As Aidan headed up the hill towards where Tori had left her car, he saw Jamie walking his dogs and Dobby. Jamie waved, and Aidan strode over to join him.

‘Have you met your new fruit-picker yet?’ Jamie asked as Aidan stroked Jamie’s black lab, Harry, on the head.

‘I have.’

‘I felt bad, poor girl. Dobby chasing her down the road when she had only arrived in the village a few minutes before. I didn’t know who she was until Emily told me later. I hope Dobby hasn’t scared her away,’ Jamie said.

‘She seems a hardy sort. I think it would take more than a deranged turkey to scare her off.’

‘Hey, Dobby isn’t deranged,’ Jamie said.

‘He thinks he’s a dog, I wouldn’t say he is mentally stable.’

Jamie looked over at Dobby as he followed Ron, Jamie’s collie, along the side of the road, cocking his leg up whenever Ron did.

‘A little confused maybe, but not deranged.’

‘Well luckily for me, Tori doesn’t seem to have let it put her off,’ Aidan said.

Jamie paused to take a photo of the candyfloss clouds as the sun very slowly started its descent across the sky. He was always taking photos which he would pin up inside his art studio to help inspire him. He loved nature and a lot of his sculptures were influenced by what he saw around him; anything with texture or unusual colours ended up in his pieces somehow.

Jamie turned back to him. ‘What’s she like?’

How was he supposed to answer that?

‘She seems nice,’ Aidan said, vaguely. Nice was too bland a word to describe Tori Graham. Extraordinary would be a more apt description. He smiled. They had just talked about elbows. The whole conversation had made him laugh, she was so quirky, and he liked that about her. She was right, they did have a connection and, though they were both wary about getting involved in a relationship, he just couldn’t help flirting with her. She liked him too. That much was very clear. Even if nothing was going to happen between them, he was really looking forward to talking with her the following evening and getting to know her better. Hopefully, with some good food and a few glasses of wine inside her, she would relax enough to enjoy herself around him and not worry about what she was saying.

He realised Jamie was staring at him. ‘Oh, I recognise that look.’

‘There was no look.’

His younger brother was so insightful that there would be no point in denying it. Aidan decided to change the subject instead. Agatha was already picking out the hat she was going to wear to their wedding, he didn’t need to add fuel to the fire.

‘How’s the preparations for the love festival going? Have you made your boat for the race yet?’ Aidan asked.

‘I’m working on it,’ Jamie said.

As Jamie was a very talented artist, working mainly in sculpture, Aidan expected it would be something incredible. Though whether it would float or not remained to be seen. Jamie wasn’t the least bit practical.

‘What about you?’ Jamie said as Hermione, his greyhound, came bounding over, only just realising that Aidan was there.

Aidan scratched behind Hermione’s ears. ‘I have the basic shape. I’m adding red and purple balloons to represent the berries and they will hopefully aid with the flotation.’

‘Good idea, though sounds like you’ll need a lot of balloons if that’s the main way you intend to float.’

‘The boat is made from wood. What’s yours made from, clay?’

‘No. Well, there are some parts that are made from Fimo, but those are purely decorations. I had to stop Klaus from making a full-sized figurehead for the front of our craft out of clay. He didn’t seem to believe me that it would probably sink it.’

Aidan smiled. Klaus was the other artist who worked out of Jamie’s art studio and he was completely over the top in everything he did. A full-sized figurehead seemed very tame for Klaus. Aidan wondered what else he had up his sleeve.

‘Leo’s shoots fire of course,’ Jamie said. ‘Apparently the whole thing is rigged with pyrotechnics. But then you’d expect no less from him.’

‘Leo’s boat gets more extravagant every year. I think most of the village turn out purely to see what he will produce next.’

‘He likes to put on a show. He knows it impresses the women.’

‘I think there’s only one woman he wants to impress these days,’ Aidan said.

Jamie laughed. ‘I know, but it’s not like him to hold back from making a move. Unless he has made a move and she rejected him.’

‘I can’t see that. Have you seen the way she looks at him?’

‘Yes. They have such a weird relationship. They both obviously adore each other but neither of them seem keen to do anything about it,’ Jamie said. ‘Well, there will be a lot of disappointed women at the festival this year when Leo shares his cake with Isla.’

‘I don’t know if it will go that far,’ Aidan said. The village had a lot to answer for with its loved-up traditions. It was said that if a man managed to sail to the island in the middle of the river and win a slice of the famous heartberry cake, then shared the cake with a woman, that was his way of telling her he loved her. If they ate the cake together they would be happily married. The number of heartberries in their slice was supposed to represent the number of children they would have. It was all very symbolic and, as far as Aidan was concerned, a complete load of rubbish. He went along with it because he owned the heartberries and tradition was very important to the villagers, but he knew it couldn’t possibly be true. ‘Leo has never shared his cake with anyone before, and neither has he given tokens of love to any woman. I can’t see that changing this year.’

‘Leo just loves Emily’s cake. I don’t think it has anything to do with not falling in love with anyone. He holds as much faith in the legacy of the festival as you do. So, are you going to share your cake with Tori this year?’

Aidan laughed. ‘You would have a lot more in common with her than I would. She’s a sculptor too, of sorts.’

Jamie’s eyes lit up. ‘Really?’

Aidan frowned at the punch of jealousy to his gut. Why did he want to push Tori onto his brother?

‘Sort of, she’s an animator, works with clay and plasticine. She’s done a few big animated films. And I looked her up and she was responsible for those TV shorts, Amazing Animals.’

‘Oh, they were really good. Animation is really cool. I’d love to have a go at that. But I would get too protective of my sculptures to start moving them around or destroying them. I’ll have to have a chat with her about it.’

Aidan’s frown deepened, and Jamie laughed.

‘A chat, Aidan, not sticking my tongue down her throat and taking her to bed.’

Aidan smiled and watched him take a picture of a rose, caught between a hedge of brambles and thorns. ‘And what about you, anyone you want to share your cake with this year?’

He watched Jamie shove his hands in his pockets and focus his attention on the grassy bank.

‘Nope.’

Jamie lacked any kind of confidence at all when it came to women. While Leo seem to have it in spades, Jamie had missed that gene. He’d had his heart broken when he’d fallen in love with Polly Lucas and she hadn’t returned his feelings. Other than that, there hadn’t been anyone serious for him. His relationships always ended before they’d got off the ground. The girls all thought he was too nice, which made Aidan’s heart ache for his little brother. Whereas Aidan was definitely not looking for love ever again, and Leo seemed more than happy to do without it, having fun flitting from one woman to the next, Jamie wanted that: wife, kids, the happy ending. And Aidan felt sad that the girls of the village never took the time to get to know him properly. He thought perhaps that Jamie had a soft spot for Melody but if he did, and if she returned those feelings, neither of them had made it known, preferring the wistful-looks-when-the-other-wasn’t-looking approach. It was clearly working so well for them, Aidan thought sarcastically.

They got to Jamie’s cottage and said their goodbyes before Aidan carried on up the hill to Tori’s car, which was thankfully now not surrounded by sheep.

The car was cute, just like its owner. A little blue convertible was the perfect car for Tori Graham. He let himself in and immediately he had to move the seat back, so his legs weren’t jammed under his chin. He adjusted the mirrors too, so he wasn’t looking at his navel, and then he looked around the car. It was spotlessly tidy, not even a sweet wrapper on the floor. But on the seat next to him was a little notebook and a green pen. Curious, he picked it up and thumbed through it. It was some kind of journal and he nearly put it straight back down again, not wanting to invade her privacy; he should never have picked it up in the first place. But he quickly realised that it wasn’t for any kind of personal thoughts, more a record of countless ‘things to do’ lists, a few sketches of some characters she had probably animated, various dates and meetings, minutes or notes from those meetings. This didn’t tell him anything more about her, apart from what she had already said about her being super organised.

He was about to put it back down on the seat when it fell open on the latest page. He smiled when he realised she even had a list of things to do while she was in Sandcastle Bay. ‘See Melody and Isla’ was at the top, even though she would hardly need reminding of that. His smile grew when he saw, underneath that, it said, ‘Pick fruit’, and underneath that it had in big letters ‘Relax’, as if it being on that list would help her to achieve it. Next on the list was ‘Visit Matthew’s grave’. His eyes cast down to the last thing on the list. He frowned. It was in different handwriting to the rest of the notes and he realised he recognised the writing. In the same green ink, but written in Agatha’s spidery handwriting, were the words, ‘Marry Aidan Jackson’.

Aidan burst out laughing. Agatha had clearly been up here, spotted the journal and had no scruples about looking through it and even adding her own notes.

He knew Agatha was going to do everything in her power to get the two of them married off within the next year, especially now there was money involved. He was sure this tiny little note was just the start of it.