He followed.

Racing through the cottage as though it was on fire, her libido flapping and buzzing like a trapped aviary in her jogging trousers, Bridge now found her fantasy figure all too bloody real. And she was blushing, that wretched giveaway face-stain of hers. She needed make-up on and she needed it fast.

‘I’ll show you out.’

‘You do that.’ He overtook her at a leisurely walk, turning in the door, his bulk barring her from the latch. ‘Put antiseptic on it every day.’

She nodded. ‘Thanks again!’

‘And don’t go kissing anyone.’ He reached up to test the patched-lip with his thumb. It rested there too long, his eyes almost crossing as they watched its tip tracing the moist delineation between dry pout and wet mouth.

Without thinking, she sucked it. The sexual rush was fantastic.

The thumb was removed.

‘If you ever do that again,’ he said very slowly, ‘I can’t promise I’ll be this good.’

After he’d gone, pickup engine snarling away towards Broadbourne, she leant against the back of the door, breathing deeply. Bloody, muddled-up spell.

‘Bridge!’

She looked around in shock. A ghost?

‘Get over here! I can here you fecking panting.’

Bernie was still on FaceTime.

‘I’ve had a shower and a run since you answered this call, you cow. Show me your face.’

She held up her phone.

‘Where d’they fecking go?’ Bernie demanded in shock. ‘You looked like you’d been bitch-slapped by Wolverine half an hour ago.’

‘That man’s a magician. Shit, Bernie, tell me to get a job at a nice wee school and behave myself and never do the bad, bad thing.’

‘Don’t do the bad thing.’ Her mirror image looked grainily bemused on screen.

‘Thanks.’ Cutting the call, Bridge fanned her face with the phone, not sure she could trust herself.

*

Cheeks bulging and cake crumbs on his chin, Lester looked uncharacteristically shifty when Ronnie swept into his ward of four, weighed down with magazines, Fray Bentos tins in the Bag for Life, Stubbs gyrating in an old holdall slung over her shoulder, his nose already threading through the broken zip and beneath her arm.

‘Can’t stay long,’ she said, plonking herself down on the chair.

Lester nodded. ‘Of course not, with the Australian visiting.’

She gave him a sharp, suspicious smile and watched him pick a chocolate chip from his pyjamas. ‘If you’re talking about Blair, I’ve not seen him since New Year.’

She’d missed him. She missed him.

‘Sold the Austens that rangy filly out of our Master Imp mare. Nice sort.’

‘How extraordinary.’

‘Drove her up today.’

‘Are you sure?’ Ronnie wondered if Lester’s new-found Googling skills had been on overdrive.

Aware that he had her full attention, he tilted his head, deflecting. ‘Pax keeping well?’

‘Much better,’ she said briskly, wishing she believed it.

He admired the front covers of The Field and Country Life before setting them aside. ‘Not got her on a horse yet, I’ll wager. Too busy worrying about her boy. Hardest on children, divorce.’ He gave her a penetrating look.