‘Definitely some pie,’ said Finn, bending to get a better look at the stacks on display. ‘That one, with the pastry sunflowers. And two glasses of sparkling wine.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked Finn, as Terry generously filled two stemless plastic cups for us.
‘It’s just one,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Besides, if I’m notokay to drive, we can always catch a ride back. I’ll come back for the Jeep tomorrow.’
I frowned. ‘Sure. I guess.’
He toasted his glass against mine. ‘Come on, we’re on vacation. Worries get checked at the door.’
‘You’re right,’ I said, sipping my drink. The bubbles went straight to my head, as they always did, and I giggled.
Finn chugged his glass, then held it out to Terry for a top-up. Seeing my eyes on him, he sipped this one a tad more measuredly, but I found myself doing the math. Were two glasses in a couple of hours okay? Did it really matter, given that we could grab a lift back or try the shuttle parked out front?
I bit my lip. It wasn’t that, really. What was niggling at me was more than a question of logistics. Finn had always been the carefree one of the Tucker boys. But this time around there was something else going on. It wasn’t just being all footloose and fancy-free, as my gran might say. He was being reckless.
Was I as well?
‘C’mon, hot stuff,’ Finn said, slipping a hand around my waist. The touch broke me out of my reverie. ‘Let’s go check out these sunflowers. I definitely want a photo of you sticking your head through one of those novelty photo frames.’
‘You like that in a girl, huh?’ I teased back, sipping my wine. ‘Just a pretty face and a wooden frame for a body?’
‘I’m attracted to all body types.’ With a grin, Finn finished his wine and set the glass down on a table. ‘C’mon.’
He led me back off into the maze, getting us lost between the sunny walls of sunflowers, all green stalks and yellow-and-black nodding faces. I couldn’t help but smile. They were so beautiful – easily as tall as me, and stretching off as far as I could see.
‘Ooh, a chair swing,’ said Finn, plonking down into it and pulling me down on his lap. We swung awkwardly back andforth, our trajectory minute so that the swing wouldn’t topple under our combined weight.
‘This is nice,’ he said momentarily.
I couldn’t respond. I was so focused onnotresponding, on not letting my body react the way it wanted to, that I was frozen.
But all that tension made its way into my ring, which crackled like a party popper. Finn blinked. Then he pulled my hand up to his ear, listening.
‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered.
I nodded.
‘I think your ring is possessed.’
He wasn’t far off. Possessed by the spirit of, from what I knew of Josephine’s love life, not quite a hopeless romantic. A useless romantic.
‘That’s one way of putting it,’ I said.
‘What’s its power?’ he asked curiously, squinting at the darkened moonstones.
Zapping me every time I go near you or your brother, I thought, before it did just that.
I swallowed. ‘I think … it wants me to choose the love of my life.’
Finn chuckled. ‘Wow, pressure’s on, huh?’ He leaned towards the ring. ‘Not to be all “pick me”, but pick me, ring.’
For once, the ring was silent.
‘I think it’s having performance anxiety,’ I said.
‘Fair. This is all kind of high stakes, huh.’ He scrunched up his face, then grinned. ‘But are wereallytaking love advice from a piece of jewellery that someone threw out? And we don’t even know who, right? It could be someone playing a prank. Or someone who married ten times. Or a life-long virgin incapable of making eye contact. Or a nun who wants you to choose a spiritual life or something.’
‘Sure,’ I said, deciding against sharing the fact that Josephine and I were basically pen pals at this point.
