‘I am.’ He picked up the tray of drinks.
‘Zac,’ Lindy said, slipping her hands into oven gloves and standing next to the cooker. ‘You will make sure you keep an eye on that girl, won’t you? I don’t want anything happening to her, especially while she’s under our roof.’
He stared at her, a weary expression on his face as he wondered why he wasted time trying to pacify her. ‘Will do, Mum.’
He walked back to the barn and stopped. The six-foot posters they had ordered were standing just inside the door, one on each side displaying the logo, which he had to admit looked impressive.
‘What do you think of our first impression?’ Lettie asked, entering the room behind him. ‘They look amazing, don’t they?’
‘They do.’ He looked at the tray in his hands. He hadn’t realised Lettie had finished work yet but saw there were enoughglasses for her to have a drink and save him having to go back to the kitchen. ‘You finished outside then?’
‘For now,’ she said. ‘I thought I’d come and help with sorting any last-minute bits.’
He sighed. ‘I was beginning to think we’d never manage to pull this together in time,’ he said, relieved that everything seemed to now be in place and looked even better than he had expected.
‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ Lettie grumbled. ‘What do you think?’
He beamed at the expectant faces next to his sister, waiting for his response. ‘For a first impression it’s an excellent one.’
‘Really?’ Melody asked, walking over to join them. He noticed her biting the skin on the side of her finger and knew it was because she was troubled about Rhys being on the island. He hated to see her anxious like this. ‘You honestly think so?’
‘I love the lighting and the bunting. It all looks incredible and well thought out. We’re a great team.’ He walked over to the first stall and went to place the tray onto it.
‘Not there,’ Lettie snapped.
‘Why not?’
‘You shouldn’t mess it up.’
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell his sister that they had all worked perfectly well together that morning without her fretting. He wasn’t sure if it was the stress of the past few weeks, or tiredness from running the farm and the run-up to the event, but he thought his sister might be spiralling. ‘Er, Letts, this is a stand. If it can’t take my tray of glasses of water then it’s not going to be much use to someone loading their products on top of it.’
Patsy, Melody, Kathleen, Phyllis, and Bethan looked at Lettie waiting for her to react.
He spotted Joe, a firefighter friend who Lettie had briefly dated before getting together with Brodie. He hadn’t realised he was there.
‘I haven’t seen you for a couple of months,’ Zac said, surprised to see him again. ‘Where have you been hiding?’ Zac asked, unsure why he was there. Zac spotted Lettie pull a face at him but couldn’t fathom what she was trying to tell him. Then it dawned on Zac that his sister had probably called on Joe to come to the farm to help out with the festival.
‘Lettie called me this morning saying she could do with another pair of hands helping to set this lot up,’ Joe explained. ‘I had a few days owing to me so took them off to come along.’ He looked pointedly at the tray of drinks in Zac’s hands. ‘Is one of those for me?’
Zac nodded. ‘You can have mine. I’ll fetch more from the house in a minute.’
So he had been right then. How clever of Lettie to call on a few friends to make up the numbers and keep everything in order. He wondered if his sister had called on Callum and asked him to pop round if he had any free time.
‘Have they been giving you all the heavy things to lift?’
Joe laughed. ‘No, but I think you had already done most of that.’
They each took a glass of water and when Zac offered his to Joe, he thanked him but refused.
Melody held out her glass to Joe. ‘It’s fine. Zac and I can share this one,’ she said, gazing up at him.
‘I think tomorrow and the next day are going to be good fun, don’t you?’ Lettie said.
‘I do,’ Melody agreed.
Zac knew they were all going to have to keep alert just in case Rhys decided to make good his promise and return. Fun was probably going to be the last thing Zac was bothered about.
26
