tiny diamond stud in his left ear, which glinted brightly in the sun as he started to dart about getting boxes ready to load in his van. Preferring the pasty shop to the gym, his body shape was not as lithe or muscly as that of Billy. He was, however, just as smiley and amiable, and with his magnetic charm, a hit with the ladies, too.
‘All right, Moony?’ Daz called as Kara appeared, this time with a flat box of beautiful double-headed daffodils. She put them down on the cobbles in front of her and managed something that resembled a smile.
‘Leave her alone a minute, Daz,’ Pat said behind her teeth, as if she was holding a ventriloquist dummy rather than a tray of asparagus.
Darren was about to say he hadn’t understood a word of what his mother was saying, when Lydia, struggling to wedge the florist’s door open, clocked him talking to Kara. The vase she was carrying slipped through her hands and fell, smashing into a hundred pieces. Infuriated, and swearing loudly, she shouted across to Kara, ‘Stop dawdling and get yourself in here now and answer the bloody phone to that useless boyfriend of yours!’
Chapter 10
A few days later, Kara pushed open the wooden side gate, shut it carefully behind her and made her way up the garden path of Bee Cottage, the white-painted thatched dwelling where she had spent the first twenty-five years of her life.
Despite it only being April, the air already smelled of summer to her. The lawn had been freshly mowed and several bees were flying around, busily doing their work amongst the bright tulips and pretty forget-me-nots in the lower flowerbeds. Chattering birdsong from the now fully leaf-laden trees would have been music to even the unhappiest of ears. Looking back down the hill, she could just make out the estuary teeming with Easter holidaymakers.
She knew exactly where her grandfather would be and there he was, at the allotment end of the garden, next to a pile of grass clippings, pouring a small amount of yellow liquid into a water container. She could hear the hypnotic buzz of more bees flying in and out of the hives at the back of the shed.
It had been a sad day when her loving and vivacious Granny Annie had died. Grandad Harry had suggested almost immediately that he move out of his bungalow and in with his son, stating that he could live out his retirement tending to the bees, chickens and the garden with its view of the sea. Though he never said it, Kara had been astute enough to realise that her selfless grandfather was not doing this for himself, but for her and Joe. Now that his father was living with him, Joe was much less lonely. And with the money that had been gifted to her from the sale of her grandparents’ cottage, she had put down a deposit on Number One, Ferry View Apartments. On top of all this, with her dad and grandad now keeping each other company, Kara didn’t have to feel guilty about wanting to move out and start to build her own life – even if it was just around the corner from their cottage.
When she had turned the key to her new home, Kara had felt free for the first time in years. To be able to live in such a gorgeous location looking right over the water was a dream come true. It was to be a short-lived freedom, though. Aware that finances would be tight on her own, when Jago had insisted that he move straight in she had agreed, thinking he could share the bills. How wrong could you be! In hindsight, it had been far too early into their relationship. But as everyone knows, hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Harry Moon was a stout man with an air of contentment that the acceptance of old age had brought along with it.
‘Here she is, number two.’ The old man walked with a slight limp towards her and as he leaned down to kiss her forehead, the rim of his orange bucket hat brushed her cheek. Kara had never known him not to be wearing a hat or cap of some sort to cover his wispy white-haired head. His snowy beard was always trimmed to perfect precision.
‘You all right then, Grandad?’ she asked, kneeling to say hello to Henrietta and Daisy, the brown and white speckled chickens who were clucking and scratching contentedly in