Page 25 of All Summer Long

‘Don’t you ever kiss me again, Robinson Duff, not for revenge nor anything else. Is that perfectly bloody clear?’

Where was that goddamn tequila when he needed it? Robinson slid down and leaned his back against the Aga, knees bent, head in his hands. Alice was right and he knew it. There were things he wished he’d said and done differently with Lena, and maybe he had acted out of turn just now. He’d already been wound up tight by Marsh’s email that morning. It didn’t matter how many tickets had been sold or how much money had been sunk into the plan, there was no way on earth that he was going back to do the damn concert or any others behind it.

He’d come halfway around the world to get away from all of the crap back home, and all he’d wound up with was a raft of new fucking problems to go with the old ones that had followed him across the globe.

‘Two glasses of red, please,’ Niamh said, leaning on the bar at The Siren that evening.

‘You may as well give us the bottle, Dessy,’ Alice said beside her. ‘We’re going to need it.’

Dessy raised his eyebrows in shock. ‘Sounds juicy, darling. Shall I bring a third glass for me?’

Alice shook her head. ‘Girl stuff.’

‘I always wanted to be a Girl Guide,’ Dessy said sadly, rolling his shoulders in his floral shirt. ‘Broke my heart when my mother made me be a Beaver.’

Alice and Niamh found an empty table by the fireplace and slumped down.

‘I’ll be so glad when I’m done with this commission,’ Niamh grumbled. ‘If I have to look at Brice Robertson’s wrinkled todger for much longer it’ll put me off sex for life.’

Alice smiled despite her own turmoil and filled their glasses. ‘Are you almost done?’

Niamh nodded. ‘It’s his last sitting tomorrow, thank God. I’m going to get blind drunk tonight so I can get away with wearing dark glasses all day.’

The idea of drinking until she couldn’t remember her troubles appealed greatly to Alice. ‘Brad came round this morning,’ she said, picking up her wine glass.

‘What? Why? You should have come and got me, I’d have given him what for.’

Alice huffed. ‘Robinson made a good job of that in your absence.’ She was still hopping mad with their resident cowboy.

Niamh perked up. ‘Ooh, do tell. I was going to ask you how he was getting on.’

‘He went all macho, then kissed me and strutted off in a temper.’

Niamh’s hand covered her heart and her eyes went round as pennies. ‘Robinson Duff kissed you? Fark! Was he good?’

‘Did you miss the part where he went all weird and macho and stuck his oar into my business without asking?’

Niamh flapped her hand, agog. ‘No, I heard you and we’ll come back to that in a minute, but come on. You kissed Robinson Duff. I want the gossip before we do the serious stuff.’

Alice twisted her gold bracelet around her wrist. ‘He was angry. It wasn’t a romantic kind of kiss.’

‘I don’t get you,’ Niamh said, looking pained. ‘He just kissed you suddenly out of the blue to piss Brad off?’

‘Sort of,’ Alice hedged.

‘But he’s a good kisser, right? Please say yes. You’ll crush my dreams if you say no.’

Alice rolled her eyes. ‘When he wants to be.’

Niamh studied her friend over the rim of her wine glass. ‘It wasn’t the first time he’d kissed you, was it?’

Much as Alice didn’t want to feel as if she was betraying Robinson’s confidence, she really could use her friend’s ear and advice. ‘No. He kissed me in the kitchen last night too.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

Niamh slid forwards on her seat. ‘And tell me you kissed him back and realised that your absent husband is not actually the be all and end all when it comes to men. That his kiss was so hot that your lips blistered and you dragged him upstairs and had your wicked way with him three times with his Stetson still on?’

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