One Summer in Cornwall by Karen King (best books to read for success .TXT) 📕

a dinner suit, sitting beside her. Well, she’d got the impression he was a bit of a hippie, surfing in the daytime and doing evening shifts at the hotel, yet here he was all togged up and with someone who looked like they’d be more at home sailing across the sea in a yacht than surfing on it.

Not that it was any of her business.

She let herself back into the cottage and headed straight over to Buddy’s cage. The parrot eyed her warily. He didn’t seem to have plucked out any more of his feathers, she noticed with relief. Maybe leaving the radio on had been a good idea. It didn’t look like he’d eaten any of his pellets though, or touched the corn on the cob she’d left him. ‘Hello, Buddy. Do you want some more banana?’ she asked him.

He stared at her, but didn’t reply.

She picked up a banana and peeled it, broke half off, and then opened the cage very cautiously and slipped it inside, then closed the cage door again. Buddy squeaked and scrambled down the bars to grab it, then climbed back up onto the perch and sat eating it. She’d love to let him out and have him share the banana with her, as Marcus had done, but knew she had to take it slowly. At least he seemed to be getting used to her. She’d spend a bit of time talking to him tonight, and she’d clean out the cage and give him some fresh food and water. Hopefully he wouldn’t escape again.

Hattie went over and put the kettle on. She was pleased with how today had gone, Ellie was really warm and friendly, like her mum. And Reece was very nice too. She felt honoured to be photographing their wedding and was determined to do them proud.

She’d just made her coffee when her phone rang. It was Mali. ‘How’s it going?’ she asked. ‘Are you all ready for me and Lou to descend on you Tuesday?’

‘I will be.’ Hattie carried her cup of coffee over to the sofa and curled up, knees underneath her, to talk to her best friend. She couldn’t wait for Mali and Lou to come down. Mali was such a lively, fun character and Lou was a sweetie. It would be good to have other people here to liven up the place. It might do Buddy good too. She glanced over at the cage and saw that the parrot was now nibbling at the corn on the cob. She smiled. She was worrying over nothing; he’d soon get used to her. ‘I’d better warn you about Buddy, you might need to cover up Lou’s ears,’ she said.

‘Buddy? Who’s Buddy? That was quick work, you’ve only been there a couple of days.’

Hattie giggled at the surprise in Mali’s voice and settled down for a long conversation.

She felt a lot happier when she and Mali had finally finished talking – with a brief interruption from Lou extracting a promise from Hattie to build a big sandcastle with her.

Maybe being made redundant and having to leave her flat had been the push she needed to make a new start. Her job in the insurance office was okay but it wasn’t what she really wanted to do with her life, just like her relationship with Adam hadn’t been what she really wanted, they’d drifted into it if she was honest.

‘You never stop to ask yourself what you want, Hattie. You go along with the flow,’ Mali had told her more than once. Which was true. It made life easier. It seemed to be a pattern that had started when her parents were married and anything could provoke an argument. After the divorce, she had accepted without question that she would live with her mother and had gone along with her mum’s excuses as to why she shouldn’t visit her father and that woman after the disastrous first visit. Not that she had wanted to; her dad had betrayed them, made a new life for himself and left Hattie and her mother behind. Except, now he was back in her life, wanting to airbrush the past as if it never happened.

Almost on cue her phone rang again and it was her dad. She hesitated, wondering whether to answer it; she knew he’d try and chat to her while she preferred to keep their exchanges to texts or emails, such a distance had grown between them over the years that she didn’t feel close enough to him to chat. Then Hattie remembered how Ellie’s eyes had filled up when she talked about her father dying, and how she’d promised herself that she’d make more effort with her own father. So she slid her finger across the screen to answer the call.

‘Hello, Dad.’

‘Hello, Hattie. How are you settling in down there?’

‘Okay. I’ve got a wedding photography commission for next Saturday.’

‘Brilliant. Where?’ He sounded genuinely interested.

She briefly filled him in on the details, then the conversation turned to the cottage, which was obviously the real reason he had phoned, not to ask how she was.

‘How long do you think it will take to get ready to put on the market?’ he asked.

Hattie wondered what Marcus would make of her dad’s eagerness to sell the cottage; he’d already got them both down as gold-diggers. ‘I don’t know Dad; you saw the photos. It needs painting and updating and maybe even rewiring. The pipes make a lot of noise whenever I turn on the taps, and the bath is cracked.’

‘Maybe you could get an estate agent in to give you a rough idea of what needs fixing in order to sell it? It might not be a good idea to update it too much. A lot of people like the fishermen’s cottages to look authentic, especially if they want to rent them out. An estate agent could give you a general idea what it would sell for too.’

Hattie’s mum had suggested that they rent the cottage out to