Feeling Festive on Oak Tree Lane: Oak Tree Lane Book Three, page 1
Feeling Festive on Oak Tree Lane
Oak Tree Lane Book Three
R. A. Hutchins
Copyright © 2024 Rachel Anne Hutchins
"Feeling Festive on Oak Tree Lane : Oak Tree Lane Book Three"
By R. A. Hutchins
All rights reserved
The characters, events and locations portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Cover design by: Dmeacham Design
For all the homebodies xx
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Oak Tree Lane
Books By This Author
About The Author
Prologue
Robyn didn’t think she’d ever sang so badly or been so distracted during a performance with her vintage vocal group, The Oakettes. There was nothing but love in the air all around her at this event, with an engagement as well as a birthday for the whole community to celebrate, and it had given her an unsettled feeling she was determined not to analyse.
“Can you restock the bottles of cider?” Matt asked her, using the same snippy tone she’d heard from him all day. Robyn knew it was a big event, the largest the Olde Oak Tree Inn had hosted in a long while, and was sorely needed to boost the place’s bank balance, but she was sick of being treated like a skivvy. She had said she’d serve as well as sing at the party as she knew Matty couldn’t afford to hire anyone else behind the bar, but she’d expected he might be just a little bit grateful about it.
“Do you think you could ask me nicely?” She bit back, hands on hips.
“Do you think you could acknowledge my existence?” He retorted under his breath.
“What?” They had been friends since they were toddlers at Little Acorns preschool together. Now in their late twenties, Matt had invited Robyn to share the flat above the pub that his dad had tasked him with managing while the old man pursued his own business affairs in Portugal. With Robyn’s parents having retired down to Devon, and she desperately wanting to stay in the Oakley area, she had jumped at her best friend’s offer, agreeing to help out behind the bar in return for board. That had been over a year ago, and to Robyn’s mind it had all been working out perfectly.
Until a few weeks ago, that is, when Matt had begun acting like a bear with a sore head, stomping around the place by day, and keeping out of her way in the flat where before they had shared movie nights and box set binges.
“What did you say?” Robyn repeated. She knew she was pushing it, and behind the bar at a seemingly make-or-break event was hardly the time or place, but his off hand, passive aggressive comment had her back up and she was never one to pussyfoot around things. At least she thought she wasn’t, until recently.
What if he was sick of having her here and she had outstayed her welcome? That had been Robyn’s biggest worry and one she had yet to find the courage to broach with Matt.
“Isn’t it funny how Janet was right under Brin’s nose the whole time? That they lived in the same village for years as friends and didn’t realise they wanted something more, much more, until recently?” His tone was bitter as he referred to the newly-engaged, older couple currently dancing by the stage, seeing only each other.
“I suppose so,” Robyn wished now that she hadn’t pushed for an answer.
“How do you think they realised it? That they were meant to be more than friends?” Matty’s tone was softer now, and he was standing so close that Robyn could smell the aftershave she’d bought him for his birthday.
“Um, I guess there was an attraction they couldn’t deny,” Robyn whispered, a strange feeling, like the butterflies she got in her stomach before singing, filling her.
“Yes, like an invisible thread or a chemical reaction,” Matt continued, the intensity of his gaze boring holes in her, “one that couldn’t be denied any longer.”
Robyn matched him, stare for stare, unsure what to say.
“Two pints of lager and a lemonade and lime, please.”
And the moment was gone as Matt went to serve the next customer and Robyn felt the sudden need to clutch the banister as she went down the stairs to the beer cellar on legs that felt like jelly.
Clearly, the strange conversation was not over. Far from it, she felt, and Robyn knew she’d be lying to herself if she said she didn’t have an inkling what it was all about.
But would they ever make a move that could ultimately threaten their friendship?
And would the friendship be lost anyway if they didn’t?
Chapter One
Things were not going well.
The clearing up from that night’s sixtieth birthday party had been done in decidedly uncomfortable silence. That is to say, no words were actually spoken between the pair but that didn’t stop there being a charged atmosphere between the two of them which had both feeling acutely aware of the other. Not that he wasn’t always aware of her, though, following the scent of her jasmine perfume around the place like a lost puppy, never more lonely than when she was out visiting one of her friends.
Matt shook his head, feeling his bun slip down the back of his neck. He had wondered for a while if he should just get his hair chopped, back into a more conventional style. Maybe that would shock Robyn into noticing him as a man and not just as her flatmate, employer and best friend – so many labels but none of them the one he wanted. He scraped a hand through the rough stubble at his chin, chancing a glance behind him as she wiped down the last of the tables.
Robyn had looked stunning that afternoon, despite the vintage 1980s lurid pink dress she had worn to match the other three women in the vocal group. She had always been petite, and the faux satin number seemed to swamp her small frame, but regardless of what the woman wore, Matt found his eyes always drawn to her like a moth to a flame. He quickly turned back to wrapping the wires at the back of the makeshift stage, lest she caught him gawking. What she lacked in stature, his Robyn made up for with her feisty demeanour and he certainly didn’t want to get her back up like he had earlier.
Matt hadn’t meant to ask the self-pitying, spontaneous question about her noticing his existence but something in him had snapped. Watching Janet and Brin so in love for all to see had soured Matt’s mood more than he’d like to admit even to himself. Would Robyn ever notice him the way he wanted her to? Would their friendship survive it if she rejected him in that way? – That was the only doubt stopping him from sharing his true feelings, though denying himself the chance to be honest with her was becoming harder by the hour it seemed. Living so closely but trying to keep his intentions platonic was proving more difficult by the day.
Hence why Matt had been keeping his distance for the past few weeks, taking to his bedroom early in the evening rather than cosying up on the sofa with Robyn to watch television, as was their usual routine. She had noticed, of course, she’d have to be a robot not to be aware of the sudden chill in the domestic atmosphere, but had yet to call him out on it. As bright a woman as Robyn was, Matt couldn’t believe she could be so obtuse as to not realise the reason for his bad mood. But then, she wasn’t a mind reader any more than he was, and they had got along perfectly as best friends for years.
That had been when his feelings towards her had been more controllable, though, when Matt could shove them back down into the box he’d labelled ‘My Robyn’ only to be opened in his alone time.
“All done? I think I’ll have a bath, my legs are aching,” Robyn came up behind him, laying a tentative hand on his shoulder. Gone were the days when she would’ve run up and hugged him from behind without a second thought, and Matt knew his current mood was responsible for that. He sank further into his melancholic state, feeling very sorry for himself.
How pathetic, his internal voice chastised him, but aloud he said simply, “Cool, yep, you go on and I’ll lock up.”
Their routines, their mannerisms with each other until recently, had been to all intents and purposes those of a happily married couple, and Matt had lost count of the number of times he’d wished that was really the case. As it was, they were settled down without any of the intimacies of actually being in a relationship.
Matt wasn’t sure how many more nights he could lie in his own bed, at the other end of the landing from Robyn’s room, unable to sleep from the th
Robyn trudged up the narrow staircase behind the bar, her feet heavy and her heart heavier. Not for the first time that day, she felt tears spring up unexpectedly, having to force them back until she was safely locked in the bathroom. The last thing she needed was Matt asking why she was upset – after such a joyful celebration as well – since Robyn had no explanation to give him. None that wouldn’t come out as a confused mess anyway. The worry that she had outworn her welcome, that maybe the person she felt closest to in the world partly blamed her for the inn’s constant lack of profitability. That maybe Matt saw her as an irritation now, a distraction he could ill afford.
Robyn knew that Matt considered this his one last chance to prove himself. To show everyone that he may have dropped out of college, but that didn’t mean he was a failure at everything. No matter how many times Robyn had reassured her best friend that he simply hadn’t found his niche yet, that he had plenty of time to find the success he sought, it was still like talking to a brick wall. Matt saw the Olde Oak Tree Inn as the sole answer to attaining his father’s approval. Never mind that Dennis had known the old place was on its uppers when he left for Portugal, leaving the running of the place in his son’s hands. Never mind that he had never actually told Matt he didn’t believe in him. The problem was, that his dad had never explicitly told Matt that he was proud of him, either. Robyn had, many times over the past year and before, expressing her approval and pride at how hard Matt worked and how much more efficiently he’d got the place running. It all seemed to go in one ear and out the other, however, and the stress had clearly started to take its toll on her usually easy going flatmate.
Whether the pub was the sole cause of Matt’s distraction was another question entirely, and if she was honest one that Robyn didn’t really want to think about. Her friends had joked, of course, and Robyn herself had wondered on more than one occasion if there might be more to Matt’s attentions than simple friendship, but her mind was too afraid to go there. What she and Matt had worked – or at least it had until recently – and Robyn would never jeopardise that on a hunch. Besides that, though, she was still unsure of her own feelings. The pair lived in such close quarters, had always been affectionate and touchy-feely with one another, and so it was hard to untangle what was friendship and what might be… more.
One thing Robyn was increasingly aware of, though, was the fact that crunch time was nearing, whether she welcomed it or not. This had only ever been a temporary set up, meant to be a mutually beneficial agreement giving her a home and him some help until Robyn left their quiet village to pursue her singing career. So far, though, whenever Robyn had even so much as considered sending out feelers in that direction, she had been left with a feeling so hollow, so lost, that she had shut down her laptop and put it off for another day. Her ties to the Oakley area were strong, given that Robyn had never lived anywhere else and also that this was where her memories of her grandad were, and that was before she even thought about leaving Matty.
To pursue her dreams, she would have to push herself so far out of her comfort zone that it would be a tiny blip in her rearview mirror, but to be honest Robyn wasn’t even sure that was what she wanted any more.
She took a long, hard look at herself in the bathroom mirror, her vision blurred by tears, a huge knot in her stomach.
Change was coming, but where would she end up?
Chapter Two
It had been a long week of skirting around each other, with hardly a customer to distract them from the constant awareness of the other. Meg had come to do her usual still life art class in the back room, the high winds and cold frosts of early winter putting off a third of her usual students. Nevertheless, she was in her usual good mood, which seemed to only highlight Robyn’s own miserable demeanour further.
“You okay?” Meg asked cautiously as she came to the bar to arrange December’s classes with Matt.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get him for you, he’s poring over the accounts again,” Robyn forced a smile.
“It’s a tricky time of year, I’m feeling it at the art shop too. Hoping to put on some Christmas gift-type bundles to attract the festive shoppers,” Meg said.
“Unfortunately, most of the year has been tricky in the pub trade,” Robyn shrugged her shoulders as if the topic of the old place’s finances hadn’t been weighing her and Matt down for months.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Could you organise a Christmas event? A clothes and book swap? Or even another live music evening or open mic night? Anything to bring the customers in.”
“That’s a good idea, I’ll…”
“What’s a good idea?” Matt asked, the air behind the bar becoming suddenly more electric.
“Meg was just making some suggestions to help with the, ah, to add to our list of festive events,” Robyn edged around the subject.
“Oh, well, those I would be eager to hear.”
Matt began discussing it with Meg as Robyn nodded her goodbye and slipped away. It would have to be a pretty big event to draw enough of the residents from both villages to make a dent in the inn’s income deficit, and with no spare cash to put up front towards costs…
“Ruby, do you have a moment?” It was Matt’s nickname for her, had been as long as she could remember, and it cut through Robyn’s financial musings.
“I, ah, yes, was it something in particular?” Robyn asked, a sudden zing of awareness coursing through her as Matt came to stand beside her in the pub kitchen, at the back of the building.
“Yeah, I thought we could pick up where Meg left off and jot down some ideas. I know we’re limited, but I feel we have to try something, one last stand…”
Meg heard the words but couldn’t focus on them as he reached behind her to get two coffee cups out of the top cabinet. The feel of his hand as it brushed past her cheek, not touching, but oh so close. The familiar smell of him… Robyn felt suddenly lightheaded and had to clutch the countertop for support.
“Tea or coffee? Are you still on the matcha kick?”
“Huh?”
“What would you like?”
“Like?” Robyn found herself so distracted by her body’s reaction that she really wasn’t following the conversation at all, “From you?”
Matt heard himself swallow loudly in the charged silence that followed, the cups clattering onto the bench as if forgotten, as he shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her. With her head tipped to the side like that, her hair all falling over her cheek and her huge brown eyes fixed on his, it was all he could do not to lean in and touch her mouth with his. He wasn’t sure what question Robyn thought he had asked, but he could bet it didn’t have to do with hot drinks.
“From you?” She repeated, licking her lips. It was an innocent movement, but the corresponding reaction he felt in his body was anything but and Matt shuffled from side to side uncomfortably.
“A drink,” he croaked, his voice that of a parched man. Which he was, but not in the way that a coffee was going to relieve. “A hot drink, I saw you put the kettle on.”
“Oh! Yes, I’ll get one of my herbal tea bags, thanks.”
And so the moment was broken and Matt focused his hands on pouring the boiling water – a task which required a lot more concentration than usual, broken only by the soft feel of her hand touching his as she dropped the teabag into her cup. He hurried to put the kettle back down, in case his own shaking hands caused either of them an injury, and focused on adding the coffee granules to his own cup. A double heap was what was required in this moment, he decided, because of course a hit of caffeine would calm his body back down… Matt let out a shuddering breath, forgetting for a split second that she was still in the room, carrying her cup to the battered, farmhouse kitchen table.
