Irresponsible, that’s what she was. Always had been. Always would be. In all truthfulness, and with her hand on her heart, she could say that she and Lucas had done nothing wrong, all they’d done was walk, talk and sit in the sand dunes. But it was why she had done that that would be playing on Rick’s mind and causing him to be jealous.

Envy wasn’t an emotion she ever suffered from and was, she’d once read, a trait of the insecure. It was probably a simplistic generalisation, but the more she got to know Rick, the more she could see that he really wasn’t as secure and confident as he let on, so maybe that was why he was prone to jealousy. She supposed that’s why she felt sorry for him at times and why she now felt guilty about upsetting him by what she’d done. As her father would have said, ‘If only you thought things through, Willow!’

With her father’s admonishment ringing in her ears, and wondering if she should broach the subject herself with Rick, just to get it over and done with, he let out a groan of exasperation at the driver in front of them. Despite him flashing his lights at the driver to move over, the car stayed resolutely – stubbornly – where it was and at the same speed. To make his point, Rick drove even closer to the rear bumper of the car.

‘Any nearer and we’ll be able to make small talk with the driver in front,’ Willow said, in an echo of what Mum used to say to Dad.

Rick shot her a look. ‘I know what I’m doing,’ he said tersely. ‘And I assume you did too when you went sneaking off behind my back to go to the beach with some bloke you hardly know.’

At last! she thought with a sense of relief, just as the first fat drops of rain began to splatter against the windscreen. ‘I didn’t sneak off,’ she said, although that was precisely what she had done. ‘You were sound asleep, and I didn’t want to disturb you when Lucas invited me to join him for a walk.’

‘Didn’t you think I’d be worried sick about you when I woke up and found your side of the bed empty? Anything could have happened to you.’

‘Hardly.’

The driver in front still hadn’t moved out of Rick’s way and so he flashed his lights again and hit the horn. ‘And why did Lucas have your mobile number in the first place?’ he demanded.

‘We swapped contact details after his last visit,’ she lied. No way could she admit to Rick that she’d hunted Lucas down on Facebook. That would give him entirely the wrong idea. He’d never believe that she was simply curious to know more about the man who was going to be her stepbrother.

‘Oh, and about time too!’ Rick muttered as the car in front pulled over and allowed him to put his foot down and roar past.