Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
O n Monday, with her mind on her wreath-making workshop, Anna had little time to dwell on romantic issues.
Once or twice her mind flitted to Hayden, but instead of missing him, as she usually did, she was just confused.
Since she hadn’t heard from him, it seemed unlikely he’d really meant what he’d said about it being a mistake to break up with her.
She was loading her car with several boxes of wreath-making supplies when a jolt of nerves hit her.
Why had she agreed to do a private event?
Surely she should have learned her lesson after Lewis coaxed her into running a class at the hotel last year.
She’d sworn then that the nerves weren’t worth it.
Closing the car, she dashed upstairs for a final bathroom trip, then checked herself in the hallway mirror. Her black woollen mid-calf dress was demure but practical. The green scarf gave a splash of colour, while her fur-lined ankle boots were comfortable and cosy.
She looked the part. From her professional appearance, you’d never know what a bag of nerves she was on the inside.
It was too late to back out now, she told herself, pulling on her coat and straightening her shoulders .
Besides, the workshop she’d done at the hotel had gone well, despite her nerves.
Because she was brave. Warren had said so, and he wasn’t the type of person to say things he didn’t mean.
I’m brave and I can do this. She repeated the mantra in her head as she walked calmly downstairs and got into her car. Amazingly, the words helped, and the overwhelming sense of dread had turned to a manageable flutter of nerves when she pulled up in front of the large house.
Checking her phone, her eyes landed on a notification. Intrigued, she opened the message from Warren.
Have fun tonight.
It was short and sweet and made her smile. Having fun seemed like a manageable goal for the evening – or at least something she had more control over than what the group would think of her and her wreath demonstration.
After sending a quick reply to thank him for the message, she shoved her phone into her bag and exited the car feeling surprisingly in control.
Messaging Anna had felt like an entirely sane idea until Warren hit send. It was very tempting to delete the message, but a deleted message would look way more dubious than the three words he’d sent.
There was nothing wrong with the content of the message – telling her to have fun was nice of him.
It was the fact that he’d messaged at all that felt suddenly idiotic.
He and Anna didn’t have the sort of relationship where they exchanged random messages.
He scrolled back through their previous messages – mostly exchanges of bland birthday wishes and the annual ‘Happy Christmas’ message.
In between were a couple of messages asking if the kitchen was still open at the hotel, but he suspected Carla sent them when he’d been ignoring her messages.
A reply came back from Anna with a simple thank you. He waited, but she didn’t send anything else. What was he even expecting?
Thankfully, the waitress came into the kitchen with the first dinner order of the evening, and he slung his phone into the drawer and got to work.
After swapping shifts with Liam to take the weekend off, he soon remembered why he rarely worked on Mondays. The restaurant was only half full for the entire evening, and with no urgency in the kitchen, time dragged. Three hours suddenly felt like a full day.
Leaving the commis chef to deal with the last few desserts, he drifted to the back of the kitchen and took out his phone. He was wondering how Anna had got on when the screen illuminated with a message.
It was amazing, she wrote, as though she’d been reading his mind. I had such a good time.
His mind was chewing over how to reply when his thumb went to the top of the screen and hit call. He stepped out of the back door and smiled at the sound of her voice.
“So it went well?” he asked.
“Yes. It was brilliant. Thank you so much.”
His smile stretched wider at her exuberance. “What are you thanking me for?”
“For telling me I’m brave,” she said, her words brimming with joy. “And for telling me to have fun. Weirdly enough, I’d never thought of that before. Which seems daft now.”
“What do you mean you never thought of that before?”
“I mean, I’m usually stressing about whether people will enjoy it, and whether they’ll notice that I’m a bundle of nerves. But I got your message right before I went in there, and I just thought, yeah, I’m going to enjoy it. ”
“And it sounds as though you did.”
“Yes! They were such lovely women. I don’t know why, but I got it into my head that they’d be a bunch of rich, snobby housewives.”
“They weren’t?”
“They weren’t snobby, ” she said, amused.
“They were lovely and down to earth, and they were really interested in me. When they finished making the wreaths, they were asking what else I do, and they went on my online shop to browse. All of them placed orders for other things. Mostly Christmas cards, but a few wanted wreaths as gifts. They were so enthusiastic about my online shop.”
“It’s not surprising,” he said, warmth filling his chest at the sound of her so happy. “You’re very talented.”
The brief pause told him she was uncomfortable with the compliment.
“Thank you,” she said, then sighed. “I’m on such a high. I don’t know why I always assume the worst. Before I left home, I was dreading it and wondering why I’d agreed to do it.”
“How many more of these events have you got lined up?”
“I’ve got one at the old people’s home in Bourton-on-the-Water, and the one at the hotel on the 23rd.”
“Maybe you’ll be more confident about those now.”
She let out a tinkling laugh. “I don’t think I’ll ever really be confident, but maybe I won’t be quite so terrified.”
“I’m really glad it went well,” he said, shifting his weight.
“Me too.”
Silence fell, and he suddenly felt self-conscious – chatting on the phone wasn’t something they’d usually do.
“Sorry,” she said. “Are you at work?”
“Yeah, but it’s fine.”
“Don’t burn anything because of me. I heard there’s a rule about phones in the kitchen. ”
“There is.” Grinning, he inhaled a lungful of freezing air. “I should probably get back in there.”
“Thanks for calling,” she said softly.
“I’ll talk to you soon.”
He ended the call and stretched his neck, craning to look up at the star-studded sky while kicking himself for calling her.
“Don’t go there,” he muttered to himself as he turned to go back inside. “It was all fake, and it’ll never be anything more.”