1
Tabitha
“What are thesebills doing here?” I bent over to grab a pile of paperwork lying on the stone floor of Mum and Dad’s kitchen.
A hard heel booted my bum.
“Argh!” I peered around to find a hairy black-and-white creature. “Goatee! Not you too.” I dusted his muddy prints off the back of my navy work skirt. “Hit me when I’m down, why don’t you?”
Truly, this day couldn’t get worse. Earlier this morning at the London flat of my so-called boyfriend, Peregrine, my eyeballs were assaulted by a naked splay of legs and arms and various pink bits belonging to Perry and his yoga teacher. That horrifying sight had been followed by an alarming call about my parents’ ongoing renovation debacle—remodeling a crumbling1920s manor house in the Cotswolds wasn’t for the weak-hearted.
After warning work I’d be in late, I’d made the two-hour train ride here. Only to be booted in the bum by a goat.
“Darling, how sweet. He’s just saying hello.” My mother’s big blue eyes sparkled.
We were both five foot three and blond, but the similarities ended there. Mum was a much slimmer version of me, and today she wore a crooked tiara on her unintentionally messy bun and had dressed in an old blue ball gown. She was holding a bowl of grain, clearly just in from feeding the chickens.
“Oh hello, darling,” Dad called from where he was perched on the counter amid four snooty cats. Wrench in hand, he was fiddling with the sink. Like Mum, he loved to get full use from his family heirlooms and was today dressed like an Edwardian golfer in a flat cap, tweed jacket, and knickerbockers with argyle knee socks.
Suddenly, the air was filled with spurting water.
“Gosh darn it,” Dad cried out. He leaped down from the counter, grabbed a hammer, swung open the cabinet doors, and banged on the pipes. “Give us the tools, and we’ll finish the job.” He repeated the Churchill quote with passion.
The cats yowled and scampered out the back kitchen door. Mum and I both squealed, grabbed Goatee, and joined them outside.
After a few minutes, the water sounds abated.
“All clear on the western front!” Dad bellowed.
We entered in a single file, cats last, my final nerve frayed. The kitchen window was now filled with the head of Lary the Llama, who hissed his annoyance then went back to his usual humming.
Inside, unbothered by the watery floor and counters, Mum turned to me. “Darling, don’t you usually come home onFriday night?” she asked vaguely. She glanced at the haughtiest of the cats striding the kitchen island like a catwalk. “Isn’t it Friday morning, Ginger?”
The marmalade-colored cat stuck her nose in the air and stalked off, appalled that Mum had the temerity to address her.
For the past three months, after working all week in London as the head of the Home and Garden section of a national newspaper, I’d been returning home every weekend to oversee my parents’ remodel, and it was a stressful way to spend my time off.
I sighed. “I have a meeting with Tim at ten a.m.”
Tim bloody Langston.The contractor and the thorn in my side. I grimaced at the thought of his swagger, those wide shoulders looming over me, his annoyingly bedroom-rumpled brown hair, and dark eyes that glittered their vacillation between amusement and annoyance at my instructions. Not that I’d hired him—after our history, I’d have never done that. My parents had signed him up without consulting me, though, to be fair, he was the most highly respected contractor in the county.
I never understood why he’d been the one turning up every day when he had a team of workers. He’d texted after my encounter at Perry’s that he needed to show me the “electric shitshow” he’d just discovered in the kitchen walls. An empty pit yawned in my stomach at the prospect of more costs.
“Oh yes, Timothy.” Mum’s face softened with a dreamy look. “Such a lovely boy.”
“Ripping chap,” Dad said, dabbing ineffectually at the floor with a ragged mop that looked as vintage as their clothing.
“What were those bills doing on the floor?” I asked Mum.
She looked at me blankly. “Maybe your father thought they were recycling?”
“They need paying, Mum. I have to know about them.”
Instead of answering, she busied herself feeding the cats.
I groaned and sorted through the stack of paperwork. I was paying for this remodel, which was incredibly tough on my less-than-spectacular salary as head of department for a newspaper. Hapless and hopeless, Mum and Dad had sunk their inheritances into decades of schemes and dreams that had been abandoned or went belly-up—and now faced losing their house and a penniless future.
I’d come up with the idea of remodeling their rambling ten-bedroom home and hosting matchmaking weekends themed “Must Love Animals,” for pet-loving singles looking for their soul mates. But this house needed work. Although it had wonderfully romantic features—vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows, and old floors of wood and stone—it was also hampered by paint-peeling formal spaces that never got used, and an ugly, poky kitchen. Rooms that needed to be merged and made comfortable and lovely if these weekends were to be fun, convivial, and relaxing.
