Authors of Main Street

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The romance that broke their heart on WIP Wednesday

A common trope in most genres is the relationship in the past that failed–the man or woman who broke our protagonist’s heart (or, at least, they thought so at the time). It’s particularly common in romance, and this week I’m inviting you to share an excerpt when this past relationship is mentioned.

I’ve got an excerpt from The Gingerbread Caper, which I’ve just finished. Woohoo! In my excerpt, my heroine actually finds an old boyfriend… well, you’ll see.

What Meg saw when she opened the kitchen door brought her to a halt. For a moment, she thought of screaming for Patrick’s help, but then she recognized the man searching through the drawer of the desk where Aunt Margaret planned menus, recipes, and cake decorations.

“Sam Thurston, as I live and breathe. Put those down and step away from the desk.”

The invader turned, the boyish grin already in place, the grey-green eyes calculating behind the dark-rimmed glasses. “Meg Fotheringham. How delightful to see you. How have you been keeping? I follow your career, you know. Have you sold your first million yet?”

Meg ignored the provocation. “What are you doing here, Sam?”

“Looking up an old friend. We had some good times, Meg, didn’t we?”

Yes, until Meg discovered that he was seeing their manager on the side. They’d both been under a six month contract to the same newspaper, new graduates with shiny new journalism degrees. When she challenged him, he’d told her that sleeping with the boss was business, and didn’t affect how he felt about Meg. He was just making sure he was front runner for a permanent position.

He’d got it, too, but he’d lost Meg.

Had there ever been a time that she’d enjoyed his refusal to take anything seriously? “You’ve seen me. You know where the door is. Close it on your way out.”

Instead, he hooked his foot around a stool leg and dragged it close enough to sit on. “Harsh,” he commented. “I’ve driven all this way. Surely you can grant me a few minutes?”

Meg probed the once tender place that his betrayal had left and found nothing but irritation. Had she truly once fallen for this git? “Then you no doubt came with a purpose. Get on with what you want, Sam. The sooner I say no, the sooner you get out of here. I’ve a lot to do this evening.”

She pulled a pot from the stack under the workbench and measured the butter into it, then added the brown sugar and the molasses. She set the spices ready next to the stove, turned on an element, and measured the dry ingredients into bowl.

“I wouldn’t say no to a coffee,” Sam suggested.

“The pub down the road serves a good brew. I’m busy, Sam.” She moved the pot to the element, and began to stir, clattered the spoon with more force than needed, enjoying the way he winced at the noise. If he thought their personal history meant he was a frontrunner for interviewing her, he had another think coming.

Not that she had would-be interviewers coming out of her ears. She sighed. Maybe she should be nicer to him. “Who are you working for now, anyway?”

“Myself, darling. I’m freelancing for a number of publications, and I think you’re sitting on a story we could sell at the highest level. Maybe The Listener or Metro. Maybe even one of the English dailies. Come on! You know you could do with the exposure.”

There went any inclination to be nice. “Sam, get to the point or get out.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I know what’s going on with your Aunt Margaret. I know where she is, and I know what she’s been doing.”

That’s what this was about? Aunt Margaret? “Good for you.” Which explained why he was ratting around Aunt Margaret’s desk, though what he thought was newsworthy about the contents remained a mystery.

“So which was it? MI5? MI6? NID? I know she’s in London doing a television expose of her life undercover, Meg.”

Meg, who had just added the spices to the pot on the stove, stopped mid-stir. He thought Aunt Margaret was a spy? She forced her voice to sound calm and indifferent, though tinged with real amusement. “Really, Sam? You are letting your imagination run away with you.”

Sam pounced. “Where is she, then?”

In her profession, they called the transition from journalist to public relations crossing to the dark side. An experienced journalist took with them into their new career all the techniques honed during hundreds of interviews and used them to answer the questions they wished the journalist had asked while ignoring the ones actually used.

For the briefest of moments, she was tempted to answer with the truth: In London with a television crew. But that would just confirm him in his mistake.

Meg stirred the dry ingredients into the melted mix in the pot, focusing on that while she thought about an answer that would deflect Sam. No point in telling any part of the truth. For one thing, Sam wouldn’t believe her. For another, she had promised to keep Aunt Margaret’s errand a secret until it was announced, just before Christmas. If she gave Sam half an inch of the truth, he’d keep pulling till he had the whole yard.

A straight refusal is best. One he can’t make anything of.

“Sam, I’m going to tell you one fact, and nothing more. You’re wrong. I’ll say no more than that. Aunt Margaret’s reasons for going away are her own, and nobody else’s business. Now go away and let me get on with the work.”

He cajoled, coaxed, claimed ‘the public have a right to know’, became horridly insulting about her past and present career. Meg let it wash over her as she rolled gingerbread out on baking paper, laid her pattern pieces on it, cut around them with a sharp knife, and slid the baking paper onto an oven slide. And repeat. She was making small squares, about 3 inches a side, which she would turn into miniature houses as a test of her favurite recipe in this oven, before she made the main piece. The houses would become a village clustered below her planned castle.

Ignoring Sam wasn’t working, so she repeated her last few words over and again, like a broken record. “I’ll say no more, Sam. Go away and let me get on with the work.”

In the end, he left. That wouldn’t be the last of it, of course. He smelled a story and would keep chasing it. He’d interview anyone who would speak to him. But Aunt Margaret had told no one but Meg why she was heading to England, so all he’d get was the story Aunt Margaret had told—of an urgent request from an old friend—and their speculations.

Meanwhile, with the gingerbread in the oven, Meg had a lodger to feed and more baking to do.

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Comedy on WIP Wednesday

I love to read well-written comedy. Terry Pratchett is one of my favourite writers. In our favourite genre, Sally McKenzie is hilarious, Sophie Barnes can make me giggle, and Lorraine Heath is great at setting two unlikely people at one another’s heads for comedic effect. They’re just a few of the writers I enjoy. I’ve just read Amy Quinton’s latest Umbrella Chronicles story for next year’s Bluestocking Belles’ box set, and chuckled all the way through.

I’m not naturally a comedy writer, though I like to include wry humour in my books, and comedic moments. This week, I’m inviting you to post an excerpt in which you use humour. Mine is from my contemporary novella for Authors of Main Street, The Gingerbread Caper, which is as near as I’ve got to romantic comedy.

Patrick slept for the rest of the afternoon, waking disoriented in the unfamiliar room. He rolled onto his back and lay for a while, reorienting himself. He was in Valentine Bay, in a comfortable bed in a charming upstairs flat that looked out to the sea across the pohutaukawa trees that fringed the beach. He had nothing to do except relax and get well for at least the six weeks’ leave his doctor and manager had both ordered him to take. The time was — he turned his head to check the digital clock on the bedside table — just after six o’clock. The landlady was what he’d heard described as a pintsized Venus, who presence robbed him of sense, language, and—almost—breath.

The last circumstance very nearly cancelled out all the benefits of the accommodation and the location.

He sighed. He would need to grow accustomed, and he had better start by having a quick shower and getting downstairs for his dinner. With Meg Fotheringham.

He came out of the shower to find Mr. Major asleep on his bed, curled up on top of the clean underthings and t-shirt he’d left ready. Surely he had put the cat out before he lay down?

He’d told Meg he liked cats, which was something of an exaggeration. He had little experience of animals, having lived all his adult life in city apartments or boarding houses that didn’t allow them.

“How did you get in, cat?” The cat didn’t acknowledge him by so much as a twitch. Patrick made to tug the clothes out from beneath the beast and felt a sting as Mr. Major shot out a paw and sunk four sharp claws into his hand. One slitted eye glared at him, and the cat emitted a fierce yowl, half-way between a growl and a meow.

Patrick stifled his own yowl, and used one finger of the other hand to carefully detach the claws, whipping both hands out of reach just in time to miss an repeat engagement. Jumping backwards caused the towel he’d wrapped round him to slip, and he caught it before it dropped all the way to the floor. He wasn’t about to evict the cat without at least the semblance of some protection.

“Off my clothes, cat,” he menaced. Mr. Major tucked itself back into a curl, one paw over its nose. Both eyes remained open a slit to watch what Patrick meant to do next.

“Alright. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Patrick stripped back the blanket that covered the bed, tipping cat and clothes onto the floor. The cat swore at him—tone and glare quite unmistakeable—and shot under the bed.

Patrick retrieved his clothes. At least they weren’t covered in cat hair. He picked a few errant hairs off the dark background of the t-shirt and dressed, ignoring the feline under the bed.

Ready to go downstairs, he took a quick look around the place, searching for an opening that might have allowed the cat in, and that would let it out again. The window in the bathroom was over a sheer drop. Two other windows had catches that allowed only an inch or so of opening.

He addressed the cat. “How did you do it?” Twenty past six. He’d better hurry. He stooped, and met the cat’s amber eyes. It was up against the wall at the head of the bed—too far to reach even if he’d been prepared to have his hands shredded.

“If you misbehave while I’m out, I’ll make a hat out of you,” he threatened.

When he opened the door, the cat shot out, almost tripping him over at the top of the stairs. He caught himself, and followed the fiend downstairs.

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Building empathy on WIP Wednesday

You have a dilemma. Your fellow has some problems, or he’s not at all interesting (and the story is over a few paragraphs after it starts). But you want your audience to like him, or at least to feel empathy for him. He needs to do something selfless, or nice, or just plain sweet. Maybe he gives flowers to old ladies or dances with wallflowers or says nice things to our shy heroine or plays ball with children. How about using the comments to show me an excerpt of an empathy scene? Mine is from Abbie’s wish. Ethan remembers rescuing his cat.

Boss was up for a ride. Like all cats, she was territorial, sticking to the place she loved best. Unlike most, her territory comprised the Triumph and Ethan. Had ever since Ethan had rescued her and her brother, two scrawny kittens tossed into a deep drain and left to die. Ethan took them home inside his jacket and stayed up all night feeding them the goat’s milk preparation he’d found on the Internet. The brother didn’t make it. Boss got her name from the pre-emptory demands she was making when Ethan returned inside after removing the frail body of the dead kitten.

Boss thrived on frequent feeds, graduating from an eye dropper to a baby’s bottle and then to tinned kitten food and biscuits. She lived in Ethan’s pocket, or around Ethan’s shoulders, or in the pannier bags of the Triumph as Ethan moved from job to job, getting experience but never finding a place he wanted to settle. Two years on, Boss was a magnificent beast; at least, Ethan thought so. Tucked inside Ethan’s jacket as they cruised the highway out to Valentine Bay, she mostly slept, but poked her nose out from time to time, her eyes shut and her hair and whiskers streaming back in the wind.

 

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Summertime reading from Authors of Main Street

We’re a few days out from the publication of Summer Romance on Main Street, more than 150,000 words with six novellas and another to come in an update.

I had a quick skim through an advance copy this morning when the publisher asked us all to take a look for layout issues, and was wildly tempted to stop and read. It’s a treat to come! Here are the blurbs. Don’t miss out on this lovely summer treat for only 99c.

FORGET ME NOT | Carol DeVaney

When guilt, grief, and love collide, Sarah Hall walks away from the only man she ever loved—five years later, after a chance meeting brings them together again, blame and a regretful judgement fall away.

Ted West’s short-lived marriage left him with a four-year-old daughter to raise alone. The latest misunderstanding cannot mend the hurt and harsh words between Ted and Sarah, unless forgiveness steps in.

RETREAT, INTERRUPTED | Jill James

A woman running from her past mistakes, a man buried by his doubts of the future, and a dying town that needs them both.
Will Cassie and Ben find all the answers they seek in the last place they expected?

BEACHED | Jude Knight

Grieving for the grandparents who raised her and still bruised from betrayals in New York City, Nikki Watson returns to her childhood home in Valentine Bay.

Zee Henderson has built a new life in New Zealand: friends, a job he enjoys and respect he earned for himself, without the family name and money he left behind.

The attraction between Nikki and Zee flames into passion, until Zee’s past arrives on their doorstep and washes away their coastal paradise.

THAT SONG IN PANTAGONIA | Kristy Tate

When Adrienne discovers her husband, Seb, has been unfaithful, the illusion of her perfect life is indelibly shattered and she flees. Nick, a shop owner who suddenly finds himself the center of media attention, follows.

They both escape to Latin America for different reasons. Adrienne is tired turning a blind eye to her husband’s affairs. Nick trails after her, not only because he’s become an overnight YouTube sensation and he doesn’t know how to handle it, but also because he’s secretly been in love with Adrienne, his cousin’s wife, for years.

Two people with hurting hearts and unrealized dreams explore the streets of Buenos Aires and the South American countryside, and it changes them both forever. And what they find in each other is something that might just heal them both.

50 MILES AT A BREATH | Lizzi Tremayne

A summertime stint at a small animal clinic takes veterinary student Lena away from her beloved horses, but at an endurance ride she finds horses—and her ideal man, veteran pilot Blake. She decides she can’t do without him and his world— after finishing vet school, that is.

They fall in love and Lena heads back to far-off vet school, but distance and her studies don’t help their relationship any. Then disaster strikes, with her graduation at stake. To make things worse, Blake’s increasing jealousy, fueled by his past experiences, strain the already-tense situation.

The final race tests not only the horse’s endurance, but Lena’s and Blake’s, as well. The pair must come to terms with their fears and make the right choices to create the future they so desire.

IN PLAIN SIGHT | Leigh Morgan

Summer O’Hara stumbles upon an international jewelry thief in small-town Door County, Wisconsin and pays for it with her life. Or does she? As her family searches to uncover the mystery behind her death they find that romance and valuables are often hidden in plain sight.

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Landscapes and surroundings on WIP Wednesday

I find descriptions hard to write, but stories need them. Our readers want to be able to drop themselves into the scene, and authors need to give them at least a few clues.

This week, I’m inviting writers to drop a description into the comments. Mine is from Beached, which is coming out next week in the box set Summer Romance on Main Street.

The shape of the harbor had given Valentine Bay its name: a heart on its side. A gap at the eastern point provided entrance to the harbor. On the western side, directly opposite, the wharves and moorings of the fishing port occupied a rocky promontory between two gently curved beaches. North Beach was currently undeveloped farm and bush land, though the planned hotel would change that. On the shores of South Beach, the settlement spread from the fishing port around the curve of the southern lobe of the heart and beyond, stretching partway along the road that led to the historic lighthouse at the harbor entrance.

Most of the shops in Valentine Bay lined one side of Beach Road or the other. That hadn’t changed. The shops themselves had—in her childhood, there’d been half a dozen businesses offering services and products to the locals and the rare visitor. A dairy, a fish and chip shop, a general store, a bakery, a book shop that also sold stationery and gifts, a garage with petrol pumps out the front and a workshop out the back. If any of those survived, they had gone upmarket to match the twenty or so others that now extended the shopping area far beyond the boundaries she remembered.

On the coast side of the road, the shops, cafes and restaurants backed onto the beach reserve, a wide stretch of lawn with picnic tables and public barbecue stations scattered among the pohutukawa trees and plantings of tough flax and ornamental grasses.

The businesses on the other side backed into the hill, no longer half farmland, but split up into residential lots with an eclectic mix of houses: Victorian villas cheek-by-jowl with modern beach extravaganzas and little square mid-20th century holiday houses, or baches as they were known here in New Zealand’s North Island.

 

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Spotlight on Summer Romance

 

I’m delighted to announce that volume 1 of Summer Romance on Main Street, with my novella Beached as one of six stories of summertime love, will be released on 15 June. US 99c is terrific value for more than 150,000 words, so grab it now. Click on my novella title for buy links and my blurb, or read on for an excerpt.

“There.” Dave turned off the tap, and dropped a handful of dirty implements into the soapy water. “I’ll boil a kettle to give the silver beet a head start when the girls arrive. A river cruise could suit you, Zee. No waves.”

Zee used the dish mop he’d just picked up to flick some soap suds at Dave. He’d never live down the condition in which he’d landed in Valentine Bay, but the teasing from his workmates was good natured.

At the sink, he had a good view of the big turning zone outside the triple garage. He glanced up idly when the Masterton people mover drew up, then froze, his hands hovering above the hot water. Nicola Watson? What was Global Earth Watch’s gun attorney doing in Valentine Bay? He’d last seen her on television, leaving the courtroom in which she had just lost her case against O’Neal Hotel Corporation. A loss aimed at destroying GEW’s credibility and that had been orchestrated in a plot between Miss Watson’s colleague and fiancé and Zee’s brother, Patrick O’Neal.

Discovering the machinations had been the final straw that precipitated Zee’s flight from his career, his family, his trust fund, his name, and the United States.

“She’s a stunner, isn’t she?” Dave said, and Zee accepted the excuse for looking as if he’d been bashed across the side of the head. Though he’d known the lovely Miss Watson was a New Zealander, he’d not known she was here in her home country. He had certainly not known that her family owned a house in the fishing village where he’d come ashore.

“She sure is. A lawyer, I think you said?” He finished scrubbing the brush across the base of the pot and put it on the rack for Dave to dry. Would she know who he was? They’d never met, and he didn’t court the camera the way his father and half-brothers did. Nor did he look like the other O’Neals, red hair to their black, finer boned, with his mother’s grey eyes. Any family resemblance needed another O’Neal for comparison.

If she realized who he was, he would tell her he was not an O’Neal anymore, if he ever really had been. One of his last acts in repudiating the family had been to legally change his surname back to the one on his birth certificate; his mother’s name. And if Ms. Watson didn’t know who he was, he wouldn’t say anything that would sour the evening for Becky and Dave.

He’d made his decision just in time, as the two women came into the kitchen from the mud room—back porch, the New Zealanders would say.

Becky went straight into her husband’s arms for the kiss with which they always greeted one another, turning her head to make the introductions from that safe harbor.

“Niks, this is our lodger, Zee Henderson. He lives above the garage.”

Ms. Watson showed none of the hostility she owed an O’Neal, offering instead a friendly smile and a hand to shake. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Henderson.”

“Zee, please,” Zee begged. “If anyone calls me Mr. Henderson, I look around for my grand-dad.”

Nikki crossed the room to greet Dave with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, Becky having left her husband to check on the status of the dinner. “You’re an American,” she observed to Zee.

“Guilty, as charged.”

“Niks works in New York,” Becky observed. She touched the kettle, decided it was hot enough, and poured some water into the waiting pot. “Or, at least, she used to. Have you ever been there, Zee?”

“I sailed from New York.” Zee grimaced. “Turned out to be a bad idea.”

Nikki looked from Zee to Becky. “Why? What happened?”

“He gets sea sick,” Dave explained. “By the time the boat berthed in Valentine Bay, he’d been sea sick for six months. He staggered off onto the wharf, took hold of a bollard, and swore he was never leaving land again.”

Becky took up the story. “So Dave brought him home, and the New Zealand Immigration Service gave him a new name, and a year later here he is.”

Nikki raised one elegant brow. Close up and in person, she was even more gorgeous than on television, her face devoid of makeup and not needing it, her long hair caught back casually with a couple of hair slides and a clip. “Gave you a new name?”

“My name is Zachary Henderson, ma’am. Only the immigration officer thought I said Thackeray. When I told him ‘zee’ for ‘Zulu ’, Dave thought it was hilarious.” New Zealanders called the last letter of the alphabet ‘Zed’. “Around here, they’ve been calling me ‘Zee’ ever since.”

“Except when we call him Drift,” Dave corrected.

Nikki’s eyes sparkled. “Short for driftwood?”

“Right,” Zee agreed, as he let the water go and wiped out the sink. There. Becky liked to start a meal with a clean kitchen, and Dave liked her to be happy. “I’m beached, and that’s the way I plan to stay.”

“There are worse places than Valentine Bay to be beached.” Nikki had taken the drying cloth from Dave’s hand, had dried the last of the pans, and was putting them away, clearly familiar with Becky’s kitchen.

“There are few better,” Zee said. And the place was improved by having her in it. New Zealand had a worldwide reputation for scenic wonders, and she was certainly that!

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Correspondence on WIP Wednesday

 

For an author, correspondence can be handy, letting us tell the reader a bit of backstory without beating them around the head with it. Of course, this presumes a certain context — literacy, for a start. But in the historic novels I write, I use notes and letters quite a bit. In contemporaries, the equivalent would be a text message or an email.

This week, I have a piece for you from my latest contemporary, a novella for the Authors of Main Street summer collection: Summertime on Main Street Volume 1. In Beached, my hero has become estranged from his family, but is writing to his father.

Feel free to post your extracts in the comments. I’d love to read them.

The email took a long time to write. Zee knew what he needed to say, but the words didn’t come easily. Twice, he deserted his laptop to do other things — take Oliver out for a walk, do a bit of cleaning around the apartment, catch up on his laundry, set dinner simmering in the slow cooker. In the end, he thought he had it. Reading it over carefully, he adjusted a few words here and there, went to send, then changed his mind and resaved as a draft.

Stop procrastinating, you idiot.

It was as good as it was going to get. He opened the draft and clicked on the send button before he could have second — no, nineteenth or twentieth thoughts.

 

Hi Dad

It’s Drew here. I should have been in touch long ago. In fact, I shouldn’t have stormed off without first talking to you. And I’m going to admit straight up front that I’d still be putting off writing if I didn’t want something.

First, the apology. I knew fairly early on that you couldn’t have been involved in Pat’s conspiracy with that guy at Global Earth Watch. It just isn’t your style, or Michael’s either. I’m sorry I didn’t figure that out before I blew up.

That wasn’t why I left, though it was the trigger for the timing. I’d been thinking of trying something else, outside of O’Neal Hotel Corporation, for quite a while. I needed to see if I could make it on my own. I should have talked to you about that, too. Looking back, I can see that you’ve always supported all of us to do what we thought was right for us. You might have argued — probably would have. But just to be sure I’d thought things through, and then I would have had your blessing to make my own decision.

I’m sorry for judging you and getting it wrong.

I’ve been living in New Zealand, which I expect you knew. And I’m guessing you knew I’ve gone back to my old name. Zachary Henderson, not Andrew O’Neal. When Grandma and I decided to change my name back when I first came to live with you, you understood it was part of me trying to fit in. I hope you’ll understand that I needed to be that guy again, and see what he could grow into without the corporation and the O’Neal history behind him.

But, as Grandma always said, family is family. I like being Z. Henderson of Valentine Bay, New Zealand. But I’ll also always be an O’Neal. I needed some distance and the good friends I’ve found here to understand that.

Which brings me to my request. There’s a developer here who is building a hotel in a beautiful spot not far from where I live. Not a bad idea. The local economy would benefit from a properly designed and targeted project, one that respected the local community and the environment.

I have fears about the project as it stands, especially since Chow xxxx seems to be involved. I overheard him talking to the developer about bringing in his own labour, but his name appears nowhere in the publically available documentation, which is attached.

I have tried following the trail from the named investors to Chow. I’m sure there’s a connection, but I can’t find it. Would you put some people on to it? I’m happy to cover any costs.

Dad, I’d like to keep in touch. Give my love to the rest of the family, and feel free to pass on my email address.

 

How to sign off had bewildered him for a while. Just his name seemed far too cold. ‘Kind regards’ was too business like, and ‘Love’ was a step too far. He did love his father, and he knew his father loved him, but a male O’Neal didn’t talk about such things. In the end, he settled on ‘I miss you all, Drew’.

He hovered over the laptop, berating himself for expecting an instant reply. His father was a busy man, and might — in any case — need some time to come to terms with an out-of-blue contact from the prodigal son. But in less than fifteen minutes, the laptop dinged for an incoming message.

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Meet the villain on WIP Wednesday

Or villainess, of course. I have a fondness for female antagonists. An author has a lot of scope when introducing a villain. We might know straight away that he or she is the bad guy, or it might dawn on us over time, as we watch things go wrong for the hero and heroine.

I’d love to see an excerpt from your work-in-progress showing the antagonist’s first appearance in the book. Mine is from my contemporary novella, Beached. My heroine and her friend are having morning tea at a table on the footpath (sidewalk, you Americans) outside a cafe.

“Nicola Watson! Thought you’d have headed back to the bright lights of Noo York by now.” The speaker grabbed a chair from one of the other tables, and turned it back on to Nikki’s and Becky’s table before straddling it. “Checking out the old home town, eh? Quite a bit bigger than when you were here last.”

Pencil Kenworth. Sunglasses hid his eyes, and a cloth sunhat masked his bald patch, but if she hadn’t seen him at the funeral, she still would have recognised the raspy voice which hadn’t changed since he’d done his best to make her life miserable in high school.

Thank goodness for dear friends, who had turned tables on him. When she’d refused him a date, he’d told the whole school that she’d been abandoned by her mother and didn’t know her father. She’d laughed that off, but only until she heard his outrageous claim that he’d dated her back in Valentine Bay, had sex with her, and then dropped her because she cheated on him with anyone who would pay her fee. That story was around the school before she heard it.

Becky and Dave took the lead in the revenge. Becky came up with some creative storytelling about the origin of Pencil’s nickname, linking it to the size and function of an appendage most male teenagers don’t want to have questioned. Dave, the captain of the first XV rugby team, enlisted his team mates to spread the tale in a whisper there and a snigger here. Since Kenworth was not much liked, people were happy to spread the tale, and soon convinced that he’d lied about Nikki in order to cover his own inability to perform.

By the end of the school year, she almost felt sorry for him, and she was relieved when he did not return the following year. He’d joined his father’s real estate firm, and their paths didn’t cross again. Though she heard that he’d put considerable effort into finding females who would allow him to demonstrate the falsity of the rumours about him.

Thirteen years later, he headed the firm, since his father had retired to focus on his duties as a district councillor, so Nikki was not surprised when he said, “I guess you need to sell the old house before you leave. Put it in my hands, and I’ll get you a good price, for old times sake. Of course, it needs a lot of work, but I’m sure I can find someone in the market for a fixer upper.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Nikki told him, “but I doubt if I will sell.”

“Keeping it for a rental, are you?” Pencil nodded, pursing his lips, his eyes narrowed as he considered this. “Not a bad idea. Paradise Bay is on the move, and the new hotel is going to put it on the map. You’ll need to do some work before it’s fit to live in, even if the rent’s cheap. Here, take my card. We manage property rentals. No need to worry your pretty little head about the place while we’re looking after it. In fact, I have some builders you can use — much cheaper than the Mastertons.”

Becky enquired sweetly, “Cheap like the apartments in Brayden Street?”

Pencil ignored her, continuing to address himself to Nikki. “You just give me a ring, Nicola. Or drop me an email.” He dropped his voice and leant towards her across the back of the chair. “I’m happy to make myself available to you at any time.” He waggled his eyebrows to underline the suggestive nature of the offer.

Thirteen years had not improved the man. It had, however, taught Nikki the futility of arguing with people like him. “I haven’t made a decision, Mr Kenworth. But thank you for the card. Good day to you.”

“Mr Kenworth? No need for such formality between old friends.” Pencil went to pat Nikki’s arm, caught her glare, and changed his mind. “Call me Pencil, like you used to.”

Margaret emerged from the shop with their tea on a tray: a teapot under a knitted cosy, two cups on saucers, a small jug of milk, and a bowl of sugar.

Pencil sneered. “You won’t appeal to the young crowd with that old fashioned stuff, Maggie. You need decent sized mugs and a good barista. Yes, and a coat of paint to brighten the place up. If you’d accept my offer—”

“Thank you, Margaret,” Becky interrupted. “That’s perfect.”

Pencil tapped Margaret on the arm. “You might as well fetch me a cup.”

Nikki decided to be firm. “I am sorry, Pencil. Becky and I were having a private conversation, and we’d like to continue it. Thank you for stopping by.”

Reluctantly, the man accepted his dismissal, cancelled his order for tea, and strolled off down the footpath, hitching the belt that curved under his belly as he went.

“The apartments in Brayden Street?” Nikki prompted as she watched him walk away.

“Pencil’s investment and a builder from xxx. They cut corners from the first. Designed to use minimum materials, used the cheapest materials, breached code when they could get away with it. Within two years they were being sued by purchasers.”

“Serves them right,” Nikki said. “I suppose they walked away with a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.”

Becky shrugged, her focus seemingly on the tea she was pouring, only the grim set of her jaw indicating her irritation. “The builder went bankrupt and started up again under another name. Pencil managed to slither out from under — convinced a judge that his only role was funding the project, and that he was as much a victim as any of the house owners.”

Nikki accepted the cup Becky passed. “Slippery as ever. What is he still doing in Paradise Bay? You’d think somewhere like Auckland or Wellington would offer him more scope. Or over the ditch in Sydney or Brisbane.”

“He spent several years across the Tasman,” Becky confirmed. “The story is he came home because his father needed him. There are other stories, but let’s not waste a perfectly nice day thinking about Pencil Kenworth. Are you really thinking about staying? And what do you plan to do with the house? It isn’t as bad as Pencil says, but it does need work.”

“Dave is sending over the luscious lodger to take a look,” Nikki said. “I’ll have a better idea once I know what needs to be done, and how much it might cost.”