When he finally pulled away, I stood for a moment, breathless and dazed. My head spinning and my heart still doing that stupid skittering thing it had recently adopted, but not because I had been swept off my feet. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t an unpleasant kiss. It was really lovely, but my physical reactions were the result of surprise rather than red hot passion.

Joe dipped his head again and I ducked away.

‘I’d better be getting back,’ I swallowed.

‘Okay,’ he said, looking a bit baffled.

‘It’s been a great night though. I’ve had a brilliant time,’

‘Really?’ He frowned.

‘Really,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t kicked up my heels in ages.’

‘Me neither,’ he laughed. ‘And that kiss,’ he went on. ‘I didn’t overstep the mark, did I, Tess?’

‘Not at all,’ I said, keen to reassure him.

I had completely given him the green light to go ahead and it wasn’t his fault that I hadn’t felt what I expected to. But then it had been a very long time since our lips first locked. Perhaps our first kiss was something else from back in the day, that I had remembered wrongly. I had always deemed the experience as sacrosanct but perhaps it had been more run-of-the-mill. It was a shock to admit that, but obviously I couldn’t explain that to Joe because he hadn’t remembered it in the first place.

‘But you’d rather I didn’t do it again,’ Joe said, biting his lip.

‘No,’ I told him, ‘but not because I didn’t like it.’

‘What then?’

‘Well, I’m only going to be here for a few weeks, aren’t I?’ I pointed out. ‘And you’ve got all this stuff with Charlie and the farm to deal with. I don’t think either of us needs another complication in our lives right now, do we?’

‘It doesn’t have to be complicated.’

‘In theory, I agree,’ I told him, ‘but in practice, how often do these things stay simple?’

‘That’s true,’ he agreed, thankfully not sounding too put out. ‘So, what are you saying, Tess? That you want us to be just friends?’

I thought how I could do with a friend right now, especially since Hope was home and I didn’t feel able to pop into the pub and chat with Sam whenever I felt like it.

‘Given the amount we have in common,’ I nodded, ‘yes, I’d really value your friendship, Joe.’

I held out my hand and he shook it, before pulling me in for a platonic, but nonetheless pleasurable, hug.

‘Friends it is then,’ he agreed.

Chapter 14

Chapter 14