‘I told her the hotels were full, so she was fine.’
I was so flustered at the very thought of what Lily might be assuming, let alone the exhaustion, the wild events of the day, I blurted the next question before my common sense could intercept it.
‘No. I mean, does she think I’m…yourwoman?’
Pip almost swerved off the road.
He cleared his throat, keeping his eyes firmly ahead. I braved a glance and saw that his cheeks looked as warm as mine felt.
‘She knows who you are.’
‘The person you buy pasties from.’
Another pause. ‘Exactly.’
We soon reached Port Cathan, winding along the seafront where the harbour displayed boats ranging from dinghies, through fishing boats to a sleek superyacht. On the other side of the road, I counted four cafés, two hotels – including the distinctly non-Grand – a few touristy shops and an art gallery. Bookending all these were a row of pastel-painted terraces and some larger cottages with brightly coloured window boxes and picket fences.
‘It’s like something out of a film,’ I said, taking in the crowded patio outside one of the cafés.
On the far side of the harbour, we drove past a beach, lit up with solar lights, and a group of people sitting on camping chairs around a firepit, watching the sunset dance upon the waves while dog walkers wandered closer to the water.
‘While I admit that Harbour Road does maintain a sheen that mainlanders love, on the other side of those houses is the real village. There’s the village store, Tenneson’s Farm Supplies, the community centre, school and the fish-market.’ Pip grimaced. ‘Put it this way: the harbour is busy this evening because the wind is blowing in the right direction. Although plenty of the people living along here have got used to the smell. Mainly because they can’t ever get it out of their clothes.’
The road then veered inland, winding back uphill until, less than twenty minutes after we’d set off, we turned down a one-lane gravel track for a couple of hundred metres, pulling into a driveway with a sign that I could just make out through the twilight asSunflower Barn.
I grabbed my case from the back seat while Pip lifted the bike out of the back of his truck, assuring me that it was the best way to get around the island.
The red front door was set underneath a porch trellis, which had a baby honeysuckle making its way up one side. Instead of using the brass knocker, Pip opened the door and walked straight in.
‘Hello?’ he called, prompting a woman to shoot out of an oak doorway on the other side of the spacious square hall.
‘Shush!’ she hissed, waving both hands at him. ‘I’ve finally got Beanie down. If I have to read about that mole one moretime, I’m going to dig myself a flippin’ tunnel in the garden and live there.’
‘Still obsessed?’
The woman, who I presumed must be Lily, hurried across the hall and threw her arms around him. ‘It’s not natural for anyone to know that much about moles. Let alone a three-year-old girl. It certainly shouldn’t be keeping them up an hour past their bedtime.’
She caught herself, peeling herself away from Pip as if suddenly noticing the stranger in her house.
‘Oh, you must be Emmaline.’
Her face, framed with the same dark hair as her brother, only pinned in a messy bun, lit up as she stepped forwards to give me a hug. I noticed then the pregnant bump beneath her loose T-shirt.
‘My friends call me Emmie.’
‘Emmie it is, then.’ She stepped back, the pale-blue eyes beneath thick, dark lashes dancing between me and Pip. ‘I’m Lily, Pip’s biggest sister. Come through and make yourself cosy. You must be dying for a drink. Pip, will you take Emmie’s bag up to the yellow room? It’s got a daisy on the door.’
I followed Lily into the kitchen, a gorgeous space with appliances to rival my garage and a huge, purple table near a sliding glass door at one end. Beside that was a corner sofa, television and a mountain of toys.
‘This is Malcolm, my husband. Malcolm, this is Pip’sfriendwho spontaneously jumped on his plane when she heard he was heading home for good, and so is going to be our pre-launch test guest.’
Malcolm, a bear-like man with a shaved head and hearty beard, gave a non-committal nod from where he sat at the table absorbed in paperwork. An older child, sprawled on the sofareading a Malorie Blackman novel, sprang to a sitting position, her book forgotten.
‘You’re Uncle Pip’s girlfriend?’
Oh, boy.
‘No. Just a friend.’ I resisted the urge to reverse out of there.
