I wasn’t sure I believed her, but then perhaps Sam didn’t think enough of me to care. After all, at the end of the day, I was just a holidaymaker renting his cottage, hardly lifelong buddy material. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had read too much into our friendship. I mean, I’d been wrong about the spark of attraction, hadn’t I?

‘And anyway,’ Hope shrugged, ‘it’s no one else’s business who you go out with, is it?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Did you know Joe and I used to go out?’ she then said, sounding almost shy. ‘Did he tell you that?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘no, he didn’t.’

That said, thinking back to the night in the pub and how the colour had drained from his face when he spotted her behind the bar, I should have guessed.

‘We were a couple for quite a while,’ she told me. ‘We were only young, but it was love at first sight and it lasted a good while. We actually used to come right here,’ she smiled, pointing to the back of the beach huts, ‘and snog for England.’

I bet Joe would remember those kisses, even if he’d forgotten mine.

‘We were still together after the crash,’ she said, the smile now banished as she sat in the shade of one of the closed huts, ‘but not for long.’

‘How come?’ I asked, shielding my eyes from the glare of the sun as I looked down at her.

‘We fell out over Sam,’ she explained. ‘Joe couldn’t understand why I kept visiting him in the hospital. He said it was completely wrong that I still wanted to be friends with him and, in the end, we broke up over it.’

‘That must have been really hard for you.’

‘It was,’ she swallowed. ‘I was in love with Joe and of course I could understand that he was destroyed by what had happened, but Sam was my friend too. I wanted to support them both.’

I could understand that. Poor Hope had found herself in an impossible position and they had all been so young, not to mention traumatized. It was hardly the ideal time to make big relationship decisions, but then when had life ever presented perfect timing?

‘And now Joe’s back,’ she said, ‘and I can’t help thinking . . .’

Her words trailed off and she stared out at the sea, her forehead furrowed in a deep frown.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘What do you keep thinking, Hope?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, holding out her hand so I could pull her back up. ‘I just can’t seem to get him out of my head.’

‘Given the history between you all,’ I said, heaving her to her feet, ‘that’s only natural.’

‘Everything’s all so stirred up,’ she said, brushing the sand from the back of her legs.

‘It will settle again.’

‘Will it?’ she asked.