She’d spent the afternoon with him, watching in awe as he’d devoted his time and attention to making sure everyone had the perfect stay. He’d entertained children with his stories of magicians and dragons, suggested a hiking route to a couple from Germany, and booked a restaurant for a woman travelling alone. The demands were endless and varied and he dealt with them all with the same impressive depth of knowledge and good-humoured patience. There seemed to be nothing he didn’t know, and nothing he wasn’t prepared to try and source if it meant keeping a guest happy.
Abby couldn’t remember enjoying an afternoon more.
There had been a couple of awkward moments when one of the staff had asked her something personal about herself and she’d found it difficult to formulate a response that wouldn’t reveal too much. Each time it had happened she gave the briefest of answers and shifted the subject. Those moments were a stark reminder that although they made her feel like a member of their team, she wasn’t one and never would be. Every conversation she had was threaded with the knowledge that she wasn’t who they thought she was.
With a sigh, she turned away from the window.
This should have been an easy job for her—spending her summer in this special place with a brief simply to help and observe, but she knew it wasn’t going to be easy.
The fact that she wasn’t being honest about who she was and why she was here weighed on her.
And why was she here? She still didn’t know, not really.
She’d thought it would be easy enough to stay detached because that was how she lived her life, but now she realised that the reason she lived that way was because the people around herhad made it easy, and gradually it had become a habit. When she was working in the office people kept their distance and her social life—such as it was—involved snatched catch-ups with a couple of college friends who were equally focused on their jobs, and the occasional unsatisfactory date.
She was so used to being alone, to feeling like an outsider, that it wasn’t something she thought about. But she was thinking about it now.
Not for a moment had she anticipated that anyone from work would invite her to join them socially. She knew that some of the team back in Boston were friendly outside the office. They met for drinks. They went to concerts and walked together at the weekend. Abby was never invited to join them. And she was mostly fine with that. She told herself she was too busy anyway. But occasionally she’d see them laughing together as they left the office to hang out in a wine bar, or sample a local tapas bar, and she’d feel a pang of something.
She never reached out to anyone at work because she assumed she’d be rebuffed. She took no emotional risks. She never would have invited anyone at work to join her on her run. And yet Evie had invited her without hesitation. She’d taken more emotional risks in that one conversation than Abby had taken in a lifetime.
She’d been in the village for little more than twenty-four hours and instead of spending an evening alone as anticipated, she was going for a run on the coast path and then dinner in Evie’s garden.
And she was looking forward to it.
Not because it would give her a chance to learn more about the hotel and Evie, which was what she’d been sent here to do, but because she was looking forward to spending time with Evie.
Was that wrong?
Deep down, she knew it probably was. Evie was warm and friendly, but that friendliness would vanish in a moment if she knew who Abby was—if she knew that, far from sharing her problems with an impartial outsider, she was sharing them with someone from head office. Someone who had the ear of the boss.
She should probably cancel. That would be the right thing to do in the circumstances. It was bad enough being “under-cover” at work. Being under-cover socially was plain wrong. But she’d felt a kinship she didn’t usually feel with people. Evie had been so open with her. It had made her feel—warm. Connected.
And it had felt good.
Abby rubbed her fingers over her forehead and contemplated her options. If she cancelled, it would be awkward. Evie would wonder why, and it would possibly hurt her feelings and that Abby didn’t want.
She’d go, but she’d keep the conversation light. She’d ask no questions about the hotel. Not tonight. Not when they were technically off duty.
Satisfied with her decision, she changed quickly, secured her hair in a ponytail and grabbed a baseball cap.
She headed down the stairs and heard laughter and singing coming from the bar. And the sound of a piano.
Intrigued, she stepped through the door straight into Tristan who was on his way out.
It was like walking into the wall. He was big and solid and she put her hand on his chest to steady herself. “Sorry!” Her heart thudded out of control. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“That’s obvious. Did you need something?”
She stepped back. She felt flustered, probably because she was remembering his warning about not hurting Evie and onlya few moments ago she’d been worrying about the same thing herself. “No. I’m meeting Evie in five minutes. I heard the piano—” She noticed that the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to the elbows and his forearms were tanned and strong. She shifted her gaze back to the bar and the crowd of people gathered round singing. “You have a music night?”
He followed her gaze. “The singing is impromptu, but yes, we have music nights. In the winter months it’s mostly the locals flexing their vocal cords with friends, but in summer we’re a little more organised. The tourists like it. It brings in business, and business is always welcome.”
She listened as the man at the piano shifted from folk to jazz. “He’s good.”
“Ray? Don’t tell him that. He’ll put his prices up. You play?”
“I used to. I started when I was six and had lessons until I was eighteen.” Every Tuesday and Friday. Her mother had been big on routine.
