‘That was out of this world! Amazing! It was incredible!’

Sam surfaced and grinned at her. ‘I told you! Think what you’ve missed all these years!’

David, sitting in the shallows, smiled and handed her a small pink piece of coral.

‘There you are, to remember your first dive! Have you got rid of your fear? Will you dive again?

‘Oh, yes! Well…I will if you or Sam are with me.’ She took the small piece of coral, self-consciously. ‘Thanks.’

David smiled. ‘It takes guts to conquer a fear, Fleur.’

They moved back to their party. Fleur picked up her towel and threw it around her. She placed the small piece of coral safely in the pocket of her canvas bag.

Sam handed David a beer. ‘What do you want to drink, Fleur?’

‘I’ll have a glass of wine, please.’

Sam grinned. ‘Here you are. You’ve certainly earned one.’

Fleur went and sat beside David on her towel. He was smoking a cigarette and he idly touched the goose bumps that stood out on her arms. ‘You got cold down there.’

He reached behind him and wrapped his blue shirt around her shoulders. He pulled her thin arms into the sleeves and bent to do up some buttons as if she were a child. He was very close and Fleur stayed still, willing herself not to tremble as his fingers touched her skin. He looked up and met her eyes, held them in sudden amusement, then bent swiftly and briefly kissed her mouth. It was small and firm and salty.

The men began to barbecue and the groups drifted towards the smell, lugging their towels and drinks with them. Laura got Fleur to help with the plates and bread rolls, and as the last divers came up the sound of beer bottles popping got louder and the conversation ebbed and flowed between bursts of laughter.

After everyone had eaten, people moved up into the deeper shade of the trees and lay sleeping or reading. Fleur had moved her towel to the place she always lay, under a scrubby palm where, when they were younger, she and Sam had swung Tarzan-like up on the rope that had always been there. She had had two glasses of wine and although she opened her book she fell asleep on her stomach.

When she woke, David was asleep beside her. Surprised, she gazed at his face, glad of the rare opportunity to scrutinise his features. His eyelashes were long and dark and thick, making tiny shadows underneath his eyes. He had sweat on his forehead and top lip…His lips were square, with tiny vertical lines. Just right lips; neither too full nor too thin. Fleur longed to touch those lips with a finger.

She knew his face well and yet not at all. She wondered how you changed things. How you made someone notice you in a different way, not as Sam’s little sister or the colonel’s daughter. How you changed from being a girl he saw often yet did not see at all, to the Fleur she really was.