Hello.’It was safe to say that Nick was not nearly as pleased to see me when I knocked on his door fifteen minutes later as he was when I’d passed through it fifteen hours earlier.‘Hello,’ I replied, more than a little awkward. Al loitered a few feet away, carefully examining a knot in the wood of one of the chairs on the veranda and demonstrating very impressive not-listening skills. ‘I’ve got good news.’‘Is that why you had to sneak off in the middle of the night?’ he asked, striding across the room and pulling a T-shirt over his bare torso. Which was a shame. ‘Clearly it wasn’t because you were self-conscious about your hair looking a mess.’Ouch. He really was annoyed. I raised a sad hand halfway up to my sad hair before shaking my head and reminding myself why I was there. Not to bicker and argue but to make something right. For a change.‘Clearly not,’ I agreed. I took a cautious step into his cottage and waited to see what he would do. Nothing. ‘I went for a walk.’‘Well, that makes much more sense,’ he replied.
