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.Zillah, worried at first about her flesh no longer being velvet smooth, tight, unblemished, had simply melted at his first touch.She’d trembled beneath his fingers.Nothing mattered.He was beautiful and told her over and over again that she was, too.The most beautiful woman on earth.And now she was.Tumbling together, familiar and yet new, they’d rediscovered each other’s bodies with an urgency and tenderness that had made her laugh and then cry with pleasure.‘Zillah …’She’d turned her head on the deep pillow.‘Mmmm?’‘I love you.’‘I love you too.And I think I’m dreaming.’Clancy had stroked her hair away from her face.‘Then let’s hope we never wake up.’She’d rolled towards him, the soft river air cooling her heated body.‘I’ve wanted this for so long, knew it would never happen, thought that maybe I’d imagined how it used to beHe’d pulled her into his arms, kissing her again.‘Me too.Oh, God, ZilAnd that had been hours ago and since then they’d repeated the experience a couple more times, more slowly, more tantalisingly, just to reassure themselves that it hadn’t all been a figment.Now, sated, happy, drowsy with love, neither of them really wanted to get up and shower and get dressed and go back to Fiddlesticks.‘Remember when Solstice Soul had time off and we used to stay in bed all day?’She sighed with pleasure.‘Mmmm.And we’d stagger downstairs to grab another bottle of wine and go back to bed – and then, when we got hungry, we’d sneak off in the small hours to that all-night shop on the corner and eat curry in bed and fall asleep just as the dawn was breaking …’They held each other, smiling, remembering.‘We could do it all again.’ He ran his fingers down her body.‘Unless you really want to go back to Fiddlesticks and dance in the rain.’‘We did that before, too.Remember? Somewhere in the wilds of Shropshire, wasn’t it? After a gig? In the middle of summer at about two in the morning? Naked.’Clancy laughed.‘God, yes … And then we made love.And we were like drowned rats and afterwards we couldn’t find our clothes, so we ran back to the van without them …’She took his face between her hands and kissed him.‘I don’t think Fiddlesticks will miss us tonight, do you?’Chapter Twenty-EightDancing in the Moonlight‘If it don’t rain tonight,’ Gwyneth puffed as she and Big Ida trudged across the village green in the rapidly falling darkness, ‘I’m going to shrivel up like me veg.And Pike hates it being hot like this.So do the hens.The cats now, they’re still enjoying it, but us humans ain’t meant to go without water for this long.’‘Ah, it’s like being in the Gobby Dessert,’ Big Ida affirmed.‘Lovely weather for camels.’Amber, walking with them, smiled in the gloaming.She was so pleased that she’d decided to stay in Fiddlesticks.How could she ever leave it now? Loving Lewis was a bit of a bummer, of course, but hey, no one had ever promised her that life would be perfect, had they?‘It’ll rain,’ Big Ida tipped her head back.‘Count on it.Leo’s Lightning will see to that.’Amber also looked up at the sky.It was perfectly clear, with a lemon-slice moon and a sheen of stars.If it was going to rain it’d be some sort of miracle.‘We’ll see you later, duck,’ Gwyneth said.‘When Leo’s in the right place and we do the rain dance.Me and Ida are booked to spend the evening with Mona Jupp and the Motion gels.’‘Rather you than me, then,’ Amber giggled.‘Have a nice time.’She paused on the rustic bridge and pushed her hair away from her damp face.The temperature didn’t seem to have dropped since midday.The air was motionless, humid and oppressive.The majority of Fiddlestickers were, like her, still dressed in vests and shorts.Leo’s Lightning she’d learned, didn’t involve the usual eating and drinking extravaganza.It all sounded far more pagan, with the entire village gathering together to ask for rain.‘Even if you’ve had a really wet summer?’ she’d queried.‘Wouldn’t that be a bit pointless?’Gwyneth had looked shocked.‘Leo don’t just make it rain at the drop of a ’at, duck.It ain’t hit and miss.He knows exactly what we needs and when.If we’ve ’ad a wet summer, then ’e ’olds back on the old waterworks until we do need it.See, Leo’s there to guarantee we gets what we needs to make the Plough Night wishes for good crops come true.’Amber had nodded, still slightly sceptical.‘But, how? I mean – what about meteorology and weather forecasts and climate change and global warming and stuff like that?’Gwyneth had shaken her head sorrowfully at this glaring gap in Amber’s education.‘All rubbish.Leo is in charge of the weather, duck, not the likes of that Michael Fish or those dopey girls with long fingernails and no command of the English language what you gets on the telly these days.It’s preordained in the heavens
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