Springtime at the Cider Kitchen by Fay Keenan

Author:Fay Keenan [Keenan, Fay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aria
Published: 2017-11-30T05:00:00+00:00

28

As the nights began to draw in more quickly and the coats hanging on the hooks in The Cider Kitchen’s cloakroom grew thicker and longer, Caroline made the final preparations for the Halloween theme night. When the evening actually rolled round, Caroline glanced around the restaurant, half in despair half in amusement. Strands of fake spiders’ web were twined around the light fittings, the tables had been topped with black sparkly napkins, and carved pumpkins, soon to be filled with tea lights, seemed to line every flat surface.

‘I can’t believe I ever thought this was a good idea,’ Caroline muttered. ‘I hate Halloween, usually.’ She’d spent too many Halloween nights overseeing hospitality events and memories of excess in all ways were ones she didn’t wish to revisit any time soon, especially when the scariest thing in her life at the time had been someone very, very human. Someone who, since that unnerving note and packet of powder in early October, Caroline hadn’t been able to put out of her mind. But she didn’t want to burden the increasingly heavily pregnant Anna with these thoughts. Anna had popped in after closing up the tea shop to see how things were going and had been roped in to help Caroline lay a few tables, as Meredith had gone down with the flu the day before and couldn’t do her evening shift. The teenager had been characteristically upset about both missing work and the Halloween event, but it couldn’t be helped.

Anna laughed. ‘You’re the one who said it’d be good for business. And Matthew and Jonathan have been dying to try out their new Wookey Witch Cider Punch on the public. If it takes off, they’ll be marketing it nationally this time next year.’

‘Yup, my customers are going to be guinea pigs, as well as in for a fright.’ Caroline grimaced down into the cutlery tray behind the bar. ‘As if Gino’s Halloween menu wasn’t weird enough, Jonathan told me I’d have to take on some experimental hooch as well.’

‘They do sort of know what they’re doing when it comes to cider making,’ Anna chided gently. ‘They’ve been at it a while.’

‘I know, I know, a hundred years of heritage and history all rolled up into two delectable Somerset sons,’ Caroline teased, feeling her mood lift marginally.

‘Delectable?’ Anna raised an eyebrow. Caroline had filled Anna in on the debacle with the fox hounds over the washing up after Sunday lunch at Cowslip Barn and only then when she was sure Matthew was out of earshot. As lovely as Matthew was, Caroline didn’t fancy being chewed out by him as well as Jonathan over the incident, and she didn’t know whether Jonathan had told his brother about the restaurant’s near miss or not.

‘No comment. He’s been hanging around after hours again, pretending to play the piano and generally making a nuisance of himself.’

‘Really?’ Anna replied. ‘Well, if it’s any help, Matthew says he can’t ever remember seeing Jonathan spending quite so much time with a woman and not breaking her heart, so I take it that’s a positive sign.

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