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‘Hey you,’ he called.
Her heart fluttered and she smiled. ‘I’m being a good wife,’ she said over her shoulder.
He laughed as he hugged her from behind and pulled her close. ‘Smells divine. You do too.’
Just then her phone pinged again, several times.
‘You’re popular,’ he said.
‘Just my sisters,’ she said, glancing at the phone on the worktop. Reaching for it she saw that Kirsty had joined the conversation.
Here are the pictures of the distillery. Sorry forgot to send the other day! x
‘Wow,’ said Emma. ‘Look at these images!’ She immediately showed Max. ‘Don’t they look amazing?’
Max nodded, his eyes widening. ‘I can’t wait for our wedding, Emma and for our married life to begin.’
Chapter Seven
The kitchen at Meadowbank Cottage was a picture of chaos, although it was an organized mess and Kirsty had everything under control. Kirsty’s mother, Jean, had always been a stickler for tidiness. It didn’t matter that she’d been dead for two years, Kirsty could still sense her mum casting a critical eye over the kitchen. She had inherited her mum’s need to always be wiping down surfaces and skirting boards. She even liked touching up the slightest scuff marks on the white walls with the tiny pot of paint she kept underneath the sink. Jean had been the same with her need to make sure her house always looked immaculate, and it had passed down to Kirsty who was currently scrubbing the kitchen sink and would soon have the rest of the place looking spotless.
When Jean was alive, she used to walk in the front door without pausing to knock or ring the doorbell. It took Kirsty’s husband Steve a while to get his head around it especially when they first moved into the house. ‘What if we’d been in the middle of something?’ he had said suggestively. ‘Or I’d been walking around starkers?’
‘Then we would have very dodgy reviews on Trip Advisor, wouldn’t we?’ said Kirsty when Steve raised his eyebrow yet again. ‘I still think of it as my family home.’
Of course, she never had stopped thinking of it as her family home and this morning Kirsty wiped away a tear as she thought how much she would just love to see her mum bustle through the front door again. She didn’t know if she would ever get used to the thought that she would never see her again. She thought about one of the final memories she had of her before she fell sick.
‘I’ve got you some marmalade. You know the stuff Edie makes? I was in the coffee shop on the bay, and they had some and so I thought I would get it before they sell out,’ Jean had said all of this while opening the cupboard door and quickly rearranging its contents to fit in three jars of Edie’s delicious Seville orange and cranberry marmalade.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said.
‘How’s business?’
‘Ticking along nicely, thanks.’
‘Are you making enough of it though? I really think there’s potential to expand out there,’ she said, pointing to the outhouses.
Kirsty looked bewildered. ‘Why all the questions, Mum? Is everything all right with you?’
‘Oh nothing. You know me. I like to worry. Just ignore me.’
That was true, she was a worrier, but Kirsty often wondered if her mum knew then that she wasn’t well and was just making sure her brood were all okay.
A bird flew against the window which made Kirsty jump and brought her back into the present. She looked down at the gleaming sink with pride. She absolutely loved this house even though it seemed to need constant cleaning and attention. She just hoped all their painstaking hard work would pay off in the end. Sometimes it felt that working in hospitality was getting harder and harder to actually make a decent profit. They had all sorts of plans to expand but not enough of a budget.
The guesthouse was a substantial blonde sandstone villa with an elegant timber staircase which led to a wide hallway where there were six bedrooms, three of which were ensuite, and a family bathroom. The house had always been full of character and charm, which she and Steve had tried to retain. However, they’d also enjoyed adding a modern twist. Each of the three guest rooms had white linen and thick duvets and the plumpest pillows with cosy throws in different colours to match the room names: yellow, orange and green.
Outside the garden was a rainbow of colourful blooms and palm trees thanks to its warming position in the Gulf Stream. Her dad had always been a keen gardener which made the garden such a beautiful place today. Behind, was the glen which led on to a lovely meandering walk through trees and past rivers all the way to Lamlash.
Over the years they had got used to tourists in flip-flops and light T-shirts knocking on the door and asking if they could use the loo or if they could buy a coffee. That had eventually led them to buying a campervan which sold coffee in the busy months and which the kids were supposed to help out in during the school holidays. However, they had got better paid jobs as lifeguards in the nearby hotel so usually Kirsty and Steve were left to open up the van which meant it had been a bit neglected lately.
Kirsty smiled as she looked across to the dilapidated barn where the wedding was originally going to take place. It needed some attention, and she was relieved that the pressure was off to make it wedding ready. She didn’t mind that Emma had appointed her as the wedding planner, but her skills didn’t quite extend to the dilapidated barn. That was a job for Phil and the other Kirsty from the TV seriesLocation, Location, Locationand unfortunately she didn’t have their number.
When she and her sisters were young, they had often found random kids playing on their things. Dad had set up a slide at the bottom of the garden and a tree swing which some mistook for a public play park. ‘It’s better people enjoy it than things not getting used’, he would say cheerily.
It had been a while since she’d seen him smile. She hoped Emma’s wedding would give him something to be happy about although she did wonder how he’d be with the speech. Kirsty reached for her to-do list and spreadsheet and sat down at the kitchen table, relieved that Emma and Max had loved the photos of the distillery and were delighted at the new choice of venue.
She scanned through the latest version which wasn’t actually too daunting. Emma had never liked fuss and attention. The cake was being made in Lamlash at Cèic coffee shop and bakery. Its Kurdish owners were the most beautiful bakers and quite happy to make Emma’s unusual request for a three-layered cake: rich fruit on the bottom, vanilla on the next layer and then carrot cake. In fact, to be fair, thought Kirsty, the cake was the most demanding request Emma had made.
