by his side.
‘Thanks,’ he said, drying his hands.
The kitchen towel had little embroidered vegetables along one edge and he had hands like shovels so the two weren’t exactly compatible. It looked like he was using a handkerchief.
‘So, I can drive? I mean I do understand I need to get a new tyre. Where can I get one from?’
‘Depends where you’re heading,’ Joe said, handing me the towel.
I gave him a mug of coffee.
‘London!’ Jassy shouted from the other room.
Joe went into the sitting room where she was still bundled up on the sofa in her nest of blankets and cushions.
‘Then your best bet is Okehampton,’ he said. ‘You know how to get there?’
‘We’ll find it!’ Jassy said with feeling. ‘We’ve been in this ghastly place for long enough. We’ll find it!’
It struck me that this desperate haste to leave could be seen as rather insulting.
‘I mean we’ve had a lovely break,’ I said, ‘but we have appointments in London we really should keep. So thank you so much.’
‘Lovely break? Are you insane?’ Jassy grumbled. ‘It’s been the longest ten days of my life.’
Joe sipped his coffee and looked thoughtful. ‘Well, you haven’t exactly had good weather, I’ll give you that. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to get out and about either?’
‘We were supposed to be working,’ Jassy said, calming down a little. ‘We’re both writers. We have deadlines to keep, with our publishers. We wanted to recover after Christmas and get back in the groove. But it didn’t quite work out like that. Technology failure I’m afraid, amongst other things.’
‘Ah, the MacBook Air cable. I see the relevance now.’
Jassy smiled up at him through her lashes. I could see a familiar pattern here. Now the car was mended and our escape route was established, Jassy could relax and stop being a stroppy cow and start flirting.
Jassy flirts with everyone; it’s what she does and being married doesn’t stop her. She’s been known to flirt with policemen, car park attendants and even our accountant. Trust me, our accountant is not the sort of man anyone flirts with – he might have the financial skills of a sorcerer on speed, but he also has halitosis, dandruff and a comb-over. She would find a man as good-looking as Joe Field irresistible.
Suddenly I didn’t want my sister to flirt with Joe Field. I stepped briskly between them and gave him a warm smile of my own.
‘We’re very grateful, Mr Field.’ I looked at my watch; it was half past ten. If we set off soon we could get a new tyre, be back in Notting Hill by early evening and even have time for a comfort stop somewhere too.
‘Right then, here are the keys. I’ve put everything back as best I can,’ Joe said.
He dropped my car keys into my palm; they were still warm from his hand and it was rather thrilling. My fingers curled round them.
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome. And thanks for the coffee.’
He tipped his head back to finish his drink and Jassy watched him with narrowed and speculative eyes.
‘Would you like a KitKat?’ she said.
‘Um, no thanks, I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘Tunnock’s Tea Cake? Orange Club? I think we’ve eaten all the mint ones.’
‘Jassy!’ I muttered.
Joe pulled on his gloves and gave a grin.
‘I’m fine thanks. I’ll be off and let you get all packed up and back to the bright lights.’
I followed him to the front door. I felt a bit reluctant to let him go. I mean we’re all liberated, independent women aren’t we, but it doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate it when a handsome man wanders through our lives.
‘Thanks again, Joe,’ I said.
He turned in the doorway and shrugged his shoulders under his big, waxed coat.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘I’m always willing to help a damsel in distress.’
‘What do you do?’ I said. ‘I’m guessing you’re a farmer.’
‘Right first go. I’d better go and get on with it. My farm manager is away for a couple of days. I have sheep up on the moor.’
‘Gosh, sheep!’ I said as though it was something really unusual, although I knew from occasionally watching Countryfile that sheep were about the only thing that suited this part of Devon.
‘Anyway, I must get on. Don’t forget about that tyre,’ he said.
‘I won’t, absolutely not!’
I watched him walk back down the track to where he had left his mud-splattered Land Rover and then I went back into the house.
Jassy was already upstairs in her bedroom, gathering together all the discarded clothes and carnage that routinely surrounds her.
‘He was rather nice,’ I said.
Jassy wasn’t listening. ‘We’re off!’ she carolled happily as I stood watching her. She stuffed a handful of scarves into her case. ‘We’ll be back in London tonight. Proper central heating and takeaways and Wi-Fi and actual phone signal.’
‘You’ve perked up then,’ I said.
‘I have. Haven’t you? And let’s make a sacred pact never to come back here. Ever.’
I looked out of the window, watching as the sun rose over the valley. It was a beautiful day, and something inside me appreciated for the first time how lovely it could be.
‘I think it might be okay if the weather was halfway decent.’
‘You have to be bloody joking!’ Jassy said, widening her eyes at me. ‘I’m never going to set foot out of the Greater London area again unless there’s a frigging good reason and a five-star spa at the end of the journey.’
From being unable to walk further than from her bed to the sofa, Jassy now seemed to have miraculously recovered her mobility and was packed and fidgeting by the front door in no time.
‘Hurry up!’ she said. ‘Otherwise it’s going to rain, or there will be a landslip, or some criminals will escape from the prison or something.’
‘All right, calm down!’
We bundled everything into the back seat and boot of the car, left the front door key under the upturned bucket by the kitchen door where we had found it and were off down the road at a jaunty thirty
