Anna laughed. ‘I think that’s going a bit far. But I might extend my stay for another couple of weeks. Maybe a month. We’ll see. It’s not as if I’ve got anywhere else to go.’

‘Are you in a rush to get back?’ Rhona asked. ‘Or could you stop for a gin and tonic? The sun’s well over the yardarm and I’m not driving anywhere tonight. Seems a pity not to make the most of this beautiful weather. It can change in an instant here, you know.’

‘I can’t remember the last time I had a drink in the afternoon!’

‘Then you definitely have to have one. Besides, it’s near as dammit early evening, I’d say.’

They drew chairs to the edge of the workshop, where the sun spilled over the step and onto their shoulders and laps.

‘I watched the first episode of that new Geoff Rowcliffe series,’ Rhona volunteered, after they’d been chatting long enough to be on their second drink. ‘It wasn’t bad. Pretty as he is, though, he does come across as a bit of a dick.’

Anna nearly choked on her drink and spluttered a surprised laugh.

‘Well, I’m sorry, but he does,’ Rhona insisted, laughing too. ‘And I owe you an apology. I think I probably put my foot right in it when I blathered about him that night at Frank and Pat’s.’

‘What?’ Anna asked. ‘No, of course you didn’t.’

Rhona shrugged slightly. ‘It has occurred to me since that the fact that Crovie has suddenly acquired a top chef might have something to do with another top chef where she worked before coming here splitting up with his unnamed partner of twenty years.’

Anna made a face. ‘I should call you Sherlock.’

Rhona held up a hand. ‘I don’t want to pry. Still – I’m sorry. For being so insensitive.’

Anna snorted. ‘I think if anyone was that, it was me. Poor Old Robbie, having some woman he doesn’t know from Adam slap him around the face with his wife like that.’

‘You weren’t to know.’

‘Still—’

‘In any case,’ Rhona added, ‘it’s time he moved on. He’s too lovely a man to be on his own forever. Cassie wouldn’t have wanted that. Maybe you came along at the right time, Anna.’

Anna eyed her new friend, wondering if she was really saying what Anna thought she might be. ‘Oh, hell no,’ she said, emphatically. ‘I’ve just got out of a complicated long-term relationship, there’s no way I’m getting straight into another one.’

‘It wouldn’t have to be complicated.’