‘Why would you say he’s come to rescue me?’ she said as Lucas helped her to her feet.

‘He seems the sort to want to do that, that’s all.’

‘Is that a bad thing?’ she asked with a frown.

‘That’s for you to decide.’

Chapter Forty-Four

Once they were in the car and on their way back to London, it was like waiting for a storm to break, and just as the sky turned ominously dark with rain clouds, Willow knew it was going to come; it was just a matter of when.

Many times as a child when she had done something that had annoyed her father, she had been in just this situation – waiting for the inevitable. Like the time she had accidentally scratched Dad’s new car when her bike fell against it in the garage. Or the time she had been sick in his boat. On another occasion, Martha had wanted to take the blame for something Willow had done, knowing that Dad wouldn’t be so cross with her. Martha so rarely did anything wrong, there was no way their father would be furious with her.

On that particular occasion Dad had been in a bad mood for several days and Willow had been messing about doing handstands in the dining room, while Martha timed her to see how long she could hold the position. But then disaster struck when one of Willow’s legs knocked against the sideboard, sending a cut-glass decanter flying. It had been no ordinary decanter; it was old, and Dad treasured it because it had belonged to his father. Knowing that Dad would hit the roof with Willow, Martha had offered to say that she had broken the decanter. But Willow couldn’t let her sister do that: whatever punishment was due, it was hers.

From quite a young age she had trained herself not to be scared of Dad, not even when he was absolutely livid. While he raged and blustered, she could think of something completely different and disappear deep inside herself, even when he whacked the backs of her legs. If he did punish her with a smack, he always apologised afterwards and made her promise she would never tell Mum. He would often then be extra nice to her to make up for being so angry.

So yes, she knew all about storms blowing in and then blowing themselves out. That’s how it would be with Rick during the journey home. While the syrupy tension between them thickened, she just had to wait patiently for the storm to break and let the thunder and lightning do its worst. Then the sun would burst through the clouds, the tension would be gone, and they’d both say sorry and carry on as though nothing had happened. These things never lasted. That was the nature of a storm; it was over as suddenly as it started.

And really, just as she had herself to blame for smashing Dad’s special decanter all those years ago, it was her fault today she was sitting here waiting for Rick to take her to task. But how could she tell him that there was something about being in Lucas’s company that made her feel like her old self again, the Willow who could drift along on the tide, taking each day as it came?