“Ellie.” Phil, the sous chef, collected up the tea towels and threw them into the washing basket on top of Ginger’s cloth. “For God’s sake. Sam Pankhurst’s one of the finalists for the Bay of Islands Gold Food Awards. I hardly think Ginger’s going to be in the mood to be playing matchmaker.”
Ellie’s mouth formed an O. “Shit! I didn’t realize. Sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Ginger picked up the basket. “I’ll take this through to the laundry room, and then I’m heading off. Can you lock up, Phil?”
He nodded, and she flashed them a smile, then headed off down the corridor.
In the laundry room, relieved to be alone at last, she blew out a long breath, then loaded the washing machine. Once it was going, she left via the back door, walked around the edge of the building, and sat on the wooden bench that overlooked the vineyard.
For a while she just sat there, too tired to move.
She felt frazzled, and not only from the long hours. Ellie’s words had nipped at her nerve endings like a school of piranha. It wasn’t the waitress’s fault—she’d only been working at Blue Penguin Bay’s restaurant for a few weeks. She wasn’t to know about the riptide that flowed beneath the apparently calm waters.
Ginger looked out across the fields of vines that sloped down to the sparkling Pacific Ocean, and shivered. It was nearly shortest day, June twenty-first, and she missed the warm evenings she’d experienced when she’d first arrived in New Zealand. The websites hadn’t lied when they’d described the Northland as the ‘winterless north’, and the temperature hadn’t dropped anywhere near freezing yet, but the days had cooled, and Ginger was a summer girl at heart.
“Hey. Are you actually sitting down? I need to call the Guinness Book of Records.”
Ginger looked over her shoulder to see her sister, Winifred, approaching with a smile. “Hey.” She patted the bench next to her. “How’s your day been?”
“Long.” Fred sat beside her and yawned. “I’m worn out.”
Ginger grinned. “Mac keeping you up late, is he?”
“Worn out from working,” Fred corrected wryly. Then her lips twisted. “But yeah. I’m not getting a lot of sleep.” Her arranged marriage to the vineyard’s estate manager had eventually morphed into a real one, and the two of them had been living together for three months. Fred looked so happy at the thought of being chained to the marital bed that it brought a lump to Ginger’s throat.
“How are you?” Fred asked.
“Good. The new spicy fish bites were a real hit. We’re definitely keeping those on the menu.”
“That’s great.” Fred put her arm around her and gave her a hug. “You okay?”
Ginger gave her a puzzled look. “Yeah, why?”
“Phil asked me to check on you.”
Ginger rolled her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“Come on Ging, spit it out. Phil wouldn’t have said that if he wasn’t worried about you. Something bothering you?”
Ginger lifted her face to the last rays of the setting sun and briefly closed her eyes. She didn’t want to discuss it, but Fred wouldn’t give up if she thought one of her sisters had a problem they needed to discuss. “Ellie made a comment about Sam, that’s all.”
“Ah.”
Ginger narrowed her eyes. “Don’t start.”
“I said ‘ah’. How’s that starting something?”
“It was the way you said it.”
Fred pursed her lips. “Has he asked you out this week?”
“Yeah. On Wednesday.”
“And you said no?”
“Of course I said no.”
Fred tipped her head to the side. “He’s pretty persistent. Have you thought that maybe the way you’re feeling is because deep down, you’d like to date him?”
“No! Absolutely not! A hundred and ten percent no. Not even if there’d been a zombie invasion, and he was the last man on Earth and we had to repopulate the planet.”
“Right.” Fred chewed her bottom lip. “You don’t think that would be even a tiny bit fun?”
Irritation swept over her. “What do you want me to say? If you’re hoping I’m going to admit I’m secretly in love with him, you’re going to be in for a long wait.”
“Who said anything about love? You can’t deny that there’s a zing between the two of you. I’m just surprised you haven’t had a fling.”
Ginger couldn’t deny it. When she’d first set eyes on Sam Pankhurst, at Mac and Fred’s wedding at the vineyard, she’d felt the thud of Cupid’s arrow deep inside. Not in her heart—the tingle of attraction had been farther south than that. But it was there, and she knew Sam felt the same, because he’d asked her out on a date once a week since then, every week, without fail.
“Of course it’s about the award.” The familiar stab of hurt made her stomach clench.
Fred eyed her evenly. “I think you’re viewing it all wrong.”
“What other way can I view it? He didn’t enter for the award, Fred, not until he discovered that I’d entered for it. And now he’s determined to beat me to the finish line.” She gritted her teeth with indignation. “You’ve seen what little he’s done to promote the bakery. But it’s a family business. The locals bought their bread there when his dad owned it, and probably before then. He’s going to win all the local votes with zero effort.” The thought of seeing the Gold Food Awards badge on All or Muffin’s sign outside the bakery made her feel sick with fury.
“You stand every chance,” Fred soothed. “Come on, all the local papers are full of Blue Penguin Bay. Everyone’s talking about the vineyard and the way you’ve overhauled the restaurant. People are coming from all over the Northland, and farther afield, to eat here. We’re having to turn people away.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ll win.”
“No...” Fred frowned. “I don’t understand why this is so important. We knew it would take time to make the vineyard work, as well as its restaurant and bed and breakfast. We’ve actually done much better than we thought we would when we first came here. Don’t you remember the despair we all felt when Mac told us what his father had done?”
“Yes, of course.” The memory was not a pleasant one. Ginger, Fred, and their other sister, Sandi, had come to New Zealand to take over the running of the Blue Penguin Bay estate following the death of their father, only to discover that James MacDonald, the previous estate manager, had spent all the profits and run the estate into the ground. The girls’ father, Harry Cartwright, had, for some bizarre reason they still didn’t completely understand, tied up their inheritance for when they got married. Desperate to right the wrongs of his father, Mac had proposed to Fred after only a week so she could access her share of the money. Luckily, the two of them had fallen in love, so the story had a happy ending, and Fred’s fifty thousand dollars had gone a long way to restoring some of the estate’s former glory.
“I’m thrilled with what we’ve achieved,” Ginger said. “You and Mac have worked so hard on the vineyard, and Sandi’s done wonders with the B&B. But the restaurant...” She hesitated.
“Is yours,” Fred finished with a smile.
Ginger sighed, a little ashamed. “Yeah.”
“And getting the Gold Food Award would make you feel as if you made the right decision coming here.”
“Yes.” Ginger knew her sister understood. Emigrating to the other side of the world from England had been tough on all of them. It didn’t matter that they’d been glad to see the back of the U.K. after their mother died, nor that they all loved their new home.
Adjusting to a new culture—even one that seemed so similar to England’s at first glance—had been harder than any of them had expected. They’d come to ‘Godzone’ on a work permit, but had all applied for permanent residency after Fred and Mac had decided to make their marriage a real one. Soon, they would have all the same rights as those born in the country.
But Ginger didn’t feel
like a Kiwi. She had an English accent, and English ways, and always would have. People frequently asked her if she was there on holiday, and she suspected that would probably happen even when she’d been living there for twenty years. Winning this award would be the first step to feeling as if the country was accepting her. For a start, award winners went forward into a national competition, which would be a huge thing for her considering she’d only recently started up.
But it wasn’t just that. Back in England, she’d been terribly betrayed by the man she’d loved, or thought she’d loved, and it had ruined her career, as well as her love life. The award had become a symbol of her new start. It would be a confirmation that everything was going to be all right. That she was going to be able to pull herself up by her bootstraps, and that she didn’t have the word disaster tattooed across her forehead.
“I’m not stupid,” she told her sister. “I know Sam has every right to enter the competition. And I know that my entering it was more of a jog for him, a realization that he might as well give it a go. But he’s so... bloody... smug and confident.”
“He is a bit,” Fred acknowledged. “You know he’s winding you up, though, right? It’s part of the mating ritual. If he were a baboon, he’d be waving his red butt in your face.”
“Thank you for that image. Yeah, I get it, but it’s hardly endearing me to him. Buying flowers and chocolates is also a mating ritual. Why can’t he pick something like that?”
“He doesn’t strike me as the flower-buying type.”
“Yeah. Well, I want the flower-buying type.” Frustration rang in Ginger’s voice. “I deserve it, don’t I? After what I’ve been through? I want to be romanced. I don’t want some bloody scruffy local yokel thinking he’s doing me a favor when he asks me out. You know what he said on Wednesday?”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“His elaborate proposal was ‘the new Bourne movie is on Saturday at the cinema. You coming or what?’”
Fred stifled a laugh. “All right, I accept that’s not the most romantic way to do it.”
“You think? He could at least have picked a chick flick or something that didn’t involve an explosion every five seconds.” She sighed. “I like him, Fred, I really do, and I know he’s Mac’s best mate, and part of me thinks it would be such fun for us to go out and double date, but... I want more.”
“All right.” Fred squeezed her shoulders again. “Fair enough. He might be hot as, but you’re right, you do deserve more.” She got to her feet. “You going home now?”
“Yeah, I’m done in.”
Fred paused. “Have you given any more thought to letting Phil run the place without you one day a week?”
Ginger looked out to sea. The sun had set, and the Pacific Ocean was rapidly turning from maroon to a deep, dark blue. Twilight didn’t seem to exist up in the Northland—it went from day to night in what seemed like seconds. “I will soon, I promise.”
“Only you’re going to make yourself ill if you carry on like this. You’ve worked so hard, and it’s time you started easing up a little. And Phil’s a good guy—he’ll manage.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Fred sighed. “All right. I’ll catch you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, see ya.”
Ginger watched her sister head off to the big house farther up the hill that she shared with her husband, and then she turned her gaze back to the sea. The moon, half full and on the wane, hung low on the horizon like a broken china plate. It was so odd that it was upside down compared to England. She’d never get used to that.
He might be hot as... Against her will, Ginger’s lips curved up at her sister’s Kiwi phrase. Deep down, she had to agree with Ellie’s description of him as the sexy baker. Whenever he was around, her heart beat a little a faster, and the sun shone a little brighter. But his insouciance grated on her, as well as his arrogant assumption that if he would only continue to ask her out, she’d inevitably cave at some point.
He’d also told her in no uncertain terms that he was going to win the Bay of Islands Gold Food Award, and although she accepted that he seemed to enjoy winding her up on purpose, she suspected that deep down he believed his own words. Well, waving his red butt in her face was going to get him nowhere. Ginger had given up men over a year ago, and it would take a lot more than the muffin man—no matter how sexy he was—to convince her to get back in the saddle.
Book 2: As Beautiful as the Bay
Other Books by Serenity Woods
For an up-to-date list of available books, please visit the Books page on my website.
Blue Penguin Bay
Book 1: As Deep as the Ocean
Book 2: As Beautiful as the Bay
Book 3: As Timeless as the Sea
Treats to Tempt You
Book 1: Treat with Caution
Book 2: Treat her Right
Book 3: A Rare Treat
Book 4: Trick or Treat
Book 5: A Festive Treat
Book 5.5: No Way to Treat a Lady (Novella)
Book 6.5: A Taste of Things to Come (Novella)
Between the Sheets
Book 1: A Secret Between Friends
Book 2: An Ocean Between Us
Like a Boss
Book 1: Taking Charge
Book 2: Taking Over
Book 3: Taking Liberties
Book 4: Taking Time
Like a Boss Box Set
Heartfelt
Book 1: Mr. Sinful
Book 2: Mr. Seductive
Book 3: Mr. Sensational
Heartfelt Box Set
The Four Seasons
Book 1: Seducing Summer
Book 2: Tempting Autumn
Book 3: Bewitching Winter
Book 4: Persuading Spring
The Four Seasons Box Set
Love Comes Later
Book 1: My Christmas Fiancé
Book 2: My New Year Fling
Book 3: My Valentine Seduction
Love Comes Later Box Set
Three Wise Men
Book 1: The Perfect Gift
Book 2: An Ideal Present
Book 3: A Secret Parcel
Three Wise Men Box Set
Sensual Healing
Book 1: An Uncommon Sense
Book 2: Making Sense
Book 3: Talking Sense
Sensual Healing Box Set
Standalones
Set me Free
One Hot Winter’s Night
Mr. Insatiable
Kiss and Make Up
Something Blue
Santa’s Secret
His Christmas Present
Holly’s First Noel
About the Author
SERENITY WOODS LIVES in the sub-tropical Northland of New Zealand with her wonderful husband and gorgeous teenage son. She writes hot and sultry contemporary romances with a happy ever after, and would much rather immerse herself in reading or writing romance than do the dusting and ironing, which is why it’s not a great idea to pop round if you have any allergies.
Website: http://www.serenitywoodsromance.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/serenitywoodsromance
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Serenity_Woods