to where he pointed, and my eye catches two people standing watching from the top of a wooden structure around a hundred yards away. Yes, of course. It’s what we used to call a ‘flying fox’ when we played on one as kids. I remember Fen telling me they’d installed one here.
‘You seem to be in one piece,’ he says, releasing me. ‘Apart from a bit of mud,’ he adds, his eyes dropping to my knees.
Straightening my outfit, I glance down and my heart sinks. I’ve got big dirty holes in my tights from where I fell in the woods, and there’s something suspiciously brown and glistening stuck to my smart black skirt. Goodness knows what my back view looks like.
‘I think it’s just mud,’ he reassures me with a hint of a smile. ‘In case you were worried it was something else.’
‘Are you sure?’ I wrinkle my nose, noticing that when he smiles, his eyes seem a shade lighter. Less ‘storm at sea’. And more ‘Mediterranean blue’.
He nods, running a hand over his cropped dark hair. ‘If you let it dry, it might even brush off.’
I haven’t got time for that! Glancing at my watch, I realise with dismay that it’s now five past ten.
The stranger holds out his hand. ‘I’m Noah Jackson, by the way.’
‘Jenny Wilkes.’ His handshake is cool and firm.
His dark brows rise. ‘Are you one of the guests?’
I shake my head. ‘My company will be doing the catering. I’m due for a meeting at the house, but I heard the screams and I – um – thought someone was in trouble.’ I feel such an idiot now!
‘Ah. Right. The screamer would be Melanie up there.’ He points, a hint of a smile on his face, and a girl with long curly blonde hair shouts hello and waves cheerfully. ‘She’s never been on a zip wire before. She was…um…really getting into it and letting rip with the sound effects.’
‘Ah, right. I thought I’d stumbled onto a Midsomer Murders film set,’ I joke, feeling myself blushing under his penetrating gaze. ‘That someone was being strangled by the Wicked Woodland Witch of local folklore or something.’
He laughs. ‘Who would obviously turn out to be a Midsomer villager in cunning disguise.’
‘Well, yes. But only after a lot more bodies had piled up. Obviously.’
‘Obviously.’ He grins, studying me. ‘I like a good Scandi noir myself.’
‘Me, too. I had a gruesome fascination with Cluedo when I was a kid. I used to make up all sorts of horrible ways for the victims to die.’
‘Nice. Colonel Mustard in the library with the dagger, digging out the entrails one by one?’
‘Exactly.’ I return his smile, trying to think of something witty to say, but finding myself distracted by the shape of his slightly fuller lower lip. I tear my eyes away and look up at Melanie, who I can see chatting and laughing with a guy in jeans and a dark winter jacket. ‘So are you all guests here?’
‘Yes. The three of us are old university friends of Richard’s?’ he says, and I nod. Richard is Fen’s older brother. He turns. ‘That’s Fergus up there. With Melanie, the screaming zip wire novice.’
‘Everything okay?’ calls Melanie, leaning over the wooden frame at the top of the ride. And as Noah holds up his thumb and shouts, ‘Could have been worse, but I think we’re all right,’ my eyes wander over his tall frame. Broad shoulders that fill out his jacket…long strong legs…great bum in jeans that hug him in just the right way…’
He turns back and catches my eyes at hip level, and I feel the colour whoosh into my cheeks.
‘Perhaps you should try it yourself,’ he says, nodding back at Melanie, a hint of a challenge in his eyes.
I’m still wincing inside at being caught checking him out, and at first my brain struggles to compute what he’s saying. Then I realise. He’s daring me to have a go. ‘Oh, no. I’m not really a zip wire sort of a person.’
Actually, I’d quite like to have a go. But not in front of Noah Jackson…
He folds his arms and eyes me with a hint of a smile.
‘I prefer to keep my feet firmly on the ground,’ I add. Feeling oddly self-conscious, I grab some ferns from the ground and start trying to scrape the mud off my skirt. Why did I say that? It makes me sound so boring. Although why I should be worried about what Noah Jackson thinks of me, I’ve