Page 29 of Winter Magic on Railway Lane

‘Okay. Well, thanks.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Libby.’

She grabbed her coat and headed out of the front door, but the fresh air did nothing to clear her muddled thoughts. She was trying so hard to hold Ethan at arm’s length, to not get too close to him even though they’d been thrown together like this. But that was hard when he would stand so close to her that her pulse would thump and flutter in her throat.

It was nothing. She was just stressed, that was all.

And tired too, she had to admit.

But as Libby lay in bed that night, she tossed and turned, her mind still racing. Suddenly, she grabbed her phone and typed some numbers into the calculator app.

She had been making chocolate truffles for four days now. Okay, three, as she had lost one to cleaning Ethan’s kitchen. And so far she had made the sum total of three hundred. By her calculations, she had to seriously up her game. There were twenty-two days left before her deadline. That meant she ought to be making over two hundred truffles a day!

Her eyes clicked wide open as she stared at her phone screen. Two hundred truffles a day! And even making that many meant that she would have to work seven days a week.

She couldn’t do it, was her first thought.

But she had to, was her second thought.

The money was seriously good, and without a job, she and her dad needed the income. She just had to get faster, that was all.

Less enjoyment, more work, she told herself.

But it did nothing to stem the rising panic deep inside of her.

18

It felt to Ethan as if time had flown past and suddenly Halloween was less than a fortnight away. The trouble was, there was still an awful lot of chores left on his to-do list to ensure that everything would run smoothly for the passengers.

And there were going to be plenty of them, according to his friend Joe. Using his vast business experience, Joe had come up trumps with creating a website for the ‘Cranfield Steam Train!’ experience. He had also placed an advertisement in theCranbridge Times, which had garnered quite a bit of excitement and the number of people promising to turn up was becoming quite daunting.

Having already cleaned and painted one train carriage, suddenly the second one would need to be used as well. That one was in a poorer condition so had needed extra work on both the floor and the windows.

When Ethan went to grab a much-needed coffee from Platform 1 one afternoon, he was bombarded with questions from Katy.

‘Have you thought about what will happen when the passengers arrive?’ she asked, glancing at the worryingly longlist she had made on her phone. ‘Are you going to put up some signs showing them where to go? And what about toilets and such. People will need facilities. What if it’s freezing cold? Are we going to plan on opening late that evening?’

Ethan knew she was only trying to help, but he didn’t need any more work to do.

‘I was hoping to give everyone a hand with the train,’ said Ryan. ‘But I can’t say that the additional income wouldn’t be welcome.’

Katy nodded. ‘Okay. Well, I can hold the fort here.’ She bit her lip. ‘Of course, we’ll have to keep opening late when the Christmas train is up and running in any case.’

Ryan looked at her. ‘Ifthe Christmas train happens,’ he told her.

‘If?’ repeated Katy, looking surprised as she spun around to face Ethan. ‘I thought it was what Eddie wanted?’

Ethan sighed. ‘It is. But let’s just get through Halloween first, shall we?’

‘But what about…?’ Katy began to ask once more.

Ethan held up his hand. ‘It’s a very short train ride of about thirty minutes. It’ll be fine.’

He hoped he sounded more assured than he felt. His actual main concerns were about ensuring that the train ran smoothly and that the carriages were also deemed safe when inspected by the train inspectors later that week.

But as he looked around the inside of the old station waiting room, he realised that there had been a change since the last time he had been there. Katy had decorated around the door with an autumnal wreath of flowers. In addition, there was a mixture of carved pumpkins and greenery around some hurricane lamps, which had thick white candles in them on each of the tables. There were also swathes of nets with fairy lightsacross the ceiling, along with a few strategically placed fake cobwebs.

‘What do you think?’ she asked, following his gaze. ‘I was going for a sophisticatedly spooky vibe.’