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‘Oh.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I can actually smell the pie… and it smells really good.’
‘Help yourself,’ Ellie said. ‘I brought plenty. There’s a spare pie there if you want to take it home afterwards and plenty of jars of chutney, although I’d recommend giving the chutney a few weeks or so to mellow.’
‘Wow. Thanks, that’s great.’ Finn bobbed his head. ‘Love a good pie or a crumble. I actually popped in for a cuppa, but pie too is a much better deal.’
He set the kettle to boil then got a bowl from the cupboard and spooned some pie into it along with a dollop of vanilla custard from the carton on the counter. While he made tea, he took a bite of the pie and almost moaned out loud. The fruit was perfectly sweet and zingy, the pastry light and buttery and the custard smooth and creamy. He could easily eat two or three bowls of this and still have room for more. But that would be greedy and the last thing he wanted was for Ellie to think he was letting himself go. Not that it should matter what she thought of him really, but he found that it did matter. He cared about her opinion and that was interesting to him.
‘Here you go.’ He placed fresh mugs of tea in front of the women then went back for his mug and bowl and he joined them at the table. ‘This pie is amazing, Ellie.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’ She smiled at him. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘So what’s the plan for tomorrow, Darcie?’
She sipped her tea then patted her iPad screen. ‘I’m two models short.’
‘Nightmare!’ He sat back and spooned some more pie into his mouth.
‘One female and one male.’
‘Oh dear.’ Finn shook his head and ate some more pie but when he looked up, his sister was grinning at him with her head tilted to one side.
‘Fii—iiin…’
‘Nope.’ He shook his head vigorously.
‘Pleeease.’
‘Nope. I can’t model vintage clothing, Darcie. I’ll do anything else.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Ellie said suddenly, and Finn and Darcie looked at her.
‘Are you sure?’ Darcie asked.
‘Absolutely. I mean… I don’t have a model figure or anything but—’
‘Looks pretty good to me!’ Finn said, cutting Ellie off and then he realised what he’d done when Darcie and Ellie gaped at him. ‘I mean uhhh… You look good to me.’Not getting better.‘You have a gorgeous figure.’Digging yourself in deeper.‘I mean… you look good, Ellie, and have nothing to worry about at all.’
‘Thanks, Finn, that’s very kind.’ Ellie seemed to sit up a bit straighter in her seat and a flush touched her cheeks in a way that made Finn think once again how beautiful she was. Didn’t she get many compliments? He felt certain that she should be told every single day exactly how beautiful she was.
‘OK then… If Ellie’s going to do it, I will too.’
‘Whoop!’ Darcie pushed her chair back and rushed at Finn and hugged him tight. ‘You’re the best big brother.’
Finn laughed and Darcie planted a kiss on his forehead. ‘I know exactly what I’m going to dress you in.’
‘It better not be too sexy is all I can say because we don’t want the local population getting all worked up now do we?’ He was only teasing but when he met his sister’s eyes he started to wonder exactly what she had planned to dress him in.
‘There will be a few changes of clothes but I have some outfits that go well together so if you two are all right with it, I’ll partner you up.’
Darcie looked back down at her iPad but Finn met Ellie’s eyes across the table and raised his brows.
She smiled, albeit nervously, so he responded with a shrug as if to sayWhat have we got to lose?It looked like Saturday evening at the village hall was going to be a lot more fun than he’d anticipated. And it was all because Ellie was back in Wisteria Hollow.
Chapter13
Ellie
Ellie stood in front of the bedroom mirror and assessed herself. She’d had a good old Saturday afternoon pampering session. It wasn’t something she usually did because these days she rarely made time for all that malarkey. When she was a teenager, she’d spend ages in the bathroom, shaving, plucking, exfoliating, conditioning and moisturising while singing along to various rock bands and anticipating the evening ahead. Then she got married and had children and Cooper barely seemed to notice she existed let alone whether or not her legs were shaved and her bikini line waxed, so she stopped bothering. He didn’t notice if her skin was well moisturised or her hair shiny and blow-dried and so it mattered less to her than getting some extra sleep or relaxing with the latest book she’d picked up from the library or added to the shopping trolley at the supermarket. Yes, she could have made more effort for herself, but she was often so tired and worn down that more sleep or an extra hour on the sofa seemed preferable to shaving legs that no one would see or touch. But today, knowing that she was going to be in her underwear at various points during the evening while getting changed for the fashion show, she made an effort and found that she enjoyed it. A good buffing with the body brush was followed by a long soak in the clawfoot tub with some essential oils, accompanied by a conditioning oil pack on her hair. When she got out, she wrapped her hair in a towel and rubbed a rich indulgent moisturiser into her skin until it felt baby smooth. Earlier that morning she’d attended to her unrulylady garden(as she’d once heard it called on TV)and tidied up a bit with a scissors then whipped off the sides with some wax strips she found in the drawer of the bathroom cabinet. They were still in date which made her chuckle because it meant that her aunt had clearly bought them and used them previously, a thought she didn’t dwell on for long because her aunt had been in her seventies. Did women in their seventies still wax their bikini line or had Iris used them for something else, like her upper lip? Now she thought about it, she did recall Iris telling her that she had some whiskers that popped through on her upper lip and her chin from time to time, so perhaps the strips had been used for that. Better to believe that than imagine her aunt trying to contort herself to remove her bikini line. Though why not, if that was what she liked to do? People should always take the best care of themselves that they could, after all, and she would never be one to judge.
