Chapter 24
The menu board isn’t outside today and I haven’t opened to customers, but the Yorkshire curd tarts have just come out of the oven and are cooling down on a rack.
It’s mid-afternoon now, and because Reece’s car is parked at the front of the pub, I don’t hear him coming back until he knocks lightly on the serving window and makes me squeak in surprise.
My heart is instantly pounding, both from his unexpected arrival and the adrenaline rush of what his return means – that the money is gone and his dreams for the pub have been sacrificed to save mine.
I was still hoping that, somewhere along the way to the bank, he’d come to his senses and not go through with it.
He looks exhausted. His hair looks extra wavy, like he’s been running his hands through it, and he had a shirt and tie on as well as smart trousers, but the tie is loosened and the top button of the stiff-collared shirt is undone, and his expression softens when I meet his eyes.
‘It’s done. Jared has his money and you legally own your van.
He’s going to send the vehicle registration documents in the post and cancel his insurance so you can get your own. ’
I don’t expect my eyes to well up with a mix of relief, gratitude and annoyance.
‘Don’t be upset, it’s a good thing, honestly.’ He reaches inside the serving hatch and lets his finger brush along my cheek, and I bend until I can lean my elbows on the wooden board he installed and look him in the eye.
‘You idiot. You shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t want you to do that, Reece. It was my mess, it should have been up to me to deal with the consequences. I’m actually quite annoyed at you.’
He grins and pushes himself up until he can lean further in the window and look around. ‘I thought I could smell Yorkshire curd tarts. You can’t be that annoyed if you’re baking for me.’
‘Oh, believe me, I can. I can be very annoyed at you and still make your favourites. Lettie reminded me of your weakness for them and gave me a recipe. It could have gone very, very wrong. I need an expert opinion.’
He grins again and drops back from the window and comes round to the van door while I boil the kettle and make us a cuppa each.
When I turn to give it to him, he’s sitting in his usual seat and I hand him the mug and plate. ‘I didn’t need you to do that, Reece. You took away my autonomy.’
‘I had a way of helping, so I did. I intended to use that money to do something good for the area, and I’ve done that.
You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to Thimblenouth.
Well, at least since the person who said, “You know what we should do in this pub? Have a quiz!” There was no better use for that money than making sure the Marzipan Campervan Café stays exactly where it belongs.
And this is just one of the many reasons… ’
He breaks a forkful of tart off and tries it with a happy sigh. ‘Oh, sweet niblets, you see? Vastly better than the ones Lettie buys in, and please don’t tell her I said that in case she murders me. You can’t insult anything in Lettie’s shop if you don’t want a bounty on your head.’
I blush and take a bite of my own tart, and try to let myself breathe and enjoy it because I can feel panic crawling up my chest again. ‘But what about you? What about what you’re doing here? What about this place that you wanted Zach to be proud of?’
‘The budget I had left was never going to be enough to fix the roof, and roofs are not something you can do in half measures. It doesn’t make any difference to me.
Everything I wanted to do will still happen eventually.
Maybe not as quickly as I’d hoped, but I’m not giving up.
’ There’s something in his expression that makes my breath catch.
‘I can keep working on the pub, bit by bit, learning as I go. It might take years instead of months, but I’ll get there one way or another.
I have a law degree that I’m not using, maybe I can look for consulting work to earn what I need.
The money was important, but it wasn’t anywhere near as important as you. ’
I’ve never known what it feels like to really, truly melt before, and if I wasn’t already sitting on the seat opposite him, I think I would’ve liquefied into a puddle on the floor.
I reach across the van and rub my hand over his knee through the smart pleated trousers, which are nowhere near as attractive as his usual legwear.
Although I want to jump on him and snog him senseless, there’s still so much that needs to be said, and it takes me a few moments to collect my thoughts. ‘I didn’t need you to rescue me.’
‘You rescued me,’ he says instantly, and then pauses to think it through. ‘I wasn’t camping in the car park to be closer to nature – I was doing it because it was easier than being surrounded by the guilt of buying the pub and not knowing what to do with it.’
I bite my tongue to stop myself telling him about my revealing conversation with the ladies today. They told me not to, and they deserve that at the very least.
He takes another forkful of his tart and thinks while he savours it. ‘Do you know what my life was like before you arrived? I was rattling around in that old building, failing at everything I touched, drowning in guilt and grief. And then you came along and changed everything.’
‘I rammed a rod through your leg!’
‘And it was the best rod I’ve ever had rammed through any part of my body,’ he says with an emotional laugh.
‘I will forever treasure the scar on my leg because it was the start of something wonderful. You’ve brought meaning back into my life.
You’ve given me a purpose again. You’ve made me feel again.
Watching you build up something that so many people love with nothing but your grandmother’s recipe cards.
Seeing how much you care about every customer, and every person in this village.
The quiz nights, and how you’ve become a huge part of this community and dragged me along with you.
You’ve inadvertently made me a part of it too, and that’s what I was searching for when I came here.
Somewhere I could belong. Somewhere I’d matter, and where I could do something that would matter.
I had no intention of re-opening as a pub, but you’ve made it into such a tangible dream that I can’t believe I never even considered it.
It doesn’t matter if I don’t fix the roof this year – it would have mattered if Jared had done something to destroy what you’ve created here – for both of us. ’
He’s short of breath after such a poignant speech, and tears are welling up in my eyes again.
‘I’m going to pay you back, you know that, right?’
He starts saying that I don’t owe him anything, brushing it off like he did earlier, but I stop him. ‘Jared might not have been willing to accept a payment plan, but you have no choice. I am going to pay you back every penny, end of story.’
He sighs and gives it some thought. ‘Okay, but it’s not a big deal. We don’t know what business is going to be like when summer ends yet. People still go for walks in the winter, but do they stop for tea and cake in the belting rain?’
‘We’ll find out,’ I say with a shrug, trying to adopt his positive outlook.
‘Yes, we will, and if there are months when business is slow, paying me back is not a priority, okay?’
‘Okay,’ I agree, even though I hope it won’t come to that. ‘I see potential for the colder months. Autumn walks through crunchy leaves, stopping for a cinnamon bun and a pumpkin spice latte. Christmas at the Marzipan Campervan – a hot chocolate and a mince pie in the middle of a wintery walk…’
‘And if you practise driving her, you could even go mobile – take Campervan to festivals or events. The sky’s the limit.’
I feel myself fizzing at the thought of that.
Me, at a festival or a wedding reception in my little yellow van.
There are so many possibilities now this is really mine, and I feel like the full realisation of what he’s done hasn’t hit me yet.
I’ve been holding back from getting excited about the Marzipan Campervan Café because I’ve known that it could be taken away from me at any moment, and he’s given me back my safety and security and ability to dream and let my imagination run away with me.
Suddenly it’s overwhelmingly too much, and I’m on my knees in front of where he’s sitting, a position I took up so many times while dressing his leg wound, and I kneel up so I can throw my arms around him.
He laughs at the force of the hug and his arms slide around my back and squeeze tightly, his palms open, like he’s trying to pull me as close as possible.
One of my hands finds its way into his wavy hair and strokes through it and I press a kiss somewhere against his cheek.
‘I still think you’re an idiot and you shouldn’t have done that today, but thank you.
“Thank you” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
You’re the best idiot I’ve ever been lucky enough to run over. ’
His hand tangles in my hair and holds it back from my face as he tilts his head far enough to catch my eyes.
‘There’s one main reason I did that today…
’ He takes a deep breath and pushes it out very, very slowly.
‘Because a few weeks ago, you made me a lemon meringue pie, and I fell in love with you.’
A gasp makes its way out of my throat and he definitely hears it. I was not expecting a confession like that. I’ve made a few pies for people over the years and they’ve never had quite that effect before. ‘Because of the pie?’
He lets out a nervous giggle, and my heart melts at the thought of a guy like this being nervous that it wouldn’t be reciprocated.
‘Not the pie itself, but you. The way you understood how food can transport someone to a different time. I was a broken man, pretending to be happy and carefree when in reality, I didn’t think I’d ever be loved again, or be capable of loving someone again, and that pie made me feel love.
It was like it unlocked something inside of me and made me remember everything I wanted life to be when I last ate a lemon meringue pie exactly like that one.
It’s not just the pie that was special – it was the person who made it. ’
My heart is hammering against my ribs and I haven’t breathed for so long that I must technically be dead by now.
I am completely, hopelessly, probably foolishly in love with him too, and I’m surprised he hasn’t realised that by now. Surely the crushing grip I’ve got on his fingers where they’re wrapped around mine must give it away.
When he reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear with his free hand, his fingers are trembling, and probably not just from the pain I’m causing to his other hand.
‘I’ve been falling in love with you too,’ I murmur as the tears I’ve been on the verge of for hours finally spill down my face. ‘Since that first night when you had every right to be furious with me, and instead, you were lovely and understanding and somehow made me feel like I’d come home.’
‘Really?’ He sounds so hesitant and unsure and like he’s trying to make a joke that’s not really a joke at all. ‘You don’t need to say it back because you think you owe me something. I didn’t do that today to somehow buy your affection…’
I lean up until I can kiss his cheek and then sit back so I can see his face.
‘You bought my affection months ago, with toast and coffee the morning after I’d run you over.
With early-morning showtunes and yellow car paint and mended teapots.
With your lively can-do attitude that made me feel like I could do anything too.
With understanding what I wanted the Marzipan Campervan Café to be, and with your honesty and trust in letting me see behind the front you show to everyone else.
You’ve done nothing but build me up, make me feel capable and strong and worthwhile.
You’ve never made me feel bad about myself or like I needed to be different.
Even when you found out about the van, you didn’t judge me.
You just helped. So yes, I’ve been falling in love with you because you’ve made it impossible not to fall in love with you, and—’
He silences me with a kiss. It starts off gentle but I kneel up to meet him again, one hand tangling in the waves of his brown hair, and his fingers dig into my hip as our mouths crash together.
My other hand curls into his shirt, using it to haul him closer with such force that a button pings off and skitters across the van, and we both moan so loudly that if any dogwalkers happen along, there will be no doubt in their minds about what’s going on in the campervan.
It’s a clawing, grasping, fevered kiss that leaves me half-straddled on his lap, clutching the back of the seat so I don’t fall off, and gasping for breath, my forehead resting against his as we both pant at the intensity.
I can feel the warmth radiating from his skin and the heat surrounding me, and nothing else matters.
Not the money or the van or any of it, because nothing has ever made me happier than the look he’s giving me, like he wants to do things that would make even Wilma blush.
And as he kisses me again, softer and sweeter this time, surrounded by the smell of baking and the golden light filtering through the van’s windows, I think this might be one of the most important moments of my life.