He slowly released his hold and checked her over. They were both breathing heavily and she wasn’t entirely sure that was all down to her nearly tripping over. Being in Cameron’s arms stirred something intense within her. His face was close to hers, his eyes searching her face as if he was awaiting a prompt. For a second she thought he was going to kiss her.

His mobile rang and the moment was gone. Cameron kept hold of Ros with one hand and pulled out his phone with the other. ‘It’s Gina,’ he said.

‘Then you’d better take her call,’ she said, unable to stop a sad sigh from escaping.

***

When the taxi finally dropped Darla back at The Brambles the sky was turning a vibrant orange. She yawned as she let herself in. The brandy and trauma of the day had taken their toll on her, but she still had the menagerie to feed.

‘Darla?’ Elliott rushed into the hallway. ‘Thank heavens you’re all right.’ He scanned her up and down. ‘You are all right, aren’t you?’ The concern on his face warmed her heart.

‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘Marc rang to tell me about his yacht being stolen.’

‘Marc?’ She screwed up her face in thought. Thinking was much harder after alcohol. ‘Oh, you mean Mr Rogers. His wife is really nice. She paid for a caxi tab.’ There was something wrong with that sentence but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was.

‘You’re drunk?’ Elliott sounded confused rather than judgemental.

‘Very, very long story. It took three large brandies to get to the end.’

‘Shall I get you a coffee?’

She shook her head and then wished she hadn’t because now the hat stand was swaying – or maybe it was her. ‘I need to feed the animals.’

‘All done. I’ve been waiting for a couple of hours. Had to keep busy somehow.’

‘Then maybe a coffee would be good please. And a large water. As long as I don’t have to go over the story again.’

Elliott smiled. ‘Not if you don’t want to. As long as you’re not hurt.’

She went to follow him through to the kitchen but the wall was bending round to the left. Funny, it had never done that before. Darla reached out to steady herself, missed and bumped into the kitchen doorframe.

‘Steady on,’ said Elliott, spinning around and grabbing hold of her. He had his arms tight around her and his face was suddenly very close to hers. He had lovely eyes. She realised they had been looking into each other’s eyes for far too long. She had two choices. Pull apart and risk falling over or make the most of the opportunity and kiss him. Darla went in for the kiss.

Chapter Thirty-Three

In her mind Darla had thought it would be an incredibly romantic moment. However, in reality her gusto was ill-timed and instead of a passionate kiss she headbutted Elliott with some force. But to his credit despite the surprise attack he didn’t let her go, which was good because her legs had gone a bit wobbly.

‘Shit, that hurt,’ said Elliott.

‘Sorry,’ said Darla. ‘Ow,’ she added somewhat belatedly as her eye socket began to throb. ‘You know I didn’t mean to headbutt you right?’ She ran her lip through her teeth. This was embarrassing. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I’m flattered that you wanted to kiss me. Slightly worried about your motor skills, but flattered nonetheless.’ Elliott chuckled. ‘When I’d pictured that moment, it had gone differently in my mind. By differently I mean better.’ He gave her a look that made her stomach flip in a good way.

‘You’ve thought about kissing me?’ she asked.

Elliott skilfully manoeuvred her onto a kitchen chair. ‘I might have done.’ He turned all embarrassed and bumped into the table twice as he tried to go around it. ‘Ice. We need ice for head bumps.’

‘Oooh, talking of head bumps. You should have seen Ros.’ Darla felt her stomach lurch as she remembered all the blood, and this time it wasn’t such a pleasant sensation. ‘She has lots of stitches on her head.’

‘Is she okay?’ asked Elliott, rummaging in the freezer and then in a nearby drawer. He pulled out a carrier bag and some tea towels.

‘Yeah, she is surprisingly okay. We’ve been messaging since it happened and Cameron is looking after her really well.’

‘There you go,’ said Elliott, placing something cold on her forehead. He waved a bag of peas and wrapped them in another tea towel. ‘We’ve got half a bag each. Now to make some coffee.’

Darla watched him as he made the drinks with one hand while balancing the peas on his head with the other. She’d given him a proper whack and now her head was throbbing. He brought her coffee over first and then sat down with his.

They sat on kitchen chairs, one hand on their pea ice packs and the other on their coffee mugs, in companiable silence. ‘It’s not how I thought I’d be spending my evening,’ he said.

‘Oh goodness, shouldn’t you be feeding some lambs?’

‘No, thankfully they don’t need feeding as often now. Apart from little um . . . there’s a tiny one who is smaller than the others but she can go another hour before she needs her next bottle.’

‘Did you name her?’ She watched the burly man go all coy.

‘I might have done.’ He broke eye contact and sipped his drink.

‘Go on then. What did you call her?’ Darla had a feeling it was something embarrassing. ‘I once had a goldfish named Sharky,’ she added in the hope it would make him a little more at ease about sharing what he’d called the little lamb.

He rearranged his ice pack and looked decidedly uncomfortable. ‘I called her Darla.’

‘That’s the nicest thing any man has done for me since Phillip Yates saved up to buy me a Barbie bedside lamp,’ she said.

Elliott was looking mildly alarmed.

‘I said “man” but we were both nine at the time.’

‘Okay, slightly less weird.’

Darla shuffled her kitchen chair closer to his and at the risk of banging heads again she leaned in until their bags of peas touched, and then he kissed her.

***

Ros had managed one afternoon of doing very little, but anything past that was proving difficult. She’d agreed to have the rest of the week off work so that she was properly rested. Cameron was being attentive and whilst that was nice she also wanted to get back to her normal life. Thankfully Darla was coming round and Ros was looking forward to seeing her.

‘Don’t you need to get going?’ Ros pointed at the clock. Cameron usually left before now to get to the cocktail bar for his shift.

‘It’s okay. I’ll leave in a minute.’

‘You know you don’t need to hand over responsibility for me to Darla. I’m virtually back to normal. Apart from the clumpy hair that I desperately want to wash.’

‘They said forty-eight hours and then only with warm water. Don’t you dare do that while I’m out.’ He wagged a finger at her.

‘I won’t. Go on, go.’ She opened the door and tried to shoo him out.

He chewed the inside of his mouth and held up a finger as if he was desperately trying to think of something else to stall his departure. ‘Remember, I got you that non-alcoholic cocktail mix because you can’t drink right now.’