There was a pause, in which they did no more than look at each other, and Anna felt the enormity of something looming on the periphery, like a cliff towering behind her.

‘There’s something I should—’

‘I was thinking that maybe—’

They both stopped, Anna with a slightly nervous laugh and Robert with a smile. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

Anna shook her head. The momentary impulse to tell him about the baby had gone. ‘No. Really, you go. What were you going to say?’

‘I was thinking that I should go out there and get some more razor clams for you,’ he said. ‘Rhona’s still raving about that meal you made for her with the last lot. And it’s free food, isn’t it? What with the lunch club taking off the way it has – you’ve got to make a bit of profit somewhere, eh?’

She smiled. ‘That would be really kind of you, but you don’t have to do that. I won’t have time to come with you, and—’

‘Consider it a very minor repayment,’ he said, cutting her off. ‘For me dragging you into the middle of my crazy little family.’

I like being in the middle of your crazy little family.

She only just stopped the thought becoming words. Anna realized he was still holding the dishes and reached for them to cover her internal confusion. Their fingers tangled together as they juggled the plates and Anna found herself thinking that she liked the feel of them: the coarse skin of his fingertips, roughened by work.

‘Hope Douglas liked his dinner,’ she said, looking anywhere but his face.

‘He did. Although I can’t help but think he must know where the food’s coming from. I wouldn’t shut up about you today. I made him listen to how you saved my son.’ He gave her a serious look. ‘How you saved me.’

They parted on Robert’s promise to bring her a bucket of clams. Anna stood on the step of the Fishergirl’s Luck, watching him go, wondering if she could blame hormones for her current emotional tumult. When she turned back to the door, a figure at the end of the village caught her eye. He was swathed in the shadows from the cliff, watching.

Douglas McKean.

Anna’s heart sank. Not now, she thought. Please, not right now.

The old man stared at her for a few more seconds. Then, very slowly, he lifted his cane and tapped it against his forehead in some kind of ungainly salute.

A moment later he had shuffled away.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Pat. ‘That’s a turn up for the books.’

‘Aye,’ said Frank. ‘Douglas McKean saying thank you? It’ll be cats and dogs living together next.’

‘I’m still not taking him his dinner myself,’ Anna warned them.

Frank patted her hand. ‘Understood.’