EVIE didn’t teach Mark the next day, but she saw him at a distance and knew he was in school. On the following morning he was there in her class, quiet but attentive. As he left she drew him briefly aside.

‘All right?’ she asked briefly.

‘Fine.’

‘He didn’t give you a hard time after I left?’

‘He never said a word about my playing truant, but he asked a lot of questions about you.’

‘What sort of questions?’

‘About who you were, how much did I know about you, how were you different to the other teachers?’ There was a touch of mischief in his voice as he added, ‘I said you were no different from the others, and he said, ‘You mean they all go around on motorbikes?’

She tried to suppress a chuckle and failed.

‘You’d better run along,’ she said hastily.

The rest of the week passed uneventfully. Mark attended every day, as he’d promised, and Evie was able to feel mildly satisfied for a job well done.

Her personal life was less tidy. Andrew was growing disgruntled at the feeling that he didn’t come first with Evie. She knew she could save the relationship with a huge effort. But then what? Marriage, which she’d always avoided? Just how hard did she really want to try? She wished she knew the answer.

Tonight he was taking her to dinner and she had discarded jeans and boots in favour of an elegant blue dress and a necklace of filigree silver. She stayed at her desk for a couple of hours after school, catching up on paperwork until Andrew called for her. She was just finishing when Justin Dane walked into the classroom.