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‘Good to see you too.’ She frowned as she looked into his eyes. ‘Is everything okay? You look as tired as I feel.’
‘Yes, no.’ He shrugged and closed the door behind them.
‘What’s happened?’ Reaching her hand to his face, she cupped his cheek. ‘You don’t look as though you got an ounce of sleep last night.’
‘That’s probably because I didn’t.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘It’s clearly not nothing. What’s happened?’
Holding her hand against his cheek, he frowned. ‘I had a phone call last night, shortly after I’d walked you back to the bakery.’
‘Is someone hurt? Is it your family? Has something happened?’
‘No, no, nothing like that. It’s just...’ He stopped short as a loud knock rang through the room. ‘Oh, I’d better get that.’
‘Ah, that’ll be Diane, Lauren, Wendy and Molly. They said they’d pop by to help.’ Tammy watched as he opened the door and, sure enough, Diane, Lauren, Molly and Wendy stepped inside. What had he been going to tell her? Something must be wrong for him to have spent the night tossing and turning.
‘Evening. Let’s get this party started!’ Diane grinned.
‘It’s not the party today.’ Lauren laughed.
‘Oh I know, but it’s the eve of the party and we might as well put some music on and have a party to prepare for the party. A prep party if you like.’ Diane walked across to the radio and turned the volume up. ‘How’s that?’
‘That’s good.’ Josh smiled. ‘I’ll go and get the boxes of decorations.’
‘I’ll help.’ Following him up the stairs, Tammy paused in the doorway of the spare bedroom. ‘This is where all the boxes went, then.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Josh made his way into the room, stepping around piles of moving boxes until he picked up the stack of boxes she’d carried up here from the bakery.
She touched his elbow as he walked past her. ‘Are you sure everything’s okay?’
‘Yes, it is.’ Leaning across, he pecked her on the cheek before carrying the boxes down the stairs.
‘Ooh, how many decorations have we got?’ Lauren widened her eyes at the sight of the stack of boxes.
‘Haha, yes, Elsie warned us she’d gone a little overboard, but she said we don’t have to use everything.’ Molly laughed as she took the box on top of the stack in Josh’s arms from him.
‘Do you know which ones she wanted us to use? Or just a combination of them?’ Lauren lifted the lid and pulled out a string of brightly coloured bunting.
‘I don’t think she minds.’ Diane took one end of the bunting and began unravelling it. ‘She’s going to try to pop by later if she can get away from Ian without looking too suspicious.’
Tammy pulled a string of fairy lights from the box and looked around. ‘Have you got a stepladder?’
‘Umm, no I don’t. Or not that I’ve found yet, anyway.’ Josh glanced around the room and picked up a dining chair. ‘Here, will this do?’
‘Perfect, thanks.’ Placing the chair down, Tammy clambered on top of it and stretched up towards the top of the curtain pole. If she could wrap the string of fairy lights around it, they’d really light up the room. She wasn’t quite there yet though. She stretched a little further, the chair tilting onto two legs.
‘Careful there.’ Reaching up, Josh cupped her elbow, steadying her.
‘Thanks.’ Smiling, she looked down at him. He looked happy enough and seemed to be enjoying helping decorate his new home. Hopefully, whatever had kept him up all night had been sorted now. Yes, he would have told her if it had been anything important.
‘Hi!’ Teresa walked into the lighthouse, followed by her three children.
‘Teresa! Hi, I didn’t know you lot were coming.’ Diane rushed across to them.
‘Yep. The kids are desperate to help decorate.’ She ushered Pippa, Toby and Rueben inside and indicated the long trail of paper they were carefully carrying. ‘They’ve made Ian a banner.’
‘It’s a happy tired banner, and it says happy tired on it.’ Pippa held up the middle of the banner.
