Coffee and Cake at Wildflower Lock, page 1
COFFEE AND CAKE AT WILDFLOWER LOCK
HANNAH LYNN
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
More From Hannah Lynn
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Hannah Lynn
Love Notes
About Boldwood Books
To Amy,
Thank you for being my cheerleader for over twenty years and counting.
1
Daisy May looked at the keys in her hand. This was it. Any second now, she would post them back through the letter box of the flat where she had lived for the last two years and mark the end of that chapter of her life. Not that she had any choice. The hike in rent and involuntary redundancy made it impossible to stay. Fortunately, those two events had coincided with an entirely unexpected inheritance.
When Daisy had first learned she was the owner of the September Rose, a wide-beam canal boat, moored at the picturesque Wildflower Lock, her mind had turned giddy with images of a beautifully painted vessel with a picture-perfect interior, complete with a wood-burning stove. Never envisioning herself on the water, she had also assumed that a quick sale of the aforementioned imagined boat would leave her with a healthy deposit for a house of her own. Her assumptions were wrong.
While a wood-burning stove did stand in one corner of the living space, hidden behind crumbling cardboard boxes, that was where the similarities between her vision and the real September Rose ended. From a grime-filled water tank to a hull that hadn’t been tended to in years, the boat was in need of some serious TLC. Daisy’s plans had pivoted when she decided to renovate the houseboat herself before she sold it. Only, the more time she spent on the September Rose, and the more she learned about her family’s history on the waterways, the less she wanted to be separated from it.
And now, be it serendipity or simply good timing, selling wasn’t an option. Instead, she was going to live in it full time.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, spurring her to slip the keys through the letterbox before answering the call.
‘Hey, Mum, is everything okay?’
‘Fine. Just checking you were all okay? What time are you leaving the flat?’
‘I’m outside the front door. Leaving now.’
‘Good, good.’ Her mother had a restlessness in her voice and Daisy envisioned her holding the phone between her ear and shoulder as she hurried about the house, trying to keep things straight the way she did when she was worried about something. ‘You don’t want to be hanging around for long. You want to get an early night. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’
Daisy bit her tongue. After all the preparation and the sleepless nights over the last fortnight, she was hardly going to forget the significance of the next day. Tomorrow morning was opening day at The Coffee Shop on the Canal.
The coffee shop was going to be the answer to all Daisy’s problems. While she owned the September Rose outright, boats still came with all sorts of costs, like mooring fees and electricity bills. She needed a new job, and preferably one that didn’t involve too much travelling. At the same time, Wildflower Lock desperately needed a place where all the dog walkers and paddle boarders could grab themselves a cup of coffee. And so, a little over three weeks ago, she had got to work renovating a small area of the boat into a takeaway coffee shop. It had been non-stop, using every daylight hour to make sure it was properly fitted out. And now the time was almost ready to open up the hatch and start serving customers.
‘Don’t worry, Mum, I’m heading back now.’
‘Good, good. Okay, darling. I’ll see you soon.’
As she hung up the phone, Daisy took one more step back onto the pavement and placed her hand on the front door of the flat. It was strange to grow so attached to nothing more than bricks and mortar, but she had made memories in this home. Good memories.
But now it was time she moved on.
As she drove away from London toward Wildflower Lock, Daisy considered her to-do list for the following day. Like writing out a price list on the chalkboard and checking that she had enough change for a float. Despite her mother’s love of food, and lifelong career as a chef, it had never been Daisy’s dream to run a coffee shop. But since the idea had struck, she felt – for the first time she could remember – that she had found a role in life into which she could truly see herself settling.
The car journey was swift. After parking up, Daisy stepped outside and breathed in.
It wasn’t hard to see how the lock had got its name. All along the towpath, the hedgerows were alive with colour, from the whites of cow parsley to the yellows of buttercups and the soft pinks of dog roses. And every day it changed. A covering of clouds could transform the tones of the water from vibrant blue to the darkest of greys, while swans and herons and all other forms of waterfowl made the waterway a hive of activity. And that was before you considered the people.
‘Afternoon.’ Daisy raised her hand to a dog walker, who was making their way through the gate.
‘Afternoon.’
A few metres later, she greeted one of the paddle boarders out today.
‘Have a good evening.’
‘You too.’ They offered a brief nod.
The people who visited the lock were some of the friendliest Daisy had encountered. Every day, she would find herself embroiled in a conversation with someone, from canal volunteers to hikers who wanted to tell her all about their day, and though the walk from the car park to the September Rose was only a couple of hundred feet, sometimes it could take as much as half an hour to make the distance. But despite the friendliness of the visitors, the same could not be said for the people who lived on the water – at least not all of them.
‘Afternoon.’ Daisy raised her hand to a man standing on the back of his boat. Given how close he lived to the towpath entrance, and the fact that his boat roof was covered with plants which needed constant attention, Daisy saw this gentleman at least twice a day, if not more. And yet so far, despite trying her hardest, she had not managed a single conversation with him. ‘Your begonias are looking beautiful,’ she added, hoping today might be the day.
With a small grunt, he ducked his head back down and continued to water his plants.
‘Nice to see you too,’ she muttered under her breath.
As excited as Daisy was for her upcoming life on Wildflower Lock, it was proving harder to find her place amongst the long-time boat owners than she’d expected. It probably didn’t help that until three months ago, she hadn’t known the first thing about living on the water. She hadn’t known the difference between a pump-out or a cassette toilet, or why you needed to get hulls blacked, or even what a tiller was. The learning curve had been steep, and she was getting there, but obviously not quick enough to make good with all the locals.
Currently, one of the only boat owners who would greet her with more than a passing hello was Yvonne, an elderly lady who owned a beautifully painted boat called the Ariadne, which was moored on the other side of the canal.
Yvonne had the dress sense of a seventies’ Vogue model and every time Daisy caught sight of her, standing on the boat with her purple ombre hair, she couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of respect for this lady with a penchant for crystals and incense sticks. She was one of the longest-standing residents of Wildflower Lock and had lived on this stretch of the canal so long, she’d been there back when Daisy’s father first bought the September Rose. It was Yvonne who’d told Daisy about her past, or at least pieces of it. The rest she had insisted Daisy heard from her mother. Something they were still working through.
The other person who Daisy would regularly spend time with was her neighbour, Theo.
As the owner of the neighbouring boat, Narrow Escape, Theo was the first resident Daisy had met on the lock. Rather than the standard introduction you would expect, she had walked in on him naked in his home, though in her defence, it was her first time on the canal, and she’d thought it was her boat she was on. Needless to say, he had been less than impressed. Yet the pair had worked through their rocky start and formed a solid friendship, which had almost progressed to something more.
Right now, they were still at the just-good-friends stage and Daisy was perfectly fine with that. It had been sever
Sensing that today might not be the day to strike up a conversation with any more locals, Daisy carried on down the towpath towards her boat.
The September Rose was a long way from that dusty, forgotten vessel she had first inherited. Now painted a light, duck-egg blue, with a freshly blacked hull, it was hard not to feel an immense sense of pride every time she looked at it. Often, she would stop and take a photo, noting how the light reflected off the top so she could save the image for a painting at a later date, although this time, when the boat came into view, Daisy stopped and squinted at the figure in front of it. Then, realising her eyes were not playing tricks on her, she hurried down the path.
‘Mum, what are you doing here?’
It had been four months since Daisy had inherited the September Rose, and during that time, her mother had visited exactly zero times. It was tough. While Wildflower Lock was a fresh start for Daisy, for Pippa, it was the opposite. This was the place she had fallen in love with Daisy’s father, Johnny, and where they had first lived after Daisy was born. But there were plenty of bleak memories alongside the happy ones. Like how difficult and lonely her mother had found life with a newborn, and how at one point, when it felt like there was no way to escape that loneliness at Wildflower Lock, she had left her family to go chasing a dream.
‘This isn’t a bad time, is it?’ Her mother moved forward and hugged her.
‘Of course not. I just don’t understand what you’re doing here. Or why you didn’t say you were coming?’
‘My daughter’s starting her own business. I had to come down here at some point. I was going to put it off until your opening tomorrow, but then I worried you might be busy, so I thought it better to visit now. I’ll come down tomorrow too, of course, but I just needed to see the place once before then.’ Her mother stopped talking and turned in a circle, slowly taking in the view. ‘It’s so strange. So much of it’s the same. But it’s aged. It’s aged a lot. The canal, the lock. It’s all got older. Though I suppose we both have.’
Daisy nodded, unsure of what to say next. She and her mother had once been as thick as thieves, but when the truth about Daisy’s father had come to light, it had forced a wedge between them. Now they were rebuilding their relationship bit by bit, but it took time.
‘Do you want to come aboard?’ She reached into her bag for her keys, though her mother quickly shook her head.
‘No, thank you. Not yet. You don’t mind, do you?’ Her voice was growing faster, the more stressed she became.
‘No, Mum, it’s fine. You don’t have to do that if you don’t want.’
Her mother nodded again, this time focusing her gaze through the window of the September Rose. Daisy couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking. After all, it had been her marital home and, most likely, the place where Daisy was conceived. There had to be some good memories about the place.
‘Oh, I forgot why I came. I made you these.’ Her mother reached down beside her and picked up two large carrier bags. ‘I made scones.’
‘Scones?’
‘And a Victoria sponge. I know you’re planning on just selling tea and coffee at the moment, but people love a slice of cake, and I thought it might help bring you a few more customers.’
‘Mum, you didn’t have to do that.’
‘I know, but it’s fine.’
‘You shouldn’t have.’
The issue wasn’t just that Daisy hadn’t planned on selling any baked goods, but that she didn’t know how she was going to afford them. If she was going to run this coffee shop properly, then anything she sold had to be bought as a business expense, even if that was a Victoria sponge from her mum. And the fact was, there was no spare cash left in the kitty. She had already used her credit card to buy a decent coffee machine, knowing the deposit from her flat would pay it off when it came through, and Theo had put the hatch in as cheaply as possible, but there were still costs involved, like the hinges and the lock and the paper cups and sugar stirrers. The last thing she wanted was to owe people before the coffee shop had brought in any money.
‘It’s not a problem. I was going to do some baking, anyway. And you never know, maybe if it works out, I can cut down my hours at the restaurant and bake for you full time.’ She laughed, as if she had made a joke, though Daisy couldn’t help but wonder if there was an element of truth in what she had said. She had wanted her mother to slow down her hours and the restaurant for a while now, but her mother had been insistent she needed the work. Maybe this cafe could benefit them both.
Daisy was about to say as much when a figure appeared on the stern of the boat behind her. For a second, her eyes locked there, his silhouette cast in long shadows from the low summer sun. Then, realising she was staring, she cleared her throat and smiled broadly.
‘Theo.’
2
Before she had met Theo, Daisy could never have imagined herself dating a guy with a man-bun, and even now she thought 50 per cent of the men wearing them only chose that style because they couldn’t be bothered to get their hair cut. But the look suited Theo. More than that: it looked good on him.
As normal, he was dressed in a worn t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and as normal, somehow, he made it look effortlessly stylish. Standing as he was, with the background of trees and the water behind him, he looked like those men in the dark and moody adverts in magazines, who wore a two-hundred-pound white t-shirt with a pair of dark boxer shorts and a scowl.
Not that she was thinking about Theo in his boxers.
‘So are you going to introduce us?’ Her mother’s voice brought Daisy back to the moment.
‘Theo.’ Daisy hastily tried to swallow back her embarrassment at so blatantly staring. ‘This is my mum, Pippa. Mum, this is Theo, my neighbour.’
With an impressive leap, Theo jumped from the stern of his boat onto the towpath. Then, in three long strides, was standing beside them, his hand stretched out to her mother.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ A line like that could have been cheesy, but the way Theo spoke made it sound genuine. And it probably was. Never had Daisy known someone so happy to help other people and want nothing in return. Without him, the September Rose would likely still be an empty shell and Daisy would be facing months more work ahead of her. But Theo had been determined to help, and even this last week, had sourced her a full-size, second-hand fridge in perfect working condition, which was now chock-full of milk for all the impending cappuccinos and lattes.
‘So you’re the great Theo I’ve heard so much about?’ Her mother smiled slyly. ‘I’ve never known Daisy talk about a young man quite so enthusiastically. Not for a long time.’
‘Mum,’ Daisy hissed, sounding far more like a teenager than she’d hoped.
Yet Theo beamed at the remark.
‘You talk about me, do you? That’s nice to hear.’
‘I talk about you because you helped with the boat, that’s all.’
‘Of course. I believe you.’ With a smirk that matched her mother’s, Theo carried on talking to Pippa. ‘So, have you come to see the place before the big opening?’
‘Just briefly.’
‘Well, has Daisy shown you the hatch we put in? It’s pretty impressive, even if I say so myself.’
‘By we, he means he,’ Daisy interjected. ‘Theo is the one who put the hatch on the side on the boat. Just like he’s the one who sorted the electricity and plumbing so I have room for the coffee machine. That would be why I’ve mentioned his name a lot.’
