Wish Upon a Star (27 page)

‘Perhaps it has possibilities and I should at least
see
it,’ she suggested. ‘I mean, I’m not entirely fixed on the hotel idea because there’s the other one I told you about.’

‘Aimee, I already know what possibilities it has, so there’s no point in you seeing it. And today is more of a business discussion than a viewing.’

She pouted. ‘You mean you don’t want little me to come with you?’

‘Lord love a duck!’ muttered Dorrie, and David made gagging noises.

‘Nobody asked your opinion,’ Aimee snapped in their direction, and Jago suddenly decided to give in and take her with him. He had a strong feeling she’d be horrified by the state of Honey’s, even though he was pretty sure that the survey would say it was substantially sound and just in need of rewiring, replastering and a whole lot of updating.

‘Come on, then. You’d better follow me. Where are you parked?’

‘In a small car park right behind this road.’

‘I know the one. You go and get in your car, and I’ll drive through it in a minute and you can follow me.’

‘What’s the name of this village we’re going to?’

‘Sticklepond.’

‘What the hell kind of a name is that?’ she demanded.

‘One that suits it,’ he said.

He wasn’t actually late for his meeting at Honey’s, because he’d intended having a quick look round before Tim arrived, having got his hands on the keys.

Aimee ominously remarked that the village looked quaint as they walked from the car park of the nearby Green Man, but once Jago opened the front door and ushered her into the dusty time warp of the shop, she went silent. After that, she barely said a word as he led her all over the property and since he’d brought a large torch with him this time it tended to make it all look even worse. In the circumstances, he thought this was a good thing.

Finally, when she’d shudderingly declined any interest in looking at the garden and garage, he glanced at his watch. ‘Well, that’s the tour over then, and the man I’m meeting here will be arriving any second.’

‘But, Jago,’ she bleated, ‘it’s all so horrible! How can you possibly think of buying
this
?’

‘Once it’s renovated, it’ll have everything I need.’

‘But it’s so far out in the sticks, too.’

‘I thought you said Sticklepond was quaint? And there’s a lot going on in the village; you’d be surprised. I know
I
was.’

But she was too busy angrily brushing off invisible dirt and cobwebs to listen. ‘I feel filthy and I haven’t even
touched
anything. And this dust is starting my asthma off – I have to get out of here!’

She scrabbled in her bag and produced an inhaler and he suddenly realised that the faint creaking he’d been conscious of for several minutes was not, in fact, the old floorboards under their feet, but Aimee’s increasingly laboured breathing.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said contritely. ‘How thoughtless of me! Look, why don’t you go back to the Green Man and wait for me there? I shouldn’t be too long.’

She agreed to this and tottered off in her spiky heels, wheezing histrionically. He felt a bit guilty … but then, if it finally put her off the place completely, perhaps it wasn’t so bad!

Tim Wesley had brought a camera, a clipboard and his second-in-command, Candy. In marked contrast to Aimee they were absolutely bowled over by the shop and just as enthusiastic about the huge old dresser, heavy table and the organ in the living room.

‘How wonderful! Maybe we could get a volunteer in to play hymns, occasionally, when we’ve got it up in the mill house,’ Candy suggested.

‘Miss Honey told me her mother used to play hymns on it on Sundays,’ Jago said.

‘Good idea, Candy, but we’ll have to raise the money to have it renovated first,’ Tim pointed out.

‘That’s OK, we can put it on display as it is for the present, with a special collection box for the restoration fund,’ Candy said.

‘Would you want all the fixtures and fittings from the shop too, the counter and stands and everything?’ asked Jago as they took a few rough measurements, which Candy wrote down, though it was too dark to take any decent pictures.

‘Yes, lock, stock and barrel, if that’s OK with you? We want to recreate it as exactly as possible. It’s lucky the space it’s going into will be about the same size – maybe even slightly bigger.’

‘Sorry the electric’s off,’ Jago apologised. ‘I’ll get it back on again as soon as I’ve completed on the place.’

‘It’s all right, we can come back to take more thorough measurements and some pictures with lights, if necessary. This is just to make sure it’ll fit into the designated space. We want to move the gift shop out of the eco-lodge and put it next door to Honey’s, so that visitors have to go through the haberdasher’s to get to it, then exit into the courtyard again.’

‘The counter and a couple of little rope barriers will keep visitors from touching anything,’ Candy explained. ‘Maybe there could be an audio history of the family and the shop playing, too.’

‘Miss Honey is still alive and she’s a hundred and two, but her mind is clear as crystal, especially about the past: you could ask her if she’d let you record her memories,’ Jago suggested.

‘Great idea. To have the voice of the last owner telling the history and any anecdotes would be marvellous! Do you think she’d let us?’ Tim said eagerly.

‘I’m pretty sure she’d love it.’ Jago gave them the Pinker’s End phone number.

He’d entirely forgotten Aimee until Tim and Candy had gone, when he realised it had all taken a lot longer than he’d expected.

He dashed off guiltily to the pub, hoping she was feeling better, but when he got there she not only looked perfectly well, but was deep in conversation at a corner table with a handsome, if slightly raffish, man.

She’d always had the ability to pick up strange men and he was tempted to sneak off again in the hope she’d either pulled, or met an old flame. But unfortunately she looked up and spotted him, beckoning him over with a turquoise talon and he supposed he couldn’t really have driven off and left her there, anyway, however tempting the prospect.

‘There you are at last, Jago, darling! Jack, this is my fiancé.’

‘
Ex
,’ Jago qualified quickly and then his eye fell on the engagement ring he’d given her, which was now sparkling on her left hand.

‘Silly! You’re such a tease,’ Aimee said playfully. ‘This is Jack Lewis. He’s related to the Winters up at the big house here and he’s been telling me about the village. I hadn’t realised how terribly trendy it is – I always thought Lancashire was all
Coronation Street
and too dim and dismal.’

Jago shook hands with Jack Lewis, who gave him a warm, open smile and said he had to go, but it was nice meeting them and they should stay in touch.

Jago, who was soft-hearted but not soft in the head, thought Jack Lewis looked both familiar and untrustworthy … and on the way out to the car park, he remembered where he’d seen him before.

‘That Jack Lewis was on a TV show a year or two back,’ he told Aimee. ‘I knew I’d seen him before. I think it was
Dodgy Dealings
, the one where they expose all kinds of rogue tradesmen and scammers, and he’d been defrauding old people into selling him their homes cheaply.’

He suddenly hoped Aimee hadn’t told him all about Honey’s, or he might put in a higher offer! Mind you, he couldn’t see Miss Honey taking a fancy to him: she was too sharp an old bird to be taken in.

‘He’s very nice, so I’m sure you are wrong,’ Aimee said. ‘Or maybe he was framed.’

She seemed so taken with him that Jago hoped she’d given him her number and lost any interest in himself, but no: suddenly her attention and all her charm was switched back onto him like a searchlight.

‘Maybe Honey’s won’t be so bad when you’ve done it all up. I can’t imagine what kind of social life I’d have up here, though!’

‘Then it’s just as well you won’t have to find out, isn’t it?’ Jago said pointedly. ‘I don’t mean to be unkind, but would you stop telling people we’re engaged when we’re nothing of the kind?
And
wear your engagement ring on another finger.’

‘But it fits so much better on that one, darling. I should never have taken it off in the first place.’

‘But you did and it’s too late to go back now, Aimee. There’s no point in pretending we’re engaged when we’re not, because I just don’t feel the same way about you any more.’

‘You mean, you
haven’t
forgiven me yet?’ She faced him, her hand on his arm and that familiar little-girl pout on her face, an effect that didn’t really come off when she was as tall as he was in her stiletto heels.

Jago couldn’t imagine why he’d ever fallen for all this stuff in the first place … yet strangely, he also felt guilty that he’d tumbled so completely out of love with someone he’d once been prepared to love and cherish for ever.

‘Look, Aimee, I have forgiven you, but that doesn’t mean—’

‘I knew you would,’ she cried, and to his hideous embarrassment threw her arms around his neck, a feeling compounded when over her shoulder he glimpsed Cally walking past, shopping bag in hand.

She spotted him at the same moment and must have misconstrued what she saw, for she turned away and hurried on.

He fended Aimee off with more force than tact and called urgently, ‘Cally! Cally – wait.’

She turned back reluctantly. ‘Oh – hi, Jago. I’ve just got back from the stables and left Ma looking after Stella while I popped to the Spar – she’s out of sugar and I need to keep her sweet.’ The joke seemed forced.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’ Aimee said, resting on his arm the possessive turquoise-taloned hand still sporting her engagement ring. ‘But let me guess – this is your poor friend with the sick kiddie, right?’

‘Cally Weston – Aimee Calthrop,’ Jago said reluctantly.

‘I’ve heard all about you. Jago’s such a pushover for a sob story,’ Aimee said bitchily. ‘Just as well I’m back to make sure he doesn’t give all his lovely winnings away!’ Aimee laughed artificially.

Cally gave Jago a look of deep reproach from her harebell-blue eyes. ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ she agreed. ‘Well, I must get home, so I’ll leave you both to it.’

‘Cally, wait …’ Jago began, but she hurried off without a backward glance.

‘I’ve seen that face before,’ mused Aimee. ‘It’s so wholesome, it could advertise soap.’

‘That’s better than looking so artificial you could advertise plastic,’ he snapped back without thinking, and she gave him a dirty look.

‘I hope that wasn’t aimed at me? I don’t know what’s got into you lately, Jago, you used to be so sweet!’

‘I keep telling you I’ve changed. And you’ve probably seen Cally’s photograph on her newspaper recipe page, “The Cake Diaries”.’

She shook her head. ‘You know I loathe cooking, so I never read that kind of thing.’

‘Except cooking up trouble and trying to give Cally the impression we were picking up our relationship?’ he suggested. ‘I’m not a fool, Aimee, though perhaps I was once.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter anyway, does it? I can see now David was only winding me up when he hinted you were in a relationship with her. I mean, apart from looking such a mess, she’s so fat!’

‘Fat …?’ he echoed. ‘She’s not fat! And David was quite right.’ He hadn’t meant to say that but the words had tumbled right out of his mouth and now hung, quivering, in the air between them.

Her mouth fell open. ‘
Right?
You mean … you
are
in a relationship with her?’

‘We’re seeing each other, but of course her first priority at the moment is to get her little girl to America for the operation, so we haven’t planned ahead of that.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said flatly. ‘You’re still paying me back for running off with Vann.’

‘Aimee, I don’t play that kind of tit-for-tat game. I told you I’d forgiven you and I’m willing to be friends, but that’s all. I’ve moved on and found someone else. Now, can you find your way to Haydock from here? I’ve got to go.’

‘But I’ve got time to have a coffee with you first – I’m only meeting my boss this evening at the hotel and—’

‘Sorry,’ he said firmly, and walked off to his car without another word.

In his rear-view mirror he saw that she was still standing there, looking both furious and frustrated.

Jago drove slowly round the block to make sure she wasn’t following him and then, feeling like a not-very-good spy, stopped at the entrance to the lane leading up to Cally’s cottage. But there was no sign of her and by now he’d thought better of bursting in and trying to explain that scene with Aimee anyway.

And why had he blurted out to Aimee that he and Cally were in a relationship? Was it because it was what, deep down, he really wanted … one day, when Stella was better? Though then, he supposed that she’d be off back to London again to pick up her career.

No, he was sure Cally only saw him as a friend and probably always would … and that was better than nothing. His own feelings might be changing and growing warmer, but he wouldn’t risk losing what he had by pushing for something more.

When he got home he emailed her, explaining that Aimee had arrived unexpectedly just as he was leaving for Honey’s and he was sorry she’d seen her at her worst, but he’d tell her all about it tomorrow, if she could meet him for lunch in the Blue Dog.

Then he added a recipe for sharp lemon curd tartlets and added: ‘Friends?’

She didn’t reply to say she’d meet him … but then, she didn’t reply to say she
wouldn’t
, either. But she did ask him about the recipe …

He took that as a good sign.

Stella’s temperature had been normal that morning and we’d had such a lovely time at Stirrups: she’d had a ride on the patient old donkey and met a pretty, fat little pony called Butterball that she loved so much she wanted to take it home with her.

I’d looked forward to telling Jago all about it later … and I don’t know why seeing him and Aimee having a bit of a moment should spoil all that, but it did. I felt really upset … which I expect was because Jago must have discussed me and Stella with her, since she seemed to know all about us, and that somehow felt like a kind of betrayal.