Page 9 of Strawberry Moon

It makes me smile, and I look up to find Harry watching us with a twinkle in his pretty eyes.

When we get outside, I shiver a little and Harry hugs me to him. “Cold?”

“I’ll warm up. I always forget when I see sunshine through my bedroom window that it’s England and not the Bahamas.”

I look around for the car and then watch as his parents walk down the drive. “Is the car down there?” I ask hopefully.

His mouth twitches. “Ah no. We walk to the beach.”

“ Walk ?” It’s so loud that birds take flight from a nearby tree.

This seems to amuse Harry even more. “You sound distressed.”

I glare at him. “Harry, I don’t walk.”

“I’m sure you just did it. Maybe my eyes were deceiving me.”

“I mean I don’t do aimless walking. My walking is always purposeful.”

His lip twitches. “Oh yes? Where do you purposefully walk?”

“From home to the bookshop and then that journey in reverse, taking in the pub along the way,” I say promptly. “Or shopping, but that doesn’t count as exercise because of all the happy feelings it gives you.”

His mouth loses the fight, and he starts to laugh. I try to glare some more, but I can’t when I’m so hopelessly in love with him. It makes my heart full to see him free of care and laughing. And to know that I’ve had a hand in it fills me with bubbles like a bottle of champagne.

Finally, he sobers, and pulling me to him, he kisses me. It’s a brief caress, but still packs a punch, and I gape at him when he pulls back. He taps my nose. “Speechless? I like it.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

He hesitates. “Is your ankle really okay? You said it was, but we can stay here if you want.”

I sigh. “It’s absolutely fine,” I say truthfully and rather reluctantly.

“Great.” He pushes me gently in the direction his parents disappeared. “The beach is only a couple of fields away.”

“A couple of fields .”

That sets him off even more, and I shake my head as I follow him down the drive.

Halfway down he takes a left into the wood, and I see there’s a path. “Public footpath,” he says. “It leads down to the beach.”

I narrow my eyes. “Which is probably a few feet away behind those trees?”

His eyes twinkle. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your question.”

“And you own a bookshop too,” I say in a mock despairing voice that makes him grin.

He seizes my hand, and we walk to meet his parents who are waiting for us to catch up.

The next ten minutes are spent walking.

“A few fields, my arse,” I whisper as Harry and his parents discuss the wedding present they’ve bought his cousin.

We’ve climbed over numerous stiles, walked through a wood, and traipsed over a field with cows in it, and we’re currently walking down a long path, the steepness of which doesn’t bode well for the return journey.

However, I’m cheered by the sight of the sea in the distance.

I’m a true Pascoe family member in that just the sight of the sea lifts my spirits.

I become aware that Harry’s mum just spoke to me, and I look over at her and smile. “Pardon?”

Harry takes my hand. “Ma wanted to know how we met.”

“Oh.” I grin at him. “I met him when I came to tell him that yes, I would work for him.”

He snorts. “I don’t remember ever asking you that question. I thought you came with the shop.”

His dad laughs and I nudge Harry. “You should be glad I do. Who else will tell Mrs Willoughby that putting books in her scarf is shoplifting and not creative thinking because we don’t provide a basket in the shop?”

He shakes his head. “She hasn’t got much money, and she only takes the cheap books.”

I look at him affectionately. “And that’s why you need me. I am the bad cop to your rather Ivanhoe-like saintly cop.”

“That’s a complete mash-up of genres and don’t call me a ho.”

I snort and when I look up his mum is staring at us. “How long have you been together?” she asks.

My “A few weeks,” comes at the same time as Harry says, “Since the beginning.”

I stop dead. His parents just smile and continue walking on ahead of us. “I think you just completely contradicted our story.”

“The one you made up?”

I nod.

He shrugs. “Nah, I didn’t like that one. I prefer my own version.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

He grins at me and leaves me standing in a patch of sunshine with my brain addled. Did he just say he’d had feelings for me from the beginning?

I realise I’ve lost sight of them and race forwards. When I catch him up, I whisper, “We will talk about this.”

“I look forward to it.”

I abandon the subject for now, but the warmth it inspired kindles in my chest like a baby dragon.

The beach is small and surrounded by cliffs. The sand is still damp, so the tide obviously just went out and I’m charmed by the little row of beach huts painted in bright colours. Graham is unlocking a sunny yellow one.

I look at Harry. “Yours?”

He nods. “They’ve had it since we were children. We used to come here all the time. My mum said it gave us the chance to run off the demonic spirits we’d obviously been infected with at birth.”

I laugh and look around, picturing a young Harry racing over the sand with his brothers and sisters.

“What was Harry like as a child?” I ask Holly as she comes out of the beach hut.

She’s taken off her outer gear and is now wearing a red swimsuit and carrying what looks like a pair of boots.

She’s made a half-hearted attempt to shove her hair into a bathing cap, but her hair is winning the fight, and already half of it has fallen out, so the cap is perched on her head like a deflated balloon.

“Harry? Very charming, darling, and completely unable to lie.”

“Really?” I wince inside.

I have a feeling that Harry would not have embraced my grandad’s plan.

He certainly wouldn’t have chosen Fiona as a role model, or even Jared, who in my opinion is useless for little else other than pouting and running his hands through his hair.

He does that so much I’m surprised his hair hasn’t fallen out.

“Oh yes.” She pats Harry’s cheek. “Even the smallest fibs were beyond him.”

My heart sinks. I’d forgotten this about him when I went along with the plan.

“I can lie with the best of them,” he protests.

She shakes her head dismissively. “Only if the best of them were all dead. You have a tell, darling.”

“I do?”

I chuckle as she grins at him. “Yes, but I’ll never tell. A mother needs all the ammunition she can get. You can get changed in the hut, Harry. Your father and I are going in.”

She takes his dad’s hand, and they stride towards the waves that are washing onto the shore.

I walk into the hut and look around curiously.

I’ve always wondered what they looked like inside.

This one is charming with a scratched wooden floor and walls painted white.

A small stove and cupboard are in one corner along with a portable barbecue.

There’s an old two-seater sofa covered in blue cotton and with bright cushions set against one wall and a neat pile of striped deckchairs stacked by the door.

Their faded colours remind me of being little when my brother had a job as a deckchair attendant in a nearby seaside town.

On the walls are several beautiful watercolours, and when I look closer I recognise the beach. On one of them children are playing cricket.

“Your mum’s?” I ask.

Harry nods. “I think that was the game when Ma decided my grandfather couldn’t play cricket with us anymore. He was supposed to be teaching us the rules of the game, but he’s far too competitive, and when my brother Jimmy bowled him out, he taught us loads of new swear words.”

I laugh and look closer at the picture. I’m betting Harry is the serious one who’s bowling.

“She’s very famous locally,” he continues. “She works on a lot of commissions. One of her pictures is hanging in Sandringham.”

“You must tell my nan that. She’s a passionate royalist. I’m trying to picture the king wandering around your house looking at the art.”

“It’s a good job for the safety of the monarchy that he never ate Ma’s quiche.”

“Why?”

“She never follows a recipe. Says it’s cookery fascism. So, she never realised you had to cook it.” I laugh and he grimaces. “I’m amazed we lived.”

He pulls his hoodie over his head in one smooth move and quickly follows that with his T-shirt. He pauses with his hand on the button of his jeans. “Okay?”

I jump as I realise I’ve been caught staring at him. “Perfect,” I say brightly.

I strip off my clothes and stand in my borrowed swimwear. Harry is wearing a pair of patterned board shorts that hang from his narrow hips and show a glimpse of his V-line. He looks incredibly yummy.

I look closer at the shorts. “Are those melons?”

He smiles and hands me a bag. “You can use these.”

“What is it?”

He smiles. “Try opening the bag. I find that always helps.”

“You’re such a smart-arse.” I shake my head. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

“Do you mind?” he asks.

I pause and look at him enquiringly.

He shifts, looking suddenly awkward. “Me being quiet. Other men didn’t like it and?—”

I put up my hand. “I’m going to stop you there.

I don’t need the opinions of your harem of shitsticks, thank you.

You’re perfect to me.” I step closer, loving the way his hands seem to come up automatically and cradle my hips.

His fingers are warm against my skin, and I sway closer.

“You may be quiet, but I always know that when you open your mouth, you’re going to say something I’ll want to hear.

” I trace the flush on his cheeks with my finger.

“You are funny and clever and just being with you feels like…it feels like home . When I know I’m going to see you, I feel excited and happy, and when I leave you the world seems dull.

” I close my mouth with a snap. I can’t believe that I just told him all that.

He swallows. “That’s exactly how I think of you.”

I gape at him. “ Really ?”

He nods and I think my smile might have taken over my face.

“No one’s ever thought of me as home before,” he says.