‘Bay’s wife. Monique. Christ.’

‘Don’t blaspheme.’ He raked back his hair. ‘Are you sure that’s his wife?’

‘Of course I’m sure, why?’

‘Only I saw him in a car earlier with…’ He grimaced, remembering the rumpled brunette with the smudged lipstick.

‘Let me guess, another woman?’

‘You’re rolling your eyes.’

Pax started circling again, the same crazy box-walking she’d done when he’d first met her. ‘It could be me, talking back there. If I’d married him, I mean. Not that I’d have a bisexual threesome with two men, or drink vodka before breakfast – I’ve never done that, have you? – just that she’s so unhappy and we should all be happy, shouldn’t we? We’ve only got one bloody life. In another version, reader, I married him. And maybe we’d have been good together. Maybe it’s all my fault that he’s not happy and she’s not happy and I’m not happy. I loved him so much and I went completely off the rails afterwards, I mean completely!’

‘Pax stop. Breathe.’ He took her shoulders, square and delicate as a carved lectern.

She leant against him, steadying herself, heartbeat fast against his chest. Then she looked up, her eyes intoxicating, that wild hare wariness. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise.’ He knew the way her vulnerability darted out of sight all too quickly, that calm sea surface she pulled across it. He longed to keep it uncovered, to find out where the storm raged. ‘Let me buy you a drink. There’s a pub across the square there.’

‘A drink?’

‘Non-alcoholic. You’re a secret drinker, remember? And if we can’t help each other to stay sober in a pub, God help us.’

‘Is that blasphemy or a prayer?’ She half smiled, her gaze trailing round his face, still unfamiliar with its contours, lingering on his mouth then back to his eyes.

Luca wanted to kiss her very badly indeed. But to overwhelm her with his hot-headed instinct right now would be to frighten her into silence, and she needed to learn to heal, to start to draw some of the venom of self-blame from the wound.

So instead he took her hand, warm and slim-fingered, and turned to walk her towards the pub. Pax didn’t budge, digging her heels in. When he turned, the hare eyes had lost some of their guardedness, warmth infusing them.

‘Jesus, but I’m glad I met you, Luca O’Brien.’ She pulled him back towards her and kissed him before he could tell her off.

*

Bay was wearing the Stetson and polishing off an ancient Talisker Ronnie had unearthed from the drinks cupboard, a fresh batch of popcorn on the go. They were now watching Toy Story 2, sporadically breaking off to sing ‘You Got a Friend In Me’.

‘I should go in a minute,’ he told Ronnie, words he’d been repeating like a quarter chime since arriving, along with ‘bloody good film, this’.

‘It is very late for Kes,’ Ronnie chided, getting up to answer the phone which had started ringing in the kitchen.