Free Wish by Kelly Hunter

‘Take the darts competition for example; now that brings in the type of crowd we want. Serving up Maude’s pies at six-o'clock each evening brings in the customers we want. As for these music workshops, you know good and well that I only said yes because Cal had his heart set on them, not because I ever thought it was going to bring in business.’
    ‘You’re a wonderful man,’ she told him. ‘Isn’t he wonderful, Maude?’
    ‘But you cannot, I repeat,
can not
have a cappuccino machine!’ And on that note, Roly left.
    ‘That went well,’ said Billie with a grimace. ‘Do you think he just figured out that all those new customers I plan to draw in next are going to be women?’
    Maude snorted. ‘He’s a little slow on the uptake, our Roland, but he’s not stupid. He knows.’
    ‘Do you think he’ll go for it?’
    ‘No. Surely you never expected that dragging this place into the family zone was going to be easy?’
    Billie sighed. ‘Easier than this.’
    ‘Maybe you need to pick battles you can win.’
    ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said, thinking not of Roly but of Adam. Thinking that Maude’s advice fitted that particular situation to perfection. Retreat, stay whole. Value herself a little more and the half-full glass of loving Adam brought to her a little less.
    ‘Or maybe,’ said Maude. ‘You need to persevere.’
     
    Two days later, Roly was waiting for her when she arrived at work, his face lined with worry and his eyes uncommonly grave.
    ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘Someone took to Maude’s garden last night. Hacked all her roses to the ground.’
    Billie stared at him. ‘They what?’
    ‘I was thinking I might head over there and see if she needs a hand. I could be a while. Rachel might need a hand around lunchtime.’
    ‘I’ll stay,’ she said, pushing him out the door. ‘I’ll stay all day, now go.’
    Billie tended the bar automatically, her mind not on her work but on Maude’s roses. Maude loved her garden. She took pride in her plants and those roses had been her babies. Why would anyone hack them to the ground?
    Everyone had a theory.
    Rachel thought that it was most likely teenagers. Ralph thought it was a rival rose grower, seeing as how the annual show was just months away and Maude’s roses always took out the championship. The church ladies – who relied on Maude’s roses to fill their church vases – thought they’d like to see the culprit strung up by the nearest hanging tree. Arthur, a keen rose grower himself, was just plain speechless.
    On one thing everyone agreed. Things like that just didn’t happen in Inverglen.
    Billie wasn’t expecting Maude to come in to work that afternoon but Maude Thompson was made of tougher stuff than that. She came in at three-thirty and it was business as usual as Cal helped her collect the bowls and trays and ingredients she’d need for meat pies. Her apprentice pie-maker, she called him, and after measuring and sifting and stacking dishes, Cal got down to the important business of rolling out
his
pastry for
his
pie and choosing a filling to go in it.
    ‘I’m sorry about your roses, Maude.’ Billie didn’t know what else to say.
    ‘Roses are tough. Some will grow back,’ said Maude. ‘I’m trying to think of it as an early hard prune. And I get to choose new ones—’ She broke off as Roly struggled through the door carrying two large potted roses in full leaf.
    ‘Thought I might find you here,’ he muttered. ‘These are from Arthur. A couple of his Pat Austins. Where do you want them?’
    ‘He’s actually giving them to me?’ said Maude.
    ‘Well I didn’t steal them if that’s what you mean,’ Roly said gruffly. ‘He was looking to give you a couple of those weedy Tangerine Princesses but I never did like those myself so I nudged him towards old Pat, seeing as it’s the only rose that’s ever been able to beat your Queen Adelaide at the show. He said to tell you that it wasn’t a sign of a guilty conscience,