‘Will you two cut it out? All this flirting is too much after Amias’s lunchtime shenanigans.’ Embarrassed, Nina and Johnny stared in opposite directions. Bella missed flirting though. She and Evan had been together for so long they didn’t really do it anymore. Flirt, that is. They still did … it. Just not quite as often as they once had. Though he’d sometimes look at her with a twinkle in his eye, the days of flirty banter were behind them. It was all part of growing older, she thought ruefully. The next step for them was marriage and kids. She couldn’t wait to have children of her own. Even on her worst days at school when the class had been unruly or a bit more of a handful than usual, she was still happy to be working with children and she couldn’t wait for Lavender Cottage to be full of giggles and gurgles.

Staring out over the acres of fields that rolled and crested behind the school, she marvelled at how different Meadowbank was with each passing season. The spring brought new life and pretty colours, in the summer the air was awash with the scent of flowers and dancing butterflies, and in the colder months the village became a warm and cosy haven. Where some places felt bleak with the arrival of winter winds and cold chills, the small stone cottages that predominated the village remained welcoming and homely. Chimneys smoked, inviting people in with the prospect of cosy log fires and hot toddies. It was very much a tightknit community and one that had welcomed Johnny to the neighbourhood a year before, though it felt like he’d been there longer. The three of them had immediately hit it off, even though she was thirty-five and Nina and Johnny were both a good few years younger than her. The age difference didn’t seem to matter as they all shared the same silly sense of humour and the oddities of their job glued them together.

‘What did Amias do this time?’ asked Nina, shivering. Her long hair of tight red ringlets poked out from under her hat.

‘Somehow he managed to get cheese stuck under his fingernails and I don’t mean a little bit. I mean, like an enormous wedge you’d find on a cheeseboard. I had to scrape it out with a dinner knife because it was hurting him. And then he tried to eat it.’

Johnny spluttered.