The silver guns held her hostage. ‘You want me to finish this or what?’

She shut up, wincing as he took hold of her chin again, patching up her shredded lip.

He focussed on his work, head tilting, thick black curls flopping over one steely eye. ‘As soon as Skully figured your old man’s the big Polish bastard, he was happy enough for me to do the honours. He’s crap at this anyway. Thanks to him, Jed looks like Thanos. You’re too pretty to deserve that.’

As if having him in her house with his thumb in her mouth wasn’t disturbing enough, being called pretty tipped the scale. Bridge stared fixedly at the mouldy air vent to dispel the thrill.

‘I don’t get you.’ He reached back for another cotton wool bud, dipping it in antiseptic. ‘If your old man didn’t do this, why hide it?’

‘Egoz gy horse did it. And gy old gan has it in for gy horse.’

The gun barrels levelled on her again. ‘He has a point. Useless buggers, horses.’

She glared back, antiseptic stinging like mad.

He raised one perfect pierced brow. ‘You going for a job at the school today, Carl says?’

‘Gat goo.’

‘That too,’ Ash translated, bemused. ‘You’ll walk it, scar-face.’

‘Ost gy onfidence,’ she admitted, appalled to find herself welling up.

‘Everyone knows Mrs Bollock’s a lush,’ he stage whispered. ‘Needs someone to tell her what day it is.’ He pressed a latex finger to her throbbing lip to hold it together while the liquid dried.

‘You’re kidding?’

‘Keep your mouth shut.’

‘I’m not telling anyone.’

‘I mean,’ he looked at her through his lashes, and she almost fell back into the bath, his sex appeal intravenous, ‘keep your mouth shut while this dries.’

Lifting his finger, he blew on her lips, as practical as nail-artist sister Janine drying acetate. Bridge’s head, heart and pelvis spun like a trio of glitter balls.

Stop thinking it, Bridge! He’s forbidden fruit.

Beyond the obscured glass window, one of the neighbours’ dogs was barking to be let in, an unfamiliar yapping. It wasn’t any of Flynn’s pack of terriers, who always travelled with him in the back of his farrier’s pickup. He’d be taking Petra’s mare’s shoes off now, she remembered. Carly was holding the Gunn kids’ ponies.

Ash’s thumb was still on her lip, his eyes on her face, and she felt a pulse start throbbing somewhere it wasn’t allowed.

Stop it, Bridge! You’re mother to two beautiful children. You and your loyal husband made love in this very bathroom last night. Talk to him about his wife.

‘Carly says you might be training to be a farrier?’

‘Keep your mouth still.’

‘Talk to me about it, then.’

He sucked his teeth. ‘Not much to say. I prefer training in the gym. End of.’

‘To be a fitness instructor or for bare-knuckle fighting?’

‘Stop talking.’

She nudged her eyebrows encouragingly.

‘Sign up to be my first customer, if you like. You could do with a workout.’