‘Daisy,’ Laurel murmured. ‘Just hang on before you start messaging anyone about this.’ She felt rather than saw Daisy’s surprised glance, but she had the satisfaction of seeing the phone screen gradually going dark in her peripheral vision. Three minutes later they drew to a halt outside The Nookery, its back to the farm fields that surrounded the village. Oddly spaced windows punctuated uneven walls and a mad thatched roof undulated over the large, sprawling cottage, a thatch partridge silhouetted at one end. The Nookery sat back from the rest of Great End like an awkward child at a party. Both it and the studio in its garden had belonged to Isla, Laurel and Rea’s mum, so they now belonged to Laurel and Rea. As Rea had little interest in the studio, Laurel was about to make it her new workspace.

She killed the engine, flicked on the internal light and met her niece’s dark, dancing eyes. ‘I can’t stop you messaging your friends or posting what happened on social media, but I want you to think carefully before you cause Mr Cassidy stress and humiliation. Humiliating someone is bullying, and bullying is something we should all find unacceptable.’ Even if Mac Cassidy was the victim and damned lucky Laurel was doing him this favour. ‘And he’s your friend’s dad.’

Daisy dropped her gaze and sighed disconsolately. ‘The faaaaaark.’ Laurel already knew that ‘the faaaaaark’ was Daisy’s thinly veiled attempt to get away with saying ‘what the fuck’. Rea discouraged it but Laurel felt that as Daisy had a mum who panicked at the idea of leaving home, and an aunt who’d left Middledip for good reason and hadn’t wanted to come back, a little pseudo swearing wasn’t worth worrying about. Daisy muttered, ‘Niall would know it’s a joke.’

‘When it’s his dad?’ Laurel probed gently.

Daisy shoved her phone away. ‘But Mr Cassidy’s my head of year and he was pantsed and cable-tied. And I got him to wear my Santa trousers.’

Laurel grinned at Daisy’s air of injury, leaning over the centre console to reward her niece with a hug. ‘It’s really hard not to take revenge on people. I’m not a fan of Mac Cassidy either but you’ve told me you’re friendly with Grady and I remember him as a good guy. Let’s do it for him if not for Mac, all right?’

‘Oh, all right.’ Daisy opened the car door. ‘Grady’s great. He does cool stuff.’

Laurel didn’t ask what kind of stuff, pretty sure she wouldn’t be crossing his path much. It was nineteen years since they’d been more than friends and the reason the relationship ended wasn’t a subject she liked to dwell on.