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Tillie’s stomach pitched. Mr Pendleton was already so frail; another fall would set him back even further. ‘Oh, the poor darling. Of course, I’ll come in straight away—I was on my way in any case.’

She hung up from the call and went to snatch up her bag and cardigan off the back of the chair, but then she noticed the ring still on her finger. She went to pull it off but it refused to come back over her knuckle. Panic started beating in her chest as frantically as her food mixer whipping up egg whites for meringues.

She had to get it off!

She tugged it again, almost bruising her knuckle in the process. But the more she tugged, the more her knuckle swelled until the joint was almost as big as a Californian walnut. And throbbing painfully as if she had full-blown rheumatoid arthritis.

Tillie dashed into the workroom and shoved her hand under the cold-water tap, liberally soaping up the joint to see if it would help. It didn’t. The ring had apparently decided it quite liked its new home on her finger and was staying put, thank you very much. She let out a rarely used swear word and grabbed some hand lotion. She greased up her finger but the more she pushed against her knuckle, the more it throbbed.

She gave up. She would have to leave it and get it off later when the swelling of her knuckle went down.

When Tillie got to the respite centre, the geriatrician on duty informed her that, along with some cuts and bruises and a black eye, Mr Pendleton was also suffering some slight memory confusion as a result of the fall and that he might well have had another mini stroke, which might have caused the loss of balance. She told Tillie not to be unduly concerned about the fact he was acting a little irritable and grumpy but to go along with whatever the old man said so as to not stress him too much.

When Tillie entered his room, Mr Pendleton was sitting propped up in bed looking sorry for himself with an aubergine-coloured bruise on his left cheek and a black eye. He had a white plaster bandage over a cut on his forehead where his head—according to the doctor—had bumped against the toilet bowl.

‘Oh, Mr Pendleton.’ Tillie rushed to his bedside and carefully took his cr^epe-paper-thin hand in hers. ‘Are you all right? The doctor said you’d had a bad fall. What have you been doing to yourself? You look like you’ve gone a couple of rounds with a boxer and a sumo wrestler.’

The old man glowered at her instead of his usual smile of welcome. ‘I don’t know why you bother visiting an old goat like me. I’m ready for the scrap heap. If I were a dog they would’ve put me down long ago like the vet did with poor old Humphrey.’

‘I come because I care about you,’ Tillie said. ‘Everyone in the village cares about you. Now tell me what happened.’

He plucked at the hem of the light cotton blanket covering him as if it were annoying him. ‘I don’t remember what happened. One minute I was upright and the next I was on the floor... I’m all right apart from a bit of a headache.’

‘Well, as long as you’re okay now, that’s the main thing,’ Tillie said. ‘I would’ve brought Truffles in to see you but I haven’t been home yet. I came straight from work.’

Truffles was Mr Pendleton’s chocolate-coloured labradoodle who had not yet progressed from puppyhood even though she was now two years old. Tillie had helped name her when Mr Pendleton had bought the puppy to keep him company after his old golden retriever Humphrey had to be euthanised. But Truffles was nothing like the sedate and portly Humphrey, who had lain in front of the fireplace and snored for hours, only waking for meals and a slow mooch outside for calls of nature. Truffles moved like a dervish on crack and had a penchant for chewing things such as shoes and handbags and sunglasses—all of them Tillie’s. Truffles dug so many holes in the garden it looked as if she were drilling for oil. She brought in sticks and leaves as playthings and hid them under the sofa cushions, along with—on one memorable occasion—a dead bird. Not recently dead. Maggot-stage dead.

Tillie often brought Truffles in to see Mr Pendleton, but not unless she’d exhausted the dog with a long walk and some ball play first. A bull in a china shop would look like a butterfly compared to that crazy mutt.

Mr Pendleton’s gaze went to Tillie’s hands where they were holding his and spied the diamond ring glittering brighter than a lighthouse beacon. His faded blue eyes suddenly narrowed. ‘Don’t tell me what’s his name—Scott? Shaun?—has come crawling back?’ he said.

Tillie’s heart was giving a rather credible impression of having a serious medical event. She glanced at the resuscitation gear above Mr Pendleton’s bed for reassurance. Why hadn’t she thought to put on a pair of gloves? Although, given it was summer it might have looked a little odd. No more odd than wearing an engagement ring that looked as though it cost more than it would to feed a small nation. ‘Erm... Simon? No. Someone...else gave it to me.’

Mr Pendleton’s frown deepened and he leaned forward like a detective staring down a prevaricating suspect. ‘Who?’

‘Erm...’

‘Speak up, girl,’ he said. ‘You know I’m a little hard of hearing. Who gave you that ring? It looks like a good one.’

Tillie swallowed. ‘B-Blake McClelland.’

Mr Pendleton’s bushy eyebrows shot up like caterpillars zapped with an electrode. Then he started laughing. Not chuckling laughing, but the sort of laughing you heard at an Irish comedy festival. He rocked back and forth against his banked-up pillows, eyes squinted, and guffawed for so long she began to worry he would do himself an injury, like rupture his voice box or something. ‘Now that’s just what I needed to lift my spirits out of the doldrums,’ he said. ‘Did the doctor put you up to it? They always say laughter’s the best medicine. You’ve done me a power of good, Tillie. You, engaged to Blake McClelland? Funniest thing I’ve heard in years.’

Tillie shifted her lips from side to side, annoyed that he found it so amusing and unlikely someone like Blake would ever propose to her. Why didn’t he think she was good enough for Blake? Was it because she wasn’t exciting enough? Not attractive enough? She might not be classically beautiful, but so far no travelling circus had ever asked her to sit in a tent and charged an entry fee for people to gawp at her.

‘No, this has nothing to do with the doctor. It’s not a joke. It’s true. Blake did give it to me. He asked me to—’

‘You’re a bit late for April Fool’s day.’ Mr Pendleton was still laughing. ‘I might be a bit muddled in my head but I know it’s June.’

The stubborn streak Tillie had worked for years to suppress while she was with Simon came back with a vengeance. Gone was the submissive anything-you-say-dear girl. In her place was Tenacious Tillie. She would make Mr Pendleton believe she was engaged to Blake. She would make everyone believe it. No one would think her not up to the task of hooking a hot man after she was done.

‘We met a couple of weeks ago when he came into the shop. It was love at first sight. On both sides. It was instant, just like in the movies. He’s the love of my life. I know it as sure as I’m sitting here telling you. He asked me to marry him and I said yes.’

Mr Pendleton stopped laughing and began to frown instead. ‘Look, I might be nearly ninety but I’m no old fool in his dotage. You’re not the sort of girl who falls for men like him. You’re too conservative to have your head turned by such a handsome devil. And he’s not the sort to fall for someone like you.’