The words died in my throat as I stopped dead on the threshold, staring at him, but not really believing what or who I was seeing. This had to be some trick, some joke my brain was playing, the result of not having slept and all the recent emotional turmoil.

‘I told myself I wouldn’t come,’ he said huskily as his eyes met mine, ‘but when you didn’t respond to my letter, I just couldn’t stay away any longer.’

Now, not only did the vision look like my father, it sounded like him too, so I had no choice but to accept that it was him, standing on the doorstep of Crow’s Nest Cottage at some ungodly hour of the morning on the day I had finally decided to leave.

He looked careworn and almost as tired as I did, and just for a second, before the memory of Mum’s diary tapped me on the shoulder and I checked myself, I very nearly gave in to instinct, threw my arms around him and told him that I loved him.

‘I haven’t read your letter,’ I replied, my voice every bit as husky as his. ‘The package only arrived yesterday and I haven’t opened it,’ I added, a little louder. ‘I didn’t even know there was a letter inside.’

‘I did wonder if I should give you more time,’ he said, a frown pulling his brows together, ‘but I was scared that you would move on once you knew that I knew where you were and I couldn’t risk that. I couldn’t risk losing you again, Tess.’

I didn’t know what to say. Dad hadn’t been an emotionally demonstrative father for a very long time and confessing that he was scared, of anything, was something I didn’t think I had ever heard him admit before.

‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ I said, opening the door wider.

I was mindful that George would soon be walking Skipper and didn’t want to add more fuel to my holiday story which was weaving its way among the great, good and downright grumpy of Wynmouth.

‘Although you won’t be able to leave your car parked there.’

If Charlie came bowling along on the beach tractor, he wouldn’t be able to get through the gap and that would cause even more talk than if George spotted me in conversation with an unknown man on the cottage doorstep.

‘It’s all right,’ Dad said, still standing in the same spot. ‘I don’t want to come in. I was rather hoping that you would come with me.’

I looked at him and raised my eyebrows. I knew it was a work day, and a miracle that he was so far from his desk, but if he had plans to get me to the office and clocked in for nine, then he was in for a rude awakening.