Chapter 2
Ben Jackson had been having a bad day until he unexpectedly ended up with a gorgeous redhead lying on top of him.
It was just a shame that she was scowling down at him, her green eyes inches from his. And, of course, that she was a perfect stranger. Which begged the question, who on earth was she?
He was just about to introduce himself when she abruptly stood up, leaving him to slowly sit up on the forest floor. Ben took a moment to try and come to terms with what had just happened, all in a very short space of time.
It had been a whirlwind five minutes since he had left the hotel in a fit of temper.
He hadn’t even known where he was driving except that it had to be anywhere but the hotel.
Anywhere but Maple Tree Lodge. And yet he had only made it yards from the hotel car park when he had found himself avoiding a head-on collision with another car.
He glanced over at his car, which thankfully was unscathed. But with the other car appearing to be fully embedded in the pond, it looked as if it could be a write-off. Thus he knew that his much-needed getaway was over as quickly as it had begun.
Now he had to go back to the hotel and face his grandad once more, despite having left in a fit of pique only a short while ago after yet another argument. Ben loved his grandad very much. He just didn’t think that they could live together for too much longer.
He looked over at the stranger and saw that she was brushing off pine needles and wet leaves from her jeans and jumper. As she bent down, her long red hair wafted around her shoulders, reminding him of the leaves that the chestnut trees had turned in the autumn already, glossy, warm and vibrant.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, standing up.
‘Only my pride,’ she replied, giving him a sheepish smile which lit up her pretty face.
He couldn’t help but look at her incredible hair, then the long dark eyelashes and pale skin highlighted by freckles and a rosy blush of embarrassment across her cheeks.
He gave himself a little shake and looked away. Had it been so long since he had last been on a date that the first attractive woman who came into view would render him temporarily speechless?
‘So before getting rerouted into our pond, what were you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?’ he asked, finally finding his voice.
She looked surprised. ‘I was heading to the hotel. I’m staying there tonight.’
Now it was Ben’s turn to feel surprised. ‘Stay? At Maple Tree Lodge?’ he asked, unable to betray his shocked tone of voice.
She nodded before frowning. ‘Yes.’
He found himself even more amazed. He wasn’t going to admit that there weren’t any bookings that evening.
And that there hadn’t been any bookings for the past month either, he added to himself.
The state of the hotel at the moment didn’t help, of course.
There were workmen and mess everywhere. And that had been the cause of the argument with his grandad that morning.
The cause of every argument since he had returned home earlier that year.
Back then, he had been a partner in a successful architectural firm in London.
It had been the job that he had always dreamed about and studied hard for.
But it hadn’t quite panned out as he had hoped.
Where Ben had been hoping to design glorious buildings of architectural interest, he had ended up doing more generic work on shopping centres and malls around the world.
It had supplied a very nice paycheque into his bank account every month but not the creative satisfaction that he found himself craving.
However, with a decent flat and business, life hadn’t been so bad in the capital city. He’d had a great social life with his friends along with many frequent dates. Everything was fine until the phone call one evening that spring from his mum that had changed everything and brought him home.
Home had always been Maple Tree Lodge to Ben.
In fact, it had been home to five generations of the Jackson family.
His great-great-grandfather, desperate to leave the horrors of the First World War far behind him in 1918, had ventured far into the English countryside to find some much-needed peace and quiet.
On the outskirts of a tiny village called Cranley, he had discovered a large lake and 50 acres of woodland up for sale. Once purchased, he had begun to build himself and his new bride a home to bring up their family in.
Each generation of the Jackson family had added more rooms and space to the lodge, using a mixture of the warm-coloured brick that was popular in the area, as well as the endless amount of timber that the Jackson family now owned, thanks to the surrounding woodland.
These days it was a two-storey building with long wings that extended along the sandy bank of the lake.
Too large a building for just his parents, his wife and two children to live in, Ben’s father Tony had decided to open up the place as a hotel in the early 1980s.
He had altered the top floor to accommodate twenty guest bedrooms with en suites, leaving the family to live in private staff quarters at the end of the west wing.
But whilst he was a brilliant carpenter, Tony had never had many business skills and although they received some guests over the years, along with glowing reviews, the hotel had never been the success that he had dreamed of.
It didn’t help that the place was tucked away in the middle of nowhere and before the days of the internet, trying to get the word out that they even existed was almost impossible.
There had been some guests in recent years but had the hotel ever been truly successful? Ben didn’t think so. Growing up, all he could remember was the odd group of guests arriving but other than that, he and his sister had the run of the hotel in which to play hide and seek with their friends.
His dad had often been depressed that his dream of running a successful hotel hadn’t come to fruition and the strain of the business had probably put an additional stress on his heart that had taken his dad from them so suddenly that spring.
Ben had rushed home to be with his family in their shared grief.
But during his prolonged stay, he had discovered the source of his dad’s stress.
The hotel accounts did not make for pleasant reading and the family’s home was perilously close to financial ruin.
Tony had taken out a large bank loan to try to keep the place afloat but, along with some much-needed renovations, the debt was enormous.
And then there was the bombshell letter he had found in the drawer of the desk.
It was from a large conglomerate of hotels offering to buy Maple Tree Lodge which would then be turned into one of their modern spa hotels.
The sum of money they were offering was eye watering and, to Ben, highly tempting, and yet he had found a file where his father had already drafted a reply to refuse the offer.
With a heavy heart, Ben knew he too would have to decline the offer and try to act upon his late father’s wishes by keeping the hotel in the family.
Selling to the multinational corporation would ensure that his family would have to leave their beloved home and nobody wanted that.
So the only solution was to try to update the hotel instead to secure its future.
With his grandparents almost into their eighties and his mum still grief-stricken, it was up to Ben to take charge.
He had sold his share of the architectural firm and had remained at Maple Tree Lodge ever since, desperately trying to think up ways to keep it from foreclosure.
Despite the overwhelming amount of updating that the old building required, he had thought the job would be relatively easy.
Surely Maple Tree Lodge had to have something to offer if the large multinational company wanted their hotel?
But as the months had passed, and the renovations became ever more extensive, it had been a heavy weight on his shoulders with the burden of the family’s happiness and security all resting on him.
He suddenly realised that the woman was looking at him with a question in her eyes and decided to introduce himself.
‘Hi, I’m Ben Jackson,’ he told her. ‘The hotel manager.’
‘I’m Lily Wilson,’ she replied. ‘Hannah’s friend.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, suddenly recalling what his sister had told him over breakfast that morning. ‘Of course.’
He had heard all about Hannah’s best friends over the years but had only met Beth and Ella since he had moved back home. Lily, according to his sister, was the busy career woman and seemingly never appeared to have any spare time to see her friends.
Hannah had also reminded him that her friend was an interior designer and his sister was hoping that they could use her to redecorate the hotel.
Ben had googled the interior design firm where Lily worked and found himself impressed.
Their style was minimalistic and modern, just what he wanted for the hotel.
The hotel needed a new updated look that was sleek and stylish and would match their competitors’ décor exactly.
He just hoped the bill wouldn’t be too expensive as his funds were seriously depleted.
He was about to ask her about her work when there was an ominous rumble of thunder overhead and he realised that the sky was becoming darker once more with the threat of yet more rain.
‘I think we’d better get indoors into the dry,’ he told her.
‘I agree,’ she replied, walking over to her stricken car to gracefully lean forward to grab her handbag from the front passenger seat and then a larger overnight bag.
As she straightened up, Ben was about to offer her a lift in his car but she had already strode away from him towards the clearing of the hotel car park.