Chapter Twelve
Kivi
Fifteen years in customer-facing jobs had given Kivi an iron jaw when it came to biting her tongue, but that willpower was being tested today.
Yes, something about Saskia Saltmarshe was getting under her skin.
Not only was Kivi now some sort of designated washerwoman – of her own accord!
– but she was now straying into personal territory.
She was worrying about the woman. The same way she’d worry about Eva, or Cass, or any of her other friends or relatives.
She’d never felt anything more than mild concern for a guest before.
But the pallor of Saskia’s face, and her evasiveness when it came to the topic of skipping meals, made Kivi wonder whether there was something more beneath the surface. Or perhaps she was just being paranoid.
While the oven heated up in preparation for a batch of muffins going in, she took the opportunity of a free five minutes to go into the garden.
Toto was sitting in the window of her annex, and barked at her, but she didn’t have enough time to let him out.
She’d do that once the muffins were sorted.
Instead, she meandered down to the fence that separated her property from the cornfields behind it, and peered down into the ditch.
Last spring, a deer and her fawn had fallen down there, and now she made a point of checking every day.
If she hadn’t been looking that afternoon, the pair would not have survived.
Satisfied that the ditch remained animal-free, she leaned on the fence and gazed out into the field.
Everyone came down to Cornwall for the ocean, but they didn’t always talk about how beautiful the countryside was.
This field was starting to turn golden, the stubble pushing up from the ground, perfect for cantering along on horseback, if she still rode.
Right now, because she was facing East, she had her back to the sea, but this view was just fine.
All that was missing was Toto at her feet.
And a girlfriend to share it with, but that would come with time.
If she ever got around to putting herself back out there.
Which wouldn’t be any time soon, if she did decide to take up Cass and Felicia on their offer of being their wedding planner. Her mum would have told her, in her usual blunt way, that she had to be ‘potty’ to even be entertaining the idea, but her gut feeling was stopping her from declining.
She couldn’t keep the two fiancées hanging forever.
They’d already been engaged for the best part of a year, and together for more or less five, but they had professed themselves in no hurry.
“We’d rather take our time and get exactly the day we want,” Cass had said.
“And we think you would be the perfect person to do that. But there’s absolutely no pressure.
Martine did explain that you haven’t done weddings in a very long time. So think it over and come back to us.”
Well, she was doing nothing if not thinking about it.
Very little else had filled her mind over the last couple of weeks.
And despite their reassurances, she knew it wasn’t fair on Cass and Felicia.
Which was why she had given herself a deadline of the weekend to decide.
Because her gut was saying yes. Weddings had been her first love, after all, and the only thing she’d known how to do until the guest house fell into her hands.
It would be a wonderful blast from the past to return to her roots.
But would it bring the memories back? The stress?
Because she had enough of the latter to contend with as it was.
What with running a business, taking care of a lively Golden Retriever, and trying to keep her longest-staying guest happy too.
Which was why she didn’t need to be worrying over nothing with Saskia Saltmarshe.
So the woman had skipped lunch. So what?
It didn’t mean she had an eating disorder, or was on the verge of a mental breakdown.
The situation with Gareth and Drew had made her paranoid, that was all.
They had been living proof that still waters ran deep, but that didn’t necessarily mean that anything was wrong with Saskia.
She was just being paranoid, that was all. Paranoid and a worrier.
That settled, she returned to the kitchen to bake her muffins.