Page 60 of Meet me at the Seaside Cottages

‘On the gardener’s bike?’

‘Good point,’ says Lowell. ‘I seem to have gone downhill in the area of owning my own bike.’

He lets the puppies out, and they immediately start to squirm and sniff their way around. One bumps into the bottom of the washing machine and cries, and Felicity comes in from the fire and graciously bends her neck down from a great height like a giraffe on the veldt, to sniff and make sure everything is okay. Janey pulls out their doughnut feeding bowl and Lowell fills it with milk; they are all able to lap it now, pretty much.

‘This is great,’ says Lowell. ‘Look at them! Look at their wee noses!’

All the tiny tails stand rigidly up as they concentrate on lapping busily.

Janey reads off the printout Essie has made for her.

‘Next you have to start putting baby cereal in their bowls.’ She glances up over her glasses. ‘Uh-oh.’

‘What?’

‘That’s when they start to poo properly.’

‘I see,’ says Lowell, taking it manfully. ‘Better get those newspapers.’

Janey gives all the wee dogs, now completely milk-drunk and staggering around, a small kiss on their tiny noses. Felicity is very keen to go out of the laundry and leave them behind, so Lowell lets her. He frowns and vanishes outside for a second.

‘Jack brought back her bed,’ he says, pulling out a rather chic large grey suede dog bed and settling it down by the fire. ‘He says he wants nothing more to do with her.’

Janey laughs, as Felicity bounds towards the bed with glee. ‘Do you think his pastor has told him to cast her out of the community?’

‘I think,’ says Lowell, ‘we are meant to throw stones at her whenever we see her. Glass of wine?’

He says it so casually. He can’t have realised, Janey knows, what a seismic effect it would have. Why wouldn’t they have a glass of wine? Perfectly normal thing to do. Nothing to read into it. But she is having some kind of internal panic attack, and immediately escapes to the bathroom.

The bathroom is as bare as everywhere else. She inspects her face. Oh, lord. This used to be . . . oh, goodness. She looks bright red. The lighting is gentle in the main room, but she fumbles in her bag for make-up. Mascara always helps. And a bit of blotted lipstick. Not so much as to make it obvious or go into the irritating little puckered lines around her mouth . . . and does she smell of dog? But if she adds perfume she will be that overbearing too-perfumed middle-aged lady of the kind who likes to asphyxiate small nephews and the like. Christ. Plus it might mingle with the smell of dog and seem as if she liked putting dog-scented perfume on.

She realises her hands are shaking and tells herself to calm down. This is ridiculous. It’s just a drink, for God’s sake.

With this very attractive man. Alone in his house. His very attractive house.

She looks down at herself and sighs. So why the hell would he be interested in her? Stop thinking like that, she tells herself. And get out of the damn bathroom before he assumes the absolute worst.

Back in the big room, Lowell has poured two very large glasses of red wine, and Janey takes one gratefully, even though she knows it will make her look redder than ever. She sits down on the surprisingly comfortable corduroy sofa, and worries immediately about spills.

‘I’m amazed you allow red wine in here,’ she says, and he looks confused again. ‘You know, in case someone spills it?’

‘Are you likely to spill it?’ he says. ‘I can get you a towel as well.’

‘Well, normally I don’t,’ she says. ‘But now you’ve mentioned it, I’m worrying about it.’

‘You brought it up!’

Janey takes a large slug to bring the level down in the glass, then sets it carefully on a coaster on a side table.

Lowell blinked. ‘I don’t have people round very often,’ he confesses.

‘I’ve never seen you around the town,’ says Janey. ‘You’re not in choir or anything.’

He laughs. ‘You’ve obviously never heard me sing.’

‘Honestly, being able to sing is very low down the priorities for being in the choir. I’m not a hundred per cent sure you need a pulse.’

His eyes stray to the mantelpiece, and Janey notices for the first time that there is a picture on it.

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