The beautiful Downshire village of Clerembeax St Giles was situated to the west of Abbeyvale located between Grace Hill and Bushy Down and on the outskirts was the Clerembeax Palace Hotel and Spa and when Yvonne Labuschagne inherited it from her cousin, the last remaining Clerembeax, she undertook the task of modernizing the Palace and opening a Hotel and Spa.
Staffing
was crucial, and Yvonne used her contacts in the Spa world to find the right
specialist people in her field of expertise’s and employed Hannah Morgan as
manager to fill the remainder of the roles, on the understanding that she
employ from the village populous where possible, whether they be part time or
permanent, and one of the part timers was Lara Mackie.
17-year-old Lara never knew her father, and she lost
her mum, Belinda, to breast cancer when she was only 12, which was how she came
to be living in Clerembeax with the Moore Family.
Her mum and Helen Moore were best friends from childhood
and remained in each other’s lives until the very end.
So, it was the most logical thing in the world for
Belinda to entrust her daughter’s future to the safe hands of her best friend.
Lara, and Helen’s son, Steve, had grown up together,
and spent every school holiday together, and when she moved in with the Moore’s
Steve took her under his wing and protected her, and they became inseparable.
They were the same age and had been in each other’s
lives since they were babies, and they shared the same milestones.
Even when they lived in different houses they saw
each other almost every week and the untimely death of her mother just pushed
them closer together so invariably they gravitated towards each other.
Her thing, her great passion, was art, it had been
from the moment she could hold a pencil, and her dream, between college and
University, was to go to an artist’s retreat in France for three weeks in the
summer, and she had worked every shift imaginable for 12 months to pay for it,
but she wasn’t allowed to go on her
own, but she could go provided Steve went with her, so of course he agreed.
His parents knew that his feelings for her weren’t
simply friendship or familial and furthermore they also knew that she didn’t
look upon him as a brother.
But nothing had come of it, so they thought time
away in France might finally get them together.
Thanks
to her hard work up at the Clerembeax Palace Hotel and Spa she had the holiday
paid for by the end of March and a good chunk of spending money by the end of
April but then disaster struck when she fell off her bike one day on her way
home and dislocated her shoulder, which meant that was the end of her earnings
until after France.
All
of this meant that after all her hard work and plans she wasn’t going to have
any spare funds to treat herself to some new artist’s materials for the trip.
She
really wanted them, but she told Steve that she would just have to get
something cheaper and gave him a weak smile.
Steve
managed to persuade her not to settle for less than she really wanted and just
bide her time and wait for a couple more months and as every cloud had a silver
lining by the time she was ready to buy them for University they would be at an
even better price and in response Lara punched him on the arm for his sunny
optimism, which meant she knew he was right.
When the time for the trip arrived, he sat and
watched her as she pottered around the house gathering up the things she would
be taking to France and he smiled.
For Steve there was no one lightbulb moment, when he
could definitely say
“That was when I fell in love with her”
Because he had always loved her, and he always
would, and now he had an opportunity for a demonstration of his love, and that
necessitated an impromptu trip into town with his dad James.
They
then had to sneak the purchases inside the house and upstairs without being
seen so Helen could wrap them up, then when they were done they needed to get
the wrapped presents back downstairs and into the dining room, Helen was keeping
watch in the hall and indicated when the coast was clear, so they tiptoed down
the stairs and across the hall and placed the packages onto the dining table.
A
few minutes later Lara walked in, to find the three of them standing in front
of the dining table on the other side of the room, and Steve thought she looked
lovelier than ever.
She
was immediately suspicious and said
“Why
are you all huddled over there?”
“Well
there is something we wanted to do before we have dinner” James said
“Well
we know how disappointed you were about your artist materials, so here you are”
Helen said and with military precision they parted to reveal the brightly
wrapped parcels.
“What’s
all this?” Lara asked
“Open
them and you’ll find out” Steve said
So,
she set about the task and as she ripped off the paper her eyes widened with
delight and she smiled broadly
“It’s
all the things I wanted” she said “You shouldn’t have”
Then
she hugged and kissed Helen and James.
“Thank
you”
“It
wasn’t us darling” Helen said “I just wrapped them”
“And
I just drove the car” James added, and she turned towards Steve
“So,
it was you?” she said and prodded him in the chest with an outstretched finger.
“So,
what was all that tosh about me biding my time?”
“Sound
advice” he replied, and she jabbed her finger into his chest again
“And
“every cloud has a silver lining”?”
She
asked with another prod
“And
all the time”
Jab
“You
were planning this”
Poke
“Pretty
much” he confirmed and then she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his
cheek and said
“I
love you”
The
moment the words left her lips she stiffened as she realised she had said it
out loud, and she regretted it instantly, not because she didn’t mean it, she
did and she had often dreamed of saying it, but she regretted it because it was
on the eve of their departure to France, and the location was not ideal with
his parents looking on, what if they were angry, what if he didn’t love her and
they would have three weeks of awkwardness, but then she took a breath and
thought that regrets were pointless, it was said and it was spontaneous, but
she instantly tried to backtrack.
“I
mean… I…” she stammered but he put a finger to her lips
“Hush”
he said “You don’t have to explain, because I love you too”
“You
do?”
“I
do” he confirmed and then her arms were wrapped around his neck again only this
time when she kissed him it wasn’t on the cheek.
Helen
and James were hugging as they watched their son and surrogate daughter finally
expressing the love they had always held for each other, but they discreetly
slipped away as the couple shared a different kind of kiss.
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