‘As opposed to a secret us?’ she said, tilting her head back a few inches so she could look at him.

He smiled. ‘Exactly. Unless you think I’m rushing you, that this has happened too quickly? If that’s how you feel, you must say, and we can put the brakes on. I’ve always regretted that I let you slip through my fingers all those years ago and I don’t want to repeat that mistake.’

‘I don’t want that to happen either, but I’m worried that by telling my daughters about us it will break the spell.’

‘Then we must do all we can to ensure we keep the magic going. But first things first,’ he said in a brighter tone, ‘you need to convince me that it’s not just my body you want. That’s it’s my mind too.’

She laughed. How she loved that he could do that to her. That he could brush away her worries so effortlessly with his gentle humour. She placed her hands around his neck and allowed herself to forget about Martha and Willow who were coming to see her on Sunday and specifically, how they might react to her telling them about this perfectly wonderful man who made her feel so young and free again. She had cowardly put off answering her eldest daughter’s message about them coming down to Anchor House for as long as she could, sensing that it was a turning point. The last time they had visited was shortly before Ellis moved in and in the weeks since, she had carefully avoided mentioning that there was a new tenant living next door.

She really didn’t relish the prospect of sharing Ellis as she now reluctantly accepted that she should. She liked having him to herself. It felt like this was the first time she’d had anything that was just hers.

It was also the first time she’d had a good secret to keep, and not one that made her feel ashamed.

Chapter Eight

Ellis had always regarded himself as a mild-mannered man. Which he knew was a character trait invariably mistaken for weakness. If you were trying to sell yourself on a work CV or an online dating website, describing oneself in such terms would probably be the kiss of death. It didn’t sound exciting enough; it gave rise to the suspicion that you lacked backbone.

Funny that not having a temper should be seen as a negative attribute, but he was just one of those people who rarely allowed things to reduce him to a state of apoplexy. Or perhaps he’d just been lucky in life, that he hadn’t been tested to the point that he’d been in danger of losing his self-control. It wasn’t that he allowed people to walk all over him; far from it, he merely had a knack for quietly resolving a tricky situation. Of course, who knew how he would react if he was attacked, or somebody he cared about was threatened? Perhaps then the monster within would rise up and reveal itself.