‘Oh, OK. Thanks again for keeping an eye on the house, and for fixing the gate, of course.’

He smiled, wider this time. ‘Any time,’ he said, before nodding once at Lorcan and heading back out of the garden and on into the village.

‘Got your own personal handyman now, have you?’ Lorcan grinned.

‘No. He oiled the gate and frankly,’ I said, dropping my voice, ‘I’d prefer if he hadn’t. I left it squeaky for a reason.’

‘Advance alert system?’

‘Yes!’ I said, turning to Lorcan. ‘Exactly.’

‘He means well, I’m sure.’

‘He does. I know. And I’m aware I sound very ungrateful. I just prefer to do things myself if I can.’

‘Yeah. I know. We spent the weekend together, remember?’

‘Shooosh!’ I said, flapping my hands at him and shooing him into the house before closing the door behind us. ‘We did not spend the weekend together.’

‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ he replied.

‘OK, fine but it sounds wrong when you say it like that.’

‘Wrong?’

‘Yes. Like we “spent” the weekend together,’ I explained, dipping my fingers into air quotes.

‘And that would be wrong?’ He raised one eyebrow and a smile drifted around his lips.

I had a feeling that spending a weekend with Lorcan O’Malley would be the very opposite of wrong. Which was exactly why I stuck to my guns now.

‘Yes. Very. Incredibly.’

‘I’m wounded.’

‘Oh, you are not. I drive you up the wall just as much as you do me.’

He made a head gesture that was a maybe yes, maybe no, as he stepped through to the kitchen and studied the schedule on my fridge. ‘How on earth do you function like this?’ He tapped the paper.

‘Very well. When people don’t interrupt.’ I gave him a meaningful glance.

‘It’s lovely to see you, too.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Just passing.’

‘Really.’

‘Yep,’ Lorcan said through a mouthful of one of the biscuits he’d helped himself to. ‘Are these Betty’s? They’re amazing.’

‘How do you know they aren’t mine?’ I asked.

Lorcan pointed his second biscuit at the fridge door. ‘No baking scheduled.’ He moved across to take a closer look. ‘What are you supposed to be doing this morning? Let’s see. Hmm,’ he said, turning his head briefly, ‘I see chatting up young Tom wasn’t in the schedule. Interesting.’

‘You think you’re so funny.’ I rolled my eyes and moved across the kitchen to stand in front of my planner. Unfortunately, this placed me closer to Lorcan than I’d anticipated and he looked, and smelled, just as good as I remembered.

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘Yes, I did. Just passing.’

‘Why on earth would you be just passing here?’ I asked, disbelief radiating out in waves as I crossed my arms in front of my chest.