Holding out one hand, he helped my aching legs to a stand. ‘Did no one offer you a lift?’
For a thrilling, electrified second, Pip carried on holding my hand after I’d stood up, before suddenly dropping it as if realising I was the crank who’d jumped on a plane and followed him home.
‘Not that hiring a bike isn’t a perfectly good solution, of course. It’s a lovely wee cycle. Just a braw thing to do after a full day at work and your first ever plane ride. I’d be too focused on finding somewhere to stay. But then, I don’t do so well when it comes to winging it.’
It didn’t need to be said that I wasn’t doing that well, either.
‘Places in Daffy’s van were in high demand. I wasn’t about to leave a child or an elderly person stranded.’ I rubbed at one of my sore arms. ‘She did offer me a ride on Rozzo’s moped, but, well…’
Pip cringed. ‘Rozzo celebrated his sixteenth birthday last week by devouring his girlfriend’s “special brownies”, then driving his new moped through Port Cathan wearing nothing but a helmet, hoping it would disguise his identity.’ He picked up my bag. ‘At the very least, you’d have wanted to disinfect the seat.’
‘Is anyone on this island normal?’
He laughed then. A full-on, deep rumble, his teeth flashing as he opened the truck door. ‘This is normal. It’s you mainlanders who’re the strange ones.’
‘Are you stealing my bag? Is that normal island behaviour, too?’
He slammed the door and moved to pick up the bike. ‘I’m doing what I should have done two hours ago.’
He placed the bike in the back of the truck, then turned to face me, hands on hips. ‘I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. I’m a random guy who buys pasties from you every now and then, and while here, it’s totallynormalto offer a complete stranger a lift if they need it – as Daffy demonstrated – I’ve spent enough time on the mainland to know that women there can feel nervous if a man invites them into his truck. I wasn’t sure what the honourable thing was, so I wimped out of asking.’
‘You’re not really a random guy any more.’
He sighed, rubbing one hand through his thick hair. ‘I don’t feel like one but I wasn’t sure if you felt that, too. Once I got home, I stopped overthinking it, realised that, after having lunch with me, if you thought I was a potential creep then you’d have flown to Belfast instead. Or at least got the Siskin plane tomorrow. So, I came to find you. Just in case.’
‘You didn’t know about the bus, but you still came to find me?’
He gave a sideways glance. ‘Have I gone and made it creepy now?’
It was my turn to laugh. ‘Pip, look at me. I am very much in need of rescuing. If Rozzo rocked up naked on his moped, I’d have probably said yes at this point.’
I dared to let my eyes meet his for a moment longer than any mainlander woman would consider normal. ‘Besides, I followed you. If anyone’s sounding the creep alarm, it’s clearly me.’
Pip had reversed the truck and was heading back up the hill before I thought of the most important question.
‘I was too relieved to see you to even ask where you’re taking me.’
‘I could make some joke about my lair, or where I stored all the other girls, but I’m genuinely trying to be reassuring…’
‘Kind of too late now you’ve mentioned it anyway.’
‘Yeah. If it helps, though, I’m not taking you to my farm.’
I swatted away the ripple of disappointment with a sensible mental finger wag.
‘My sister Lily has converted one of our old barns into a B&B. I didn’t mention it earlier because she’s not officially open for another fortnight, and, as well as being clueless about what’s appropriate when it comes to talking to women I haven’t known my whole life, I’m also horribly clued up about how my sister will react to me mentioning that I know a woman. Let alone asking if she can stay in her not yet open B&B.’
‘But you’re going to ask her anyway?’
‘I already did. When I panicked about not picking you up, I called the Island Arms to see if you’d got there safely. They’refully booked for a mainlanders’ wedding, which has the knock-on effect of the other decent hotel also being full.’
‘I could have stayed at the caravan park.’
‘I’d be very happy to drop you off there. I’m sure there’s space. But the caravan park shop closed at six, and the family who run it are so stingy, you won’t even get a teabag, let alone milk or sugar. Lily used to run a café that officially served the best breakfast on the island. If you stay with her, it’ll be worth it. And she said you can stay rent-free for the weekend if you show her how to make your pasties.’
It took me another half-mile before I dared to ask the next, obvious question.
‘Howdidshe react to you asking if a woman can stay?’
