With our sides clamped together, his body heat is radiating straight through the tulle to my skin. I mutter under my breath, ‘If you ask me to smile too, I may have to stamp on your foot.’
His laugh is low. ‘Whatever it takes to get a wrap.’
‘Okay, you win.’ I stare randomly upwards and grin my socks off. And then a second later our gaze meets, and as I stare into his dark brown eyes and watch his pupils dilate my tummy does a backflip.
He drops his voice and murmurs in my ear. ‘Anemone doesn’t just mean daughter of the wind. It also means windflower.’
My whisper sticks in my throat. ‘It does.’
His voice is even lower. ‘You named her after the beach hut.’
I murmur back, ‘For someone who was never visiting this subject again, I can’t fault your research.’ And then it hits me that he’s handed me the perfect opportunity to break my news and I’m going to have to go for it. My heart stops for a long time, and when it starts again it’s hammering but my voice is clear in his ear.
‘Nemmie’s yours, Lando.’
I feel his body tense and hold my breath. After twenty seconds of silence, I cup my hand around my mouth and head for his ear again.
‘You asked about her dad… it’s you.’
He pulls back and stares down at me, and the shockeddisbeliefin his eyes is even more chilling than his silence. Butit’s enough to unbalance us. For a few moments we waver wildly on the top of our stepping stone. I brace myself to topple, but Lando peels himself away. I step into the space he’s left and watch his diagonal lunge turn into a slow-motion dive. A moment later a cascade of filthy droplets splatters across my skirt and he’s spreadeagled in the bog behind me.
I catch the desperation in the whites of his eyes and get in first. ‘If you’re about to run for the hills please try not to splash me any more than you have already. I can’t wreck another…’
The word ‘dress’ is drowned out by a yell from the other direction.
‘Watch out, Maevey!’
‘Tia, you’re here!’ My spirits rise as I turn towards her voice, but instead of Tia all I see are streaks of black, white and tan bounding across the marsh towards me, surrounded by another shroud of droplets.
Salvador yells as she passes, ‘No jumping up, Martha!’ but his voice is drowned by the slosh of water and the echo of jubilant barks.
I brace myself but a second later Martha launches into another exuberant hello. This time her paws hit me thigh level, and standing on my stepping stone I don’t have a hope in hell of staying vertical. I hang in mid-air, then fling myself sideways and land in the reeds a few feet from Lando.
I flounder amongst the puddles, reeds spiking my arms through the chiffon, and as Martha dive bombs onto us in delight I spit out a mouthful of grit.
‘It’s a lot wetter than it looks from above.’
Lando grunts. ‘It’s designed to hold the water.’ He swipes a slick of mud off his cheek and drops his voice. ‘Whatever you think, I wasn’t running out back there.’
I grab a stepping stone and lever myself up to sitting. ‘When you’re ready to talk more, give me a shout.’
He watches me as I ease myself up and groan at the swamp-covered tulle. ‘I can lend you a boot bag to put your dress in?’
I’m reading his mind. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t ruin your shiny new sisal, I’ll change in the shower block.’
For once how to carry a mud sodden dress back to the cleaners is the least of my worries as Lando and I wade out of the bog to where Salvador is dangling my sandals from his fingers.
He pulls a face. ‘However this looks, Maeve, it wasn’t deliberate.’
Until he said the words, it hadn’t crossed my mind.
I stare at him. ‘We’re both in charge of wedding venues, when mine is so much more current, I completely see why you’d stoop to sabotage.’ Obviously I’m bluffing, and this has nothing to do with the beach hut, but after what he just said, I can’t let him think I’m beaten.
Lando’s eyes snap open. ‘It’s not a competition, Maeve.’
I sniff. ‘Speak for yourself. It’ll be interesting to get to the end of the season and see who’s had the most happy couples.’
And this is how big my lifelong problem is with Lando and Salvador. I haven’t even got a license for the beach hut, and I already feel I have to beat them before they try to obliterate me.
