The Little B & B at Cove End. Linda Mitchelmore

addiction had been so great she’d often wondered if he’d sell his own body to fund it. Why, she wondered, was all this coming out now, two years after Mark’s death? Respect, perhaps, for when she was newly widowed had stopped people saying anything before, but now time had passed, tongues were loosening up again?

      ‘Do you have proof Bailey Lucas is saying these things?’

      ‘Well, um …’

      ‘You haven’t, have you?’

      ‘Must be him. We met him in Meg Smythson’s earlier and he was, like, confrontational. His sister, Xia, works behind the bar …’

      ‘That’s not proof, Josh,’ Cara said. ‘And I think it would be a good idea not to spread that particular rumour yourself. But it is true my husband gambled.’

      ‘But Mae doesn’t know?’

      ‘No. Not yet.’

      ‘I won’t say a word,’ Josh said. ‘But she needs to know. Soon.’

      ‘Of course. But I have to find the right moment. Come with me.’ Josh followed as she led the way into the kitchen. ‘You probably noticed the patches on the walls that hadn’t faded like the rest of it … where paintings had been. It’s the same in here. Mark took the paintings, little by little, to sell them to fund his gambling. He left me – us, Mae and me – choosing gambling over his family. And it seems the Hines have taken what Mark left behind: my mother’s silver, which was valuable.’

      Cara knew she might be taking a risk telling Josh, but he seemed more man than boy. And he was the son of a vicar. He had to be used to his father being told things that would go no further.

      ‘Lowlifes,’ Josh said.

      ‘More than,’ Cara agreed. ‘But I can’t risk telling Mae any of that, Josh …’

      But then Mae came back into the kitchen in the towelling robe that had been her dad’s – her comfort robe she’d called it, wrapping it around her the night Cara had told her that her dad had been killed, and using it at every opportunity since; it drowned her, making her look so vulnerable, so small somehow, although she was already five feet six inches tall, almost as tall as Cara. Mae fiddled with the towel wound around her wet hair, loosening it then winding it tight again.

      ‘Can’t tell me what?’ Mae said.

      ‘That you’re very beautiful when you’re angry,’ Josh said, grinning at them both. ‘The biggest cliché of them all but hey, it’s true at the moment. Forgive?’ he finished, making a prayer gesture with his hands to Mae, and Cara remembered how Meg Smythson had said Josh could charm the birds from the trees. Was that a flutter of Mae’s eyelashes?

      ‘I might consider it,’ Mae said.

      ‘Another chance?’ Josh asked.

      ‘Try me?’ Mae said, which served for Cara’s heart to plummet to somewhere down around her feet that she hadn’t given Mark another chance – all this wouldn’t be happening if she had. ‘As long as alcohol isn’t involved.’

      ‘Not a drop will pass my lips,’ Josh said. ‘That was one wake-up call tonight.’

      ‘Yeah, but just remember,’ Mae said, ‘that actions speak louder than words. Right?’

      Josh’s eyes widened in surprise at Mae’s words, which made Cara want to laugh. But how proud she was in that moment of her feisty daughter, coming back from her shock and commanding the situation.

      ‘Indeed,’ Josh said, pulling himself up tall, and looking directly at Mae. ‘I was wondering if you fancy going sailing next weekend?’

      Mae shrugged. I dunno, the shrug said, but Cara could tell by the light in Mae’s eyes and knowing how she loved sailing with Mark that she was considering it.

      It seemed Josh had come to that conclusion too because he said, ‘If, you know, you haven’t got any gear any more you can borrow a lifejacket from my sister. And even her Helly Hansen. She won’t mind. That okay with you, Mrs Howard?’

      ‘As long as Mae’s comfortable with it,’ Cara said. Rosie’s voice came into her head asking her what the hell she was thinking agreeing to let her daughter go off with someone who was obviously a professional charmer, because hadn’t he turned the situation around, barging in scared out of his wits about what Mae might have told the police about him, and when he found she’d said nothing at all and that Cove End had been robbed by the Hines, he’d come over all concerned for her and Mae to suit his own ends? ‘Mae?’

      ‘Yeah. Fine,’ Mae said. ‘Maybe I need the diversion? Text me, eh? Saturday or Sunday. Whichever’s best for tides and weather.’

      Cara let out an audible sigh of relief that Mae had water safety uppermost in her mind.

      ‘Yeah, will do,’ Josh said. ‘Better let you get your beauty sleep, then. Not that you need it, Mae.’

      ‘Oh give over, Maynard,’ Mae laughed. ‘I’m getting the drift. You’re sorry. You’re making amends, and I think you might be making my mother sick with all your smarmy charm, but it doesn’t fool me. Any more and I’ll change my mind about the weekend.’

      Mae yawned theatrically and it was all Cara could do not to burst out laughing. Mae might not have a father around to look out for her any more, but she was learning how to stick up for herself and Cara had to be thankful for that.

      ‘You’re too kind,’ Josh said, laughing. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

      And then he was gone.

      ‘You can change your mind if you want to, darling,’ Cara said. ‘You know, when you’ve had more time to think things through. If you think Josh might just be saying things he wants us to hear?’

      Mae sighed heavily.

      ‘Is this a lecture?’ she asked.

      ‘No, but a lot’s happened here tonight, and I wouldn’t want you to make a rash decision because of it.’

      ‘I haven’t. Okay?’ Mae’s eyebrows were practically meeting in the middle in indignation. And then she smiled at Cara, a broad beaming smile that lit up her face. ‘Why would I not want to see him again? You saw him. He’s like, lush!’

      Cara couldn’t think of a thing to say about that. Yes, Josh Maynard was a looker. And the word lush could mean more than drop-dead desirable – not that Cara was going to mention that right now.

      ‘Okay,’ Cara said. ‘You’ve got school in the morning. Up the wooden hill?’

      ‘When I’ve dried my hair.’ Mae roughly rubbed the towel over her hair. ‘And, Mum … can I, like, sleep in your room tonight?’

      ‘Of course,’ Cara said, relieved that she wouldn’t now need to ask that same question of Mae and get, perhaps, a flat refusal for the asking. Tonight had brought mother and daughter a little closer together. An ill wind and all that …

      ‘Just tonight, you understand?’

      ‘Of course,’ Cara said again. Even the fact that the Hines had violated her space by searching through drawers and wardrobes, and even under the bed, couldn’t take away her joy that she would have Mae lying close to her and could reach and give her reassurance in the night if she needed it.

       Chapter Six

      In the cool light of day, with Mae now gone to school, and time to reflect on what had happened the night before, Cara set about getting the house back to how it had been before Hines had turned up. It was almost therapeutic finding a tin of paint and glossing over where skirting boards had been scuffed. She was glad she’d chosen matt white paint for all the walls in the house and it was just a matter of taking some cleansing cream to grubby