‘We don’t even know what this is,’ he said quietly. ‘If you feel like that, it’s fine. It’s not what I want, but I get it. Just …’ He sagged further still, his beautiful shoulders low. ‘I’m here. Come back to the van. We have to work together. For now at least.’
Her head whipped to look at him and he smiled sadly. ‘Not a threat, I’m just saying as long as you want me, I’m here for … work.’
Here for work. As soon as she’d said they shouldn’t get together, she knew she didn’t mean it, not really. She actually liked him, and she couldn’t believe it was all over before she even had a chance to really sabotage it for herself. Which she probably would have done. It was her, after all.
‘Thank you,’ she said, trying for once to act like an aloof, very important and busy employer and business owner. ‘I think we should get back.’
Sighing softly, Cillian pointed back the way she’d just come from.
‘The van’s over there,’ he said. ‘I think your bottom lip obscured your view before. You walked right past it.’ He laughed softly, and she felt a glimmer of embarrassment once more. She whirled around, stamping down hard on his foot as she did.
‘I’ll give you a bottom lip!’
Cillian, who was laughing at his own lame attempt to break the tension and make her laugh, gasped. He didn’t flinch though, and it didn’t feel as satisfying as she expected. She actually thought, as she looked down in dismay at his steel-toe-cap boots, that she might have chipped a bone in her foot.
‘Argggghh!’ she screamed in his face, pointing at his shoes. ‘Trust you to wear stupid shoes!’
‘Well, they’re not very stupid, are they? Giving that my tootsies are snug and warm, and you’re bounding about like a mad thing.’ She was hopping on one foot now, holding the other cradled in her hands as she bobbed and weaved in front of him. People were actively walking around the pair of them now, and Cillian smiled at them distractedly.
‘Don’t mind us, hopping competition practice. Have a good day!’ He bowed theatrically, and when he went to stand again, he swooped. Picking April up in an awkward fireman’s carry, he hoicked her over one shoulder and strode off in the direction of his van.
‘Cillian, let me down! Now!’ She was trying to fight him, one leg hanging limp and bumping against his back. ‘My bottom is hanging out!’ It wasn’t, but there was a hint of builder’s bum. So much for dressing up for once. She might as well just buy seven sets of dungarees and have done with it all.
Cillian twirled her around in his arms as though she were a baton, till she lay in his arms like a sack of spuds. He turned and glanced behind him to see if anyone was checking out her posterior. She took in his broad neck, the stubble around his jawline. Lickable. She licked her lips instead.
‘Anyone see your fine arse?’ he asked, looking for the first time at her properly. She blushed in his arms, secretly getting a thrill that he might be mad someone had seen her wobbly bits. It was insanely cute, and the polar opposite of Duncan and his little ‘chunky monkey’ comments.
‘No,’ she said, the anger missing from her voice now. ‘No one saw. Thank you.’
He nodded, just once, a curt little movement that made her want to wrap her arms tight around him. Instead, she settled for just gripping his back to hold herself steady. Her foot was throbbing, but she found it hard to concentrate on that while in her current position. They neared the van and Cillian opened the door, slotting her into the passenger seat carefully. They both reached for the seatbelt in the same instant.
‘I can do it, Cillian, I didn’t hurt my hands.’ He pulled his hand away, closing her door and running around to his side, a lost little boy look in his eyes that April couldn’t help but think she had put there. Why was everything under the Cornish sun so blurred and complicated? After a couple of attempts to start a conversation, to which Cillian just made noises from this throat, she gave up and they drove home in silence.
***
As soon as the van came to a stop outside Cillian’s chalet, April jumped – or rather, hobbled – out, gingerly placing weight on her injured foot. It was bearable, probably just a bruise to come out. She reached into her bag for her keys and strode straight to her own front door. She had to get away for a moment.
‘Er, April?’ Martha called from across the way. ‘Everything okay? I need to have a word with you.’
Grrr. Another one. She was only just done with the last favour she’d asked for, and look how that had turned out.
‘Not now, Martha. I need to get on. I’ll come see you later.’ She didn’t turn around. She’d heard Cillian’s van drive away a second after she’d slammed her door, but she didn’t want to look at him. She couldn’t, not while feeling so embarrassed. She threw the key into the lock, and minutes later, she was standing in her bedroom, the tears flowing now, and April couldn’t even really decipher what the reason was.
‘Come on, pull it together.’ She had a delivery coming that afternoon, and she needed to be ready to accept it. She’d been so excited when she’d ordered it, and she couldn’t wait to see what the park guests would make of it. She didn’t want it to be overshadowed by the horrible weird morning, where she had started off kissing Cillian and ended up showing half her bottom to the residents of Cornwall. She needed something good to happen. Sniffing loudly, she reached into her bag for the packet of tissues she kept there, but her phone was what her hand closed around. She paused for a moment,
