He grinned. ‘Sorry.’ He peered over my shoulder at the page, his warm breath dusting my neck. I shivered involuntarily and silence followed as we both read.

My darling, Bill—last night I snuck out of the house and sat on the sand for over three hours looking out to sea, wondering what you were doing and wishing I was with you. My whole body hurts when we’re apart and I would give anything for us to be together, but I just don’t see any way for it to work.

‘Geez,’ Dan said.

‘You didn’t know Bill had a lady friend?’

He shook his head. ‘He never mentioned anyone to me. Where’d you find this?’

My gaze dropped to the ground and I nudged the tin with my foot. ‘There’s a whole bunch of them in there.’

Dan bent to pick it up. ‘This tin?’

‘Oi! You two,’ shouted one of the other volunteers good-naturedly before I could reply. ‘Stop slacking off on the job.’

‘Shut up and mind your own business, Chuck,’ Dan replied in the same amiable tone. He looked to me and held out his hand for the letter. ‘Here, let’s put that back in here for safe-keeping. They’re obviously private. Perhaps we shouldn’t even be reading them?’

I nodded as I gave him the letter and watched him shove it back in the box and replace the lid. It felt thrilling to have discovered a bunch of love letters. Adrian might have let me down, but I still wanted to believe in romance, and part of me wanted to argue the point about us not reading them. Obviously, they were from long ago, what harm would there be? But we were here to work, and Chuck would call me out for slacking off again if I took a break to read.

Over the next couple of hours, we made excellent progress and I forgot about the letters, once again getting caught up in the job and the community spirit. By late afternoon, the volunteers began to drop like flies, downing tools and climbing into boats to retreat back to the Point. My muscles ached so badly they were starting to seize, but I felt proud to have been a part of something so special.

Even Charlie was exhausted and slumped down on the floor of the boat when Dan finally called it a day.

‘What are you doing for dinner?’ he asked as he directed the boat towards the mainland.

Dinner? The only thing on my mind at that moment was a long soak in a warm bath and then bed. ‘I’ll probably make myself beans on toast.’

He screwed up his nose. ‘Beans on toast isn’t enough after all the hard work you’ve done today. Why don’t you come over to my place and I’ll cook for us both?’