Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
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The next week passes in a blur of activity. Of all kinds, some of them practical, some of them sinful. Right now, we’re focusing on the practical – but as I’m starting to realise with Kate, it could lapse into sinful at any moment. It’s pretty exciting, a heady mix of both.
We told Moira we’d fix up the store for one last glorious summer, and that’s exactly what she’s going to get.
With the help of Jimmy and Xander, who I don’t hate quite as much these days for obvious reasons, I get the roof of the bookstore patched up and the drainpipe replaced.
After that I make a start on the walls that were damaged.
It’s a messy job, and I’m permanently coated in crap.
We’re making progress though, and once the basics are done, Kate is in her element.
She’s cleared books, polished shelves, and gone through the stock in storage boxes upstairs.
It’s been good, solid hard work, assisted by the mice in the kitchen occasionally coming out to say hello.
This inevitably results in Kate first screaming, and then saying, ‘Aaah, they’re actually very sweet! ’
We get to know more of the locals, including the ‘town drunk’, an Irish guy called Rory Callaghan.
He seems perfectly sober to me, a good-looking guy in his forties, but maybe he’s high-functioning.
He lives in a big place in the hills behind the village, works as a sculptor apparently, which makes him the first sculptor I’ve ever met.
More to the point he has a big van that he uses to take away the bags of refuse from the store for us.
Other villagers also step in with skills or support.
A chimney sweep called Mac does the honours for the fireplace, and a guy called Jack who restores old buildings donates floorboards to replace the ones that have rotted and swollen.
Rosie keeps up a constant flow of coffee and cake, and Shirley stands by her word to never let us pay for a thing in the pub.
I learn new words – that a sandwich is a ‘piece’, and going to the store is ‘getting messages’, and having a conversation is a ‘blether’. It’s been an education, though the language some of the older people speak – Doric, which is some kind of Scottish and European mash-up – remains beyond me.
Between the work on the bookstore, socialising, and, oh yeah, the constant, non-stop, mind-blowing sex, I’m sleeping the sleep of the dead – for the first time in years not tormented by insomnia.
It’s amazing what some good honest labour can do for a guy.
That and a good, honest and pretty much insatiable friend-with-benefits.
Kate has embraced this arrangement wholeheartedly, like a starving woman at a banquet – always wanting more.
I don’t mind. I can’t get enough of her either, and when I’m not in bed with her, I’m thinking about it.
She’s wild, uninhibited, up for anything.
We’ve made love all over the house, including on the stairs and the kitchen table, and on one warm evening, on the beach.
That was more humorous than anything, but the fear of getting caught gave it a certain charm.
I’m way too old for all of this, I’m pretty sure, but one quirk of her eyebrow, one flash of that smile, and I’m all hers.
She’s impossible to say no to – and why the hell would I?
We both know this is temporary, and we’re both making the most of it. Even now, watching her scrub the fireplace, down on her hands and knees, I’m picturing going over there and interrupting her. Her ass is in the air, waggling from side to side, like it’s asking for trouble…
She glances over her shoulder and winks at me.
Her sinful side coming out to play. ‘Like what you see, big man?’ she says, giving it an extra shake.
I growl, and eat up the space between us in three steps.
I give her a slap on the backside, and she squeals, pretending I’ve hurt her.
Maybe I have, a little, but she deserved it – and I can tell from the look in her eyes that she also liked it.
She scurries out of reach, then kneels in front of me, gazing up at me with big, fake innocent eyes.
There’s nothing innocent about what she’s thinking.
She takes in the now ever-present bulge in my jeans, and I see her mind heading down a certain road.
The road that ends up with me with my pants around my ankles.
Any other time, I’d be glad to oblige – I don’t like to disappoint a lady – but not today.
Today, in less than an hour, we’re getting a VIP guest. Moira.
‘Uh-uh,’ I tell her firmly. ‘We don’t have time.’
‘Oh come on, it won’t take long… not from the look of you…’
‘No. I’m not meeting Joanne with my dick out, okay? It might shrivel up and fall off.’
She laughs. ‘Fair enough. I’ll save that thought till later, shall I?’
‘I’ll hold you to that.’
She stays where she is, her glorious hair streaming over her shoulders, gazing up at me in a way that makes me swell even more. Damn, I’m going to miss this when I fly home. Maybe she can come and visit…
As soon as I think that, I feel odd. Like I’ve crossed a line.
Luckily I don’t have time to worry about it, because the little bell – now fully restored in Moira’s honour – lets out a peal, and the door swings open.
I help Kate to her feet, and she blushes as Ginny walks in.
She gives us a knowing look, and says: ‘Hard at work, I see?’
Without waiting for a reply, she walks over to the wooden counter, and sets a candle on the surface. She lights it, and a sweet scent fills the air. The smell of the sea, and the lavender Kate filled my bath with what feels like a lifetime ago.
‘I make the best candles in the known universe,’ Ginny says modestly. ‘And Moira always loved the smell of them. Oh my, it’s looking better in here… Is the ramp all ready?’
I nod, and tell her it is. I ordered it online and collected it from a nearby town called Macduff, one that folds up when it’s not being used.
Moira ummed and aahed about coming to see what we’ve done in the store until Joanne told her she had to – because if she didn’t get out from under her feet sometime soon, she might give in to temptation and smother her in her sleep.
‘And then where would I stand at the pearly gates?’ she’d asked, during our last visit.
‘You’d stand right by the lift that takes people down to the other place,’ Moira snapped back.
Today, Shirley is fetching them both down in her car, and Moira gets to see the village again for the first time in a year.
She’s due to arrive soon, and there’s a last-minute rush to get the place looking even better.
After Ginny arrives with the candles, Rosie turns up.
She brings a gingerbread loaf, and a big bouquet of flowers already in a vase.
It’s surprising what a difference those homely touches make, as well as Kate’s changes.
She’s added cute cushions to all the chairs, the fabric decorated with a green and purple heather design, along with matching drapes.
She’s set up a little station for visitors with dogs that comes complete with a bed, toys, and treats, and added strings of pretty fairy lights along the edges of the bookshelves.
It’s not finished, but it all looks great.
Despite that, she’s nervous – twisting her hair around her fingers, and rubbing at a non-existent patch of dirt on the mantelpiece.
‘The books are in different places,’ she tells the women. ‘And I know she hates that! But some of them had to be thrown away, and I found new stock upstairs, and… well. We’ve done our best.’
Rosie goes over and gives her a hug, patting her on the back.
‘It’ll be fine. Moira will love it. We’ve all noticed how much happier she is, how much more positive she seems now she has a goal – the fact she’s even coming into the village is a miracle.
She’s stayed away for a whole year, and now you’ve persuaded her she might be able to run her shop again. You’ve done that, so be proud, okay?’
By the time the woman herself makes her grand appearance, the place is busy.
Several of the locals are inside the store, others are lurking on the waterfront outside, waiting for the guest of honour.
Shirley drives up in her big old Subaru jeep, and I head outside to set up the ramp.
By the time I’m done, Moira is in her wheelchair on the cobbled street, gazing wistfully out at the sea.
Joanne hovers at her side, face like thunder and a protective hand on her sister’s shoulder.
I know Moira was an active woman before her accident, and my heart goes out to her.
Nobody can understand how it feels, being at the mercy of your own body, unless you’ve been through it.
I still break out into a cold sweat when I remember my fall, crashing to the ground, coming to in the back of an ambo with the paramedics staring down at me.
Moira might walk again, with time and work, but right now she’s in limbo, and it’s not a great place to be.
She looks up at the small crowd, nods at the familiar faces, and scrunches her lips up in a grimace. I can tell she’s trying not to cry, that her famous pride is kicking in.
‘Well, if only so many of you ignorant fools ever came here when it was open,’ she announces, ‘I’d have been able to retire to the Caribbean! I know for sure, Jimmy Campbell, that the only book you’ve ever opened is that time you took bets on who could swim around the harbour wall the quickest!’
Jimmy doffs his cap in an old-fashioned gesture of respect, and nods. ‘Aye. I’m not what you’d call a literary man, but I know who my friends are, and it’s good to see you back here, Moira. Now stop being an old cow and crack out a smile, unless you’re worried your face might break?’