The Best Boomerville Hotel by Caroline James

Author:Caroline James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, contemporary, romance
Publisher: Choc Lit
Published: 2018-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Hattie ran across the courtyard and darted through the door to the garden. She brushed her hand across her skirt where two chalky palm prints were tattooed to her bottom. ‘Damn!’ she exclaimed and rubbed at her rear in an attempt to remove them.

Lucinda, who was strolling across the grass, called out, ‘You’re looking very flushed. Have you got a temperature?’

Hattie wanted to tell Lucinda to get stuffed but as the artist was surrounded by a group of students who were spending the afternoon outside, with their canvases in one hand and paint brushes in the other, she smiled and gave the group a wave.

‘Everyone having a good time?’ Hattie asked. She noted Sir Henry and Hugo sitting on a bench, both wrapped up in overcoats and scarves. Sir Henry held a brush at arm’s length and appeared to be studying proportions before applying the brush to his canvas.

‘We’ve been working on our landscapes,’ Lucinda said and swept her arm out to the distant hills. The students looked frozen to the bone and one or two were shivering. ‘I was expecting you to join us.’

‘Sorry, but I got held up.’ Hattie felt the cold too and wished that she’d had time to put her knickers back on instead of stuffing them in her pocket when Paul’s class returned from their break, seconds from finding their tutor in a position that had nothing to do with his course.

She moved forward and peeked at the students’ work. ‘Lovely art, gosh what wonderful scenes.’ She studied the daubs of paint on canvasses, held rigid in arms numbed by the Westmarland cold. ‘I think everyone should head for the bar and have a hot toddy.’

At Hattie’s invitation, bedraggled and weary artists suddenly found a new lease of life and Lucinda was shoved to one side as they stampeded across the lawn. Brushes flew and one or two dropped their canvas. Hugo helped Sir Henry rise to his feet and they hastened along behind.

‘Bloody cheek,’ Lucinda snarled. She lit a cigarette and, placing it in her holder, dragged deeply. ‘I spend all afternoon sharing my skill and knowledge and just look at them, they can’t get in the bar fast enough.’

‘If they stay out here any longer they may never see a bar again,’ Hattie said. ‘Get yourself in there too and I’ll be along in a mo.’

Lucinda glared and blew a cloud of smoke into Hattie’s face.

Hattie ignored the insult and, pinching her fingers to her nose, moved away. She could see that the tepee was operational, as silvery puffs, drifting from the top, wafted across the sky.

The Shaman was at home.

She needed to have a word with him about their Indian evening and perhaps, as Jo had instructed, she should mention that he needed to tone down the recipe for his herbs.

Hattie raced down the path and as she turned the handle on the wrought iron gates that led to the meadow, she saw that the canvas flap on the tepee had been flung to one side.

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