‘One eye at a time, Cody,’ he suggested, exaggerating his own wink.

Cody giggled and said, ‘Ugly.’

‘Charming.’ Grady laughed. Then he was distracted by the beep that signalled the arrival of a text. It was from Pippa. Are you free to talk? xx

He replied: Busy at the moment. He omitted kisses. Those days were done.

She came straight back. Later? I’ll call at the cottage. xx

He stared at the words, shoulders prickling. He didn’t appreciate her expecting him to be free at no notice. And ‘the cottage’? Yes, she’d once lived there, but her not saying ‘your cottage’ annoyed him unreasonably, especially as he’d intended to see if Laurel fancied meeting him for a drink later – just as a ‘welcome back’, of course. I could call at yours about five he sent.

Zelda will be here. I’ll come at five. Thanks! xxxx

Typical Pippa to only read what she wanted to read – that he’d be available, and to try and pin him down to ‘at five’ when he’d said ‘about five’. He’d never worried about her manoeuvrings when she’d been his girlfriend but now things were different. He returned: I’ll be there as near five as works for me and slid his phone away, clearing Pippa from his mind so he could listen to Tess asking Laurel how she sold finished pieces.

‘Galleries are the traditional route but they take half what the painting fetches,’ Laurel was saying. ‘Online galleries take less and can get good prices but if I can sell on Etsy my main cost’s shipping.’ Because she was on his left and Tess was around the corner of the table to his right, they were talking across him and he was able to watch the movements of Laurel’s mouth and the subtle shifts of light in her silky, fox-coloured hair.

When Laurel had first left, he’d thought of her constantly, constructing scenarios of her returning to the village and the froideur between them melting away. Time had faded those hopes and if he’d thought about her in recent years it was only because Daisy Grove was buddies with Niall and she mentioned her artist aunt, Laurel Hill, especially at Craft Stuff.

He’d wondered what kind of woman Laurel had grown up to be.

And now he had some idea. She was beautiful, successful, bright and compassionate but occasionally prickly. The open-hearted way she’d reached out to him about his infertility had stunned him. She was in the same unfortunate club, of course, but had looked outward from her own pain to reassure him. Just being Laurel and just being Grady is enough, you know … She was back in Middledip because she was needed, not because the cute cottages and warm villagers had called to her, but every time Grady looked at her, awareness shimmied up his spine.