“Down to a tee.”
Mattie smiled. “I’m glad you chose to go against the grain. How does it feel?”
“Decadent. Giddy. It’s probably nothing to you but?—”
Mattie touched Nell’s arm. “It’s something to me.”
Nell swallowed hard.If only for today, I will be unafraid.She needed to enjoy the evening and let it unfold rather than demand an itinerary. Clearly, Mattie didn’t need one and was used to going with the flow. It would be a prerequisite for her job. Nell glanced at her. Did Mattie deserve to be lumped into the “all journalists are untrustworthy” category? Yes, she’d messed up, but Nell was impressed by Mattie’s resolve to own her poor judgement. That was professional integrity, right there. So while Nell hadn’t been wrong to harbour initial suspicions, things weren’t as black and white as she liked to think they were.
Mattie gestured at oystercatchers wading in the shallows on the river bed. “They’re beautiful. You’re lucky, you know, living here. So many places to hike right on your doorstep. Unless I want to do urban street walking, I pretty much have to drive or sit on a train for an hour before I reach anywhere half decent.”
“You’ve got a river in London, haven’t you?”
“A tiny one.” Mattie grinned. “Actually, my flat is by the Thames on the South Bank. It’s little more than a shoe box, but it’s home.”
“The South Bank? That’s where the Royal Festival Hall is located, right?”
“I look down on it from my living room window,” said Mattie. “I’m on the eighth floor, so there’s a brilliant view.”
Nell lapped up her descriptions of city-living. She wanted to know more, so much more, about Mattie’s life beyond this holiday. “Have you walked the Thames path?”
“Only the city-based stretches of it. It starts in the Cotswolds, and I’d like to do it all one day. What’s your favourite walk?”
Nell finished the last of her chips and leaned back on her elbows, lifting her face to the sky. “There’s a trail up north called the St Cuthbert’s Way which straddles the Anglo-Scottish border. The last stretch takes you over the sands from the mainland and follows the ancient trail of the Pilgrim’s Way across to Holy Island. Screw the tides up, and you’re doomed. But it’s the most unique end to a hike.”
“Sounds wonderful. I’ll add it to my ever-growing list.” Mattie wrapped up the few remaining chips inside the paper bag and screwed it up into a ball. “What’re the chances of me getting this into that bin?”
“Depends whether you were a netball or hockey girl at school.”
Mattie scowled. “I wanted to play football, but that was frowned upon in those days, so I had to settle for hockey.”
“I thought as much.” Nell side-eyed her. “I bet you were violent with a hockey stick in your hand.”
“I was...enthusiastic.” Mattie gestured at Nell’s legs. “Unlike you, some of us are vertically challenged.”
“You’re not that short. But you are challenging.”
Mattie laughed. “I like bantering with you. You have a very impish grin right now.”
Nell quirked her eyebrows. “I’ve never been called impish before.”
“Oh, you’re definitely that, when you allow yourself to be.”
Warmth flooded Nell’s body, and it wasn’t from the slowly setting sun.
Mattie tossed the scrunched-up paper ball. It bounced on the edge of the open mouth of the bin and fell to the ground. She laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It would’ve been quicker to walk over to the bin and throw it away properly the first time. But where’s the fun in that?”
She stood and slapped dried grass from her shorts. Nell embraced her body’s charged response as her eyes lingered on Mattie’s backside. It was, after all, crying out to be admired as Mattie retrieved her screwed-up chip paper and dumped it into the bin.
“I suppose we need to be thinking about getting back,” Mattie said.
“Public transport doesn’t run as late here as it does in the city.”If only it did. Nell still wasn’t ready to let the evening end when they got off the train at Paignton. The final leg of their journey involved travelling on the last bus of the day, which was leaving shortly, or taking a cab later. She asked Mattie for her preference.
“It’s a glorious evening.” Mattie threw up her arms as if embracing the sky. “We could hang around while the sun setsand get a cab back? Maybe walk down to the beach and have a glass of wine?”
“After this morning’s hangover, I’ll pass on the wine, but don’t let me stop you. I could be tempted by ice cream though.” She grinned at Mattie, who nodded with an equally large grin of her own.
They strolled to the seafront past restaurants and tourist shops selling buckets and spades, T-shirts, and beach towels. The air was still and pleasantly warm, the stifling heat of earlier had faded, and the sun was a bronze lozenge of fire slowly sinking towards the horizon. They each bought a soft scoop ice cream with a chocolate flake from a van parked by the esplanade.
