Page 21 of The Village Inn of Secret Dream

‘Sure,’ said Pete, despite needing to head over to the inn as soon as possible to start retracting his offer.

But as soon as they had reached the packed stockroom, Josh spun around to face his brother.

‘So, that was an interesting evening last night,’ he began. ‘You didn’t think to, oh, I don’t know, tell the family your plans to buy the inn before you told the whole village instead? If only so that I don’t have to lie to my friends about knowing all about it.’

Pete ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘Yeah, sorry. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.’

‘Mick’s punch can do that,’ said Josh, looking worried. ‘Listen, do you even have that kind of money?’

Pete nodded. ‘As it happens, I do,’ he replied. ‘As well as my apartment, I part-owned a fancy restaurant in Singapore with a work colleague.’

‘Wow,’ said Josh, looking impressed. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘It worked out really well,’ Pete told him. ‘Right up until the moment when the whole block was sold off for redevelopment.’

But it had been a gold mine while it had been open. He grabbed his phone and flicked through the photos to show Josh. It had been modernistic, even stark, but that had appealed to the young, urban crowd that it had attracted. They had hired the best chef, the trendiest waiting staff and it had been a big success.

But nobody could replicate that in quiet Cranbridge, could they?

‘So, that’s your investment idea?’ said Josh.

‘Yeah, about that…’ Pete began. But his voice trailed off under the scrutiny of his brother’s gaze. How could he possibly tell him that it had all been a huge, drunken mistake? That he didn’t actually want to own the inn after all.

‘I’m still struggling to understand something,’ said Josh. ‘You managed to form a couple of coherent sentences last night. Something about flipping the inn for a profit.’

‘I did?’ Pete blinked at him and then quickly nodded. ‘That’s right. I did.’

It wasn’t a bad idea, he thought. Perhaps he could save face after all. Renovate the inn, make it look and work a whole lot better and then sell it on, preferably for a large profit.

‘So you’re not planning on staying in Cranbridge after you’ve done up the inn and then resold it?’ asked Josh.

Pete shook his head. ‘Probably not.’

Josh sighed and looked dismayed. ‘Then you’d better have a word with Mum and Grandma Tilly because they’re both thrilled and thinking that you’re doing up the inn to stay here for good.’

Pete frowned. ‘I never said that.’

The truth was that he couldn’t even remember what he had said the previous evening.

‘It doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t say, little bro,’ said Josh. ‘They’re desperate to see more of you and think that it’s an amazing idea.’

Pete sank onto a box of tinned food. ‘And you don’t?’ he asked.

‘I just figured it was some kind of drunken mistake thanks to Mick’s dodgy punch.’

Pete gulped, trying not to give away how close to the truth his brother really was.

‘If it was a mistake then you need to start telling everyone and fast,’ he heard his brother say.

Something flared inside of Pete. A desire to prove his brother wrong. To prove that his actions didn’t always make everything worse.

‘It wasn’t a mistake,’ he said, quickly standing up before immediately regretting his action as his head pounded once more.

‘Good,’ said Josh, breaking into a grin. ‘For the record, I’m really pleased, both for the inn and for the village. We need to keep the inn open. And it’ll be good to have you around for a while longer.’

Pete smiled back at his brother, his anger disappearing as quickly as it had arrived. ‘I figure you can’t take all the glory around here,’ he said. ‘Well, I’d better go and see Mick and Angie.’

‘And Belle,’ added Josh in a pointed tone. ‘She seemed pretty pleased last night.’