Page 23 of All Summer Long

‘I don’t need protecting,’ Alice laughed as they walked across the moonlit grass, but she really did mean it. Her life was going through the mother of all changes, and if there was one thing she was learning it was that she didn’t need anyone else to take care of her.

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he said, looking up. ‘Stars are out tonight.’

Alice tipped her chin up and gazed at the dark studded sky. ‘I heard on the radio this morning that the weather’s about to change. They said we’re in for a long, hot summer.’

Robinson led the way through the trees, their footsteps the only sounds in the late darkness. At the Airstream he swung the unlocked door open, peering around inside it before stepping aside.

‘All clear. No bears waiting to eat you for a midnight snack.’

‘That’s good,’ she said, unaccountably nervous that he was going to kiss her again. She looked over her shoulder into the caravan. ‘I won’t ask you in for a nightcap.’

He shoved his hands down into his jean pockets and nodded, a small smile on his lips as he looked at the ground. ‘Wise.’

‘Take your jacket back,’ she said, starting to shuck her shoulders out of it.

‘Keep it for tonight,’ he said. ‘It suits you.’

She nodded, drawing it close. ‘Night then.’

‘G’night, Alice. Sleep tight.’

He might have winked, a barely perceptible gesture as he turned and walked away. She watched him until he was out of sight, and then closed the door and crawled into bed, his jacket still wrapped around her beneath the covers as she fell asleep.

Robinson heard the front door knock loudly the next morning and debated whether or not to answer it. It wouldn’t be Alice, she would have used the back door, so it had to be either one of the residents he’d met the other week or a stranger. The latter would be preferable, because after the email he’d just received from his manager he wasn’t in the mood to entertain guests. It was barely ten in the morning and five minutes ago he’d been seriously considering searching the cupboards in the manor for a bottle of tequila.

‘Hang on,’ he called out, his southern-boy good manners winning out in the end. Glancing out of the window before he opened the door he saw a flashy sports car he didn’t recognise in the driveway and frowned, opening the locks and pulling the heavy door back. A guy he’d never seen before stood on the step, slightly shorter than he was and a lot more groomed, from his sharp hair cut right down to the mirror shine on his no doubt highly fashionable shoes. Robinson’s hackles rose, automatically assuming either press or a sales man.

‘Hi there,’ the guy said, and Robinson nodded in silent reply, waiting for more.

‘Is Alice here?’

Robinson narrowed his eyes, reassessing the situation. ‘She doesn’t live here any more, dude.’

The guy glanced away down the drive and then back again, sliding his shades off and into the open collar of his shirt. ‘Do you happen to know where she went?’

If there was one thing Robinson knew it was how to protect privacy, both his own and other people’s.

‘Who wants to know?’

The stranger on the step seemed irritated by the question, as if he should already know who he was.

‘I’m Brad McBride. Her husband.’

Robinson nodded, suspecting as much and wondering if it’d be bad manners to land one on McBride’s chiselled jaw. Blood sure would make a mess of his carefully put together outfit. But then this was the guy who’d made a mess of Alice’s heart, and that stain was way more difficult to wash out.

‘My solicitor mentioned the idea of renting the manor out, you must be our new tenant,’ Brad said smoothly, holding out his hand to shake. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise things had moved so quickly.’

Ournew tenant? His arrangement was with Alice, not this guy.

‘Sorry, man. I don’t know where she is. If she should call by I’ll mention you were looking for her. Any message?’

Brad opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again as Alice’s voice rang out from deep inside the house, calling Robinson’s name. Robinson cursed himself for unlocking the back door earlier; she must have let herself in to the kitchen.

‘I brought your jacket back,’ she called loudly, and then she wandered into the hallway, barefoot as ever, his leather over her arm. She stopped halfway across the hall when she saw who stood on the step.

Brad was quick to make a judgment call on what he saw.

‘You don’t know where she is, huh?’ he said, dropping his nice guy demeanour.

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