Conor gave Hannah a rescue-me grimace but she just grinned back and fell into step next to Izzy. There was time enough to catch up and she wanted to relish this fizzy feeling inside as she gave him covert glances, still not quite believing that he’d said he loved her. Did that really happen? She’d always thought falling in love was a gradual slow-build, and when she’d tumbled off the cliff edge, it had never occurred to her that Conor might do too. She was still coming to terms with it and knew she had a silly smile plastered across her face. Conor loved her. What were the chances? If she’d had the chance to think about it, it wasn’t a risk she’d ever have taken.

‘You OK?’ asked Izzy, her freckled face covered in rain and strands of hair plastered to her cheeks but her face stretched in a teasing smile.

‘Yes,’ said Hannah, unable to hold back her grin. ‘A bit knackered and my hands feel like they’re full of splinters.’

‘Hannaaaaah! You’re not going to talk about that kiss?’

Hannah pinched her lips together but she couldn’t hold the happiness in. ‘Nothing to talk about,’ she said but her eyes told another story altogether.

Izzy wasn’t deterred. ‘I knew something was going on. Meredith and I said there was. Alan didn’t agree. Merry’s going to be pleased to tell him he was wrong. It was almost as if the air pressure dropped when the two of you were in a room together.’

‘It did not,’ scoffed Hannah.

‘Did, so. Are you going to tell me how long it’s been going on?’

Grazing her lip with her teeth, Hannah toyed with telling her the truth but then at the last minute, decided not to. Some things were best kept private. So instead she said evasively, ‘It just developed in the cottage.’

‘And that’s all you’re saying.’ Izzy tucked her arm through Hannah’s. ‘Well good for you. He seems to be a good ’un.’

‘He is.’

Izzy shivered. ‘It’s not every night you stand in the pouring rain pulling down fences but I have to say it’s been fun.’

‘Jason certainly enjoyed it,’ said Hannah with a wry smile.

‘If he doesn’t make it as a chef, there’s a job in demolition with his name on.’

‘I have to admit,’ said Meredith, chipping in from the other side where she and Alan were walking arm in arm, ‘I feel a terrific sense of achievement. A bit like Robin Hood,’ she glanced at Alan, ‘or Maid Marion. Or should that be Matron Marion.’

‘You’re not that old,’ he muttered, nudging her before muttering something in her ear to which she laughed in delight but didn’t share with the other two.