Country Affairs. Zara Stoneley

you’d be on a plane by now.’ Pip clamped her mouth and the door shut simultaneously. Except that an oversized boot got there first. ‘You’ve done that before, I bet. Used to having doors slammed in your face, are you? Now move your bloody foot out of my doorway.’ She pushed harder, but he didn’t budge. Just grinned. ‘Just like you’ve done other things before.’ She didn’t add the ‘like get married before you get divorced’ bit, because she didn’t need to.

      ‘Ah come on, be a sport, give us a chance. I didn’t have you down as a tight arse. Thought you’d be pleased to see me again.’

      ‘Piss off, Todd. I don’t want to see you again, and neither does Lottie. She’s just too nice to tell you where to go.’ And they really didn’t need him right now, she could have added, when Lottie was settled with Rory and a line had been drawn under what had always had the potential to be a disastrous relationship. And Lottie had far more important and serious things to think about. Like raise mega amounts of money. ‘You’ve seen her and apologised.’ He grinned. ‘So you can go back Down-Under now before you cause any more problems.’

      ‘How do you know I haven’t changed?’

      ‘How do I know a dog’s got bollocks?’

      He looked confused for a second. ‘Take a look under its tail?’

      ‘Exactly! And with you I don’t even need to look. Still got yours?’

      ‘You betcha, babe.’

      ‘Well, we don’t want to see them here. And leave Tab alone, she’s a kid.’

      ‘You’re not still sore about the whole getting-arrested-on-the-beach thing are you?’

      ‘Yes.’ She tried kicking her side of the door, in the hope it would hurt. But he didn’t even have the manners to flinch. ‘You just have no idea the state you left Lottie in, have you?’

      ‘You mean it really didn’t go down at all well?’

      ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

      ‘She seemed okay about seeing me, all things considered. We had quite a chat and she was cool.’

      ‘Are you stupid? It went down like a lead balloon. She’s just being polite. Though God knows why.’ Maybe if she put her shoulder to it, it would help, she thought, still wrestling with the door.

      ‘Come on, mate, it’s not like I murdered anyone, now, is it? Be reasonable. I’m pretty damned sure Lottie is totally cool about it now. You saw for yourself at her old man’s wedding.’

      ‘Well, I’m not cool about it, totally or otherwise.’ I could be the one doing the murdering right now, thought Pip, wondering how the hell Lottie had ever fallen for the blond beach bum who was currently loitering on her Cheshire doorstep. Well, apart from the obvious, like the baby blue eyes, wicked grin and muscles. But he was a complication too far. Yesterday had been entertaining, today he was outstaying his welcome.

      ‘Anyway, weren’t you deported or put in prison, or something?’

      ‘Out early, for good behaviour.’ He saw the frown deepen. ‘Kidding, honest! I got off. No charges.’

      ‘How can you get off? You got married but forgot you were supposed to be single first.’

      ‘Didn’t Lottie tell you? Like I explained everything to her, the marriage was never, like, legal or whatever, no paperwork. So I did only get married once. Good eh?’

      ‘Brilliant. Only you could call a wedding that wasn’t legalised a stroke of luck. So was that the first one or the second? Or are there more we haven’t heard about yet?’

      ‘Oh the second, babe. Don’t think the first wanted to divorce me really, which you can understand, can’t you?’ He winked. ‘That’s why she didn’t make it absolute. But it’s done now, just been to the courts to sort it.’ He didn’t look remotely bothered. ‘That’s one of the reasons I came over to the UK.’

      ‘And you honestly think I want to talk to you? Even if Lottie is daft enough to forgive you, I’m not. You hurt her, Todd, don’t you get that? She’s my friend and if you think you’re getting another chance, dream on.’ He’d already found Lottie, gate-crashed the wedding and made himself a local celebrity. Wasn’t that enough for anybody? Tippermere was a small place. If anybody saw him here then she’d be the talk of the village as well. Murder was sounding more inviting by the second.

      ‘Me and Lots were only fooling, nothing serious.’ Which was the conclusion Pip had come to in the end, once Lottie had stopped crying, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Todd. ‘I reckon she was pleased to see me again.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter what you were doing – you were fucking married and you just abandoned her.’

      ‘Well, to be fair, I didn’t have much choice about leaving her.’

      ‘You could have sent a message, anything.’

      ‘Ah, stop nit-picking.’ He shrugged. ‘Come for a drink if you’re not going to ask me in. I need to talk to you.’

      ‘To me?’ Pip sighed inwardly. ‘Lottie didn’t tell you to come here, did she?’

      He looked confused. ‘Lottie? Why would Lots send me over?’

      Pip was actually feeling nosy and increasingly guilty that she hadn’t offered to help Lottie out. And she was feeling a bit miffed, as she’d been abandoned by Mick once again as he’d put a horse higher up in his list of priorities than her, which was why Sam had popped in. Except she hadn’t bargained on the baby and cosmetic surgery talk.

      Lottie had tried to warn her about the whole men-and-horses thing when it had started to look serious with Mick. Told her she’d need to understand, but she still wasn’t convinced she wanted to. She’d bought into a relationship with Mick, not a stable full of horses. Yes, she wanted some independence and wanted them to do stuff on their own, but she loved him. And she wanted him to ditch the horses at weekends so they could do something different for a change. Together.

      She was beginning to understand why Lottie had fled abroad, and into Todd’s bed. It did have a certain appeal.

      Her last image of Todd, prior to his unexpected arrival in Tippermere, was in Barcelona jogging across the beach with his surf board. She’d left him and Lottie to soak up the rays while she’d gone off exploring the stylish bars and boutiques in the nearby El Born district. And, much later, after a good shopping trip and a couple of glasses of wine, she’d been shocked to find Lottie in tears. It had taken quite a while to make sense of her friend’s hysterical outpourings, but from what Pip could gather he was being escorted to the airport and onto a plane bound for Australia. And now he was here. The other side of the world. And nobody was quite sure why. If she let him in she might find out.

      ‘I suppose you can come in, but don’t put your rucksack down.’

      He grinned. ‘Fair dinkums.’

      ‘Don’t dinkums me, you dingo.’ And with that she was engulfed in the type of man hug that amounted to borderline asphyxiation.

      When Todd had arrived in Cheshire his plan had been quite simple. Find Lottie, apologise for the fiasco on the beach, and ask if she could put him up for a while so he could sort out some family business. But things had gone wrong from the start. The whole wedding thing had knocked him off his stride. He’d got completely the wrong end of the stick when Tab had gone on about ancient men and ‘Lottie’s wedding’ and had decided on impulse that as he owed Lottie one, and he did really want her to be happy, he had to get in his ‘don’t’ bit before she got in her ‘I do’.

      All things considered, things has worked out quite well in the end, though. But he couldn’t ask her for a bed for the night. She and Rory, who had cropped up in more than one conversation in Barcelona, were obviously a serious item and he had a fair idea (thick- skinned though he knew he could be) that he’d outstayed his welcome.

      He