Taking the rug from him, Ronnie now strode across the yard with a toss of her blonde hair. Luca watched her backside the whole way. Pax stopped feeling bad about not helping.

‘Bay was here this morning,’ she told Lizzie, moving away to open the cupboards within reach. Row upon row of Fray Bentos tins faced her. Lester liked to buy in bulk.

Lizzie was satisfyingly outraged. ‘That bastard! What did he want? Whatever it was, I hope you told him to get lost.’

‘I was very polite,’ she said, bursting into tears again.

‘Stay brave, kid,’ Lizzie soothed. ‘Remember, the best thing you ever did was breaking it off with Bay. You should have literally broken it off and pickled it. Saved a lot of women a lot of heartache.’

Pax dug her fingernail into the flex. ‘I not sure I can stay here, Libs. I’ll go mad and commit matricide, then I’ll never get Kes.’ Why oh why wouldn’t the tears stop?

‘Come to us. We’ll downward dog together in front of Nicholas Sparks’ movies.’

‘I love your sweet heart, but I’m—’ She nearly leapt out of her skin as she spotted her mother’s blue eyes peering in through the window, and just for an unguarded moment she saw the exhaustion and despair in them. Spotting Pax, they crystallised into focus and sparkled. If Luca O’Brien used his smile as a weapon, it was a popgun compared to Ronnie’s façade. She’d spent half a decade turning and galloping the moment things got too emotional.

‘I’m going to unmask my mother,’ she finished.

*

Throughout her early life, and again in recent weeks, Ronnie had checked her reflection in Lester’s little kitchen window, conveniently located between rug and feed rooms, its glass kept immaculately clean despite the fact he hadn’t, to her knowledge, raised its dark brown blind in forty years, the glazed lean-to on the cottage’s garden side flooding in light enough. It made the perfect mirror for a quick check-over, and today she wanted to flick her hair, pinch her cheeks and roll her lips beneath her teeth to redden them.

Instead, she was staring at her younger self, at all the tears soaked into pillows and stables, never once shed in front of her mother.

What? Pax mouthed furiously, not waiting for an answer as she turned away to pace back and forth. Tethered to the wall by the phone cord, she resembled a chained dog.

Watching her grab a tea towel to mop her tears, Stubbs trotting loyally after her, Ronnie felt her heart fold into itself, tighter and tighter, powerless to help.

Pax was glaring at her again. Stop spying on me.

I’m sorry, Ronnie mouthed back. I wasn’t spying I was—

The blind came down abruptly and she found herself staring at her own fifty-something face, weather-beaten from hours in the saddle, starting to bag a little at the jowls and chin, her eyes strangely incandescent. To her shock, they bore great glistening tears. She swiped them, rolled her teeth over her lips, pinched her cheeks and strode back to Luca who was watching the grey stallion again, arms tightly crossed and broad shoulders hunched.