would’ve bought the place as a business interest to do up and sell on.’
‘They would’ve done a good job too,’ Hazel approved. ‘But a new vet locally is convenient and far less of a pain than travelling out of the Cove.’
A new vet in the village would be good for both of them. Lucy had a slate-grey cat called Shadow, who was often seen lying in the sunshine outside her workshop or up towards the Waffle Shack. Hazel and Arnold had a tabby cat who had wandered into the paddock almost a decade ago. Hazel had scooped the cat up in her arms before she got trodden on by one of the horses. When the cat didn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave, Hazel’s parents had put up posters around the village to say she’d been found, but nobody ever came forward and so, with her one eye and unknown age – the vet had estimated around five years old – and under the new name of Tabitha, the cat had made her forever home at the Heritage View Stables.
Lucy finished her beer. ‘Another round? Come on, I owe you after the art class.’
‘Please don’t remind me.’ She’d tried to put that man out of her mind – his amazing body, the curves and muscles she’d been given permission to look at – and she’d definitely tried to block out his temper. ‘Next time, please let me draw horses, I’m way more comfortable around those.’
‘I could make a very inappropriate joke about body parts right now,’ Lucy laughed.
‘Did you sneak a peek?’
‘Couldn’t see from where we were sitting,’ she grinned before heading off to get the drinks. ‘Next time, perhaps.’
And by the time they’d had a few rounds and Hazel headed home to Heritage View House, she was glad Lucy had dragged her along to something that put her way out of her comfort zone. Because, deep down, Hazel knew she needed it.
