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‘Um, I think there’s been some sort of…’

‘You see, I don’t really need a normal dog walker as my parents live nearby and take Bruno most afternoons when I’m working, but I’m utterly hopeless at picking guys and normal dating sites seem complete meat markets.’

Frankie didn’t know what to say.

Not having the heart to tell Alison a direct no, Frankie told her she’d have to check her availability and get back to her.

Hanging up, Frankie looked at the list of names on her pad. All of them had mentioned the “extras”.

Frankie hadn’t minded setting Colin and Helen up, but starting a canine dating group with that end in sight was an entirely different prospect.

She looked down at Gilbert who was watching her and her omelette closely.

‘Should we start a dating service?’

His tufty eyebrows waggled up and down and he gave a little nose whistle.

‘I’m guessing that’s a yes. What about you?’ she asked Storm and Lady who were lying on her other side.

Storm flopped her head down on the floor with a deep sigh.

Her response perfectly summed up Frankie’s reaction to dating.

She had no interest in any of that malarkey either.

CHAPTER 3

FRANKIE

Matteo Bartoli came out of the kitchen of his trattoria, beaming at his family as he carried the timballo, the Italian speciality pie containing pasta, cheese and meat enveloped in Matteo’s secret sauce. He placed it ceremoniously in the centre of the table, which was already groaning with numerous other delicious dishes.

‘We should be the ones to cook for you on your birthday!’ Frankie’s mum, Maria, said to her father as she kissed him on the cheek.

‘Nonsense! The day I stop cooking for you lot is the day they take me away in a box!’ Matteo joked as he gestured to everyone to take a plate.

Despite the two large blue number seven helium balloons bobbing around as a reminder of his age, Matteo Bartoli could have easily passed for a couple of decades younger. Spry and energetic, Frankie’s grandfather was the head of the family and a popular figure in the village of Drumkeldy since arriving in 1968 with his new bride, Anna, ready to start their life together. Matteo’s grandparents, along with Anna’s had moved from Italy to Glasgow in the early 1900s and both their families started cafés in the city. When eighteen, the newly married and ambitious Matteo had travelled a little farther north, where he and Anna had fallen in love with the area around Loch Lomond. Deciding to settle in the picturesque village of Drumkeldy, Matteo rented out an old café to start his trattoria, complete with a spacious flat above, where they brought up their family, and where Matteo, now a widower, still lived.

It was tough for Matteo and Anna at first, with many locals being suspicious of the strange foreigners and their new cuisine. Hard work, perseverance and the sheer talent of Matteo and Anna and their catalogue of family recipes soon made the trattoria a popular fixture of village life. It didn’t hurt that Drumkeldy was along the route of the West Highland Way and saw many visitors travelling through or stopping for a few days at the various local B&Bs or the Drumkeldy Arms hotel.

Matteo’s Trattoria had always been a constant in Frankie’s life; sitting up on the barstools drinking ice-cream floats when she was a toddler, helping make the gnocchi when she was a little older, popping in after school for a quick snack before studying, working there at weekends to help fund her way through university. Even now, Frankie still helped out and was always on hand if someone called in sick or was on holiday. Frankie loved the camaraderie of Matteo’s, especially hearing her grandfather singing as he cooked, in between good-naturedly teasing the regulars. It was Frankie’s happy place where no problem was too big or too small that couldn’t be dissected by a long talk over some great pasta and a glass of red wine. And certainly, no family get-together or celebration could be held anywhere else; her grandfather would simply not allow it.

‘Frankie! Have you tried the arancini?’ Matteo said, holding out a plate of the most delicious, deep-fried balls of rice.

She had, but helped herself to another one. ‘Thank you, Nonno.’

Her grandfather winked at her. Still a strikingly handsome man, his once black hair now had two distinguishing streaks of steel grey at his temples, but was still as thick and fashioned into the same style of quiff he’d always had.

‘You need to keep up your energy, with all that dog walking!’ he said, adding a second to her plate. ‘And top up your glasses. Paul took great care in matching the perfect wines for the dishes,’ he added, referencing his trusted bar hand who had worked for Matteo for many years and was as skilled a mixologist as he was a sommelier.

‘Nonno’s such a feeder,’ Frankie’s brother Rocco said with a chuckle as he reached over her to help himself to a portion of the baked sea bass.

Rocco, two years older than Frankie, was an exact replica of a young Matteo, with his long straight nose, dark eyes, strong jaw and dimpled chin. Rocco even styled his hair in a similar way to his grandfather. Charismatic, with the Bartoli-Barr charm in spades, Rocco was also astoundingly good-looking.

Frankie sat revelling in the lively chatter around her. Her Aunt Cara sat beside Maria. As the younger of the two sisters, Cara was still treated as the baby of the family, despite being fifty. Her husband, Stefano, also Italian and some distant third cousin of their grandmother’s brother-in-law’s nephew (Frankie had long given up trying to work out their very large and complicated family tree), was loudly trying to get their teenage children, Lisa and Nick, off their phones while Matteo riposted back, even louder, that his grandchildren could do whatever they liked as it was his birthday. A bout of good-natured bickering broke out and ended up involving everyone.

Frankie caught her dad’s eye and he winked at her. She often wondered how her dad, Fraser Barr, felt at these events. Set against all the Italians’ extrovert qualities, Fraser was quiet and more reserved and was the perfect foil for the others’ fiery Latin temperament. Despite taking her looks from the Bartoli side of the family, Frankie knew her easy-going, measured manner was more like her father’s.

‘I feel like I’m going to burst!’ Valentina said resignedly as she sat back in her chair, groaning.