A Place in the Country by Elizabeth Adler Read Free Book Online Page A

and shopping in Oxford, hung out with boys in cafés, and had a good time. Then, back home at the Star & Plough, watching TV they cuddled Blind Brenda on the sofa between them.
    Two months passed and Caroline knew the time had come to take life into her own hands. She took a leap of faith and bought the broken-down barn grill & bar that cost every cent of her settlement from James (at least she’d gotten that up front.) She bought it because it was quite simply the cheapest place for sale around, and she had exactly enough for a low bid. The owner was desperate and accepted; he’d been trying to sell it for years. Looking at the place, in the clear light of day, Caroline understood why. The whole place needed restoration.
    Still, there was something about it; its solitude, its age, its history she felt comfortable with. She loved the sound of the slow-flowing river; loved the stone that turned out to be honey-colored after all; loved the way it sat at the end of the rutted once-graveled drive (don’t even ask what gravel cost and how much to deliver and spread it around!). Somehow, there was a connection. Possibly it was the sign, Bar, Grill and Dancing, that did it. She had always been a dreamer.
    They were still living at the pub, wondering how to put their new “home” in order, when a few weeks later, James’s business partner, Mark Santos, came to see her.

 
    chapter 10
    It was seven o’clock on a Friday night and the pub was packed with mostly young people, ten deep at the bar, with the old-fashioned juke box Jesus had rescued from somewhere, blasting the dated seventies pop he loved, and people shouting over everyone else to make themselves heard.
    Every table was taken in both the lounge and the snug, and orders were coming in thick and fast, especially for the chicken pot pie with its billowing crust. The smell of beer, of bread, baking and pico de gallo, hot sauce and tacos leaked out into the street, where cars were crammed into tiny parking spots and smokers leaned up against the walls, lingering over cigarettes. Friday nights were always like that.
    Caroline was in the kitchen, hovering over the Aga, pink-cheeked from the heat, helped by her Friday assistant, a young single mom called Sarah, who lived on her own with her baby, Little Billy, in a cottage nearby. She brought him to work and mostly he slept through all the noise, in his carrier. Teenager Lily who also babysat for Sarah, from time to time, helped with the dishes, mostly by dropping them.
    Issy and Sam were too young to work in the pub but usually helped out in the kitchen on Fridays. Tonight, though they had been given a reprieve and were in the upstairs sitting room, homework done for the weekend. Blind Brenda was slotted between them on the sofa, and they had their bare feet on the green velvet ottoman, watching TV, and texting friends.
    Caroline was wearing jeans, her old yellow sweater, and scuffed white clogs that made her feet look enormous. Her hair was stuffed under a denim Club 55 baseball cap and her red cat’s-eye glasses were sliding down her nose from the heat. Sweaty, was how she would have described herself, when Maggie came in carrying a load of empty dishes and told her there was a man at the bar who wished to see her.
    Caroline froze. Her eyes met Maggie’s in a question.
    â€œIt’s not him,” Maggie said quietly. “This one’s tall, with a beard, glasses too. In a nice jacket. Cashmere, you can always tell. Better go wash your face. He’ll wait. I’ll take over in here.”
    Still, Caroline was nervous seeing Mark, it would bring back her past. He was James’s longtime friend as well as his business partner, a solid, quiet, bearded man you just knew you could trust. In fact, he was the first person she had called, from the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, to say she had left James.
    He had kept in touch, checking on her via e-mail or phone, always asking if she