For a second Rea froze, and opened her lips as if to veto the suggestion. Then she paused, took a breath, and said, ‘I’ll try. Daisy might like to come along.’ A note of pleasure filtered into her voice. ‘When she comes home from school I’ll be able to tell her where I’ve been.’

Laurel gave her a big, squeezy hug. ‘She’ll be stoked.’

A half-hour later, she was able to return to her dancing woman with a sense of optimism. It wasn’t the frothing emotion with which she’d worked in the morning but she worked more calmly, blocking in the shadow behind the figure and taking time to return to her sketch, to subsume herself in that light-as-air dance with arms outflung and face turned to the sky.

She wanted every line of her subject’s body to shout, ‘I’m happy!’

Laurel felt happy today, too.

Chapter Fifteen

Laurel raced downstairs. It was Saturday and she was supposed to be working at Grady’s, painting the Christmas scene. He’d just texted: You OK? xxx, probably because she’d estimated her arrival as nine-thirty and it was now ten o’clock. They’d made love again for hours last night, hence her unscheduled lie-in after creeping back into her own bed long before dawn, exhausted. She’d already texted back: Overslept! xxx and now called the same information in the direction of the kitchen, where she could hear Rea and Daisy chatting.

‘I overslept too,’ Daisy called back cheerfully. ‘Grady’s going to go ape. I was supposed to deliver two wreaths to Niall’s mum first thing but now she’s coming here to collect them ’cos she’s visiting Niall’s auntie and one’s for her. Got to wait in for her.’

A letter lay on the hall doormat and Laurel paused to scoop it up when she spotted her name on the front in handwriting so stylish she first thought it computer-generated script. ‘OK,’ she called back to Daisy. She slit the envelope to withdraw a sheet of white A4 lined paper covered in black, upright handwriting with flashy capitals and loops. Wondering who still sent hand-written letters, she unfolded the sheet and read.

Dear Laurel,

This apology is long overdue. As you won’t let me make it in person, this is the best I can manage.

Her heart stuttered. No. Really? Mac Cassidy had reached out to her? For fuck’s sake, hadn’t her refusing to speak privately with him been a big enough hint that she didn’t want to hear it? Hands trembling, she checked the foot of the sheet and, sure enough, it was signed Mac. Swallowing hard, she read on.