The Life Daisy Devlin Designed

CHAPTER 18

“It’s my Knight in Shiny Buttons!” Matt flung open the front door and stepped back to let Daisy into the hall.

She beamed at him, wondering if she should mention that she’d knit the cropped green cardigan with tiny pearl buttons herself, but Matt was already striding away towards the kitchen.

There were two vans parked in the driveway, but the house was quiet.

“Where is everyone?” she asked, hurrying to catch up.

“The crew are on lunch break in the garden.”

“Right. Listen, Matt, Kenny knows what he’s doing.” She hoped Kenny didn’t think Matt was being a bit highhanded. Although in fairness to him, he tended to let most criticism roll off him. “It’s not like the house would have fallen down.”

He sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. To be honest, I’m half-regretting agreeing to let out the grounds. And now all this! What was I thinking?”

Idly, Daisy wondered when Matt found time to work – though being in a different time zone probably meant working odd hours. Which had to be tricky, even if nothing else was getting in the way.

“It’s hard to say no to such a good deal.” She folded her arms so she wouldn’t be tempted to reach out and touch his arm like she used to when he’d been worried. Instead, she excused herself and stepped outside, closing the sliding door behind her.

Kenny, Alec and two other men were sitting at the patio table eating lunch rolls and drinking mugs of tea. She nodded as she met Alec’s eye, and he nodded back, looking at her with interest over the rim of his mug.

“Howaya, Daisy.” Kenny scraped back his chair, and stood, offering it to her. “Sit yourself down, I’ll get another one.”

Daisy sat, and waited until Kenny came back with a rather battered chair for himself, while the others shuffled around to make room for the extra chair.

Kenny gave Daisy a level look. “Yer man filled me in on this nonsense with the singer and the camera crew. Fucked if it makes any sense to me. One minute he’s renting out the grounds for a load of summer gigs; the next some singer and her hangers-on are taking over the whole place to make a documentary. Sure, who agrees to that while they’ve got builders and decorators in? They’ll be in our way.”

“I hear you, Kenny. But I don’t think Matt could turn down what they were offering. So given that he’s our client, would it be possible to get all the heavy work done in the next two weeks?”

Kenny looked around at the others, who simply shrugged. They were all waiting for Kenny’s decision. He rubbed his nose and sighed heavily.

“I reckon all those bathrooms were put in around the mid-1930s when this place became a guest house,” he said finally.

Daisy nodded. “I agree.”

“Which means a lot of the internal walls were just sand and rubble.”

“Or in this case, underwear.”

“None of them are load-bearing walls. But they will have to be rebuilt – they’re coming apart.”

Daisy nodded again.

“I told yer man that, but what would I know? I’m only the bloody foreman.”

God, the last thing she needed was tension between Matt and Kenny. Especially with this new deadline.

“Don’t take it personally, Kenny. Matt’s always been a bit of a control freak.”

Kenny’s eyes narrowed, and Daisy realised her slip.

“ Um , we went to college together.” She caught Alec’s eyes, and glanced quickly away, focussing on Kenny. “So, what do you think?”

Kenny folded his arms. “I’ll have to hire more men.”

Daisy nodded. “How many?”

“Three, probably.”

“Do what you have to, Kenny. I’ll make sure the budget allows it.”

“He seems to think the budget is a piece of elastic,” Kenny grumbled.

When Daisy gave him a blank look, he sighed.

“He’s gone and changed his mind about the bathrooms. Wants those smart toilets instead. You know, heated seats and built-in bidets. Makes no sense unless he’s turning it back into a posh B&B, in my view. What’s wrong with bog-standard loos?”

Daisy hid a grin, privately wondering exactly how deep Matt’s pockets were. “What the customer wants, Kenny.”

“Don’t I know!” He got to his feet. “Right lads, you heard the woman: tea break over.”

They trooped inside, past Matt, who Daisy could see had cooked and served up rashers and pancakes.

When they’d left, she sat down at the kitchen table and cut into a pancake with the side of her fork.

“Kenny will have to hire three more men to get all the heavy work done before Kayley Lynch arrives. Which means I’ll have to charge you more, Matt. It won’t be a stupid amount. I just need to know you’re on board.”

“Absolutely, thanks for sorting this.”

He reached out, and rubbed his thumb lightly across the back of her hand.

Daisy swallowed hard on the pancake, as his touch sent tiny pleasure signals to the rest of her body, then jerked her hand away as the kitchen door opened and Kenny came back in.

“So, just to be clear: we’re stripping away the tiles in all five bathrooms. And we’ll rebuild whatever we need to.”

Daisy nodded. “Go ahead, Kenny.”

Kenny gave Matt a pointed look, and left again.

Daisy folded her arms. “I want to have a look at the bathrooms too but, honestly, it’s nothing to worry about. I can check a few more things while I’m here, but after that I need to get back to the office.”

“Sorry for dragging you out.” Matt ran a hand through his hair.

“Don’t apologise.” Not for that .

“Listen, Daisy, I know things were … complicated between us, but maybe we could have a fresh start?”

Did he mean as friends? She still wasn’t sure what she wanted.

The doorbell rang, and Matt left to answer it.

Moments later, Daisy heard Niamh’s voice in the hall, before the two of them came into the kitchen.

“Hi, Daisy.” Niamh smiled at her as she dumped her work bag on the floor and shrugged out of a black leather jacket.

“Hey, great band.” Matt pointed to Niamh’s ‘My Chemical Romance’ T-shirt. “You have to help us eat some of this food, by the way – I’ve made way too much.”

Niamh made a show of inspecting the table. “A coffee with one of those pancakes?” She flicked her dark curls back off her shoulders.

“Coming right up. Daisy, do you want a coffee?”

“ Um , no thanks.” Daisy couldn’t help feeling relieved at the interruption. A part of her knew she was playing a dangerous game – but it was one she was willing to play.