“Och.” Cormac pushed his hair out of his face, trying to look sorry. “I thought . . . I thought we maybe got off on the wrong foot,” he added.

Kim-Ange sniffed and folded her arms and raised a black eyebrow, all at the same time.

“I’m . . . from a very small village.”

“That has never heard of the internet or the outside world. We established that.”

Cormac looked down at the chocolates. “Well, I’ll just leave these here,” he said. English people were, he had concluded, very, very confusing.

“I’m lactose intolerant,” said Kim-Ange.

“I’ll throw them in the bin then,” said Cormac, picking them up and retreating.

Kim-Ange stuck her arm out of the doorway and snatched the box. “Well,” she said quickly, “it comes and goes.”

And she shut the door, making sure she didn’t betray even a hint of a smile.

Chapter 24

As soon as he’d knocked on the door of Cormac’s cottage, Jake realized that turning up unannounced to greet a strange woman who’d just arrived in town might be seen as a bit . . . well . . . odd.

But on the other hand, he told himself, he was going to have to work with her after all. Might as well be friendly. Yeah. Friendly. Just checking in.

The sun was going down behind the meadow as Jake looked around. Ach, come on, surely she was going to like it here all right. It was gorgeous. And with someone like him to show her the sights . . .

Of course that wouldn’t be appropriate. At all. But Jake liked playing the odds, and there were few enough girls in the area—several mostly liked him, which was fine, but they were hardly a challenge when he thought about it—and Ginty MacGuire still had her eye on him, just like she had in fifth year, and she was about the prettiest girl in Kirrinfief, even if she was also a pain in the tonsils, so, you know, they’d probably get around to that one of these days. But no harm in checking to see if there was any competition . . .

“Yeah?” a loud English voice shouted at him from the other side of the door, instead of just yelling “come in.”

This was unheard of. Jake considered opening the door and just walking in, as he’d have done if Cormac were home, but (thankfully) discarded that idea (Lissa would have hit him with a lamp she’d already eyed up).

“Hi . . . uh, it’s Jake Inglis? I’m the paramedic. Did Cormac not mention me?”