The tiniest flicker of a sensuous sensation stirred, but focusing on it, while listening to Hope laugh, made my head pound and, as I was pretty certain it was my imagination playing tricks on me, rather than an actual memory from the night, I dismissed it.

‘I need to change a barrel,’ Sam muttered grumpily and walked off.

‘What’s with him?’ I asked. ‘Didn’t he enjoy himself?’

Hope’s eyes followed his back as he disappeared down the hatch to the cellar.

‘I’m not sure, to be honest,’ she sighed, but didn’t elaborate on why.

‘He’s probably still suffering from the after-effects of the p-u-n-c-h too,’ I suggested, spelling the word out to stop my stomach rolling over again.

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

The week after the party, I threw myself back into the role of holidaymaker. I did all the things I had always loved to do in Wynmouth – I visited the rockpools, swam in the still freezing sea, topped up my tan and explored the dunes. On the outside, I no doubt looked like someone making the most of her time in the fleeting British sun, but I was very much on the inside and I knew that wasn’t the case at all.

As enjoyable as it all might have looked to anyone else, my days spent on the beach were really my way of coping with the internal turmoil that descended whenever I set my mind to sorting out what I had run to the village to work my way through.

Rather than helping me come to terms with the shell that I had discovered my parents’ marriage really was, reading Mum’s diary had created more questions than answers and, even though I had decided I wouldn’t be going back to work with Dad, I still hadn’t done anything to match my actions to the decision.

I was even beginning to wonder if my involvement in village events and my desire to keep an eye on Hope and stop her making relations between Sam and Joe worse rather than better, were a way of putting off the inevitable.

Was the role I was playing in Wynmouth really essential to the fabric of local life, or was I simply using it as yet another excuse for not moving on with my own issues? I had made a few inroads into getting on with things but, considering the amount of time I’d now been away, I hadn’t travelled anywhere near far enough and I knew I was running out of diversionary events on the Wynmouth calendar to throw myself into.

I absolutely couldn’t carry on in the same vein, hiding out and treating my weeks away as just a jolly when they had always been destined to be so much more, but maybe just one more afternoon soaking up the sun on the beach wouldn’t hurt . . .