‘I’m not uppity.’
‘Could have fooled me,’ I whispered back and turned to smile at the approaching couple.
‘They weren’t joking! It’s a big bugger. Want to see?’ Pete held out his hands towards Jesse and I did a six-foot leap in the other direction in case the arachnid made a bid for freedom.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Show him, Pete,’ Julie insisted. ‘He’ll never believe us otherwise.’
Pete did as he was asked and Jesse’s eyebrows lifted.
‘See?’ It was now Julie’s turn to stand hand on hips and stare down her brother in a game of I told you so.
‘Admittedly, it is rather large.’ Jesse’s eyes turned towards me. ‘It’s still not going to eat you.’
‘Would you mind getting rid of it for us, Pete?’ I asked.
Pete nodded, smiled again at Julie and began walking towards the house.
‘Not near the house!’ I squeaked.
Pete spun on his heel and marched towards the woods on the other side of the field.
‘Thank you,’ I called after him.
‘I’ll go and make sure he chucks it far enough away,’ Julie said and jogged to catch him up.
As I turned back, Jesse was smiling.
‘Now what?’ I asked.
‘You.’
‘Me what?’
‘You’re quite the contradiction.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you’re never boring.’
‘My ex-fiancé would likely disagree.’ The words tumbled out unexpectedly and I fixed a smile in place before turning away and pretending to study all the junk we’d hauled out.
‘Then your ex-fiancé and I would disagree.’
I swallowed at the lump that had unexpectedly formed in my throat.
‘I think that’s possibly the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’
Actually it was possibly the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me but he didn’t have to know that.
‘Then you’re welcome.’
I cleared my throat. ‘How are things going over there? I’ve done my best to keep my back turned. Felt it was better that way. Ignorance is bliss and all that.’
‘Nothing to worry about. Tree’s removed and the good news is you’ll have plenty of firewood once that’s all seasoned.’
‘I can think of less dramatic ways to get firewood.’
