Page 51 of Coming Home to Maple Tree Lodge

In return, she held out a full fork for him to taste her chicken risotto. As he took it in his mouth, Lily realised that to all intents and purposes to the other tables, they looked like a couple.

As they began to eat their food, he asked, ‘So when was the last time you went out on a date?’

She almost choked on her risotto. ‘I can’t remember,’ she mumbled, blushing in the candlelight. ‘I’m normally too busy working to have any kind of life. I worked most evenings. It made me neglect my home life. My work-life balance. And my friends too, I’ve realised. I should have been around for them more, especially Hannah this last year.’

He nodded. ‘Dad’s death hit her pretty hard.’ He paused. ‘All of us, of course.’

‘How have you coped with it?’ she asked.

‘I haven’t really,’ he confessed, with a frown. ‘I was so busy trying to save the hotel for the family that there’s been no time to breathe.’ He paused and took a sip of his beer. ‘It’s his birthday coming up later this month. I’m dreading it, to be honest. But it would be a shame if we didn’t remember him in some way.’

‘You need to grieve too,’ she told him.

She hesitated before she reached out to take his hand. He turned it over in his and looked down at it.

‘I can only try and tell you what I’ve learnt this year and that’s to trust your friends and family and ask for help if you need it,’ she told him.

‘I’m not much good at that,’ he replied.

‘Then perhaps it’s time we both learned to do so. To learn that we’re not alone,’ she said.

They held hands for a moment longer before he finally let go to raise up his beer bottle. She picked up her wine glass and chinked it against the bottle.

‘To not being alone,’ he said.

After a delicious dessert and coffee, they thanked Ryan and Katy for the meal and headed home. They parked the car and walked back across the car park under the full moon. That night it was so bright they didn’t need the external light to see where they were going.

‘Beth would love a night like this,’ said Lily, her breath showing in the cold air as she glanced at the huge sky above them, dotted with stars.

‘They’re my favourites too,’ said Ben. ‘I always missed this when I was in the city.’ He frowned. ‘I never considered that I was homesick before but I definitely was, now I come to realise.’

She felt wistful suddenly. A longing to belong. Something she had missed out on for so long. ‘If this were my home, I’d miss it too,’ she found herself saying.

She gave a start as Ben stroked her face softly with his fingers. ‘As you’re pouring your heart and soul into the place then you’re allowed to call it home for the time being as well.’

They smiled at each other in the semi-darkness, where the only sound for a moment was an owl hooting. They smiled at the noise but it broke the moment and he dropped his hand.

As they headed inside, Faye and Frankie were in the hallway, having just come home themselves.

‘Where have you two been?’ asked Faye.

As Ben filled them in on their disastrous paint accident, Lily watched him, smiling.

It had been an unexpected but lovely evening and she had really enjoyed his company.

But he was just Hannah’s brother, she reminded herself. The manager of the hotel. Her employer.

That was all, wasn’t it?

25

When Friday lunchtime arrived, it turned out to be a momentous occasion.

Ben puffed out a sigh of relief. ‘We’ve finished painting the bedrooms!’ he said, looking around the kitchen table.

A cheer went up and the buzz of excited conversation swept over him. He sagged back in the kitchen chair. It had been a rush to get all the four-poster beds done as well but, along with the carpets being fitted that week, the bedrooms had been transformed.

‘Just all the finishing touches to go,’ added Lily.