Page 17 of All Summer Long

Alice made her workforce a cuppa around five o’ clock and then sent them all home, waving them off back to their respective baths and beds from the deck of the tree house.

She’d been doubtful when they’d all turned up like a ragtag team that morning, but just having them around and willing had served to make the whole thing seem a bit less daunting.

Even Hazel’s site-scoping mission had thrown up some interesting ideas, admittedly more about which trees were rare or protected than about potential chi, but useful none the less.

Good old Stewie had loved having Ewan as his junior.

Alice feared that he might be regaling his apprentice with stories that weren’t fit for a seventeen year old’s ears in order to keep his attention, but even she had to admit that the resulting log pile was pretty impressive.

Throughout the day she’d been making notes in the file as people shouted random ideas up to her, and she intended to spend her evening pleasurably going over them.

There was something she needed to do first though.

She squinted up at the setting sun, knowing instinctively that the perfect time was coming.

Climbing down the tree ladder, she headed back towards the Airstream at a dash.

It fitted in her hands perfectly. She hadn’t handled it in over eight years, but Alice’s fingers automatically loaded the film she’d ordered into her dad’s Nikon and adjusted the shutter speeds, her mind and fingers working on instinct as she considered the lighting conditions.

She jogged through the trees, aware that every minute counted if she was going to catch the shot.

Sunset had been her dad’s most favourite time of day to capture images, and he’d passed his love and quest for the perfect shot on to his daughter.

She didn’t let sentiment cloud her judgment as she settled on the edge of the dock at the boathouse a few minutes later, the camera beside her on the boards, her arms stretched out in front of her as she made a viewfinder with her fingers.

She could almost hear him coaching her, almost feel him sitting beside her talking her through it when she reached for the camera and lifted its comforting weight to her face.

It was a pure pleasure and nostalgia to use and she lost herself completely in the moment.

All those years she’d avoided doing this, and in the end it was comforting rather than painful to let herself enjoy the creative process her father had taught her to love.

At the time of his death she’d let herself blame his career, his obsession, his relentless professionalism …

photography had taken her dad away from her.

Now, though, time had allowed her to feel what she couldn’t back then; his hands on the camera she now held in her hands, his practised eye pressed against the same viewfinder.

It was a gift to be able to use it, and a gift to have had him as her teacher for all those years.

She took her time, drawing solace and pleasure from going through the motions and waiting for the optimum moment.

As the light dwindled she lowered it from her face and turned it over in her hands, the leather strap warm and reassuring around her neck.

Smiling, she remembered the ever-present pale band around her father’s neck from where the same strap had protected his skin from the punishing heat on location shoots.

‘Should I strike a pose?’

Alice looked up and found Robinson standing by the boathouse.

‘Sun’s gone now. You missed your chance.’

She was still sore with him for his behaviour with Brad.

It wasn’t so much that she was concerned about whether or not Brad had the wrong idea about them.

Maybe Robinson didn’t even realise it himself, but in acting the way he had he’d rode rough shod over her feelings and choices for his own agenda.

‘Old school,’ he said, coming closer and nodding towards her camera.

‘It was my dad’s.’

‘He’s not around any more?’

Alice shook her head, her eyes on the water. ‘He died some years ago.’

Robinson sat down beside her on and deck and didn’t speak for a few moments. ‘Looks like he knew his kit,’ he said eventually, reaching out and touching the Nikon briefly.

‘One of the best photojournalists of his day,’ Alice said. ‘He died on location in Afghanistan.’

The words came out succinct and unexpected. She didn’t have a clue why she’d told him something that she hadn’t managed to tell her husband in all the years they’d been together.

‘You must be very proud of him.’

Alice didn’t reply, because it wasn’t the kind of statement that needed a response. He picked up a stone and skimmed it across the darkening lake.

‘I’m sorry for kissing you, Alice.’

She nodded.

‘The second time I mean. Not the first.’ He glanced sideways at her. ‘I’m not sorry for that one.’

‘Thanks for apologising.’

Robinson sighed. ‘I was wound up and pissed off about something else and ended up taking it out on you. I wish I hadn’t.’

‘I wish you hadn’t too,’ she said, but without heat because he obviously meant what he said.

‘You mean the second kiss too, right?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’

‘Because the first one was kind of hot, wasn’t it?’ He bumped shoulders with her and she shrugged, smiling.

‘I can’t remember,’ she lied. ‘I’d had a glass or two of wine.’

‘You remember just fine, Goldilocks.’ His smile creased his cheeks and his eyes glittered in the dwindling light. ‘I can always remind you, if you need me to?’

His little finger toyed with hers where their hands lay flat between them on the deck, and the tiny movement was enough to distract her completely. He leaned a little closer and met her gaze, half joking and half serious.

‘You know, I think I do remember after all,’ she breathed, afraid he was going to kiss her again. Kissing Robinson again right now would be a bad idea. She was already emotional, she was entirely likely to drag him back to the Airstream and do things she’d regret in the morning.

Standing up, she dusted her jeans down with her hands, the camera safely slung around her neck.

‘I’m glad we’re friends again,’ he said, getting up too and walking with her towards the Airstream. Were they friends? He was alone here in England and she was really the only person he’d allowed into his life on any real level, so she was probably as close as it got to friends for him right now.

‘Want to talk about whatever had wound you up yesterday?’ she said, keeping it casual.

He kicked the dust with the toe of his boot as they crunched over the gravel path. ‘Not much to say really. I’m supposed to be someplace else and I don’t want to be there, not now or, the way I feel right now, ever again.’

‘Work, you mean? Or with your wife?’

‘Ex-wife,’ he corrected. ‘And no it wasn’t her turn to wind me up today. I mean she did, because just the thought of her winds me up pretty much every day, but this was work stuff.’

His description of his glittering career as a famous country music artist as ‘work stuff’ was just about the understatement of the year.

‘Do you have commitments you need to go home for?’

‘That’s just the thing, Alice. Home doesn’t feel like home any more.’ He shoved his hands down into his pockets as he walked, his arms stiff, his shoulders bunched. Everything about his stance said stressed. ‘Let’s just say I wasn’t doing so well there.’

‘And here? Are you doing better here?’ she ventured.

His mouth twisted. ‘Yes and no.’

As answers went, it was frustratingly vague. Alice opted for silence in the hope that he’d elaborate. She was in luck.

‘Being here, I have space. I can breathe, I can relax, I can forget about the shitty stuff. But in the back of my head I know it’s all still there waiting for me. Trouble’s kind of patient like that, you know? It can play the long game.’

Alice did know. She was becoming adept herself at burying her emotional problems underneath a landslide of to-do lists and plans in the hope that they’d be squashed so flat that they’d disintegrate without her needing to address them.

‘What kind of trouble are you in?’ she asked as they made their way through the trees. The residual daylight had pretty much gone now and the woodland had taken on its spindly nighttime shroud.

Robinson half laughed under his breath and shook his head, a hollow, joyless sound. ‘Ah, you know. The kind where if I don’t get my sorry ass back to Nashville and honour my commitments they’re gonna sue me halfway to hell and back.’

Wow. As ‘work stuff’ went, that was pretty stressful.

‘Gosh,’ she said.

Robinson laughed, softer this time. ‘Quite.’

Alice opened the caravan door. ‘Coffee?’

She didn’t know why she said it. Every last one of her instincts told her that asking him in was a reckless move, and yet she went ahead and did it anyway. Robinson Duff was turning out to be a man who switched her logical brain off and left her vulnerable, and that made him very dangerous indeed.