There was a look of desperation in her eyes and I wondered if she was referring to the memories of the crash or her feelings for Joe.

‘Of course,’ I nodded. ‘You just need to give it time.’

‘I daresay you’re right,’ she said, after mulling the idea over for a few seconds. ‘I just need to avoid him, don’t I? Joe, I mean.’

That wasn’t going to be easy in somewhere the size of Wynmouth.

‘Do you fancy a paddle?’ she asked.

‘What, now?’

‘Why not?’ she said, running down to the shore.

Immersion in the freezing North Sea would be one way of forgetting her worries, I supposed.

‘Last one in has to buy lunch!’ I shouted as I ran to catch up with her.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Having finally started to get to grips with my own problems, I discovered I couldn’t resist the urge to help certain other people with theirs. Having seen first-hand the impact Joe’s presence was having on Sam, I became resolved to try to do something about it. Apparently, being involved in breathing new life into ailing local businesses and reinvigorating the entertainment scene was no longer enough; I was now intent on trying to mend lives and heal rifts too.

‘This is the last of them,’ I told Sophie when I delivered the final batch of flyers for the beach party. ‘But I can arrange to get more if you run out.’

She picked one up and read it again.

‘I can’t imagine there’s anyone left within a five-mile radius who hasn’t got one or seen one now,’ she chuckled. ‘Or noticed the posters that have popped up everywhere.’

She was probably right; throughout the week the flyers had been disappearing as fast as I could hand them out. I had even spotted a few taped on the inside of car windows, so word was definitely spreading.

‘Everyone’s very excited about it, aren’t they?’ she said, a wide smile lighting up her face. ‘It’s going to be a busy night.’

Even if half those expected turned up it was going to be an exceptionally busy night.

‘I just hope the weather doesn’t let us down,’ I frowned, ‘and that as many people turn up to clean the beach the day before as come out to celebrate the solstice the night after.’

‘I’m sure it will all be fine,’ she said reassuringly. ‘You worry too much, Tess.’

She was probably right, but my experience of the industry I had until recently been operating in, together with working for a perfectionist like my father, meant that I always checked, checked and then re-checked every last detail, even those that I couldn’t control, like the weather, so it was force of habit really.