The Turnaround Treasure Shop Read online

  The Turnaround Treasure Shop

  Jennie Jones

  www.escapepublishing.com.au

  The Turnaround Treasure Shop

  Jennie Jones

  Revisit Swallow’s Fall in this beautiful short novel from Jennie Jones about an ex-military man, a single mother and the impossibility of dreams coming true.

  Fatalistic, long divorced and doing her best to give her children a good life, Lily works two jobs in her hometown of Swallow’s Fall, saving every spare cent for the day she can lease the empty corner shop on Main Street. She longs to open it as Turnaround Treasures, a second-hand shop bursting with rescued country curios—but there aren’t enough spare cents and Lily’s dream is slipping away.

  Ex-Navy diver Nick Barton arrived in Swallow’s Fall a year ago to quietly reunite himself with civvy life. Recognising an instant attraction to Lily, Nick backed away fast. Given his track record of an unhappy ex-wife and the baggage that comes with a Special Forces career, Nick doesn’t think he stands a chance with shy, reserved Lily. He can’t be with her – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t see her.

  Lily has spent her whole life cheerfully giving to others. When Nick offers her the ultimate chance for a turnaround, will Lily’s fear of being ‘second hand’ ruin the opportunity of forever love for both of them?

  About the Author

  Born in Wales and now living in Australia, Jennie Jones loved everything with a romantic element from an early age. That’s why she became an actor before she started writing. She toured the UK in all the grand old theatres, becoming someone else for two hours, eight performances a week, and loved every second.

  Now, Jennie loves writing stories about adventures of the heart. She’s a self-confessed would-be small town country girl and longs for the day when she and her family can set up home in a cute country cottage in the middle of a huge field. Until then, Jennie is enjoying life a five minute walk to the beach. She can hear the ocean as she types her stories.

  She says writing keeps her artistic nature dancing and her imagination bubbling and, like acting, she can’t envisage a day when it will ever get boring.

  Acknowledgements

  My husband, John, for being an excellent and experienced custom knife maker (yes — he makes all our kitchen knives), for being involved in the military when we first got together and for retaining such a high regard for both occupations that it was easy to pick his brains for research. In fact, I had trouble stopping him talking in order to get on with my story.

  I would also like to send heartfelt thanks to Escape Publishing Managing Editor, Kate Cuthbert (I adore you and your expertise), and to the editors involved with my Swallow’s Fall stories so far: Kylie Mason, Pauline O’Carolan and Harlequin’s own Annabel Blay. You each need to know how much you taught me and how grateful I am for the knowledge imparted.

  Finally, my daughter, Liz, who refuses to read anything lovey-sexy I write but is still proud enough to say she knows me.

  For John

  Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishing…

  Chapter 1

  ‘Good morning.’ Lily Johnson didn’t look at Nicholas Barton, instead skimming her smile in the direction of the top of his head and off it again as fast as politely possible. Not that he noticed.

  ‘Morning, Lily,’ he said, dark head bowed to the breakfast plate she’d put on the table in front of him.

  He wore a dark green crewneck with a white T-shirt beneath, the sleeves of his sweater pushed up his arms, the way they always were. How he got through the Snowy Mountains climate without a coat, Lily didn’t know. Even summers weren’t exactly drenched in heat in this part of Australia, and autumn always had a nip in the air. He was hardly ever out of dark green or bark-brown colours. A throw-back to his armed-forces days, probably. The strong silent type — but not mean or standoffish — just reserved. Which suggested a caring nature, Lily had always thought.

  She moved to an empty table next to him and picked up a cruet set and a tomato sauce bottle, reminding herself to tell the young girl who’d worked Saturday night’s restaurant shift that she needed to make sure every table was set for the next day before leaving work.

  ‘There.’ She fussed with the salt and pepper, and straightened the napkin holder. ‘Enjoy,’ she said, wiping her hands onto her white apron and hoping the salutation sounded the way it did when she said it to every customer she served breakfast.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, in the same low-toned, unruffled manner he’d used to thank her for his weekend breakfasts for the last year.

  He picked up his knife and fork. His forearms were thick and toughened with muscle. Those muscles wouldn’t stop at his elbows, they’d go right up his arms to support his heavy-duty shoulders. It was all that muscle which probably kept his body temperature warmed.

  He looked up, his hooded leaf-green eyes holding an enquiry. ‘Everything all right?’

  Lily stumbled over her laugh. ‘Sorry. Daydreaming.’ Ouch. Daydreaming about Nick was taboo, and she didn’t want him knowing any of her taboo thoughts.

  She turned for the kitchen of Kookaburra’s Hotel, and fanned her blazing face. Nicholas Barton made her tremble. He’d been making her tremble for 12 months and no matter how hard she tried to put the moment behind her, the recollection of the awkward position she’d put him in at last years’ Easter Bunny Ball fried her brain every time she saw him. Like a splash of hot oil on the scalp.

  This year’s Ball was happening in two weeks’ time. Would he remember last year’s and stay clear? Or had he wiped the incident from his memory the way she wiped her hands on her apron? He was too much of a gentleman to have referred to it since, but sometimes Lily had the sense that behind his unflappable exterior, there was a zing of anticipation in the air between them. That was the bit that made Lily tremble.

  She pushed through the swing door from the restaurant to the kitchen and stepped into the warm hub of a hectic family-run business.

  ‘Everything okay out there?’, called Charlotte Bradford, looking up from her baking.

  ‘Room six wants coffee and croissants.’ Dan Bradford grinned at Lily. ‘And you’d better add some bacon — for sustenance.’

  ‘Onto it,’ Lily said, grinning back. Room six hadn’t emerged since they’d checked in the day before yesterday. Honeymooners.

  Lucky so-and-sos.

  ‘Mum.’

  Lily turned towards the voice. ‘What are you doing here, Andy? Where’s your sister?’

  ‘I’d prefer it if you called me Andrew.’

  Lily squashed the desire to give her son — Andrew Matthew Mark Johnson — a hug. Andy had turned 14 and had, in his own words ‘become a man’.

  ‘Where’s your sister, Andrew?’ she asked, emphasising his name in order to remove the bothered look on his face.

  ‘Over at the Granger’s place.’

  Sammy and Ethan Granger. Lily’s good friends and the town’s most important residents because they instigated the regeneration of Swallow’s Fall after their marriage almost a decade ago. ‘How did Janie-Louise get to Burra Burra Lane?’

  ‘She biked it. I fixed her flat tyre. Mum, have you paid the internet bill yet? If I’m going to be a machinist I need to get online and do some background work for my th
esis. I need to check out the cutting tolerance of different alloys and need to look at lots of blueprints.’

  Lily picked up a tea towel and wiped her fingers, pretending to dry damp hands before the tension building inside her manifested as another flush on her face and became noticeable to everyone in the kitchen.

  Charlotte looked up from her baking, rolling pin in her floury hands, and Lily was sure she saw her glance quickly at Dan.

  ‘It’s the school holidays, Andy — Andrew,’ Lily said, putting her arm around her son’s shoulders as she led him out of the kitchen and into the back corridor. Fortunately, the ‘real man’ inside him hadn’t grown to full height yet and at five foot eight in her bare feet, Lily had no trouble hooking her arm over his shoulders. ‘You should be outside, not stuck up against a computer screen. There’s a whole two weeks of school holidays for you to get your thesis underway,’ she said as they walked.

  Once they were alone in the corridor with the kitchen door closed, Lily halted. ‘I’m sorry, Andy, I forgot.’ Only an itty-bitty lie. ‘I’ll pay it when I get home.’ There went the last fifty bucks in her cheque account. ‘Isn’t there something in the library you could use for research?’

  ‘The library?’ Andy scoffed. ‘It’s only got 50 books and they’re all about knitting or kissing.’

  Lily laughed then smothered her smile. Andy’s high brow furrowed too often these days. His brown eyes were so serious in his youthful, still-angular face. He had the looks of her ex-husband and the temperament of Lily herself: good looking — and harried. Not an easy combination for any teenager. At least her daughter — full name Jane Louise Clarissa Johnson but these days called Janie-Louise by everyone — still retained young girl carefree qualities, even if her 12yearold wanderlust sometimes went a bit too far for Lily Anita Clarissa Johnson’s liking.

  Lily fished in the pocket of her black work skirt and handed Andy a 10-dollar note. ‘Why don’t you get the bus into Cooma and visit the library there?’

  Andy shook his head, mouth fixed in a crooked acceptance of life as the Johnson family knew it. ‘Put it towards the internet bill,’ he said, and turned for the back door.

  ‘Are you going home?’ Lily called. ‘I’ll be finished here at two then I’ll be at the corner shop.’

  ‘I know.’ Andy waved acknowledgement, his back to her still.

  Of course he knew. What else did Lily do five days a week, every week? Fridays through to Tuesdays, seven a.m. until two p.m. as waitress and part-time cook at Kookaburra’s, and two afternoons a week tidying the small library and museum which were housed in the Town Hall, or cleaning the corner shop.

  Not that she minded caring for any of them, especially the empty shop on the corner: her impossible dream.

  She didn’t have time to think about all the impossibles in her life right now. ‘Is Janie-Louise cycling home?’ she called after Andy before he disappeared out of the door. ‘Or is Sammy or Ethan driving her?’

  ‘Cycling,’ Andy said.

  ‘Okay,’ Lily replied, already visualising any number of problems her daughter might get into as she biked the 15 kilometres from Burra Burra Lane homestead into Swallow’s Fall. Both her children needed mobile phones. Lily wouldn’t mind a mobile phone either, but none of them would be getting one. Especially if she didn’t get on with her job.

  Since she was in the storeroom corridor anyway, she heaved up two plastic trays full of the Arabica coffee beans Dan liked to use for the hotel, and made her way back to the kitchen.

  Tantalising aromas of grilled bacon and chocolate-iced croissants wafted above the smells of glass cleaner, dishwasher powder, and the ever-present, underlying aroma of coffee and ale that gave Kookaburra’s the characteristics of a quality bar, restaurant and hotel.

  ‘Smells delicious,’ she said to Charlotte as she passed the bakery section of the kitchen. ‘Should keep the newlyweds happy.’ As she said it she had an immediate vision of the newlyweds in room six licking the topping off the croissants before kissing passionately and chocolately.

  ‘Everything all right with the kids?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘Sure.’ Lily put the trays onto a counter top. ‘You know what school holidays are like. They need to be occupied from dawn to dusk —oh!’ Lily turned to Charlotte. ‘You won’t know that yet,’ she said with a smile. ‘But wait until your Olivia goes to school – then you’ll know what I’m talking about.’

  Charlotte laughed. ‘I’m content with how busy I am now, Lily – and Olivia isn’t even two.’

  Lily laughed along with her. At least she’d managed to change the subject of what might be wrong with her kids. Lack of money topped the list; they were in need of a holiday and unable to keep up with the latest and greatest designer clothes, smart phones or iAnythings of other kids.

  ‘Hey.’

  Lily stumbled as she turned to the sound of Dan’s voice, and peered up at him. How had he snuck up so sneakily?

  ‘You need a sub?’ he asked quietly.

  Mortification covered her in goose-bumps. ‘No. No — absolutely not. I’m fine. We’re fine.’

  Dan gave her his shameless smile. The big one. The one his wife said would charm Cinderella from under the nose of the prince. ‘Don’t be frightened to ask,’ he said.

  Lily punched him on the arm. ‘As if. Oh — sorry.’ She covered her mouth with her hand. She hadn’t meant to punch him, but after working for him for almost eight years, she tended to forget this easy-going man was her boss.

  ‘You and the kids need a holiday, Lily,’ Charlotte called out.

  ‘And that’s so likely to happen,’ Lily responded. Her heart seemed to drop to her stomach with a thud as the words left her mouth in an almost sulky tone. ‘I mean — no, we’re fine.’ Everything was fine. Everything was always fine. She breathed deeply, and prepared for what might be said next.

  ‘When are your mum and Ray back?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘Um, another three weeks.’ Lily’s mother, known universally in Swallow’s Fall as Mrs J, had married two months ago and was on her honeymoon, travelling Australia in a Winnebago.

  Another honeymoon. Another couple of lucky so-and-sos. Not that Lily minded her mother’s happiness, or her stepfather’s. Her mother had been supportive from the moment Lily arrived back in town nine years ago, hauling with her two small children, one large suitcase and a black eye. And over the last couple of years, Ray Smyth, her mother’s secret beau for years before that, had been equally supportive and generous. But Lily had put a stop to the financial support when she’d realised this was her life. She was on her own with two children to look out for. She took nothing for free after that first, finding-her-feet year back in her home town.

  ‘Don’t know how any of us are going to get used to calling your mum Mrs S,’ Dan said.

  Lily chuckled, forgetting her troubles as a picture of her not-to-be-argued-with mother came to mind. ‘You better not try.’ Mrs J was known for her forthrightness. Lily was never sure whether she was happy or disappointed she hadn’t inherited that trait of her mother’s.

  She turned to a storage unit and dragged a rubber-soled stepladder closer to the bank of shelving which held the coffee bags, tea and sugar supplies. She pulled the frame of the ladder apart and locked it into place.

  ‘And stop with all the heavy lifting and shifting, would you?’ Dan said as he took the stepladder off her and swung it away effortlessly as though it weighed no more than a two kilo bag of flour. ‘You need a man for the lifting work. Doesn’t she, Charlotte?’

  ‘Daniel,’ his wife said in a warning tone. Although what about, Lily didn’t know.

  ‘I’m just saying!’

  ‘It’s at times when the big ladder is needed that I miss Josh’s height around here the most,’ Lily said.

  Josh and Lily had worked together at Kookaburra’s before it had been transformed from a pub into a seven-bedroom hotel. Lily had cooked the evening meals for the restaurant back then, while Josh tended bar, and they
’d worked up a laughing, companionable friendship. But Josh had left town years ago as the young people often did, to seek their fortune elsewhere.

  Working daytime was so much easier for Lily. She wasn’t able to stay with Andy and Janie-Louise as they stood on the street waiting for the school bus, because she started work at 7 a.m., but she was around when they came home. For a couple of hours every day after school, Lily did her utmost to make her little family feel warm and cosy and content and happy. Like a real family. No bruises.

  See? Always something to be grateful for.

  Dan grinned at Lily. ‘Looking forward to the Easter Bunny Ball?’

  ‘Daniel!’ Charlotte warned him again.

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘We’re just watching your back,’ Dan told Lily.

  ‘Well thanks, but I’ll manage just fine lifting and heaving things all by myself.’ Lily skirted around the ladder which it seemed Dan wasn’t going to return, and started emptying clean sundae glasses from the dishwasher and plopping them into the slots of a plastic glass-tray.

  ‘I’ll be back for the bacon and croissants in a sec,’ Lily said and headed for the restaurant, tray stacked with tinkling glasses, hands gripping it firmly and the edge resting against her ribs so she didn’t drop it if the man who made her tremble was still in the restaurant.

  Nick Barton outwardly portrayed the strong silent type who might turn exciting and stealthy at the first call to arms. After all, he’d been a captain in the Navy. A specialist diver — which was probably how the muscle mass came about — in Special Ops. Bombs and things. Probably heroic. Undoubtedly heroic. How could a man who looked the way Nick looked not be heroic?

  If only he wasn’t such an enigma, and walk with such grace in his long unhurried stride. She might be able to ignore him if he didn’t have that deadly combination of romantic virtues. Lily shook her head. She’d read too many kissing books from the library — but one thing had never made sense to her — why had a man like Nick buried himself in Swallow’s Fall?