FIRST LOOK - Chapter One. Something Mended Something Glued

Grace Parker’s new front door had a personality, and today, it was furious with her. She stood outside her freshly purchased and slightly crumbling cottage at the edge of Thistlecroft, wrestling with the swollen wooden frame for the tenth time that morning. Brenda, her golden retriever, sat beside her with a squeaky fox in her mouth, watching on as if it was quality entertainment.

“Oh, don’t just sit there judging me,” Grace muttered as she puffed a strand of blonde hair from her face. “You’re no help at all.”

Brenda wagged her tail and squeaked her toy in response.

Grace tried again, but the key slipped and her elbow knocked the hanging basket beside the door. Half of the soil showered down onto her jumper. “Excellent. I’m really living the dream.”

Somewhere in the distance, church bells chimed and a cockerel crowed. Great, the village itself was mocking her now for thinking she could handle rural life. She’d been in Thistlecroft for all of three hours and had already managed to lose her dignity, her temper, and possibly her sanity.

When the door finally gave way with a dramatic creak, Grace stumbled forward, straight into the hallway where the faint smell of damp greeted her. Brenda bound past her, her claws skidding on the wood floor, her tail thudding against the walls as she explored her new kingdom.

Grace set her handbag down and surveyed the boxes that had been dumped unceremoniously in the middle of the living room. The estate agent had called it ‘full of potential.’ Grace was beginning to understand that ‘potential’ meant she’d need a miracle worker and a stiff drink.

As if summoned by fate—or perhaps divine comedic timing—there was a firm knock at the open door.

“Alright?” a strong Lancastrian voice floated over her shoulder.

Grace turned, startled. A woman leaned casually against the frame, one boot hooked over the other, a pencil behind her ear, and a grin that looked a little too confident for someone rudely interrupting her breakdown. She had dark cropped hair, a smudge of paint on her forearm, and the kind of posture that said, ‘I can fix your roof and your mood in the same afternoon.’

Grace frowned. “Sorry, do I know you?”

“Not yet.” The woman stepped inside and offered her hand. “Rowan Miller, but my friends call me Ro. You left a message on the village board about needing some repairs done? Leaky roof, wonky shelves, temperamental boiler?”

“Oh.” Grace grasped her hand and shook, surprised by the warmth of it. “Yes. Right. I wasn’t expecting someone quite so…”

“Female?” Rowan’s grin widened. “Happens a lot. Don’t worry, I promise I can handle a screwdriver.”

Grace flushed. “That’s not what I…well, yes, but no, I just meant—”

“Relax. It happens all the time.” Rowan crouched beside Brenda, who immediately abandoned all loyalty and flopped against her like they were old friends. “Who’s this beauty then?”

“That’s Brenda,” Grace said, still trying to recover her composure. “She’s apparently your biggest fan.”

“Good taste.” Rowan smiled, scratching Brenda behind the ears. “That accent doesn’t sound local.”

“Just moved in today from London.”

“Ah, the posh side,” Rowan teased. “I guess you’ll be our new project.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t take it the wrong way. Thistlecroft adopts newcomers like lost kittens. You’ll have half the town dropping by before the week’s out. Olivia will send pastries, Jessie will come nosing for gossip, and if Mrs Ridgeway or Mrs Halpin asks about your marital status, tell them you’ve taken a vow of silence. Trust me.”

“I see.” Grace frowned again, trying to keep up. “Well, I don’t have any stories to tell in that department. Not unless they’re interested in recent divorces, anyway.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s always lovely to have a new face around the village.”

Grace felt the honesty in that. Rowan was very good at putting people at ease. “It’s fine. It should have happened before it did.” Grace shifted and cleared her throat. “Anyway, those jobs…”

“Right, yes.” Rowan stood and brushed off her knees. “Where do you want me to start? I can take a look at the roof or the boiler, whichever’s currently threatening your sanity most.”

“The boiler’s okay for the time being, I think,” Grace said. “It’s the door that’s almost certainly possessed.”

Rowan gave her an amused look and stepped forward. “May I?”

“Be my guest.”

Rowan tested the handle, gave it a shove, and the door opened and closed as smoothly as the woman currently handling it. “There you go.”

Grace’s jaw dropped. “What did you just do?”

“Bit of pressure, bit of persuasion. You were over-fighting it.” Rowan flashed her a grin. “Doors are like people. Treat ’em rough and they dig their heels in.”

Grace tried to ignore the unreasonable flutter that line gave her. “Well, thank you.”

“No problem.” Rowan leaned against the frame again. “I’ll pop by tomorrow to sort the rest, yeah? Ten o’clock suit you?”

“That would be…fine, yes”

“Lovely.” Rowan gave Brenda one last pat. “See you, gorgeous.” Then she looked back at Grace with a devilish smile. “You too, by the way.”

Grace was still standing there, her heart doing something entirely inappropriate for a woman who’d sworn off romance, when Rowan disappeared down the path.

Brenda gave a content sigh and dropped her squeaky fox at Grace’s feet, her tail swishing.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Grace muttered. “She was nice, that’s all.”

Brenda tilted her head, and Grace was almost certain she’d just narrowed her eyes.

Grace picked up the toy and sighed. “We’re not doing this again, Brenda. You have to stop having crushes on the people helping us.”

Brenda barked once.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Fine. Fall for her. But you’re on your own!”

***

By the time the sun had slipped behind the trees and a chill had set in the air, Grace had decided that moving to Thistlecroft was either the best decision she’d ever made…or the most ridiculous. She needed at least another day to be sure which way it was swaying.

The kettle whistled on the counter—the only working appliance she trusted right now—while Grace rested against the kitchen sink, chewing her lip. She didn’t know what had possessed her to buy this place, but she was here now. She couldn’t exactly back out.

She poured hot water over a tea bag in her favourite chipped mug, the one she’d smuggled out of her marital kitchen like contraband, and glanced down at Brenda, sprawled on the floor, all paws and contentment, snoring softly. She’d adapted to country life instantly. Grace envied her for it.

“Well,” Grace said, stirring her tea. “Day one, and we haven’t died. That’s a success in my book.”

Brenda lifted her head, a single lazy thud of her tail against the floor.

Grace lowered herself to the armchair by the window and tucked a blanket over her knees. The living room was half unpacked, and as she stared at the towers of boxes labelled kitchen bits, fragile, and don’t open if you value your sanity, a smile crept onto her face. It was a new beginning, and she was going to embrace it. 

She sipped her tea and stared at the boxes until her eyes burned, feeling both proud and untethered. For the first time in twenty years—seventeen of those married—no one was coming home. No one to criticise the way she’d arranged the bookshelves or raise an eyebrow at her choice of dinner. Just her. And Brenda.

“I suppose it’s not so bad,” she said, half to the dog and half to the silence. “It’s peaceful. And quiet. And…quiet.”

Brenda gave a low woof in agreement…or possibly boredom.

Grace laughed. “You’re right. I sound like someone’s gran.”

The thing was, she hadn’t realised how much her life had revolved around someone else until it had stopped. Every evening in London had been dictated by routine. What her ex-husband liked for dinner, which programmes he wanted on the TV, whose turn it was to host dinner parties they never wanted to attend. Now there were no expectations. No one cared if she ate toast for dinner or left her hair in a messy bun.

It should have felt freeing. And it did, sort of, but it also felt like she was standing on the edge of something vast and unfamiliar, with no idea which direction to walk in.

She glanced out the window, where the first stars were beginning to appear, and thought about Rowan. That easy grin, the roughened voice, the way she’d made Grace’s cursed door behave with nothing more than a look and a bit of confidence.

“No.” Grace shook her head as heat crept up her neck. “Absolutely not. We are not thinking about that.”

Brenda yawned and rolled onto her back, paws in the air and snoring again the moment her eyes closed.

“Fine. You win. She was rather good with doors.”

She took another sip of tea and let her mind drift. What would she even say to Rowan tomorrow? Thank you for rescuing me from my own incompetence? Or perhaps something casual like…do you always fix things with that much charm?

“No, no, no.” She groaned. “You’re not flirting with the handywoman. You’re just grateful and she’s probably married.”

Rowan would absolutely be taken. A woman like that? Someone who could handle themselves and knew what they were doing when it came to power tools…yeah, there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance that she was available.

And you’re not even gay!

Grace leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. “It’s just nice, that’s all,” she murmured. “Someone walking in and fixing something for once. It feels like maybe everything else could be fixed, too.”

The wind picked up outside, whispering through the trees and the tiny hole that needed resealing in the corner of the window. The village church bell chimed, letting the town know it was nine o’clock, and Grace snuggled deeper into her seat.

“Tomorrow, we’ll start unpacking properly. And maybe put our new curtains up. But under no circumstances do we think about the woman with the tool belt.”

Brenda gave one last wag of her tail and stretched out in the middle of the floor.

Grace finished her tea and let the quiet settle around her. It wasn’t a lonely kind of silence. It was just…different. A clean kind of silence. The start of something she couldn’t name yet but would grab with both hands the moment her own had stopped shaking with apprehension.