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‘Wonderful.’ Cathy sighed happily. ‘I can understand why they used to send people to beach towns to convalesce. The air here is different.’

‘Probably the salt.’ Angela rubbed her eyes tiredly.

‘Maybe. That and it’s nice to be looked after for a bit. I’ve barely been allowed to lift a finger since I got here.’

‘And neither should you!’ her aunt said, and Angela laughed at the voice in the background. ‘Ask her how her new helper is working out.’

‘All right, give me a minute.’ Cathy laughed. ‘So, you heard her. How’s it going?’

‘Well . . .’ Angela thought carefully before answering. ‘He was some help once he’d settled in and put his phone away. He helped prep some food and set up a rescue pen. But, honestly, he was late and probably did less work all day than Summer or Sarah do in one evening.’

‘I guess they’re more enthusiastic too.’

‘Definitely,’ Angela agreed. ‘They turn up on time and do actual chores.’

She chatted to her mum for a few more minutes before saying goodbye. She prodded her uninspiring dinner a couple more times, before returning to thoughts of the sanctuary and her latest “helper”.

If Rick — she refused to use his ridiculous nickname — was going to be of any help, she’d have to find a way to get him more interested in caring for the animals than posing with them . . . which gave her a horrible thought: the video from that morning. Surely he wouldn’t?

She grabbed for her phone and searched quickly. It took her longer to remember her login details than it did to find his account— 1.8million followers! Who on earth was this man, and what did he do to have so much interest? She shook her head at people’s silliness and carried on scrolling. Oh no . . . that looked like . . . yep. It was her street. She watched in horror as Rick chatted to his camera, swinging it around, then sauntered up her driveway and smacked the bell.

At least he hadn’t mentioned Bill’s by name, or the village . . . but oh NO, there she was, peering through the top half of the gate. Naturally her hair was a crazy wild mess after she had just chased a squirrel out of it, and she was in pain from having just limped across the courtyard at high speed, thinking she was receiving a patient.

She winced when the version of herself on the screen told him to jump off a pier and slammed the gate on him. She groaned and covered her face, horrified and embarrassed. Maybe she could ask him to take the video down. She grimaced when she saw the number of views the video had already gained — more than the population of Broclington . . . many times over.

She shook her head and swiped to the next video, and nearly dropped her phone laughing. Grinning out from her phone was Ernie, showing all his teeth while Rick petted him. She paused the video to check something as Ernie whuffled happily . . . squinting and zooming in, and yeah, he was actually getting his ears scratched. That was surprising — she knew how sensitive their ears were, and how much trust it took for most animals to put themselves in a vulnerable situation like that, and especially one with Ernie’s background.

She’d always claimed her animals were usually a good judge of character. True, they were cheeky, forthright and demanding — but they did usually seem to know how to read people.

She hit play again, watching as Ernie leaned happily into Rick. It was confusing — she knew who Rick was: the selfish idiot who had gotten into a car after he’d been drinking and smashed into the village café, nearly killing her, her mum, a little girl and the other guests. And then turned up late for his court-ordered community service and didn’t even bother to apologise — for being late, or anything else. Not to mention posting videos — of her! — without her permission. He was a nuisance, and bound to be more trouble than he was worth.

And yet, as she watched Ernie happily grumbling and sighing his big donkey whistles, she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d seen in her new “helper”.

* * *

Rick shook off the gloves he’d been wearing, and tried not to gag — again. After two coffees and the promise of an expensive dinner, Yvette had finally deigned to crawl out of his bed and drive him to the sanctuary — wearing her traditional “disguise” of bright pink, skintight yoga pants, teamed with an eye-wateringly white vest top and trainers from the latest brand sponsoring her, topped off with huge sunglasses and a baseball hat.

She’d been quite disappointed when she hadn’t spotted a single photographer or fan on the whole journey, despite her looking for them at every opportunity — and had nearly ploughed his car into a hedge when she thought she’d spotted one, who turned out to just be a normal cyclist who’d flipped them the bird.

He’d tried to explain why he wasn’t ’gramming the sanctuary all over the internet — he didn’t really want his fans turning up and getting content of him literally shovelling shit. Hardly on-brand with the glossy, on-trend, you-either-wanted-him-or-wanted-to-be-him image that was Maverick. But as much as Yvette should have understood influencer life, she still grumbled about the lack of attention.

When they’d reached the place, she’d given him a perfunctory kiss on the cheek, her glossy lips barely grazing his skin. He’d understood — there wasn’t an audience, so no need to perform. Not that their relationship was a performance . . . exactly.

They knew each other before Yvette’s agent carefully and gently suggested perhaps they might want to consider a public dinner or two . . . and she was absolutely fucking stunning, regularly topping sexiest or hottest celeb charts. And the sex was pretty good. Which was a much more pleasant thing to think about than the heaping pile of shit Angela had him clearing out of the barn.

He dragged another barrow load over to the great pile that sat in the corner of one of the paddocks, trying not to gag at the smell. Or the thought of what it was. He’d had no idea the cute donkey who garnered him so many likes, retweets and stars was so full of shit — although if he said that out loud, Angela would probably scowl and correct him to “poopy-de-whoopy” or something equally weird. He shook his head and dumped the barrow over, into the heaping pile of crap that was now quite literally and viscerally and stinkily in front of him.

He heaved the wheelbarrow back across the yard, cursing the squeaking, wobbling wheel. The more time he spent at Bill’s, the more impressed and surprised he was. As well as the sheds off the small courtyard, the rescue centre spilled out into paddocks and fields that sprawled across the back of the neighbouring houses.

He was shattered, which was ridiculous — he hit the gym at least three times a week to keep in shape for his fans and sponsors. He could party until it was so late that it became early, and then keep going until early became late again, and not feel as tired as he did after a few hours of cleaning up after animals who weren’t exactly grateful to have him poking around.

He’d just taken a break, leaning against the barn wall and lighting a fag, when Angela hobbled out of the tiny lean-to that served as her office. It was ridiculous how tiny that room was — his bathroom was bigger. Heck, his shoe cupboard was bigger. Maybe that was why she was so grumpy all the time, being squashed up in that windowless room.

‘Do you mind?’ She glared at him.

‘About what?’

‘The cigarette.’