such things really happen? They didn’t where Dolly came from, the semi-detached mock Tudors standing proud in their soulless new suburbs; she couldn’t imagine Arthur Smitham rolling up his sleeves to defend his wife’s honour; but Jimmy wasn’t like Dolly’s father. He was the opposite: a working man with long, strong arms and an honest face and the sort of smile that came from nowhere to make her stomach turn back flips. She pretended not to hear, taking the camera from him and staring at it with a show of thoughtfulness.
Holding it in one hand, she glanced playfully from beneath her lashes and said, ‘You know, this is a very dangerous piece of equipment you carry, Mr Metcalfe. Just think of all the things you could capture that people would rather you didn’t.’
‘Like what?’
‘Why,’ she lifted her shoulder, ‘people doing things they shouldn’t, an innocent young schoolgirl being led astray by a more experienced man—just think what the girl’s poor father would say if he knew.’ She bit her bottom lip, nervous but trying not to let him see it, and leaned closer, almost—but not quite—touching his firm, sun-browned forearm. Electricity pulsed be-tween them. ‘A person could get themselves into rather a lot of trouble if they got on the wrong side of you and your Box Brownie.’
‘Better make sure you stay on my good side then, hadn’t you?’ He shot her a smile beneath his hair, but it disappeared as quickly as it came.
He didn’t look away and Dolly felt her breaths lighten. The atmosphere had changed around them. In that moment, under the intensity of his stare, everything had changed. The scales of control had tipped and Dolly was spinning. She swallowed, uncertain, but excited too. Something was going to happen, something she had set in motion, and she was helpless to stop it. She didn’t want to stop it.
A noise then, a small sigh from between his parted lips and Dolly swooned.
His eyes were fixed still on hers and he reached to brush her hair behind her ear. He kept his hand where it was but tightened his grip, holding firmly to the back of her neck. She could feel his fingers shaking. The proximity made her feel young suddenly, out of her depth, and Dolly opened her mouth to say something (to say what?), but he shook his head, a single quick movement, and she shut it. A muscle in his jaw twitched; he drew breath; and then he pulled her towards him.
Dolly had imagined being kissed a thousand times, but she’d never dreamed of this. In the cinema, between Katharine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray, it had looked pleasant enough, and Dolly and her girlfriend Caitlin had practised on their arms so they’d know what to do when the time came, but this was different. This had heat and weight and urgency; she could taste sun and strawberries, smell the salt on his skin, feel the press of heat as his body moved against her own; most thrilling of all, she could tell how badly he wanted her, his ragged breaths, his strong muscled body, taller than hers, bigger, straining against its own desire.
He pulled back from the kiss and opened his eyes. He laughed then, in relief and surprise, a warm husky sound. ‘I love you, Dorothy Smitham,’ he said, resting his forehead against hers. He pulled gently at one of the buttons on her dress. ‘I love you and I’m going to marry you one day.’
Dolly said nothing as they walked down the grassy hill; her mind was racing. He was going to ask her to marry him: the trip to Bournemouth, the kiss, the intensity of what she’d felt … What else could it all mean? The realisation had come with overwhelming clarity, and now, waiting in limbo, she yearned for him to say the words out loud, to make it official. Even her toes tingled with longing.
It was perfect. She was going to marry Jimmy. How had it not been the first thing she thought of when her mother asked her what she wanted to do instead of starting work at Father’s factory? It was the only thing she wanted to do. The very thing she must.
Dolly glanced sideways, noting the happy distraction on his face, his unusual silence, and she knew he was thinking the same thing; that he was busy even now, working out the very best way to ask her. She felt elated; she wanted to skip and twirl