Delauney woke to the sun tugging at her curtains, she stretched and grinned. School was over. Not just for summer but forever. Now she had a glorious summer of freedom and nothing ahead of her, before starting her new life as a Uni student in the autumn. This was her last summer living with her parents, her last summer as a child, and she was going to make the most of it.

She was going to fill days with nothing and dreams. And Michael had arrived last night, he was finishing up his Master’s degree and was taking the same break as her before starting some high-powered job in the City with his friend David.

David might be visiting too, Delauney sighed. He was the handsomest, most intelligent, most charming man she’d ever met. Tall, with thick dark hair that tended to curl when he forgot to get it cut. His eyes were the same dark brown as his hair and set in a face a bit too strong and stubborn for one of the Old Masters to sculpt. They liked their male subjects a little prettier.

If she was honest, he was the reason she hadn’t said yes when Peter Grimsby had asked her out. Or Lars Andersen. Lars may have been the boy all her friends were swooning over, but neither of them were a patch on David Masterton.

It was just a pity she turned into an incoherent twit every time his dark gaze turned on her.

Never mind, he wasn’t here now and, with enough warning, she might be able to train herself into a polite ‘hello’ when he did arrive.

She rolled out of bed, scrambled into fossicking clothes and skipped down the stairs to the kitchen. Michael was already there. ‘Skipping? Really?’

She grabbed the orange juice from the fridge and poured them each a glass. ‘Last summer of childhood, remember? You were the one who told me to make the most of it.’

Accepting the glass, Michael shook his head at her, although his smile was fond. ‘I’m going to regret saying that, I can tell.’

He put a plate piled with toast in the middle of the table and sat. ‘So, what are we doing today? Am I going to regret giving you the choice?’

Delauney added butter and home-made blackcurrant jam to her toast. ‘We’re going to fossick along the old barrow and find two silly knick-knacks from a million years ago to take to our new lives.’

Michael considered this for a moment. ‘Not what I expected. I like it though, sounds like sweaty, dirty fun.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘What did you expect? Town and shopping?’

‘And being inundated with those giggling friends of yours, yes.’

She grimaced. ‘They wanted to meet up. But most of them want you to ask them out, so it wouldn’t have been much fun.’

Michael grimaced back. ‘For either of us. I’m sure they’re nice girls and all but…’

Delauney snorted. ‘Shall we discuss why, however much I love this place, I am getting as far away as I possibly can for university?’

‘Oh? I thought that was because all the boys here were dodgy.’

She rose to put the kettle on. ‘They’re not dodgy, they’re stodgy. Boring, unmotivated, happy to keep plodding along in the same old furrow as their parents, and their parents’ parents, and so on ad infinitum.’

Their mother spoke from the door. ‘And you, of course, have no time for someone who doesn’t know what ‘ad infinitum’ means.’

Delauney shrugged and grinned. ‘No point pretending to be a nicer person than I am. At least with you lot.’