Chapters (39)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Prologue
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Epilogue
- Author’s note
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
A movement at the far end of the village caught Anna’s eye. She looked up to see Douglas McKean halfway down the sea wall, leaning on his walking stick as he watched her with a baleful eye. Anna stared back, a defiant kind of fury growing in her chest. Whether it was him that had made the call or not, it was Douglas McKean who had scuppered lunch club. What right did he have to meddle in her life aside from a ridiculous delusion that the Fishergirl’s Luck should really belong to him? As if it would be as it is now if he had. It was Bren MacKenzie who had looked at this tiny shack and seen that it could be lived in, Bren MacKenzie who had poured her hard work and earnings into making that idea a reality. And now this place was Anna’s, fair and square, just as it had belonged to Bren before her, and she could do what she liked with it. Bren hadn’t let McKean bully her, not for a second. Why should Anna put up with him, or the cronies that had joined in his bitter quest? She didn’t need McKean’s approval, nor anyone else’s either. She’d already wasted too much of her working life trying to scale that particular mountain.
Leaving the coffee tray where it was, Anna went to knock on the door of the Weaver’s Nook.
‘Frank,’ she said, when he answered with a mug of tea in his hand. ‘Could you spare me a bit of time this week? I need your plumbing expertise.’
Seventeen
By the end of the week, Anna was in possession of a brand-new sink and a five out of five rating from the health and safety branch of the local council.
‘Very nice,’ said Belinda Turner, when she saw the excellent job that Frank had done of fitting the double Belfast and swing tap. ‘I’m so glad that you’re going to go ahead with the lunch club,’ she added. ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea. I’d like to come along myself. Are you going to start tomorrow?’
‘No, I’m going to wait until the bank holiday weekend, at the end of the month. That’ll give me time to prepare and will hopefully also mean there’ll be more visitors around,’ Anna told her. ‘First come, first served, first course ready at 1.15 p.m. It’d be nice to see you.’ Anna was no fool. Having the health and safety officer willing to eat at her table was an optic she could get behind. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, McKean.
‘I’ll be away, sadly. But perhaps sometime further down the line.’
‘Ah,’ Anna said. ‘Well, let me get through this one first before I commit to any more!’