‘Rules are good,’ Martin said, though he sounded doubtful.

‘They are good,’ Erin agreed. ‘As long as there aren’t interruptions, like dogs having puppies and ladies crashing their car to take a man’s mind off his baking.’

‘Actually, the buns flopped before…’ Dom started, but Erin shook her head.

‘One good deed deserves another,’ she said, smiling at him from the doorway with a smile that said she knew exactly how disconcerted he was. ‘You’re starting another batch now?’

‘I started an hour ago but the instructions say it takes five hours.’

‘At least,’ she said. ‘So your buns will have to be Buns Batch Two.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Do you have self-raising flour?’

‘Um…yes.’

‘Butter?’

‘Yes.’

‘And dried fruit, of course?’

‘Yes. Look, you can’t-’

‘Do very much at all,’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘Marilyn and her puppies are asleep. There’s no job for me there. I’m just hanging around at a loose end in my very fetching sarong. But my foot does hurt. So what say you give me a chair and a bowl and all the ingredients I listed-oh, and milk. I need milk. And turn your oven to as hot as you can make it. In twenty minutes I guarantee you’ll have hot cross buns for breakfast.’

They did. True to her word, twenty minutes later they were wrapping themselves round absolutely delicious hot cross buns.

Or, to be more specific, hot cross scones, Dom conceded as he lathered butter onto his third. But who was nit-picking? He surely wasn’t. Neither were the boys. As per Erin’s instructions, they’d helped rub butter into the flour and helped her cut scones from the dough. They’d painted on glaze to make crosses, using sugar and egg white. They’d stood with their noses practically pressed against the glass oven door as the scones…buns!…rose in truly spectacular fashion. And now they were lining up for their third as well.

As was Erin. She was eating like she hadn’t eaten for a week. He thought back to the retching of the night before. She was running on empty. He should have given her something…