Chapter Nineteen
There’s a lot of work to do. So much work that I try not to think about it too much.
Breaking it down and delegating as best I can.
We need to call every hotel and B&B in the area to get what rooms we can.
There’s transport to be organized, revised food and drink orders.
A clean-up of the village was already underway, but now we had to get Kelly’s organized too.
But before any of that, there was one crucial part to get sorted.
Because now that we have guests coming to our matchmaking festival, it means we really need a matchmaker.
“I don’t want to just be a tick in the diversity box now,” Granny warns, as I sort the forms into piles.
Everyone who bought a ticket filled out the questionnaire online, and while it wasn’t like they’d be tied to their matches all weekend, it was part of the fun of coming.
“I’m not going to be the token old person. ”
“You’re not the token old person,” I say. “Frank’s the token old person.”
“Frank’s not even that old,” she snaps, and I shrug.
“Adam said you’ve introduced people before, right?”
“I may have,” she sniffs. “It’s well known that I introduced Bridget to Jenny. And Danny’s second wife, of course. I don’t like to make a big deal about it, but I do have a sixth sense for these things. This , however,” she says, eyeing my orderly piles. “Is new.”
“We’re streamlining,” I say. “We have a lot of people to get through, and this will help speed up the process.”
“Well, I’m positively swooning from the romance of it all,” she says, and I give her a look.
“We don’t have time to sit down with everyone. These will help us know what people want.”
“First rule of matchmaking, Katie. No one knows what they want. Not even about themselves. You can have the perfect pairing on paper only to meet them and feel nothing at all.”
“Alright, but see, that’s not going to work here because we only have paper to go by. What else do you suggest?”
“Instinct,” she says. “Feeling. We give people the best opportunity they can have and leave the rest down to chemistry.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, still not feeling overly confident with her “trust the chaos” mentality.
I know my questions weren’t exactly popular with Nush and Gemma, but they did help weed out obvious dislikes and lifestyle differences.
“Sometimes the questions can work, though. Nush was pretty clear about what she likes in a—”
“Nush has no idea what she likes,” Granny dismisses. “Overly picky people never do until it’s right in front of them.”
“But what about this guy?” I ask, sliding a form her way. “Ryan Harrison. He’s a teacher. He matches all her physical descriptions. He has a hamster. He—”
“ Just a hamster?” Granny stares at me. “No grown man should own just a hamster.”
“Well, Ryan does,” I insist. “That means he’s an animal lover. He ticks all her boxes.”
Granny stares at the form for a long moment, and then gently pushes the paper back toward me.
“Tell you what,” she says. “Why don’t you take Plankton for a walk and leave me to get on with this.”
I hesitate, gripping my pen.
The last few weeks has drawn out the control freak in me. I’d always suspected she was there, but now she rears her ugly head, making me cringe at the thought of giving up even one bit of my festival.
“ Or ,” I say. “How about you pair these people.” I push half the forms toward her. “And I’ll pair these ones. It can be like an experiment. I’ll do it my way and you can do it your way and then all our bases are covered.”
“You’re the boss,” she says, uncapping her special crossword pen. She takes the first one from her pile, scanning it only briefly before she frowns.
“I didn’t know Gemma signed up.”
I smile, thinking she’s joking, but her expression remains serious.
“What?” I snatch the form from her, glancing at the details. Gemma’s name is at the top. “Maybe it’s just a practice one,” I say, confused.
“Or maybe not,” Granny says, holding out her hand.
“No, I want to do it.”
Granny raises a brow. “She was in my pile.”
“But she’s my friend,” I say, suddenly feeling protective over her. Sure, Nush is the picky one, but Gemma’s a lot softer than she lets on. She can’t just have anyone. She rarely dates as it is these days, and she deserves someone who’ll…who’ll…
Okay, that’s way too much pressure.
I quickly hand the form back to her, getting nervous just thinking about it. “Gemma likes brown eyes,” I tell her, and she nods sagely.
“Duly noted. And what about you?” she asks, as she slots it into the middle of her pile. “Any practice forms for you? Or are you still dallying with the gardener?”
“I’m not—” I scowl at her. “Why do you have to make it sound like one of your books? And he’s not even our gardener!”
“He should be,” she remarks. “He did a good job. You should get him to come around again.”
“So he can work for free?”
“We can always make him dinner this time if you insist.”
It doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines. “Are you inviting Callum around for dinner?”
“I think I deserve to properly meet the man you’re sleeping with,” she remarks, and I groan.
“Why can’t you be a normal grandmother who says normal things?”
“Because it’s too much fun to watch you squirm,” she says, and reaches down to pet Plankton as he lays his head in her lap.
* * *
“The hedgerows in this country provide a vital wildlife habitat,” states Vinnie O’Ceallaigh.
“The proposal to cut down such an important shelter for the sake of another road that no one needs is a worrying sign for all of us.” When asked if the redevelopment of Ennisbawn was going too far, he was firm in his response.
“As a nation, we must do what we can to protect our countryside. That’s why we’ve launched our objection.
We are throwing our full support behind the community in Ennisbawn and the steps they’re taking to preserve Ireland’s cultural and natural heritage. ”
The door to the pub swings open, interrupting my third reading of the article, and I don’t even look up as I start again.
“We’re closed, Danny.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow so.”
My head snaps up to see Callum standing in the doorway. The days have been getting warmer, and he’s only in jeans and a T-shirt tonight, one that shows off his arms in all their glory, and yes, I am an arm girl now. I get it.
“Looking for me?” I ask.
“And a drink, if it’s going.” He steps inside, letting the door close behind him.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. On both accounts.”
I gesture to the stool in front of me, and he takes a seat.
“Guess I’m a little late,” he says, glancing about the empty pub.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t? You ever hear about liquor licensing hours?”
“That’s only if I sell to you. The wonderful thing about living in the middle of nowhere? Nobody cares.”
“Wild west, huh?” His eyes drop to the paper I was reading, and I spin it around to show him the article.
“The druids really are involved now,” I explain, and he lets out a low whistle.
“Stuff’s getting serious. Because of the well?”
I shake my head. “The road. Glenmill aren’t only cutting through buildings, but they’ll be cutting through hedges to build it. Turns out, druids don’t like when you cut through hedges. Lots of nature in hedges.”
“And druids love nature.”
“They do.” I grab a pair of scissors and start cutting out the article to add to our wall. “I’m going to need another corkboard,” I say. “That’s how famous I am now. I am someone who needs two corkboards.”
“What you guys need is a pool table,” he says. “And a television.”
“We are not a television pub. We are a talking pub. And we don’t need pool, we have darts.”
I say the last bit without thinking, and immediately regret it when his eyes latch onto his brother’s face tacked to the boards.
“Sorry,” I say, and he gives me a small smile.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. It kind of feels incredibly violent when I look at it now.” I put the article down, avoiding his gaze. “How is he? Jack”
“I don’t know,” he says simply. “I haven’t talked to him.”
“You haven’t?” I frown. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“You don’t have to feel anything. It’s not on you. This is between us.”
“I don’t want you to not talk to him,” I say carefully. It’s not as if I like the guy, but he’s still Callum’s brother.
“We’ll talk eventually,” he says. “He just needs to get over himself first.”
“You guys had a fight, huh?”
“I told him I didn’t agree with what he was doing here,” Callum says.
“With the barn, with the roads, with any of it. And I told him the truth. That with the way he was going we’d be over budget within a month.
That we’d need to push delivery back by three or four at least. That he’s working the guys too hard, and we’ll lose them if we’re not careful.
That you were picking up steam and people were starting to pay attention.
” He gives me a humorless smile. “He didn’t like that. ”
“I can imagine.”
“The whole thing has just gotten out of control,” he says.
“We didn’t think we’d get as much land off the church as we did, but they wanted the money, and we had plenty of it.
Then it was like the floodgates opened, and they started adding in all this extra stuff.
It’s not even about the hotel anymore. And Jack wants to impress his boss, and his boss wants to be impressed, so here we are. ”
“He could just stop,” I point out.
“He could,” he says. “But he won’t. It’s not in his nature. Never has been.”
“A real go-getter,” I mutter.