Page 40 of All Summer Long

‘I know you guys haven’t met him yet,’ she looked towards Jase and Dessy. ‘And you have no reason to keep his secrets, but will you do it anyway? Not for him, but for me. I honestly don’t think I can handle the press descending on the manor again.’

Everyone around the table nodded. They’d all taken Alice into their hearts as one of their own, and despite their eccentricities and foibles they knew how to close ranks.

‘I’d like the chance at least to spend some time turning the gardens of the manor into a glampsite, and I won’t be able to do that if all hell breaks loose,’ she went on. ‘Because if I can’t get this business off the ground it’s highly likely that the manor will have to be sold, or else Brad will buy me out and I’ll have to leave.’ Alice found herself becoming emotional and Niamh squeezed her fingers. ‘I don’t want to leave Borne. I love it so much, and all of you crazy people with it.’ She smiled, and a tear slid down her cheek. If Brad had been there, he’d have been crazed with jealousy that he couldn’t summon tears with such perfect timing, except that Alice was one hundred per cent authentic and meant every word.

‘One for all and all for one,’ Jase said, holding his wine glass aloft like a sword. ‘Robinson who?’

‘Team BS all the way,’ Dessy added, taking the Stetson off regretfully and laying it on the table. ‘The Siren’s lips are officially sealed.’

Hazel drained her crème de menthe and placed the glass delicately back down. ‘Robinson can of course rely on our complete discretion,’ she said, rolling her ‘r’s like the queen and laying a hand on Ewan’s shoulder to indicate she spoke for them collectively.

Her son looked at her hand for a second, and then slowly around the table as if he’d just noticed they were all there. ‘BS stands for bullshit,’ he slurred, laughing into his neck and then sliding under the table in a rum stupour.

‘That was hilarious,’ Niamh said, as they stood by her front gate twenty minutes later. Hazel had screamed in panic when Ewan had hit the deck, and a shamefaced Dessy had confessed that the tiniest splash of rum might have somehow fallen into Ewan’s Coke by mistake and then hauled him up and gave him a piggy back home. Niamh and Alice had followed on behind, leaving Stewie in the bar of The Siren where he was retelling his Hugh Hefner story to a startled-looking farmer she half recognised from down the valley.

‘I just hope it works,’ Alice said, reaching down behind the garden wall into the box of dog treats Niamh stashed there and feeding one to Pluto who’d been leaning against her leg.

‘It will,’ Niamh said, unlatching the gate. ‘I was born in Borne.’ She started to laugh at her own joke because she’d drunk too much wine. ‘I know the people here. They’re bonkers but deep down they’re solid gold.’ She looked up at her little cottage and sighed. ‘There’ve been a lot of secrets in this village over the years, Alice, we’re good at playing our cards close to our chest.’ And with that she tottered up the path and opened the front door, ushering Pluto in before blowing a kiss and disappearing inside. Alice looked at the cottages thoughtfully. Although she owned them, technically, they never particularly felt like hers, probably because everybody paid bugger all in rent. She’d never even seen their rental contracts, let alone collected any monies from them. Pausing outside number four, she looked for any signs of life and found nothing. It was strange, really. Her half of the sale proceeds had landed in the bank a few weeks back, much needed funds both to live on and to use to get the glampsite up and running. With the wind behind her and Robinson’s rent too, she should be able to hang on to the manor for the summer in time for her to, God willing, get a business mortgage on the manor. The plan had holes in it big enough to keep her awake at night, but it was all she had and she was going to cling to it like a life raft until such a time came as she sank altogether. But it wouldn’t. She wouldn’t sink. If there was one thing that Alice had learned about herself during the whole debacle with Brad it was that she might look fragile but she was actually a whole lot stronger than people gave her credit for. The meeting in the pub might have seemed quite lighthearted at times, but her friends all knew her well enough to know that when it came down to it, the situation was just about as serious as it got for Alice.

When she opened the Airstream door, she found herself faced with a naked cowboy, aside from his boots, his modesty saved only by a suede tool belt. He threw his hands out to the sides and shot her a sexy grin.

‘I got you a gift,’ he said. Alice let her eyes slide down his eye-wateringly good chest and looked at his middle.

‘You got me a tool belt?’

‘I don’t want you keeping nails in your pockets any more, Goldilocks.’

She was beyond touched that he’d done something so simple and thoughtful, and then he turned around slowly and treated her to a cheeky view of his perfectly peachy backside before facing her again with a glint in his eye.

‘Like it?’ he asked, stepping closer.

‘A lot,’ she laughed, placing her hands on his chest and sighing with pleasure.

‘You better try it on then,’ he said, then dropped the kitchen blind with one hand and unclipped the belt with the other and let it fall to the floor.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘Did you ever take a bath with your husband up at the manor?’

Alice propped herself up on her elbow and studied Robinson’s stubble-shadowed jaw.

‘No. Why?’

‘Because I haven’t been able to get the thought of sliding into the water with you out of my head since you took a bath.’ He trailed a finger over her collarbone. ‘Let’s do it tonight.’

Alice faltered. She loved that bathroom, and she couldn’t count the number of times that she’d lain in that bath and hoped in vain that Brad would get the urge to come up and join her. It had been one of her favourite fantasies about the manor. Could she adjust the image in her head a little to accommodate a different man?

‘Okay,’ she said, still unsure. ‘I think I’d like that.’

‘How about the kitchen table?’ he said, kissing her shoulder.

Another unfulfilled wish. She shook her head.

‘But you did it on the stairs, right?’ he asked, watching her closely. Alice dropped her eyes and sighed, almost ashamed.

‘Just the bedroom. And maybe in the lounge.’

‘You can’t remember for sure?’

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