Keeping his back turned, he traced the rough surface of the red-brick wall. ‘I came home because I wanted to, Dad. Because I love you and Mum, and you needed some help.’
‘You shouldn’t have had to, though.’ A familiar weight settled on his shoulder, and he reached up to pat the hand his dad placed on his shoulder.
Unable to bear the guilt in those words, Sam turned to face his dad. ‘Shit happens. Life happens, and it’s beyond our control. The only thing we can control, is how we deal with it.’
His dad shook his head. ‘You put me to shame, lad.’
‘Not really. I should have talked to you about this before instead of letting things fester like a prat.’
‘I hear it runs in the family.’ They both looked over to find Sam’s mum standing on the back step shaking her head. ‘If you’ve finished making a fool of yourself, Paul Barnes, perhaps you can apologise to our son and the two of you can come inside and talk things through properly.’
His dad laughed, not in the least bit offended, and slung his arm around Sam’s shoulders. ‘The boss has spoken, best we obey.’
They followed Annie back inside, but when his dad would have turned left to go upstairs, Sam stopped him. ‘Can I show you something?’
‘Of course.’
Sam led them through the bar to the side door leading down to the skittle alley. Flipping the lights on as he descended, he tried to keep a lid on the excitement bubbling inside him. After making his way to the centre of the narrow room, he turned in a circle arms raised to his sides. ‘Welcome to Subterranean.’
The discussion with his dad about the restaurant couldn’t have gone much better and he ran it over and over in his mind as his feet pounded out the regular route of his morning run. In his excitement over the potential new venture, Sam had forgotten all about his early morning thoughts of Beth until he was almost back at his doorstep and found her leaning against the shop doorway with a steaming cup in her hands. She looked better than the last time he’d seen her—the dark circles under her eyes had faded to soft smudges, and although her hair was pulled back, it was glossy in the morning sunlight. Full of exhilaration, he couldn’t help but tease her. ‘Waiting for me?’
She laughed. ‘Only if you’re in the mood for stock taking.’
Sam lifted his heel back to stretch his calf before his muscles cooled too much, ‘Are you trying to lure me into the back room with you, Miss Reynolds?’ God, he shouldn’t be flirting with her, but it was too much fun watching the colour rise in her cheeks.
‘I only want you for your body, Mr Barnes.’ Losing grip on his raised leg, he almost toppled over in shock. Beth shook her head. ‘Don’t get excited, there are some boxes on the top shelves which I can’t lift down. Goodness only knows how Eleanor got them up there in the first place.’
‘So, I’m to be a beast of burden, is that it?’ Sam grimaced, pretending to be disappointed. Or maybe he was only pretending to be pretending, he didn’t know anymore.
Beth nodded. ‘Pretty much.’ She raised her mug and drained the contents. ‘Oh, and bring me something tasty, while you’re at it, those macarons are long gone. Don’t take long, there’s a lot to get through.’ On that imperious instruction, she turned on her heel and marched back into the emporium without a backwards glance.
‘Cheeky cow.’ Sam said to the empty spot in the doorway, a grin splitting his face from ear to ear. Feeling incredibly buoyant after such a great start to his day, he headed back to the pub for a quick shower. Her timing was perfect, he’d be able to lend her a hand and tell her all about his latest plans.
Showered, changed and bearing a new Tupperware box containing half a dozen chocolate truffles and the same amount of peppermint fudge bites he’d made as sample ideas for petit fours, Sam cupped his hand to his eyes to peer inside the emporium window. Spotting Beth behind the counter, he tapped on the glass and she hurried over to let him in with a smile. ‘I’ve been trying to make sense of the order books. I didn’t get involved with a lot of that side of things when I worked for Eleanor, and her system is best described as unique.’
She locked the door behind him, then led the way back to the counter which was covered in a variety of ledgers, supplier catalogues and a couple of ring-binders. ‘I want to convert everything to an electronic database, so I think I’m going to have to start from scratch and do a full stock count. I’ve started a spreadsheet so I can link everything to a supplier and make sure I have their correct stock reference codes.’
Sam pointed at the laptop, and when she nodded he pulled it closer to study the rows and columns she’d set up. ‘Dad uses a software package the accountant recommended. It’s probably geared up more towards the licensing trade, but she can probably point you in the direction of an off-the-shelf system that could work for you.’
‘Thanks. It’s on my list of things to look into, but I need to gather the raw data together in a way that makes sense to me.’ Her hand waved over the open books and folders. ‘I definitely need to get some professional advice on where things stand with the business though.’ She sighed. ‘I assumed I would be able to walk in and figure it out, told myself it couldn’t possibly be more complicated than what I’ve been used to doing. Running a place like this single-handed is a lot tougher than I realised. I feel like I owe Eleanor an apology.’
‘I know what you mean. It was a real eye-opener when I understood everything that went into running the pub. My folks always made it look so easy.’ He chucked her under the chin. ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Beth. It’s a steep learning curve, but nothing you won’t be able to handle.’
‘There you go again, finding exactly the right thing to say.’
Sam grinned. ‘Let me try to go two-for-two, where’re these boxes you want shifting?’
When they trooped into the stockroom, it was clear she’d been hard at work already. Boxes were stacked in neat piles with an A4 sheet detailing the contents of those she’d checked and counted stuck to the top of each one. She pointed out those she wanted help with, and Sam could only be relieved she hadn’t tried to move them herself when she carried over a rickety looking stepladder. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’
She nodded. ‘It’s the only thing I could find. There used to be a little set of steps we could wheel around, but I can’t find them anywhere.’
Testing the ladder, he found it more stable than appearances might suggest and risked climbing up another couple of steps. The shelves weren’t too high for his six-foot frame, and he could reach the boxes with a rung to spare. He glanced down into Beth’s anxious eyes. ‘Just brace the bottom for me, will you? I want to see if any of these are heavy before we try and do anything with them.’
Beth leant her weight into the bottom of the ladder, pressing against the back of his legs. ‘Like this?’
‘That’ll work, thanks.’ He checked each carton, found them light enough to move without straining and began to transfer those in easy reach to the shelf directly below. It might take a little longer, but would save him climbing up and down. Some still bore the label from the supplier so were easily identifiable as T-shirts, fridge magnets, that kind of thing, but a handful were unmarked.
They worked steadily for about half an hour until everything had been cleared down to a height at which Beth could access them for herself. Ignoring the labelled boxes, she settled cross-legged on the floor beside an array of mystery cartons, including one with just the word ‘inflatables’ scrawled across it. ‘With