The weather made absolutely no attempt to pull itself together during the next couple of days and the only flames I thought that June had a chance of seeing were the ones that licked up the chimney when I lit the wood burner every afternoon. The cottage was nowhere near as chilly as it had been when I first arrived and there were some days when the fire didn’t need lighting at all, but I hoped the glowing hearth might lift my descending spirits.

Confined to barracks and embarrassed that my first kiss had been forgotten, my mood had tumbled and I had fallen further into the unsavoury depths of Mum’s diary. I was managing to ignore my phone, but I was constantly drawn to her words. Sad, lonely and also embarrassed summed up her emotions and there was no disputing what the line I threw myself into doing what I now did best meant. Dad might have moaned about Mum’s colossal credit cards bills, but had he been the loyal and loving husband the world imagined him to be, she wouldn’t have felt the need to compensate for his absence by continually hitting the shops.

I knew I wasn’t blameless either. Had I not been so wrapped up in work, I would have noticed that something was amiss. Had I paid more attention, Mum might even still be here. I was beginning to think that the universe was conspiring against me: the rotten Wynmouth weather, my forgotten first kiss, my misplaced feelings for Sam – the evidence was adding up. Perhaps I really didn’t deserve to feel any better about life. Perhaps I had made a mistake in running away. Had I stayed and faced up to things, it would all be resolved by now and I wouldn’t have suffered these most recent humiliations.

‘Tess!’

A loud hammering on the cottage door made me jump.

‘Are you in there?’

It was gorgeous, green-eyed Sam, sent from the universe to tempt me before being cruelly snatched away again. I didn’t much want to see him but dragged myself up off the sofa anyway.

‘Yes,’ I answered, as I tightened the belt on my dressing gown before opening the door. ‘I’m here. What is it? Is everything all right?’

The rain was still lashing down and he quickly ducked inside. His bulk made the space feel much smaller than it actually was.

‘As all right as it can be in weather like this,’ he said, quickly closing the door behind him. ‘But we’ve been worried about you. We’ve hardly seen you and now there’s this blasted power cut.’

‘Power cut?’

He stopped looking about the room and turned his lovely eyes to me.

‘Yes, power cut. It’s been off all day,’ he said, now looking me up and down and taking in my nightwear and unbrushed hair. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’