She looked up at his sincere tone. ‘For what? It’s not like you pushed me in.’
‘Well, for not being more sympathetic.’ He shifted on the spot, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans.
She raised a candid eyebrow. ‘For laughing, you mean.’
‘Yeah. That.’ He did look rather contrite. ‘I shouldn’t have laughed. I wasn’t laughing at you, it was the situation, but it wasn’t very nice of me. You were clearly upset and I should have . . . ’ He shrugged helplessly.
It was quite endearing.
‘Should have . . . ?’
‘I don’t know. Been more . . . ?’ Again that little shrug. He was nothing if not honest.
Honesty won the day. In truth, perhaps she could have handed the whole situation with a little more dignity. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, trying to block out the memory. It didn’t work. The wordstoddler, temperandtantrumall came to mind.
‘Apart from the laughing,’ she fixed him with a stern look, ‘there wasn’t much you could have done.’ She paused, took adeep breath and then said in a rush, ‘I didn’t give you a chance. I’m sorry, too. It was just so embarrassing. I took it out on you when you were trying to help, sort of, and thank you for cleaning up Tess, and feeding her and wiping up after her.’
The dimple in his left cheek gave him away. She’d seen it before when he was trying not to smile.
‘It was the least I could do. So no ill effects. No pond fever.’
‘Is that even a thing?’
‘Probably not,’ he said gravely.
She nodded.
‘Right then. I’ll be off.’
‘Right.’
They stood looking at each other.
‘Right,’ he said again. ‘Bye.’
For a moment she was almost tempted to offer him a drink. Just to say thank you.
He turned to go.
‘Bye.’
He turned back, the dimple loitering. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy going for another walk sometime? One that doesn’t require water wings. There’s a nice one up the Beacon, well away from any body of water.’
She smiled, she couldn’t help herself. ‘OK.’
Chapter Sixteen
Ella could have predicted how the visit was going to go when she picked Britta up at the station. Britta let out a startled bark of laughter. ‘My God. A dodgem.’
‘It gets me from A to B,’ she replied, equably determined not to let Britta’s comments get to her. ‘And none of us have cars in London. This little Citroën is fine and pretty essential.’
‘I know, but,’ she looked pained, ‘it’s ugly, like a washing machine on wheels.’
With great show, Britta gathered up the folds of her trademark white culottes and elegantly slid into the passenger seat. Ella turned on the ignition and sent up a silent prayer that nothing was likely to transfer onto the pristine white of her clothes.
‘Here we are. The cottage on the end.’
‘Quaint,’ said Britta, warily eying the street. ‘Is this it?’
