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potato.
    “Do you want some water?” Danny was at her side holding out a glass. “Those potatoes are so hot that you need an asbestos mouth to eat them.”
    Jules glugged a few mouthfuls down gratefully, wishing that her heart could be dealt with as easily as her burned tongue. While she drank he sat down beside her, his lean body sinking easily into the saggy cushions and his left arm resting on the back of the sofa just inches away from her shoulders.
    “You’ve been avoiding me,” he said quietly, “Don’t answer, Jules. You don’t need to. We both know it’s the truth. I’ve hardly seen you since that morning we walked up to Fernside.”
    Jules stared miserably down at the glass of water. “Danny, I—”
    “It’s OK, I don’t need an explanation.” Danny’s voice was low and steady. “I’m not an idiot, Jules. I know how these things work. I understand you’re the vicar, and I totally respect that it’s your job and your calling – of course I do. I also know when a woman is telling me one thing with her voice but another altogether with her heart. You wanted me to kiss you that morning. We both know that.”
    She turned her head and the intensity in his good eye took her breath away. His gaze was full of the same fire she’d seen there back in September when they’d walked hand in hand through the russet woodland and he’d made a move to kiss her. For a moment Jules had almost given in to the longing, had nearly let his mouth rest on hers, before her senses had kicked in and she’d stepped away.
    “Danny, it doesn’t matter what I want,” she said gently. “I told you then that nothing can ever come of it.”
    Danny shook his head. “I think you’re wrong, Jules. I think there’s something between us that’s special and wonderful and rare, and I’m not prepared to give up on it. You can tell me about my wife and my marriage and my vows until you’re blue in the face, but none of that matters. Tara and I are over. We’ve been over for a long time.”
    “Your injuries must have been tough on her, on you both—” Jules began, but Danny wasn’t prepared to listen.
    “Don’t you dare try and go into vicar mode on me! You don’t know the half of it. We were over long before the Taliban decided it was their turn to have a pop. Christ, even they couldn’t do me as much damage as bloody Tara.”
    Frustration was coming from Danny in such waves that the fishing boats at sea were probably rocking like crazy.
    “We’re friends, you and I – or at least I thought we were,” he said bleakly.
    “Of course we’re friends,” Jules protested.
    “Friends don’t hide from each other or run away when life gets tricky.”
    “I was trying to do the right thing.” She was still trying but it was so hard, especially when he was this close and offering her everything she’d secretly dreamed of.
    “You always do the right thing,” Danny replied wearily. “That’s the problem.”
    Jules wasn’t so sure. Wishing for another woman’s husband at St Wenn’s Well probably hadn’t been the right thing to do.
    “You’re married,” she said woodenly. “I care about your marriage.”
    He sighed in exasperation. “I know you do. You care about so many things, Jules, and I love that about you. But my marriage is over. There’s no resurrecting it. Life isn’t black and white. Can’t you just trust me on this one? What about what’s right for us?”
    Jules was dangerously close to saying that she did trust him and throwing all caution to the wind, when Alice slammed her hand on the kitchen table. Her usually gentle face was taut with anger.
    “Who’s been booking flights to the USA and using the household account?”
    “God, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Issie gasped, her hand pressed theatrically to her chest.
    “I’ll give whoever it was more than a heart attack,” her grandmother promised grimly. “Well? Who was it?”
    There was silence while Alice glowered at her