Page 11 of The Beekeeper's Cottage
Amos would have liked to have asked exactly how much the property was worth but he thought that was probably pushing it a bit. He looked around him. ‘Wouldn’t mind it myself if I had the money. I reckon there’ll be buyers queuing up from here to the other side of the hill…’
‘Well, the market is more limited obviously, for properties above a certain value, but there are always people who will appreciate a house such as this.’
Amos scuffed at the gravel beneath his foot, his eyes downcast. ‘So you think it will sell quickly then?’
‘Difficult to say… The market’s fair just now, but surprisingly not everyone wants such a large garden and, beautiful though this one is, it might actually make the property less desirable.’
‘Oh, I see,’ replied Amos, looking up. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking about my job again, and Missus Maynard of course,’ he added quickly. ‘She’d be devastated to leave this place. Maybe she’ll get to stay here a bit longer after all…’ He trailed off, looking at his watch. ‘So are you nearly done then?’ he asked. ‘Or will you be here for a while yet? I best get on, you see…’
The agent consulted his clipboard. ‘Not too much longer…’
‘And you will make sure you lock up properly, won’t you?’
There was a nod.
‘Righty-ho then. I’ll be in the garden – if you need anything, just shout.’
‘I will, thank you.’
Amos raised a hand in farewell and sauntered off, back the way he had come. Well, thank you, Mr Porter, he thought to himself. You’ve been very helpful, very helpful indeed. Things were beginning to become much, much clearer. When he’d first arrived he hadn’t been able to understand why Grace would ever want to leave somewhere like this, but evidently the idea was her husband’s, not hers. Now her behaviour in the shop earlier made perfect sense. Amos felt the back of his neck begin to tingle – he would just have to find some way he could help. It wouldn’t get rid of the guilt he carried with him everywhere he went, but maybe one more good deed might lift it just a little.
Amos waited in among the flower beds, deadheading the roses and hoping that Grace wouldn’t mind, until he heard the sound of car tyres sweeping across the gravel drive. Then he replaced the secateurs in the greenhouse and walked calmly down the slope of Grace’s garden, nodding to the bees as he passed. Climbing the fence so that he was back in the field of flowers once more, he scanned the space in front of him, looking for Flora’s bright figure; he had an apology to make.
That was the third time in a row Grace had jumped when the shop bell went and she was beginning to annoy herself. Worse still was that when she looked up, a hopeful smile on her face, it was to see Helen Bridgewater from the end of the lane, popping in for her bread just like she always did around this time.
‘Brace yourself,’ she quipped as Helen left to pick up her three energetic boys from school. It was a joke they shared whenever Grace was in the shop, knowing that the bread would provide an after-school ‘snack’ for the boys and be virtually demolished in no time.
Grace watched Helen walk back to her car, scanning the lane as she did so. Amos had been gone some time, surely he should have returned by now. Not that she knew what she was going to say to him when he did come back.Ifhe came back at all. She had reread Flora’s note a dozen times now and, despite Flora’s admission that even though Amos had turned up out of the blue she felt she would trust him with her life, it didn’t change the fact that Grace had just let a complete stranger visit her house. She would more than likely get home tonight to find that Amos had run off with the family silver. She tutted to herself and frowned, running a finger along the edge of a display shelf and heading to the cupboard to fetch a duster.
As she wiped invisible cobwebs from the shelves, she smiled at the memory of him standing in the shop in a white tee shirt under dark-blue dungarees, rolled up at the bottom to reveal bright red boots. His jet-black curly hair wasn’t yet threaded with silver but Grace judged him to be around her own age; his deep brown eyes were surrounded by well-worn laughter lines, and the twinkle in them was indicative of his whole demeanour. And yet there was something else about him too, something Grace couldn’t quite put her finger on, but which had nonetheless made her reveal things about her life that she would never usually dream of doing with someone she had just met. She was quite annoyed with herself. Whatever must Amos think? And then she shook her head, tutting again. She would apologise at the very least.
Grace put down the duster for a moment and went to make herself a cup of tea. Humming to distract herself while the kettle boiled, she thought about how the flowers in the window display could do with a freshen-up. At least if she kept busy there was a chance her thoughts might stop tormenting her. Deep in contemplation, she carried her tea and the cleaning materials back through to the counter. There, she jumped out of her skin so suddenly that half of her drink slopped out of the mug and spattered across the floor in biscuit-coloured splodges.
Amos was around the counter in seconds.
‘Here, let me,’ he said.
‘No, don’t worry, I… Gosh, you made me jump!’ Grace hastily put down the mug and bent to mop up the liquid with the duster just as Amos fished a hanky from his pocket to do the same. Their heads crashed in the confined space.
Amos straightened first, catching Grace’s arm as she rose, grinning and rubbing her head ruefully. ‘Blimey, are you all right?’
‘No damage done… Areyouokay?’
‘I think so. But if I start talking gibberish—’
‘How will I know the difference?’
‘Exactly!’
Grace stared at him for a minute, and then she burst out laughing, their shared amusement sparking across the space between them.
‘Look, just stay where you are,’ she said, still grinning, as she placed a hand on his chest to hold him at bay. ‘Or we’ll both be unconscious…’
She bent again and quickly mopped up the spillage with the duster, throwing it through the door of the small kitchenette so that it landed in the sink, then she turned back to Amos.
‘I was just thinking about you,’ she said. ‘And then I turned around and there you were.’ She frowned. ‘In fact, I didn’t hear the bell go, which is why you made me jump. Did you just materialise out of nowhere?’ As soon as she said it, she felt foolish but there was something about Amos that made the impossible seem possible.
He grinned. ‘Nothing so impressive, sadly. The door wasn’t properly shut,’ he replied.
