Valentine's Day at the Café at the End of the Pier

by Helen Rolfe

Genres: Short Stories; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Holiday Romance

Synopsis

Searching for love? You'll find it at The Café at the End of the Pier... *An exclusive free short story and the start of a heartwarming new series.* When Jo's beloved grandparents ask for her help in running their little café at the end of the pier in Salthaven-on-Sea she jumps at the chance. The café is a hub for many people: the single dad who brings his little boy in on a Saturday morning; the lady who sits alone and stares out to sea; the woman who pops in after her morning run. Jo soon realises that each of her customers is looking for love - and she knows just the way to find it for them. She goes about setting each of them up on blind dates - each date is held in the café, with a special menu she has designed for the occasion. But Jo has never found love herself. She always held her grandparents' marriage up as her ideal and she hasn't found anything close to that. But could it be that love is right under her nose...? An exclusive free short story to celebrate the start of a feelgood new series from Kindle bestseller Helen Rolfe. ******* Readers love The Café at the End of the Pier : 'Brings a smile to your face and a tear to your eye' - Goodreads reviewer 'Heartwarming and made me smile... I can't wait to read more' - Goodreads reviewer 'A beautifully told little story...perfectly charming and totally yummy' - Amazon reviewer 'A lovely feelgood short story, I had a smile on my face all the way through' - Amazon reviewer

Release date: February 8, 2018

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 30

Sample

The beauty of renting a room in a shared house was that walking away from your life was so much easier to do.

When Jo had received the phone call from her grandmother, suggesting she up sticks and relocate from Edinburgh back to her home town of Salthaven-on-Sea to help out in their café at the end of the pier, Jo hadn’t taken much persuasion. She was thirty-one, single, working in a teaching job she lacked real passion for, and her life felt as though it had stagnated for the last year at least. She’d been wanting a change, and one had fallen right into her lap. And so she’d packed up her single room, covered the next two months’ rent until her housemates could find someone else, and emailed the school where she worked to tell them of her plans, withdrawing her availability for future teaching jobs now that her position covering maternity leave had come to a close. And rather than feeling daunted, Jo felt more than ready to embrace new possibilities.

Now, with her beaten-up VW Beetle bulging at the seams with her belongings and a few more boxes fixed onto the vintage roof rack using fastening straps and rope, Jo was on her way to a new life on the south coast. She cranked the heating up as she left Edinburgh under the cover of darkness and, with no sign of snow or ice, it was almost as though this change was meant to be. She just had to drive the four hundred miles between her life now and the one waiting for her, and for the first time in years she felt she could see clearly. All through her life her grandparents had been there for her, cheering her on at school sports days, congratulating her on her exam results, talking with her when she was going through tough times at university and stressing over her finals. And now, years later, they were going to be together again. And she couldn’t wait.

Along the way she stopped a few times to grab something to eat, and twice she’d shut her eyes for a good ten minutes and leaned back in her seat in the various car parks she’d ended up in. But it wasn’t tiredness, it was simply to calm the excitement that was building with every mile as she drew closer to the place she’d always known she’d return to one day.

After hours of obeying the satnav’s commands Jo found herself in familiar territory. She turned off the main road and onto a single carriageway. The road narrowed and the sign came into view saying ‘Salthaven-on-Sea 10 miles’. The sign was always the marker, the moment she felt as though she was coming home, and today, given the major change afoot, it was all the more powerful. Her hea. . .