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She risked a peek around the tree trunk.

In a black T-shirt and shiny red shorts, he was completely incongruous amongst the khakis and chinos.

Temperance had a vague memory of red shorts like that.

From Year 10 netball. She looked again. He wasn’t wearing his old PE shorts, was he?

! Maybe that was all Margie had kept of his from back in the day.

They certainly were a snug fit. If she hadn’t been worried about giving away her hiding spot, she would have cackled with laughter like the witch she was.

The old shed was right at the end of the field but Temperance realised from where she standing now, she could just hop into the field’s ditch and follow it all the way down.

Bingo. No run ins, no more humiliation, no muttered exchange where Abel would clearly rather be slowly eaten to death by aphids over a thousand years than talk to her.

This time, she would run away from him in a public place.

She hopped down ungainly into the ditch and started to jog along, head lowered, dodging stinging nettles and pretending she was some kind of very niche RPG character on a side quest, a goofy grin spread across her face.

At the shed five minutes later, Temperance hauled herself up onto the grass, not caring that she now had dusty elbows and knees, and that sweat was running down between her shoulder blades.

This wasn’t a beauty pageant. This was serious magical business.

Inside the shed there was a refreshingly cool, if musty, atmosphere and Temperance flapped her vest top away from her body to feel the air reach her skin.

‘Buckets,’ she muttered to herself, wandering down to the corner and a big stack of cobwebbed crates and a wheelbarrow without a wheel.

She found two with only small cracks and figured they’d do nicely for holding belladonna leaves.

If they were just gathering dust here they might as well come home with her and get up to some magical mischief.

As she turned back towards the workbench and peg board, she saw a heap of hessian sacks.

‘Never read hessian before. Maybe potatoes have big feelings.’ Temperance raised her eyebrows.

She held out a hand over the top sack and it rose easily to meet her touch.

Her fingers sparked as she gripped the rough fibres, but nothing was there.

What had she been hoping for? Maybe a Lady Chatterley style agricultural love affair?

Two forbidden lovers making their bed on scratchy hessian, too engulfed by lust to notice? Temperance shook her head.

Once this doom is off the books, I will start internet-dating again, no matter how painful. In fact . . .

She put the sack down and fished her phone out of her back pocket. Opening up the Devon Loves app, Temperance switched her notifications back to ‘On’.

No time like the present. You’ve got a lot of hormones built up in you, babe .

Look how you threw yourself into that insane dance with Abel – the man who quite literally wants nothing to do with you!

Even if you’re just kissing more frogs, it’ll get you closer to The One Frog . A frog who’s actually up for it.

Temperance flinched as a deep whistle reached her ears. She looked out of a crack between two wooden panels in the wall. Black T-shirt, red shorts.

‘Are you kidding me?!’ she muttered. Temperance scanned the shed for a hiding spot. No way was she going from seeing Abel in her best make-up and a fantasy gown to having to face him drenched in perspiration and shame.

She didn’t fancy diving into the pile of loose hay. She didn’t fancy her chances behind the boxes that smelt super strongly of turpentine either.

‘What the fuck is my fucking life.’ Temperance grabbed at the hessian sacks, hopping into one like it was a school sports day and pulling another over her head, then shuffling down, out of sight, just beside the work bench.

Abel was still whistling as he strolled into the shed.

It sounded to Temperance like an old Noah and the Whale song they’d all loved back in the day.

Whatever the tune, it was weirdly upbeat for his usual slapped-arse personality.

Temperance strained her eyes through the loose weave of the cloth, trying to get a look at him, but all she could see were his bare calves as he walked slowly towards her.

She sucked in a tiny pocket of air, her heart hammering in her ears.

His shoes stopped. They turned on the spot. In her direction.

‘What do we have here, then?’ Abel murmured softly.

Temperance screwed her eyes shut.

‘Phillips, Phillips. Nope. Ah, here we go. Cross-head.’ There was a clank and then Abel’s feet stepped back and his whistling picked up again as he headed towards the shed door .

Temperance risked a slow breath out through her nose. Her lungs complained for more oxygen.

That was too close .

‘MWAH MWAH! MWAH MWAH!’

There was a buzzing and an eruption of sound from Temperance’s back pocket.

Oh god, the Love Devon alert. Now I remember why I hated it .

Another round of tinny kissy noises played, another growl of vibrations against the metal work bench.

All of a sudden her vision was flooded with light: like a captive having their blindfold removed, and Temperance was about to sell all her state secrets for some sweet, sweet freedom.

‘ What the ever-loving fuck?!’ Abel shouted down at her, a sack in his hand. ‘Tee!’

‘Hello.’

‘Hello?! Hello ? What are you doing in a sack? In a shed? Who has—’

She could see the whites of his eyes, his hands balled into fists by his side. He stared around the room, his head flicking in every direction wildly.

‘It’s just me,’ she tried to laugh casually. ‘Hiding. Uh . . . playing hide and seek. With some of the village kids.’

He let out a jagged exhale and then ran a hand over his hair. ‘I didn’t see any kids hiding out in the field.’

Temperance stood up awkwardly, shoving the sack down to her ankles.

‘I er . . . I’m such a hide and seek ninja.

They must have got bored and gone home.’ She nodded with fake nonchalance, because what was more natural than an almost-thirty-year-old woman hiding in a potato sack to amuse some children?

And she was not going to show weakness in front of Abel Gulliver today, not when the memory of that dance could still burn her insides with shame.

‘Right.’ His body language softened slightly, just for a beat, before he folded his arms.

‘MWAH MWAH.’ Temperance winced and wrestled her phone out of her back pocket, silencing the notification at last.

‘Someone’s keen to get hold of you,’ Abel said gruffly. ‘Weird text sound, but whatever floats your boat.’

‘I didn’t choose it,’ Temperance rushed out in mortification. ‘It comes with the app and I don’t know how to change it over. Love Devon,’ she waved the screen his way. ‘Local dating . . . thing.’

Abel assessed it for a split second, before holding up the screw driver in his hand. ‘Well, I just came in for this. Praveen’s gate is about to come off its hinges so I’m sorting that out.’

Wine tonight ? Please say yes .

Temperance saw the little white message box at the bottom of the phone screen as she tucked it away. The condescending turd from the other night clearly hadn’t got the message yet.

‘That’s good of you.’

Abel looked her up and down: dirt on her limbs, scuffed trainers, dusty shorts. ‘You could help, actually. Seeing as you’re dressed for it. I need someone to stand there and hold things.’ He turned around and started to walk away before she had a chance to spit something out in reply.

Temperance shoved some sacks in her broken buckets and followed in his footsteps.

If it had been Abel’s farm she would have happily let it all fall down into a wonky heap, but it was Praveen’s.

And Praveen was part of their community network, so Temperance was never going to turn down the chance to help her.

Even if it meant being the assistant to a perpetually grumpy sod in size small shorts.

Temperance felt a bit of plum standing three feet behind Abel as he unscrewed something from the gate post. After ten minutes, she asked wearily, ‘What can I do?’

Abel sighed. ‘There are some bricks outside the shed. Could you fetch some? Please.’

Temperance saluted to his back and turned on the spot, just in time to see little Martha walking the other way with her family. ‘That’s them!’ she called to her mum, ‘That’s the fairies pretending they’re normal!’

Temperance shared a smile with Martha’s mum. From the mouths of babes: little did Martha know that Temperance spent a lot of her time just pretending to be normal.

The majority of the fruit-picking families started to leave as Temperance was carrying over bricks, two at a time. The heat was starting to get to everyone, with meltdowns aplenty and more than once she heard the magic bribe ‘ice cream’ being promised to small people.

Soon it was just one seventy-something couple slowly mooching along the rows of strawberry plants, their arms linked and their heads leant towards each other.

They looked so in sync. Temperance found herself sneakily watching them in her periphery vision.

Had they come to East Prawle for a big wedding anniversary, maybe?

Or had they found each other late in life and were now enjoying an Indian Summer romance?

Whatever their history, Temperance could almost feel that deep, connected love radiating out from them even without reading them with her powers.

Lasting love. That’s what she wanted. That’s how she’d accidentally drawn some dark magic down onto the village: because she had a gnawing hunger in her heart for True Love that wouldn’t leave her be.

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention: Abel was watching her with intent concentration. ‘Have you seriously been carrying those just two at a time?’ He didn’t bother concealing the tut that punctuated his sentence.