Page 78 of Stolen Kiss

Then he turned to Erica and said, “if you’re sure.”

“I am. What’s the point in having money if I can’t put it to good use. You need it and I have it.”

“Um,” Stan said, leaning forward and placing a second spanner on the countertop.

“How many spanners have you got?” Luke asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied.

“Yes, it fucking does,” Luke said, turning his full body to Stan.

“McKenzie would only sell me a pack of spanners, said he wasn’t splitting up a pack when I didn’t know what size I wanted.”

Daisy put her hand to her mouth and tried and failed to hide her laugh. Luke’s lips twitched into a smirk.

“Christ,” Jason said. “What is the second spanner for?”

“We live on an island. Resources are limited. We’re in November.”

“Was that included in your half a million?”

“No, half a million gets us ready for summer next year.”

“How much to get us ready for December 20th?”

Stan moved to the door to outside and made sure the door was unlocked. “Three times that.”

“Well at least, he’s checked, knowing we’d ask,” Daisy said, ever the practical one.

Erica turned to them all and raised her eyebrows. “I still have the money and willing to hand it over, but you guys need to make a decision of you want to cancel Remi now and wait until next year or spend the money and cater her wedding.”

“Good job we’re all here,” Daisy said. “Should we take this back to the cottages?”

“Should I go?” Stan called over from his position.

“Can you email us the report?” Daisy asked.

She’d moved from cookie monster to no nonsense financial business advisor in three sentences. Jason wanted to hug her. He thanked the universe for blessing them with a sister who could multitask. She was still studying, but she was asking all the right questions.

“I’ll do that when I get back to the office. Call me when you have jobs for me to do. I can co-ordinate what you need doing while Luke and Daisy are on the mainland.”

Stan had also moved from scaredy-cat to problem solver and Jason again thanked the universe that Archer had convinced him to stay on.

“Thanks Stan. Talk soon,” Daisy said.

Stan left and Archer pulled the rum bottle from Jason’s hands, pulled off the cork and took a swig straight from the bottle.

“I use that for cooking,” Jason said.

“I’ll replace it,” Archer countered.

“Come on, let’s go. Problems to solve and Luke and I only have a few hours until it’s back to video calls.”

Daisy snapped her fingers and pointed to the door Stan was a minute before and they all fell in line behind her.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jason

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