as he liked Fred, he was far more eager to have the sign made now he knew it was Lucy he’d be working with, and it was the perfect excuse to see her again.
And it was certainly a far more attractive prospect than going to Tumbleweed House to announce to his brother that he was back in the village.
*
‘I still don’t know what the log cabin is going to be,’ Lucy told Tilly when she delivered the half-dozen candlesticks she’d made for Tilly’s Bits ’n’ Pieces in the same twisted style that had proven popular so far.
Tilly climbed between items so she was in the bay window at the front of the shop and positioned two of the candlesticks with tall, white candles standing proud to really show them off. ‘I’m just glad you found Shadow,’ she said, pulling her body back the way she went in, her bright pink Doc Martens clumping onto the wooden floor. She was careful not to knock anything from the dresser lined with colourful candles and glass bowls on one side of her and a freestanding giant glass ball on the other that housed a plant suspended from a wrought-iron hanger. ‘It’s really overgrown behind that cabin.’
‘It needs some work for sure,’ Lucy smiled.
Tilly straightened a couple of the Christmas-themed tea towels hanging from a handmade clothes airer. This shop had sold only candles once upon a time and these along with related accessories still made up the bulk of the stock, but other homely gifts were for sale too now and they seemed just as popular. ‘I want to know what the place is going to be, I can’t believe the owner has kept it so quiet,’ she moaned as she wrote prices onto cardboard tags for labelling the rest of the candlesticks.
‘You’d think he’d want to advertise.’
‘If nobody knows about a business, you’ve got no hope.’ Ever the business woman, Tilly could work and talk at the same time and she tied the price tags around the bases of the candlesticks using the string already attached. Her gold bangles jingled on one arm when she put the candlesticks in a group on the dresser to the other side of the till. Her bohemian dress sense carried from her jewellery to her thick cotton dress and tasselled scarf. ‘And wait a minute…how do we know it’s a he? It could be a female business owner.’
‘Definitely not female.’
That piqued Tilly’s interest. ‘Tell me more.’ Now she’d stopped working, with nothing but a cursory glance at the door to ensure she wasn’t ignoring any potential customers.
‘It’s a guy.’
‘I got that much. You’ve met him? What’s he like then, this mysterious man at the log cabin?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘Tall, dark –’
‘Oh, come on, do not say handsome.’
‘Well, he wasn’t ugly, put it that way,’ Lucy grinned.
‘I’m going over at lunchtime to have a nosy for myself, see if I can find out more.’
Lucy divulged that he’d commissioned Fred to make a sign – which meant now it was down to her. ‘I’m going to need wording, so we should have the low-down really soon.’
Tilly looked when the bell tinkled above the door, letting in a customer and a bite of cold. ‘As soon as you know, tell me,’ she winked at Lucy.
Lucy left her to it, crossed the lane, passed the tea rooms on the same side of the road and went into the bakery, where Celeste had just brought out a fresh batch of gingerbread cookies.
Lucy closed her eyes and inhaled the sweet, intoxicating scent. ‘They smell divine.’ She was met with a smile from Celeste when she looked again.
‘They sure do, even though I say so myself.’ Celeste laid the cookies in a basket behind the glass counter as her sister, Jade, pushed the till shut having handed a customer his change. ‘Interested?’ She had the tongs poised and her other hand on a paper bag.
‘Always. I’ll take one to have after my Christmas bap, please,’ said Lucy after checking the menu on the blackboard behind them.
‘The Christmas baps are popular – I can do the same filling in a focaccia if you like.’
‘No baps left?’
‘Afraid not. Focaccia’s better though, so much flavour, a great choice.’
The sisters had apparently gone from having a fairly staid menu in their bakery to trying all sorts of things following a trip around Europe. Now they were into experimenting with different flavour combinations and encouraging customers to give them a go. Lucy had no problem with that and her