Claire felt her hackles rise. Bloody Shauna Everett, she was always giving Josh the glad eye. And ignoring her, like she was nothing.

Keen-eyed and opportunistic, that was Shauna. Claire had known her all her life, and hated her just as long. At eighteen, Shauna was tall, dark-haired and olive-skinned, pure gypsy with flashing conker-brown eyes and a seductive smile that she never wasted on women. Only men ever got the benefit. She was also tough, brassy, sharp-tongued and quick-witted; everything that quiet, pretty and patient blue-eyed blonde Claire – who didn’t look Romany at all – was not.

Claire hated the way Shauna always put herself forward, wearing revealing tight jeans and clinging, plunging tops; everything was out there in the shop window. Shauna would always jostle her way to the front of the queue and grab whatever she wanted out of life. And she wanted Josh. Claire knew it.

‘We’re not going anywhere special,’ Claire told Shauna coldly, and walked on.

Claire saw the hatred in Shauna’s eyes. Well, it’s mutual, she thought. Shauna Everett might be good-looking but she was a right old whorebag. It wound Claire up, the way she was always smirking at Josh. Claire had often seen Shauna hanging around with the Cleaver boys. The Cleavers weren’t Romany; they were gorgi pig farmers from up the lane. Shauna had been spotted necking with them at parties and dances, and they were nothing but backwoods scum that no decent woman would touch with a bargepole. She could see two of the Cleavers lurking over there by the vans right now – big bastards with dirty old macs and mud-spattered boots on, their faces covered in scruffy beards – fat Rowan, and Ciaran with his one blind eye. They were watching what was going on.

Claire thought that Shauna’s flirting with those dead-leg Cleaver boys was just window-dressing, anyway. She had seen the looks Shauna shot Josh at the same time as she was pretending to be all over the Cleavers like a rash. She’s trying to make Josh jealous, thought Claire. Well, she was wasting her time. Josh belonged to her, not Shauna.