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Tasha waited until Declan had left the canteen then stood up and grabbed her iPad and keys. She needed to get back to the lodge and call Simon and find out what the hell was going on. She got as far as the door then stopped. What was the point? Nothing she said was going to make any difference and if she pushed him too far he’d just turn the tables on her and demand to know why she wasn’t working harder to find out more information from the Travers family about the estate. He might decide he was wasting his time and pull her out of there, and then she’d be leaving them in the lurch. Too many people were relying on her. Rhys was relying on her. She needed to bite her tongue and get through the Easter peak at least. By then she might have calmed down enough to have a rational conversation with Simon.
Somehow, she doubted it.
24
‘Ask Tasha to give me a call when she has a minute,’ Rhys’s mother said as he was sitting at the table eating breakfast. ‘The spa supplier has sent some oil diffuser samples and I think they’d make a nice addition to the glamping units.’
‘You could call her yourself,’ Rhys pointed out, scooping up a spoonful of cereal as he hid a smile. He was heading over to see her as soon as he’d finished eating, but he hadn’t said as much.
‘Oh, I know but you’re bound to see her before I have a chance.’ It surprised him how easily his relationship with Tasha had been accepted by everyone. Not that they’d announced it or anything, but the amount of time he was spending at the lodge had made it obvious to the rest of the family. None of them had spoken to him about it, they’d just started using him as a messenger.
Rowena reached across the table to cover his hand with her own. ‘We must have dinner, the four of us, some time. After Easter, maybe, when it’s a bit quieter.’
After Easter. It had become a bit of a talisman phrase for the family, something to cling onto in the middle of the madness. It was Good Friday and the hotel was fully booked and the campsite at near capacity. The local advertising campaigns had also worked a treat and there were queues every morning when they went to open the gates. There’d been a couple of complaints from local residents in the village, but mainly from the London set who thought they’d bought themselves an idyllic weekend home and didn’t appreciate the disruption. As for the rest? Iain had started opening the pub at 6a.m. to offer a breakfast service for early-bird arrivals, while Martha and Joe had taken on extra temporary staff so they could keep both the shop in the village and their smaller satellite store on the estate open longer. Even the church ladies had got in on the act and had set up a tea and coffee stand in the car park of the village hall with all funds raised going towards new toys and books for the Sunday school.
With so many people about, Rhys and his team had moved the animals to the quieter pastures on the estate. They’d also increased the number of checks they did to make sure the gates and fences were secure and to keep an eye out for any food unwitting visitors might have left and to try and minimise rubbish dropped by the less considerate ones.
As he pulled into the campsite car park, Rhys was pleased to see the queue of people trailing from the door of the shop, waiting for their turn. He parked in one of the few available spaces and walked to the front of the queue. Smiling at the woman waiting by the door, he excused himself and stuck his head past her. ‘Everything all right, Joe?’
Joe glanced up from the counter and gave him a wave. ‘Fine and dandy, thanks!’
‘I’m around and about today, so if you need anything give me a shout.’
‘Will do.’ Joe gave him a thumbs up.
Rhys thanked the woman in the queue once again then headed across the car park towards the path to the lodge, hoping he was early enough to catch Tasha for a cup of coffee. Maybe even a kiss or two if he played his cards right.
He was halfway down the path when he caught sight of her, dressed in a lemon-yellow T-shirt and some kind of cropped trousers that ended mid-calf. She’d pulled her hair into a high ponytail that bounced and swayed as she walked. Rhys stopped and waited for her to spot him, his heart giving a little jump at the way she lit up when she saw him. ‘I was hoping to scrounge a cup of coffee, but I see I’m too late,’ he said, bending to kiss her.
‘I just wanted to make sure everything was okay at the campsite.’
‘There’s a decent queue at the shop, but everyone was in good spirits as far as I could see.’ He put his arm around Tasha’s waist and tugged her close. ‘Are you sure you can’t spare me five minutes?’
She laughed. ‘I suppose so. Come on, then.’
They walked hand in hand through the dappled sunlight. The trees were filling out and everywhere were signs of life from the singing of the birds in the branches to the wildflowers spreading through the undergrowth. They reached the point where the path diverged towards the lodges, the onward route that would’ve taken them to the walking trails blocked off by crowd-control barriers that had been installed to keep visitors to the illuminated trail on the right track. As they walked into the lodge, Tasha pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and set it on the table. ‘Can you fill the coffee machine with water?’ she asked. ‘I’ve got something for you upstairs.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come up and get it?’ Rhys asked her with a grin, though he was already walking into the kitchen area to fill the water reservoir for the machine.
She stopped on the stairs and looked down at him. ‘Nice try! But I really do only have fifteen minutes to spare before I must get on.’
He leaned his elbows on the counter and grinned up at her. ‘You’d be surprised at what I can achieve in fifteen minutes.’ Her laughter filled the air.
Rhys was setting mugs on the counter and taking out the pods for the machine when Tasha’s mobile started ringing. He went and picked it up, not recognising the number. ‘Juniper Meadows Camping, good morning.’
‘Oh, yes, hello. We’re in the bottom end of the car park and the car next to us is at a really awkward angle and we can’t get out without risking hitting it.’
‘Okay, hang on one sec.’ Rhys looked up at Tasha, who’d returned from upstairs and was clutching a carrier bag. ‘Someone’s blocked in at the campsite.’
‘I’ve got registrations for everyone in the database – have a look.’
Rhys glanced at the handset, but it was password protected. ‘It’s locked. Look, it’ll be quicker if you do it. I’ll run up there and try and keep them calm.’ It wasn’t that he thought she couldn’t handle it, but things like parking had a tendency to irritate people and he wanted to be on hand to defuse any tempers.
She took the phone from him with a nod, switching it to speaker-phone mode as she apologised to the woman at the other end and began tapping at the screen.
He was panting a little as he broke through the trees and stopped to survey the car park. Bottom end, she’d said… A couple were standing near one of the floral displays Tasha had installed. The man had his hands on his hips and even from a distance Rhys could sense the impatience radiating off him. The woman standing beside him was holding a toddler in her arms, a slightly older child nearby. Rhys raised his hand and waved to get their attention as he began to jog towards them. ‘Hello,’ he called as soon as he was in earshot. ‘Are you the ones who called about the parking issue?’
‘Look at the state of this!’ The man wasn’t shouting, not quite, but he was clearly unhappy. ‘We wanted to make a head start before the traffic gets too busy and now we’ll be stuck behind every bank holiday crawler on the roads.’
