‘Oh, this bloody gate has come off its hinges again,’ Cynthia moaned. ‘You’ve got to get someone to sort it out, Bella. I’ll ask your dad to do it tomorrow.’

‘He’ll be knackered from a day at the park. Just leave it be, I’ll sort it later.’ Evan had been promising to fix it since the summer but every weekend there’d been a million and one other things to do. Though sometimes she’d wondered what he did while she was volunteering at Bluebell Park. Shag his fancy woman, probably.

Just as she lifted the broken gate up onto the latch, Nick – Freddie’s dad – came out of Bramble Cottage next door to put some rubbish in the bin.

‘Bella, hi. You’re off out early.’

‘Hi, Nick.’ She plastered on a smile hoping that if she faked it, she might feel less like her heart had been ripped out, used as a frisbee, and then chomped by an angry dog. ‘Freddie still in bed?’

‘Yeah. We had a bit of a late night last night. Sorry.’

Despite it all, Bella chuckled. Nick always seemed to think that as she was a teacher, she was continually judging his parenting skills, though the reality couldn’t be further from the truth. He’d been doing brilliantly as a single dad. Paige had always been a selfish creature and thought herself far too good for the quiet village Bella loved dearly. She was also delusional thinking she was too good for lovely Nick Cowley. If anything, it was the other way around. He was outrageously good-looking with dark brown, almost black hair and blue eyes. As a landscape gardener, his body had more muscle than most men dreamed of. More than that though, he was kind, and a devoted, if somewhat disorganised, dad.

Freddie appeared at his elbow dressed as a stormtrooper, though his mask and gun were covered in smears of red paint.

‘Wow, Freddie, I love your costume,’ Bella said. Switching into teacher mode had brought some life back to her voice.

‘Thanks, Miss Moore. I’m a stormtrooper, but Dad let me put some red paint on it at Halloween, so I looked more murdery.’

‘That’s not quite the word I used,’ Nick added, placing a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘I think I said scary.’

‘No you didn’t. You definitely said murdery.’

A faint blush appeared on Nick’s cheeks and he shook his head. ‘Thanks for that, son.’

‘It’s fine,’ Bella replied, and for a second, the emotional noise in her head faded away. ‘We’re all supposed to look a little scary on Halloween.’

With a strange grunt that emanated from somewhere under his mask, Freddie darted back into the house pretending to shoot his gun.