Page 79 of A Secret Escape

“I don’t care, though.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer. “Some men love a woman in heels, but I think you look sexy in hiking boots, Wend.”

“Hiking boots rule.” She felt the warm pressure of his fingers on hers, and she held on tightly.

“You really do look like her.” The woman gave her a bemused smile. “Your husband is right. You could make good money as a look-alike.”

“We’ll keep that in mind. It was nice bumping into you.” Joel kept hold of Nicole’s hand and used the other to gesture down the path. “Keep going straight down. It will take you about an hour to reach the road. Enjoy.” With that he gave her hand a tug, and they carried on trudging up the path.

Nicole kept walking, waiting for him to let go of her hand, but he didn’t.

She was afraid to turn around in case she drew attention to herself.

“Have they gone? Are they still walking, or are they taking photos? Or maybe they’re calling the tabloids.”

Joel glanced over his shoulder. “They’re still walking. Not looking back. I think you’re okay, Wend. You need to work on those acting skills, though. You were terrible back there.”

She laughed. “You, however, were brilliant. I had no idea you had so much talent. It was genius. Thank you.”

“Anytime, Wendy.”

“Do you think we fooled them?”

“Maybe, or maybe they were just too polite to argue with me. But it got rid of them.” He shook his head and continued up the path. “I assume from your resigned expression this happens a lot.”

“Yes. But it doesn’t usually make me laugh like that.”

“We should be grateful.”

“For what?”

“That they didn’t arrive five minutes earlier and see you with chocolate smeared around your mouth. Now, shift yourself, Wend, or we won’t make it to the top before dark.”

It took another couple of hours to make it to the top, but it turned out to be worth every breathless stride.

She had a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view across mountaintops and valleys, lakes and streams.

“My niece always says that coming up here is like a geography lesson. Hanging valley, glacial spur,” he said and gestured and then handed her more chocolate from the backpack. “Here— you’ve earned it.”

“This is fantastic.” She settled herself on a large rock and gazed at the view. It seemed to stretch forever. “Thank you. It has been the best day ever.”

“You’re welcome.” He ate another piece of chocolate himself. “I’ve done most of the talking. Tell me a little about you. I don’t mean the movie stuff, I mean other things. Do you have family? I never see your family mentioned.”

She kept her eyes on the view. “I prefer to keep that part of my life away from the public eye.”

“Understandable. Are your parents alive?”

“My dad died when I was two, so I have no memory of him at all. My mother . . . We’re not in touch. She doesn’t like me. And now you’re going to say all the usual things about how you’re sure that isn’t true et cetera, so let me save you the bother. She really doesn’t like me. It’s not a feeling, it’s a fact.”

There was a long silence. “So no family, then.”

“Milly is my family. She has always been my family.”

He nodded. “You’re lucky, both of you, having a friendship like that.”

She almost told him then. She almost told him how she’d messed it up, and how she woke up in the night sweating in case Milly somehow found out about the stuff she hadn’t told her, and how she was terrified that if she found out it would be the end of their friendship and Nicole would lose the only relationship that had ever really mattered to her.

But she didn’t tell him, partly because there were some things you kept to yourself, and this was definitely one of those, and partly because today had been the most perfect day she’d had in as long as she could remember, and she didn’t want to taint it by worrying what might be coming down the line.

With luck it wouldn’t happen, and everything would be fine.

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