They ate leisurely as the evening sun began to slip away behind them. Being the north-east coast, it set over the inland hills, but the colours of dusk brushed the whole sky. The seaward sky was deepening with shades of pink and coral. As the sun began to disappear, it got a little chillier, and a shiver went through Emma. Max shifted closer to her on the picnic rug, placing an arm around her shoulders. It felt so very natural there. ‘Better?’

‘Yes, better. Thanks.’

She gave Alfie a crust from the pork pie and he gobbled it down and then sat patiently, his dark brown eyes intent on them, watching and hoping for more gourmet delights to come his way.

Emma mentioned how close she was to her brother and his family, and all about Chloe making the beautiful cushions for her and the special bunting. Max was an only child. He said he got on well with his parents generally, but sounded as though he’d have liked siblings.

‘No family of your own?’ She put the question out there. Knowing that he was forty, there was every chance that he’d already had a family, that he might have been divorced before Siobhan, though she’d have hoped he might have mentioned it by now.

‘No. No children. Of course you know that I had a serious girlfriend for a while. But that was never destined to work out. You? No children?’

It was hard to even think of Luke and the fact that they hadn’t had any children together, but maybe it was time to reveal a little of her shattered heart and past. She hesitated, looking out across the darkening sea.

Max waited quietly for the few seconds it took her to form the words.

‘No. No children. I was engaged …’

‘Oh, wow.’ Max looked a bit awkward.

She stared into the dusky sky, where the stars were just beginning to come out. She was almost afraid to go there, it was still so raw in her mind, that most awful of days.

‘He was called Luke. He got killed, riding his bicycle home from work one day … he-he never came home.’ And her eyes misted and she couldn’t speak any more, the words still having such power to hurt, the memory drawing her back to the ragged edges of that grief.

Max’s arm tightened gently around her, and she felt a soft kiss pressed down on the top of her head. ‘I’m so sorry, Emma.’

And she really didn’t know how she felt. Crying for one man whilst in the arms of another seemed so very strange.