‘I don’t know,’ Finn shrugged. ‘I just hope he wasn’t up to something. Snooping around with an ulterior motive.’
I was annoyed that was where his mind had immediately sprung to. The purpose of Zak’s visit was obviously to check his brother was okay, having noticed his absence from the carnival.
‘I hardly think he would have purposefully sought you out if he was up to no good, would he?’ I pointed out. ‘If he was snooping, as you so kindly put it, then he wouldn’t have made an effort to alert you to his presence, would he?’
‘I suppose not,’ said Finn, looking a little embarrassed that I had called him out.
‘Perhaps you should give him the benefit of the doubt,’ I carried on, ‘and accept his help as the act of kindness that it was no doubt intended to be.’
I stopped talking before I said too much.
‘If you knew Zak as well as we do, Freya,’ Luke said, ‘then you’d understand Finn’s scepticism.’
‘I see,’ I swallowed.
‘You aren’t falling for the charms of my burly builder by any chance, are you, Freya?’ he teasingly added.
‘No, of course I’m not,’ I shot back.
Luke laughed at my hasty and vociferous denial, but Finn didn’t.
‘But he is handy with a spanner,’ I said, more equably, ‘so that does give him a certain appeal I suppose.’
‘He sorted your sink, didn’t he?’ said Luke, readily abandoning the subject of attraction for his preferred topic of faulty pipework.
‘He did,’ I agreed. ‘It’s all as good as new.’
‘I thought you said you could handle it yourself,’ Finn said gruffly.
‘I could,’ I snapped, ‘but my landlord called in the professionals before I had a chance to do it.’
I was annoyed to find my tone matching his.
‘I don’t think it would be a bad idea to come and have a proper look around the house before the winter really sets in,’ Luke carried on, not picking up on the rising tension. ‘I know we had a survey done, and Harold’s never had any problems, but that burst pipe last year caused absolute chaos here, so it would give me some peace of mind. Would that be all right do you think, Freya?’
‘Of course,’ I told him. ‘Whatever you want.’
‘Great,’ he said, ‘I’ll get it sorted for next week then.’
‘Super,’ I nodded.
‘Now, Finn,’ he smiled, ‘what was the something else that you said Zak had stayed to help you with?’
The question seemed to go some way to pulling Finn out of the fug he had fallen into after I’d sprung to his brother’s defence.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll show you.’
He strode off, as was fast becoming his habit when he had finished any sort of interaction which involved me.
‘You coming, Freya?’ asked Luke.
‘No,’ I swallowed, ‘I’ve seen already.’
Finn turned to glare at me while Luke rushed to catch him up. I didn’t think I’d really said anything to warrant such a look, but if I wasn’t careful, he’d be doing a Medusa and turning me to stone.
Chapter 19
I didn’t have time to fret over mine and Finn’s most recent interaction because the next day Lisa and I were hosting the first Winterfest session and, as much as I had been looking forward to it, I found myself feeling increasingly nervous as the time to welcome the attendees ticked relentlessly closer.
As soon as I finished in the garden on the Friday afternoon, I rushed around to the house where I was meeting Lisa to set everything up in the dining room Kate and Luke had already cleared for the occasion. There wasn’t all that much to do, but we checked, checked and checked again, ticking everything off and making sure everyone would have what they needed and also that we had spares of a few things, just in case.
‘Here’s hoping for some sunshine,’ said Lisa, chinking her mug of tea against mine in a toast to our adventure, once we had finished laying everything out.
‘And plenty of inspiration,’ I added for good measure.
We needn’t have worried about lacking in either because it was an extremely clear and frosty start the next morning, which meant sunshine was guaranteed, and when we walked back into the dining room, having deposited Nell in the kitchen, we found that Santa’s elves had been at work overnight and the room had been transformed into a veritable grotto, complete with a real tree, swags of greenery and enough warm white twinkling lights to illuminate Blackpool.