me with a smile. ‘And anyway, I’m about to lose the jumper.’
He stood up, reached for the hem with crossed arms and pulled it over his head, taking the T-shirt underneath almost completely with it. Given the taut, toned and tanned torso I was faced with, I thought that it was hardly surprising that he liked to show it off. Creating and maintaining a body which looked like that had to be a full-on commitment. I quickly looked away before he caught me staring.
‘Don’t strip off on my account,’ I told him, gathering the mugs and then putting them back down again when I remembered I had nowhere to deposit them.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, reaching for his workbag. ‘I’m not. I just won’t have time to go home and change before the carnival, and I don’t want to mess it up.’
‘I see,’ I blushed.
‘And between you and me,’ he winked, getting down on all fours, ‘I’m actually happier keeping it on. For one thing, it’s much warmer than a T-shirt and I’ve recently discovered that women seem rather fond of a well-built fella in a chunky knit.’
‘Is that right?’ I laughed.
‘Sure is,’ he said seriously while carefully pulling on a head torch so as not to mess up his hair which had grown out a bit. ‘I should have been layering up years ago.’
It took him no time to sort the sink and he stressed again that it was a job I was more than capable of and that he hoped I didn’t mind him muscling in.
‘Not at all,’ I told him. ‘You were only doing what Luke asked after all.’
Nell had shuffled over to him and had a paw resting on his leg.
‘You,’ he said, leaning over to her to kiss her head, ‘are an absolute sweetheart, aren’t you?’
‘She’s certainly fond of you,’ I told him, ‘but she’s wary around men as a rule.’
‘Even Finn?’ Zak asked.
‘Especially Finn,’ I sighed, thinking how differently the two brothers had behaved in my kitchen.
Finn had been all about the crashing, groaning and shouting whereas Zak had been slow, steady and quiet, not to mention tender and kind to Nell. Given his flirtatious in-your-face reputation, I could have been forgiven for assuming it should have been the other way around.
‘And how is my brother?’ Zak asked. ‘I’ve been staying out of his way. I thought it best to put a bit of time between our last encounter and the next so it might not come as quite such a shock when I don’t carry on acting like the cock, he quite rightly thinks I am.’
That was further proof that Zak was in earnest about his fresh start and I was pleased he had thought it all through.
‘I have no idea,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t seen him for a couple of days.’
‘But I thought you were working together on some project for the garden.’
‘We are,’ I said, looking away, ‘but we haven’t had much to do yet, so…’
‘Do I sense trouble in paradise?’ Zak asked, without a trace of his former teasing.
‘Not at all,’ I told him, with what I hoped was a nonchalant shrug. ‘We just don’t seem capable of getting on, so I’ve decided to keep our relationship on a strictly professional footing.’
‘Aside from the fact that you’ve both expressed curiosity about each other’s current relationship status and past loves, it’s all work, work, work,’ Zak astutely pointed out.
‘I know what you’re getting at,’ I shot back, ‘but that was just because we were getting to know each other and now we do, we’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t like each other all that much.’
‘I think that’s just because you don’t properly know each other,’ Zak interrupted. ‘I daresay you’ve got more story behind you than a jilted groom, and if you knew why Finn—’
‘I have no interest in knowing why Finn anything,’ I snapped.
Peter had hardly been the jilted groom, standing at the altar surrounded by family, friends and overblown floral displays. The reality was that he’d barely got the ring on my finger before I’d decided to take it off again, and as for Finn’s reasons for objecting to my life choices, well, I didn’t want to know what they were.
‘I just think—’ Zak tried again.
‘Well, don’t,’ I said, throwing him his jumper. ‘Where your brother and I are concerned, please don’t think at all. Now come on, otherwise we’ll be late for the carnival.’
‘And we can’t have that. I’m never late to a party.’
* * *
The