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Rocco smiled at her. This was great news, especially as he had a Moses basket, nursing chair, bottle steriliser set, numerous packs of muslin cloths and a changing station in his Amazon basket all good to go.

CHAPTER 23

FRANKIE

Toffee was the last of the dogs to be dropped off on the Monday evening. Frankie opened the back door to Ivy Cottage and had just refreshed the little dog’s water bowl when Jay walked into the kitchen.

‘I thought I heard you.’

Toffee wagged her tail at the sound of Jay’s voice, but didn’t look up from lapping at her water.

‘Have you got time for a cup of tea? You look frozen.’

Not only did Frankie clearly look frozen, she felt frozen, and although she would have dearly liked to have thawed out a little, Frankie shook her head regrettably. ‘I’ve got Storm and Gilbert in the van.’

‘Bring them in. In fact, you go sit by the fire and I’ll grab them. Keys?’

Frankie handed them over then walked through the kitchen to the snug area and sat on the sofa next to the fire. As feeling slowly returned to her fingers, Storm and Gilbert barged through the door with Toffee close on their heels.

Jay followed them in, closing the back door behind him. ‘Tea, coffee?’

‘Tea would be great, thanks.’

‘Do you think we’ll get snow?’ he said, filling the kettle.

‘Forecast says maybe next week. I hope so, we haven’t had proper snow for a few years.’

‘It would be nice if it snowed for your mince pie and mulled wine evening.’ Jay smiled at her over his shoulder.

‘Yeah, it would be festive.’

Frankie had decided to hold the party a week before Christmas. She’d messaged people the invitations and most had replied saying they could attend.

‘Who’s all going?’ Jay asked as he dunked the teabags.

‘It’s pretty much everyone who signed up to the Canine Cupids Christmas Club; I’m letting the humans mingle this time. And a few others, some friends, so it doesn’t feel too staged or forced.’ When deciding on the guest list, Frankie had marvelled how quickly numbers had jumped from a “few” to almost forty. With this number, the obvious venue was Frankie’s barn which was open and airy and far away from any neighbour, so loud music or party noise would only disturb the odd sheep.

‘Is Ben still going?’

‘Yup, he’ll be there.’ Ben had been one of the first to reply to Frankie’s invitation.

Jay got the milk from the fridge and splashed a little into each mug.

‘He seemed… nice.’

‘Yes, he is.’

Frankie wondered if Jay was fishing for information about Ben but neither of them said any more. Jay returned the milk to the fridge.

‘Valentina will be there. And Rocco,’ Frankie said.

‘Rocco’s okay with me going?’ Jay slowly stirred a teaspoonful of sugar into one of the mugs.

‘Uh, yeah.’ Technically, neither Rocco nor Valentina knew Jay was going yet.

Jay brought the mugs over and handed her one. Frankie smiled before taking a sip. It was the one without sugar; he’d remembered. Jay also glanced at the mug.

‘Oh sorry, I should have checked, still no sugar?’