Another Summer Read Online Free PDF Page A

comfortable and got up to stuff his things into his holdall.
    “Sorry to be so long but I’m ready now.”
    She scrambled her clothes together, clearly afraid he would go off without her.  She didn’t know how tempted he was to do just that but he couldn’t bring himself to  abandon her, more’s the pity.
    “Your coat?” 
    “I didn’t bring one.  It was hot when I got on the train.”
    “You do know Scarborough’s in Yorkshire?”
    He couldn’t hide his irritation.  He wanted her covered up.  There was no way he’d be able to drive with her tits jiggling like that beside him.
    “Here, you better have mine.”
    He tugged off his jacket and bundled her into it, resisting the temptation to button it up to the neck.
    “Hey, this is cool,” she said, stroking her hands down the worn denim.  “They cost a bomb, all beaten up like this.”
    “That one’s original.  And I’m not parting with it for any money, even though my wife keeps putting it in the Oxfam bag.”
    “Your wife?  I forgot you said you had a daughter. You don’t look married.”
    In a previous life he’d have liked that.  But now he wanted to look married, to actually be married, more than anything else in the world.
    “I’m meeting my wife in Cornwall and I’d like to get there before dark.  So could we please just get on with it?”  He thrust her breakfast at her.  “You can eat this in the car.”
    But driving proved to be more of a nightmare than he’d imagined.  The windscreen was constantly lashed by horizontal rain and it took all of his concentration to steer through the surface water on the road.  He needed to be quiet but Lisa wanted to chat.
    “Thank you for the lift.”
    “You’re welcome.  But maybe you should avoid talking to strange men in bus shelters, from now on.”
    “It was a pedestrianised area.  There weren’t any buses.”
    “Don’t split hairs.  What were you going to do if I hadn’t come along?  Christ!  You were going to hitch, weren’t you?  Do you have any sense?”
    “It wasn’t my fault I had my handbag pinched.  I only put it down for a minute.  What else was I meant to do?  And I wouldn’t have hitched in the middle of the night, that’s why I was waiting.  I didn’t know it was going to pour.” 
    She wasn’t safe to be let out on her own so it looked like he was going to be stuck with her.  And now he’d made her cry so on top of everything else, he felt guilty.  He counted to ten and tried to sound more certain than he felt.  What was he letting himself in for?
    “Look, I promise I’ll get you home in one piece.  You don’t need to cry about it.”
    “But what about York?” she sniffed.  “Please?  I came all this way to see Simon and it isn’t very far.”
    Maybe not, but it would be a big waste of his time.  And hers, considering she was clearly on a wild goose chase.  But maybe she needed to find that out for herself and he’d have to be heartless to refuse to take her.  If he put his foot down, he could still make it to Cornwall by tonight.
    He wondered what Evie was doing in that isolated cottage on her own.  Had she had time yet to reflect and reconsider?  She’d made her point but how long was she prepared to stick it out?  It wasn’t as if he’d gone out of his way to make her miserable.

***
    Evie woke with the mother of all headaches and a cringing sense of embarrassment.  Had she lost her marbles on the long drive south?  Drinking with a stranger, flirting like some desperate housewife.  What had possessed her?   And now she had to cook lunch, when even the thought of food made her want to throw up.
    She glanced in the wardrobe mirror and winced at the sight of her puffy eyes, not helped by a long bout of crying during the night.  If Jake could see her now, he’d run a mile.  And when had she become so fickle, anyway? She was heartbroken over Joe.  Why did she care what Jake thought?  But she was too hungover and sleep