Slowly, she turned back to regard Grady. No longer the conservative, doe-eyed teen she remembered, his straight hair fell to his shoulders and was tucked behind his ears, his brows thick and black. Though still recognisably the same person, his shoulders were broader, his jaw stubbled, his forehead wider and set in iron furrows as he tried to peer into her car.

Until she’d left the village at sixteen, she and Grady had been a bit of a thing. To him, she’d confided her dreams of becoming an artist, and the hollow, sinking grief around the loss of her mum two years earlier. In turn, he’d unburdened himself about family-shaking clashes between brash Mac and their domineering dad. Then Mac and his horrible mates had done what they did that night …

‘Can you help us?’ Grady called through the glass. ‘Someone tricked us into stopping and took our phones. My brother’s frozen.’ Grady looked cold, too, hugging his hoodie around him. It was probably his coat around Mac’s bottom.

Heart rate uncomfortably rapid, Laurel buzzed her window open half an inch and Grady edged closer. There was no recognition in his gaze but it had been nineteen years and she knew she’d changed. ‘Some young lads overtook us, then pretended to break down. When we stopped to help, they jumped out – five of them. Some held on to me while the rest set on Mac and took his jeans and boots then attached him to the car door with cable ties. Hilarious, to them,’ he added bitterly.

Laurel glanced back at Mac, his back to them perforce but his head half-turned as if trying to catch the discussion, squinting against the snow blowing into his face. ‘They took your phones?’ she repeated, to give herself time to envisage driving off and leaving Mac Cassidy to his indignity and discomfort. The revenge would be so sweet that her fingers actually flexed on the gear stick. Then, knowing she ought to have grown out of petty payback, however much she owed the elder Cassidy brother for his past sins, she pulled on the handbrake and switched on her hazard lights. ‘I’ve got something in the boot that will free him. Then you can drive home.’

‘Little bastards took Mac’s car keys too,’ Grady snapped, retreating so that she could open her door. ‘They left me my keys but they’re not much good when my vehicle’s three miles away.’ Then, as if Laurel’s silence was a question, he added grumpily, ‘I know I could have run to the village but I needed to stop any cars careering round the corner and hitting my brother.’