A Will, A Wish...A Proposal (Contemporary Romance) Read online

  * * *

  ‘Ellie, dear, I’ve been thinking about the literary festival.’

  Ellie Scott turned around from the shelf she was rearranging, managing—just—not to roll her eyes.

  It wasn’t that she wanted to stifle independent thought in Trengarth. She didn’t even want to stifle it in her shop—after all, part of the joy of running a bookshop was seeing people’s worlds opening out, watching their horizons expanding. But every time her assistant—her hard-working, good-hearted and extremely able assistant, she reminded herself for the three billionth time—uttered those words she wanted to jump in a boat and sail as far out to sea as possible. Or possibly send Mrs Trelawney out in it, all the way across the ocean.

  ‘That’s great, Mrs Trelawney. Make sure you hold on to those thoughts. I’ll need to start planning it very soon.’

  Her assistant put down her duster and sniffed. ‘So you say, Ellie...so you say. Oh, I’ve been defending you. “Yes, she’s an incomer,” I’ve said. “Yes, it’s odd that old Miss Loveday left her money to Ellie and not to somebody born and bred here. But,” I said, “she has the interests of Trengarth at heart.”’

  Ellie couldn’t hold in her sigh any longer. ‘Mrs Trelawney, you know as well as I do that I can’t do anything. There are two trustees and we have to act together. My hands are tied until Miss Loveday’s nephew deigns to honour us with his presence. And, yes,’ she added as Mrs Trelawney’s mouth opened. ‘I have emailed, written and begged the solicitors to contact him. I am as keen to get started as you are.’

  ‘Keen to give up a small fortune?’ The older woman lifted her eyes up to the heavens, eloquently expressing just how implausible she thought that was.

  Was there any point in explaining yet again that Miss Loveday hadn’t actually left her fortune to Ellie personally, and that Ellie wasn’t sitting on a big pile of cash, cackling from her high tower at the poverty stricken villagers below? The bequest’s wording was very clear: the money had been left in trust to Ellie and the absent second trustee for the purposes of establishing an annual literary festival in the Cornish village.

  Of course not every inhabitant of the small fishing village felt that a festival was the best thing to benefit the community, and most of them seemed to hold Ellie solely responsible for Demelza Loveday’s edict. In vain had Ellie argued that she was powerless to spend the money elsewhere, sympathetic as she was to the competing claims of needing a new playground and refurbishing the village hall—but her hands were tied.

  ‘Look, Mrs Trelawney. I know how keen you are to get started, and how many excellent ideas you have. I promise you that if Miss Loveday’s nephew does not contact me in the next month then I will go to America myself and force him to co-operate.’

  ‘Hmm.’ The sound spoke volumes, as did the accompanying and very thorough dusting of already spotless shelves.

  Ellie didn’t blame Mrs Trelawney for being unconvinced. Truthfully, she had no idea how to get the elusive Max Loveday to co-operate. Tempting as it was to imagine herself striding into his New York penthouse and marching him over to an aeroplane, she knew full well that sending yet another strongly worded email was about as forceful as she was likely to get.

  Not to mention that she didn’t actually know where he lived. But if she was going to daydream she might as well make it as glamorous as possible.

  Ellie stepped back and stared critically at the display shelf, temptingly filled with the perfect books to read on the wide, sandy Trengarth beach—or to curl up with if the weather was uncooperative. Just one week until the schools broke up and the season started in full. It was such a short season. Trengarth certainly needed something to keep the village on the tourism radar throughout the rest of the year. Maybe this festival was part of the answer.

  If they could just get started.

  Ellie stole a glance over at her assistant. Her heart was in the right place. Mrs Trelawney had lived in the village all her life. It must be heartbreaking for her to see it so empty in the winter months, with so many houses now second homes and closed from October through to Easter.

  ‘If I can’t get an answer in the next two weeks then I will look into getting him replaced. There must be something the solicitors can do if he simply won’t take on his responsibilities. But the last thing I want to do is spend some of the bequest on legal fees. It’s only been a few months. I think we just need to be a little patient a little longer.’

  Besides, the elusive Max Loveday worked for DL Media, one of the big six publishing giants. Ellie had no idea if he was an editor, an accountant or the mail boy, but whatever he did he was bound to have some contacts. More than the sole proprietor of a small independent bookshop at the end of the earth.

  The bell over the door jangled and Ellie turned around, grateful for the opportunity to break off the awkward conversation.

  Not that the newcomer looked as if he was going to make her day any easier, judging by the firm line of his mouth and the expression of distaste as he looked around the book-lined room from his vantage position by the door.

  It was a shame, because under the scowl he was really rather nice to look at. Ellie’s usual clientele were families and the older villagers. It wasn’t often that handsome, youngish men came her way, and he was both. Definitely under thirty, she decided, and tall, with close-cut dark hair, a roughly stubbled chin and eyes so lightly brown they were almost caramel.

  But the expression in the eyes was hard and it was focussed right onto Mrs Trelawney.

  What on earth had her assistant been up to now? Ellie knew there was some kind of leadership battle on the Village in Bloom committee, but she wouldn’t have expected the man at the door to be involved.

  Although several young and trendy gardeners had recently set up in the vicinity. Maybe he was very passionate about native species and tasteful colour combinations?

  ‘Miss Scott?’

  Unease curdled Ellie’s stomach at the curt tone, and she had to force herself not to take a step back. This is your shop, she told herself, folding her hands into tight fists. Nobody can tell you what to do. Not any more.

  ‘I’m Ellie Scott.’ She had to release her assistant from that gimlet glare. Not that Mrs Trelawney looked in need of help. Her own gaze was just as hard and cold. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘You?’

  The faint tone of incredulity didn’t endear him any further to Ellie, and nor did the quick glance that raked her up and down in one fast, judgemental dismissal.

  ‘You can’t be. You’re just a girl.’

  ‘Thank you, but at twenty-five I’m quite grown up.’

  His voice was unmistakably American which meant, surely, that here at last was the other trustee. Tired and jetlagged, probably, which explained the attitude. Coffee and a slice of cake would soon set him to rights.

  Ellie held out her hand. ‘Please, call me Ellie. You must be Max. It’s lovely to meet you.’

  ‘You’re the woman my great-aunt left half her fortune to?’

  His face had whitened, all except his eyes, which were a dark, scorching gold.

  ‘Tell me, Miss Scott...’ He made no move to take her hand, just stood looking at her as if she had turned into a toad, ice frosting every syllable. ‘Which do you think is worse? Seducing an older married man for his money or befriending an elderly lady for hers?’

  He folded his arms and stared at her.

  ‘Any thoughts?’

  CHAPTER TWO

  MAX HADN’T INTENDED to go in all guns blazing. In fact he had entered the bookshop with just two intentions: to pick up the keys to the house his great-aunt had left him and to make it very clear to the domineering Miss Scott that the next step in sorting out his great-aunt’s quixotic will would be at his instigation and in his time frame.

  Only he had been wrong-footed at the start. W
here was the hearty spinster of his imagination? He certainly hadn’t been expecting this thin, neatly dressed pale girl. She was almost mousy, although there was a delicate beauty in her huge brown eyes, in the neatly brushed sweep of her light brown hair that looked dull at first glance but, he noticed as the sunlight fell on it, was actually a mass of toffee and dark gold.

  She didn’t look like a con artist. She looked like the little match girl. Maybe that was the point. Maybe inspiring pity was her weapon. He had thought, assumed, that his co-trustee was an old friend of Great-Aunt Demelza. Not a girl younger than Max himself. Her youth was all too painfully reminiscent of his father’s recent insanity, even if Ellie Scott seemed to be missing some of Mandy’s more obvious attributes.

  The silence stretched long, thin, almost unbearable before Ellie broke it. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  There was a shakiness in her voice but she stayed her ground, the large eyes fixed on him with painful intensity.

  Max was shocked by a rush of guilt. It was like shooting Bambi.

  ‘I think you heard.’

  He was uneasily aware that they had an audience. The angular, tweed-clad old lady he had assumed was Ellie Scott was standing guard by the counter, a duster held threateningly in one hand, her sharp eyes darting expectantly from one to the other like a tennis umpire. He should give her some popcorn and a large soda to help her fully enjoy the show.

  ‘I was giving you a chance to backtrack or apologise.’

  Ellie Scott’s voice had grown stronger, and for the first time he had a chance to notice her pointed chin and firm, straight eyebrows, both suggesting a subtle strength of character.

  ‘But if you have no intention of doing either than I suggest you leave and come back when you find your manners.’

  It was his turn to think he’d misheard. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Leave. And unless you’re willing to be polite don’t come back.’

  Max glared at her, but although there was a slight tremor in her lightly clenched hands Ellie Scott didn’t move. Fine.

  He walked back over to the door and wrenched it open. ‘This isn’t over, honey,’ he warned her. ‘I will find out exactly how you manoeuvred your way into my great-aunt’s good graces and I will get back every penny you conned out of her.’

  The jaunty bell jangled as he closed the door behind him. Firmly.

  The calendar said it was July, but the Cornish weather had obviously decided to play unseasonal and Max, who had left a humid heatwave behind in Connecticut, was hit by a cold gust of wind, shooting straight through the thin cotton of his T-shirt, goose-pimpling his arms and shocking him straight to his bones.

  And sweeping the anger clear out of his head.

  What on earth had he been thinking? Or, as it turned out, not thinking. Damn. Somehow he had completely misfired.

  Max took a deep breath, the salty tang of sea air filling his lungs. He shouldn’t have gone straight into the shop after the long flight and even longer drive from Gatwick airport to this sleepy Cornish corner. Not with the adrenaline still pumping through his veins. Not with the scene with his father still playing through his head.

  Who knew what folly his father would commit without Max keeping an eye on him? Where his mother’s anger and sense of betrayal would drag them down to?

  But that was their problem. DL Media was his sole concern now.

  Max began to wander down the steep, narrow sidewalk. It felt as if he had reached the ends of the earth during the last three hours of his drive through the most western and southern parts of England. A drive that had brought him right here, to the place his great-grandfather had left behind, shaking off his family ties, the blood and memories of the Great War and England, when he had crossed the channel to start a whole new life.

  And now Max had ended up back here. Funny how circular life could be...

  Pivoting slowly, Max took a moment to see just where ‘here’ was. The briny smell might take him back to holidays spent on the Cape, but Trengarth was as different from the flat dunes of Cape Cod as American football was from soccer.

  The small bookshop was one of several higgledy-piggledy terraces on a steep narrow road winding up the cliff. At the top of the cliff, imperiously looking down onto the bay and dominating the smaller houses dotted around it, was a white circular house: his Great-Aunt Demelza’s house. The house she had left to him. A house where hopefully there would be coffee, some food. A bed. A solution.

  If he carried on heading down he would reach the seafront and the narrow road running alongside the ocean. Turn left and the old harbour curved out to sea, still filled with fishing boats. All the cruisers and yachts were moored further out. Above the harbour the old fishermen’s cottages were built up the cliff: a riotous mixture of colours and styles.

  Turn right and several more shops faced on to the road before it stopped abruptly at the causeway leading to the wide beach where, despite or because of the weather, surfers were bobbing up and down in the waves, looking like small, sleek seals.

  Give him an hour and he could join them. He could take a board out...hire a boat. Forget his cares in the cold tang of the ocean.

  Max smiled wryly. If only he could. Pretend he was just another American tourist retracing his roots, shrugging off the responsibilities he carried. But, like Atlas, he was never going to be relieved of his heavy burden.

  It was a pretty place. And weirdly familiar—although maybe not that weird. After all, his grandfather had had several watercolours of almost exactly this view hanging in his study. Yes, there were definitely worse places to work out a way forward.

  Only to do that he needed to get into that large white house. And according to the solicitor he had emailed from the plane, Ellie Scott was holding the keys to that very house. Which meant he was going to have to eat some humble pie. Max was normally quite a fan of pie, but that was not a flavour he enjoyed.

  ‘Suck it up, Max,’ he muttered to a low-flying seagull, which was eyeing him hopefully. ‘Suck it up.’

  He was going to have to go back to the bookshop and start the whole acquaintance again.

  * * *

  Ellie was doing her best to damp down the dismaying swirl in her stomach and get on with her day.

  She hadn’t caved, had she? Hadn’t trembled or wept or tried to pacify him? She had stayed calm and collected and in control. On the outside, at least. Only she knew that right now she wanted nothing more than to sink into the old rocking chair in the corner of the childcare section and indulge in a pathetic bout of tears.

  The sneering tone, the cold, scornful expression had triggered far more feelings than she cared to admit. She had spent three years trying to pacify that exact tone, that exact look—and the next three years trying to forget. In just five minutes Max Loveday had brought it all vividly back.

  Darn him—and darn her shaky knees and trembling hands, giving away her inner turmoil. She’d thought she was further on than this. Stronger than this.

  Ellie had never thought she would be quite so glad for Mrs Trelawney’s presence, but right now the woman was her safety net. While she sat there, busily typing away on her phone, no doubt ensuring that every single person in Trengarth was fully updated on the morning’s events, Ellie had no option but to hold things together.

  Instead she switched on the coffee machine and unpacked the cakes she had picked up earlier from the Boat House café on the harbour.

  Ellie had always dreamed of a huge bookshop, packed with hidden corners, secret nooks, and supplemented by a welcoming café full of tasty treats. What she had was a shop which, like all the shops in Trengarth, was daintily proportioned. Fitting in all the books she wanted to stock in the snug space was enough of a challenge. A café would be a definite step too far. She had compromised with a long counter by the till heaped with a tempting array of locally
made scones and cakes and a state-of-the-art coffee machine. Buying in the cakes meant she didn’t have to sacrifice precious stock space for a kitchen.

  It took just a few moments to arrange the flapjacks, Cornish fairing biscuits, brightly coloured cupcakes and scones onto vintage cake stands and cover them with the glass domes she used to keep them fresh.

  ‘We have walnut, orange and cheese scones.’ She deliberately spoke aloud as she began to chalk up the varieties onto the blackboard she kept propped on the table, hoping Mrs Trelawney would take the hint, stop texting and start working. ‘The cupcakes are vanilla and the big cake is...let me see...yep, carrot and orange.’

  ‘It’s a bit early for cake...’

  The drawling accent made her stop and stiffen.

  ‘But I’ll take a walnut scone and a coffee. Please.’

  The last word was so evidently an afterthought.

  Ellie smiled sweetly as she swivelled round. No way was she going to give him the satisfaction of seeing how uncomfortable he’d made her.

  ‘It’s self-service and pay at the till. You, however, are barred. You’ll have to get your coffee somewhere else.’

  ‘Look...’ Max Loveday looked meaningfully over at Mrs Trelawney. ‘Can we talk? In private?’

  Ellie’s heart began to pick up speed, her pulse hammering. No way was she going anywhere alone with this man. He might be smiling now, but she wasn’t fooled.

  ‘I don’t think so. You had no problem insulting me in front of my assistant. I’m sure she can’t wait to hear round two.’

  He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Fair point.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ She hadn’t expected him to capitulate so easily. It was an unexpected and unwanted point in his favour. ‘Go on, then. Say whatever it is you have to say.’

  ‘I was out of line.’