Page 24 of Flowers Go Flying in Crumbleton

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I could leave you out here while I go pull some clothes on. I mean, I don’t want to offend you or anything!’

‘I’m not offended,’ she said quickly.

He might be imagining things right now, but was that a little gleam in her eyes?

Murray shook his head and then added a little shiver for good measure. He was starting to get cold. That shiver had nothing to do with Milly’s eyes on him.

‘Want me to get changed?’ he said again, this time more seriously.

‘No!’ said Milly. ‘I want to get out of here!’

‘Alrighty then!’ he said, breaking out his best Jim Carey impression… and then promptly wanting to face-palm. Now was definitely not the time to let his own special brand of craziness out to play. Then again, he could always blame it on the head injury if he had to.

Maybe she hadn’t noticed…

Murray glanced at Milly, crossing his fingers behind his back. Unfortunately, judging by the fact that her eyebrows were now hovering somewhere near her hairline as she stared at him – he was doomed. He couldn’t quite tell if it was a look of surprise, horror or amusement… and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to find out.

‘Let’s get this over with,’ he muttered, clambering gingerly onto the planks so that he could edge his way towards her.

CHAPTER 11

MILLY

Murray clearly knew what he was doing, even if he had just broken out a scarily accurate Jim Carey impression. Milly had to hand it to him, he had pretty good balance considering he was only wearing a towel!

Milly watched him as he edged along the wide, wooden planks. The mud beneath him kept making uncouth, farty sounds and she was finding it increasingly difficult to keep a straight face.

As he drew nearer, Milly spotted one minor issue with his cunning plan – by the time Murray reached the end of the makeshift bridge, Milly would be eye to… well… not quite eye with him. To put it plainly, she was about to find herself face-to-face with the towel-covered portion of Murray Eddington.

The heat of early-onset-embarrassment stained Milly’s cheeks, and the temptation to scrunch her eyes closed and pretend this wasn’t happening was almost unbearable. She could hardly change her mind and send him back for some clothes at this point, could she?! Anyway, ignoring the embarrassment-factor, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the towel just happened to slip…

‘Milly – are you okay?’ Murray sounded worried… almost as if he’d been reading her thoughts. She really hoped that wasn’t another one of his hidden talents - along with celebrity impressions - otherwise she was in serious trouble.

‘What?’ she spluttered. ‘Why?’ Her discomfort somehow made her sink an extra couple of inches into the mud.

‘You’ve gone all red!’ he said, looking concerned. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine, fine… I’m fine,’ she blustered. ‘Just… well… sinking… and keen to get out of here…’

… preferably before she died of embarrassment!

Milly had been taking quite a bit of comfort in the knowledge that things between them couldn’t get any weirder - not after their bizarre first kiss in the carpark, followed by the weekend’s Great Wedding Disaster. But this? This trumped everything!

‘Here,’ he said, holding out a hand for her bag. Milly passed it over and he placed it on the far side of the planks. Then, shuffling his feet and bracing himself, he held out his hands out towards her.

Milly shot one last glance at his low-slung towel before fixing her eyes on his face.

‘Take my hands!’ he said

Milly did as she was told, doing her best to ignore the fact that every little hair on her body stood on end at the contact.

‘Ready?’ he said.

‘Not really,’ she muttered.

Murray tugged on her hands, but Milly didn’t budge. The angle was all wrong - and it just felt like she was going to yank him down on top of her if she wasn’t careful. She wobbled precariously and quickly let go of him, thrusting her hands into the mud to stop herself from toppling backwards.

‘Urgh!’ she muttered, flicking ooze from her fingers as she straightened back up.

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