Page 28

‘You said you’re going for a hike, right?’ Stevie asked hesitantly.

‘Yup,’ Temperance replied quickly. ‘It’s something we Devon folk love to do. A long hike along the coastal path. For fun.’

‘So much fun,’ Susie deadpanned.

‘Yeah. We hike back at home too. But I usually break out the sweatpants and a pair of sturdy boots.’ Her eyes moved briefly to Temperance’s converse and away again. ‘Have a good one!’

‘We will,’ Temperance trilled back, looping her arm through Susie’s and practically dragging her out of the shop.

Ten minutes of huffing along the path towards the beach, Susie said sulkily, ‘I still don’t see why we couldn’t have just washed this stuff back at the shop like we normally do. Instead of me carrying a laundry basket’s worth of gear down to the beach and back.’

‘I explained why,’ Temperance tried to keep her voice upbeat, ‘because Stevie is bound to start asking questions if she sees us working through an industrial quantity of potpourri each week. And it’s a pain in the arse to keep clearing all our magic stuff away each night. Besides, you desperately needed to get some fresh air.’

‘What?!’

‘You’ve been glued to your laptop, making your little dossier against that company—’

‘The Beston Portfolio. Fuckers.’

‘Yup, them. I have never seen you put that much work into anything. Like, anything. You’ve not left the house except to do a surly shift at the pub, and even then you pulled a sicky after two hours.’

Susie stumbled on a loose stone and Temperance grabbed her by the arm, hauling her up again. ‘I was worried that if Mark walked in I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. And Margie says blood is a right pain to get out of the carpet.’

‘Has he tried calling you again?’

‘Seems to have given up after four texts and three calls, thank God.’

‘Persistent.’

‘Clearly thought his little Casanova performance would have me bending over backwards. I’ll show him.’ Susie snorted through her nose and wiped her hair out of her eyes. She hated that it had taken a surprising amount of willpower not to answer Mark’s calls when they flashed up on her phone. Half of her head wanted to scream obscenities down the line, but the other half was remembering that twenty minutes in the kitchen with him, how his eyes had stayed locked on her when they talked, how she’d never felt more like herself in a guy’s company. How could that all be cleverly plotted crap?! He must be a master bullshitter of the highest degree.

It was an overcast late afternoon in East Prawle: muggy, still air filled with annoying pockets of tiny flies and a strange sort of grey-yellow hue to the sky. It wasn’t exactly the kind of weather to take her out of her funk, but she had to admit that just taking great big angry strides along an uphill walk was at least channelling some of her rage.

They reached a natural fork in the scrubby path: one route took you to the local beaches and the other took you further uphill, along the cliffside. A heavy rustle to their left signalled someone else was nearby: usually a dog walker or family of holidaymakers with buckets and spades. But in this case a white surfboard popped out from behind the trees, followed quickly by its daydreaming owner.

‘Oh, hi, Abe!’ Susie called out, and as Abel clocked who he was a metre from bumping into, the distant, dreamy look in his eyes hardened into something else, something sharper, and he stopped in his tracks. ‘You off down to the beach? We’re . . . uh . . . taking a picnic to Swift Cove.’

Abel’s head flicked between Susie, Temperance and his surfboard. ‘Yeah, I’m going for a surf. After a bit of a walk, though. I’m headed up there.’ He nodded up the steep path to the cliffs.

Temperance could practically hear the blood pumping in her ears as she swallowed a sticky feeling of hurt. He couldn’t even bear to share the same five minute walk with her. He would rather make up a blatant lie and sweat his way up an incline for twenty minutes. Carrying a goddamn surfboard! The curl of hurt hardened into a stone of anger. ‘Makes total sense. Enjoy your walk,’ she spat.

Before she’d even finished speaking, he was headed up and away from them.

After another ten minutes of angrily marching, whacking away any stray brambles that dared get to close, Temperance burst out, ‘WHO goes walking with a surfboard?! Could he not think of a smoother way to dodge me? There’s you avoiding Mark, and Abel avoiding me. The full spectrum of man trouble in one little village. God!’ she seethed.

‘What do you mean?’

Temperance ran her hands over her hair and down her thick ponytail, pulling it tight. ‘You didn’t buy that, surely? He just can’t bear to breathe the same air as me. It’s painfully obvious. In the couple of days since the party, he’s run straight to the kitchen whenever I’ve been in the pub, and as I came out of the café this morning I’m pretty sure he ducked behind the bus shelter to avoid me.’

Susie bit her lip. ‘Maybe that wasn’t him. Maybe it was . . . um.’

‘It was him. He obviously regrets the dance. He found it gross that I fancied him at seventeen and he still finds the thought of me in any sort of . . . romantic way totally disgusting. Clearly. And that’s fine.’

‘Hey!’ Susie grabbed for Temperance’s hand and spun her round. ‘It’s not fine! No one could find you gross – you’re a goddamn siren. It’s not your fault he went away someone cool and came back a massive bell end. That’s no reflection on you, Tee. Just that he’s a bit of an arsehole now.’

Temperance shook her head, some stray loose hairs stuck against the back of her neck in the close weather. ‘It’s like I haven’t grown up at all from being a lovesick teenager. He was so sweet with the kids at the fairy circle, and he’s being all protective of Margie while he’s here. And then on the dance floor . . .’

‘What?’