“You really don’t need to,” Zack said. “I’d best return the magpie’s prize.”
He could hear Mrs Morris’ stern words as she closed the door but it didn’t bring a smile to Zack’s face. Instead he had to make yet another trip to see Sorrell Slater.
Chapter 4
The baked cheesecake was unnecessary and Sorrell didn’t really understand why she had felt the need to make it. It was plain, a basic New York with a biscuit base made from biscuits she’d cooked a couple of days previously—again, a wasted job because there were no guests there to eat them and she’d forgotten to offer them to the builders.
She surveyed the creamy beige topping and wondered who the hell to give it to. Apart from Keren and Jake Maynard, she hadn’t met that many of the locals, preferring to keep to herself and get lost in the amount of tasks that needed to be done in the Manor House to get it ready for its opening. Structurally, the building was sound and had been well taken care of by the previous tenants, so apart from cosmetics and the small matter of merging bedrooms to make larger ones, it had been a simple job.
Simple.
It really hadn’t been simple. Mark was meant to take care of the renovations, with Sorrell simply looking at designs. It had been their pet project; starting a new life in a new town with a new venture and using Mark’s degree in hospitality and pursuing his dream.
Sorrell stabbed the cheesecake with a skewer to test its consistency, imagining it was Mark’s testicles. He’d fucked her over, there was no two ways about it, but there was no point in dwelling on it. Once the date when they should’ve been married had passed, she had decided she would start dating again, if she could say again because she hadn’t dated much before Mark. He’d been the third long term boyfriend she’d had, after her childhood sweetheart and her university sweetheart. Mark was her life sweetheart.
Or not.
She twisted the skewer in her hand, hearing the sound of the knocker on the door. No one was expected: Gwensi was arriving in the morning and Keren was taking a turn at the emergency dental clinic, probably dealing with bilious kids who’d eaten too much chocolate.
It was most likely teenaged trick or treaters, or the wind or someone who needed directions. She looked for her keys, trying to ignore the knocking which was becoming even more impatient.
“Just trying to find my keys!” she yelled, rummaging on the table where the biscuits had been.
“You won’t find them!”
The voice was familiar. Her stomach did an odd turn.
“Just a second!” she shouted, still looking.
“Sorrell, I have your keys! I’m letting myself in!”
She froze and stared at the door, hearing the familiar creak. Why did he have keys? The estate agent had told her all keys had been handed over.
“What the fuck?” Her arms flailed out wide like they always did when she was pissed off. “Why the fuck doyouhave keys still?” The thought spilled out of her mouth at full volume.
“Jonny’s daughter is clearly a magpie in disguise.”
Zack Maynard stood in the hallway of her nearly finished hotel, looking all kinds of something, cold being one of them, slightly out of breath another. And she wasn’t thinking about the third.
“I’m really sorry.” He handed her the set of keys with the feather on that she usually kept on the table where the biscuits had been. “Sadie just confessed to having taken them.”
“Oh.” Sorrell took the keys, looking from him to them and back again. “How did you get them?”
He rubbed his hands together and blew on them. She realised the gloves he’d had before were missing now. “She just picked them up. The keyring was pretty. That was probably what did it.”
“Can I get you a coffee? Or a hot chocolate? I don’t have any beer…” She brushed over what Sadie Grace had done. She was a child and children liked pretty things. Hell, she liked pretty things too—that was why she’d bought the keyring in the first place.
“Tea,” he said. “A mug of tea would be great. I think it’s just dropped about ten degrees on the way up here. It feels more like midwinter now instead of autumn.”
Sorrell gave him a nod and occupied herself with filling the kettle so she didn’t have to look at him.
The silence in the room felt awkward, lingering like a thick fog. She pulled out mugs and tea bags, and then collided into what must’ve been six feet of muscle as she headed to the fridge.
“Sorry,” she said, as hands held her at the shoulders. Cold hands.
“Sorry,” he muttered back, removing them. “Old habits die hard. I’m used to mucking in when I’m in this kitchen.”
She gave him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, thinking that the plan had always been to have someone else mucking in this kitchen with her. “If you know how to make the toilet in the cellar less temperamental have at it.”
