By the time she heard the back door open, the dishes were draining on the rack above the sink and she’d made a large pot of tea for herself and Xandra, and a cup of instant coffee for George.

‘Oh…’ Xandra came to an abrupt halt at the kitchen door as she saw the table on which she was laying out cups and saucers. ‘I usually just bung a teabag in a mug,’ she said. Then, glancing guiltily at the sink, her eyes widened further. ‘You’ve done the washing-up…’

‘Well, you did tell me to make myself at home,’ Annie said, deadpan.

It took Xandra a moment but then she grinned. ‘You’re a brick. I was going to do it before Gran got home.’

A brick? No one had ever called her that before.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ she replied, pouring tea while Xandra washed her hands at the sink. ‘Your gran is at the hospital with your grandfather, I imagine?’

Before Xandra could answer, George Saxon followed her into the kitchen, bringing with him a metallic blast of cold air.

He came to an abrupt halt, staring at her for a moment. Or, rather, she thought, her hair, and she belatedly wished she’d kept her hat on, but it was too late for that.

‘Has she told you?’ he demanded, finally tearing his gaze away from what she knew must look an absolute fright.

‘Told me what?’ she asked him.

‘That you’ve broken your crankshaft.’

‘No,’ she said, swiftly tiring of the novelty of his rudeness. A gentleman would have ignored the fact that she was having a seriously bad hair day rather than staring at the disaster in undisguised horror. ‘I gave my ankle a bit of a jolt in that pothole but, unless things have changed since I studied anatomy, I don’t believe that I have a crankshaft.’

Xandra snorted tea down her nose as she laughed, earning herself a quelling look from her father.