“Thank you.” Her voice sounded strangely breathy, like she’d been running.
“But please do one thing for me…”
“O-kaaay,” she said, cautiously.
“Don’t rush into things with Warren.”
She smiled. “I won’t be rushing into anything,” she assured him. “My eyes are fully open, I promise.”
Ryan seemed to relax. “Open eyes are all I ask.”
Fred’s stomach was a mass of fireworks pinging off in all directions, and her head wasn’t much better. This was uncharted territory: two handsome men wanted to mark her dance card, and she liked them both. It was a head scrambler.
“The big question now”—she forced her voice to adopt a normal tone—“is what do we do with this lot, now we’ve dug it up? Do we rebury it?”
“Are we still talking about our feelings? Or are we back on the time capsule?” Ryan asked with a grin, breaking any tension still lingering in the air.
She laughed, grateful for his uncanny ability to put people at ease. “The time capsule. Idiot.” She rolled her eyes at him. Teasing was safer ground.
“Maybe we should make a new one,” said Ryan. “And open it when we’re fifty.”
“You just don’t want to bury your Beyblade again, do you?”
“You got me.” He smiled at her. “I’m glad we did this.”
“Me too.”
—
They filled inthe hole, which was much quicker than digging it, and had just smoothed it over when a gruff voice shouted, “Oi, what are you up to?” A bright light blinded them, and they couldn’t see who was behind it. “Get outta there, this is a golf course, not a lover’s lane.”
“Sorry,” said Ryan, covering his eyes. “We weren’t doing anything.”
“Ryan Frost?” The voice became incredulous. “And is that…Freddie Hallow-Hart? I might have known it. Back less than a month and up to your old tricks already.”
Fred recognized the voice. “Mr. McCalister?” she said, at the same time as Ryan said, “Jock?”
The man lowered his torch and harrumphed. “What are you two up to anyway?” His voice was friendly, if a little withering. “I’d expect it from Freddie, but not you, Ryan.”
“So unfair,” Fred moaned, through gritted teeth. “You set one drove of pigs free, and you never hear the end of it!”
“Just taking in the sea air,” said Ryan, scrambling out of the bunker and then reaching a hand down to help Fred out. “What are you doing out at this time of night?”
“Couldn’t sleep. One of the pigs is sick, and I’ve been sitting up with it; thought I’d stretch my legs for half an hour, and ended up down here. Then I caught sight of a couple of troublemakers out on the golf course. I should’ve known it wouldn’t be long till you’d be up to no good.” He was chuckling now.
“I’m not a child anymore,” said Fred, indignantly, as shebrushed the sand from her jeans. Though she had to admit that being caught messing about in a sandpit in the middle of the night wasn’t scoring her any maturity points. The breeze was stronger out of the shelter of the bunker, and she began to shiver.
Ryan picked the strongbox up and stuffed it under his arm. “Right, we’ll be off,” he said brightly. “Sorry to have alarmed you. Hope the pig recovers.”
Mr. McCalister made a sort of growling noise in his throat that could have been an actual growl or simply the sound of him mulling things over. “Aye, well then,” he said, finally, “I’ll be seeing you,” and he began to walk back along the edge of the golf course in the direction of his farm. They watched him go, and then he turned and shouted, “And stay away from my pigs, Freddie Hallow-Hart, or you’ll find yourself on the Naughty List!” before turning back and trudging away.
Fred raised her arms in mock surrender.
“Come on,” said Ryan. “Let’s get back before you cause any more trouble.”
She barged into him, knocking him sideways, and then fell into step beside him.
When they arrived at the gates of Hallow House, Fred checked the text from her aunt for the code, punching it in with frozen fingers. The walk back up the steep hill from the beach had helped take the edge off the cold but it was quickly seeping back in now, and she shivered.
