The Little Orchard on the Lane: An absolutely perfect and uplifting romantic comedy

by Tilly Tennant

  Posy, caught somewhere between feeling slightly bewildered and annoyed, did as she was told anyway.

  ‘Put it in neutral,’ he called.

  She did that too and a moment later felt the van start to move. She glanced at the wing mirror but she couldn’t see where Lachlan was. He’d be behind the van, out of sight, she supposed. She couldn’t quite believe he was pushing it all by himself, though he must have been because there was no other way the vehicle could be moving.

  ‘Steer!’ he shouted, with something more like his old impatience. Now here was a Lachlan she knew how to deal with.

  ‘I am steering!’ she shouted back. Because I’m not that dim, despite what you think.

  The van bumped off the verge and onto the tarmac.

  ‘That’ll do!’ he called.

  Posy put the handbrake back on and got out.

  ‘Will it be alright here?’ she asked doubtfully. ‘Isn’t it on the road?’

  ‘Where else do you suggest we put it?’

  ‘But isn’t it in the way?’

  ‘There’s room to drive around,’ he said. ‘You’d have to be an idiot to miss it standing here.’

  Posy didn’t know what to say to that so she said nothing. He went to the back of the van and hauled out the spare tyre, hurling it to the nearby grass. She stared at him, but then found herself with an inexplicable urge to laugh out loud. She held it in, certain he wouldn’t appreciate a joke about tossing the caber – she wondered if it might even be a little bit xenophobic. Still, all she could think of right now was the image of him dressed in a kilt looking like the guy from the porridge oats box. It was probably best not to mention that to him either.

  ‘What can I do?’ she asked as he bent down to the jack and began to lift the van.

  ‘Come grab these as I get them off,’ he said, working at the first wheel nut. ‘Won’t get far if we lose them.’

  Posy knelt down next to him. The wet of the tarmac soaked through her jeans instantly, but although it was hardly the most comfortable she’d been, it was probably the least of her worries.

  She watched, fascinated, a little awestruck, and more irritated than ever by Lachlan’s capability as he removed the wheel nuts with ease – far more ease than she’d have done. He handed each one to her with a vague grunt, his eyes always firmly on his task. Posy took them silently. She was grateful for the assistance of course, but did it have to be from him of all people? The current situation was so mortifying that she half wondered whether being stranded in a downpour wasn’t preferable to help from her dour knight in not-quite-so-shiny armour.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said after a silent couple of minutes, because she knew she had to, even though it came out in a grudging tone that her mum would have disapproved of. I brought you up better than that, Posy could hear her saying, and she’d have been right.

  But Lachlan simply gave a different, faintly more expressive grunt and yanked the damaged tyre off, flinging it to one side with ease, just as he had done the spare moments before. Then they were silent again as he inspected the new one – to check it was roadworthy, Posy supposed – which was good of him really because he could have stuck it on and sent her on her way without another thought. He probably had better things to do than worry if her spare tyre was going to stay on or not.

  ‘Did you manage to track down Pavla the other day?’ she asked finally, if only to break the oppressive silence. ‘I mean, of course you don’t have to say, it’s none of my business but I just wondered—’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said.

  ‘Right… About what?’

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  Posy frowned. ‘I was only trying to make conversation.’

  ‘You could make it about anything – why that?’

  ‘I don’t know… I just thought of it. OK, what do you want to talk about?’

  ‘I want to get this tyre changed before dark,’ he said gruffly. ‘Less talk makes quicker work.’

  Posy’s frown deepened. ‘Don’t you ever just want to make small talk? Just to be polite?’

  ‘Don’t see the point. What does small talk achieve? Doesn’t tell you anything important, does it?’

  ‘It achieves friendship.’

  ‘Mindless chit-chat about the weather doesn’t achieve friendship.’

  ‘It can be the beginning. It breaks the ice so you can talk about other things – you’ve got to start somewhere.’

  ‘You’re saying you want to be my friend?’ he grunted as he lifted the new tyre into place.

  ‘Why not? Does that seem so strange?’

  He held out his hand and Posy placed one of the wheel nuts she’d been saving into his palm. ‘You still haven’t forgiven me, have you?’

  ‘What’s to forgive?’

  ‘If you don’t know I’m not going to tell you because I know you do know and you’re just pretending you don’t care even though you do.’

  ‘Sounds a bit counterintuitive to me – all that knowing and not knowing and pretending. But if that’s the way you want it.’

  Posy’s frown turned into a scowl. ‘Do you deliberately go out of your way to make people dislike you?’

  ‘They can like me or not – it’s no business of mine and I don’t let it worry me.’

  ‘Why not? Don’t you care if people like you or not?’

  ‘Why should I care?’

  ‘I don’t know… but you could try being a bit nicer—’

  He turned to her. ‘Oh, I could, could I?’

  Posy flushed and was furious at herself for being unable to control it. In the circumstances, she understood immediately that perhaps her statement had been a little tone-deaf, but she was damned if she was going to let him see that she felt bad about it.

  ‘Any other advice you want to offer?’ he asked coldly as he returned to his task.

  ‘I only meant you could be less abrupt with people,’ she said lamely.

  ‘A man is what he is. Like it or don’t like it. I don’t see why I should pretend to be someone I’m not to make you or anyone else comfortable.’

  He gestured for the next wheel nut and Posy handed it over, feeling more flustered and ineffectual by the minute. Why did she have to be so helpless and hopeless? She could probably add tactless to that list too, now that she thought about it. Maybe she was lecturing Lachlan when she ought to have been looking at how she projected herself to others. She certainly wasn’t doing a great job of looking like a well-rounded individual right now. Of all the men who could have driven by at this precise moment, it had to be him, didn’t it? Even then, why did he choose to stop and help?

  Try as she might to think otherwise, the fact remained that he had chosen to stop and help when he could have left her to it, so maybe he wasn’t the cold-hearted tyrant he’d have people believe. He was still playing that role even now, here with Posy, but the more she thought about it the more she wondered if it was just that – a role, a performance to keep people at arm’s length. The girl at the farm shop had said it too – Lachlan had taken her mum to hospital and stayed with her when he could have found an easier way to offer assistance.

  Posy looked at him again, trying to throw off the prism of their first meeting, trying to see who he really was. So many theories and opinions jostled for her attention and she had to conclude that she simply didn’t know how to feel about him. She only knew that the more she learned of him the more intrigued she was. He’d been a handsome but aloof, unlikeable and downright rude character, but, slowly, he was becoming something else – at least in Posy’s eyes. More and more he was becoming a challenge, a riddle she found herself wanting to solve.

  He had to ask for the last nut twice. Well, ask was perhaps the wrong word. The first request was a beckoning gesture and the second more of a monosyllabic utterance: ‘Nut.’ Posy had been distracted by her thoughts as she’d watched him work, his large, strong hands no stranger to physical labour and yet oddly sensual-looking. She flushed again, this tim
e with weary acceptance that she had no control over it, and handed it over.

  A couple of minutes later the spare was on and Lachlan was hauling the damaged tyre round to the back of the van.

  ‘You can put the jack away?’ he asked as he tossed in the offending tyre. It was hardly a question, more of a recognition that he’d done enough for one day and had no intentions of doing any more for her.

  ‘Yes…’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Um…’

  Posy stalled. She suddenly wanted to say something to keep him there longer yet she didn’t know why and she couldn’t think of anything. By the time she’d managed to say thank you again Lachlan was already at the door of his own car. He didn’t look back, and the only acknowledgement that he’d heard at all was a brief raise of his hand in the air before he got in and drove away.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Posy had tumbled over the threshold of Asa’s little house, bursting with her news. Asa would want to know everything, full of his own questions about the ones Lachlan had refused to answer for Posy. On a more practical note, she also needed to find Giles or Sandra to let them know the van was currently running on the spare tyre so that they could do something about it. In the end she’d been to pick up the milk and coffee and foregone the mooch at the farm shop so that she could get back to the orchard quickly to do all that, but when she arrived at the annexe she found only a solo plasterer skimming a new partition wall. He had no clue where Asa had got to and didn’t show much sign of caring.

  Walking across the grounds to the big house, she supposed Asa must still be in with Giles working on the advertising, and while she couldn’t disturb them with idle gossip she did need to tell them as soon as possible about the van in case someone else needed it later.

  During the day the door to the big house was always unlocked. Posy had been shocked to discover this when she’d first arrived because she didn’t know anyone in London who’d dare to leave their doors unlocked, even when they were home, but when she’d said as much to Sandra, her host had just shrugged. Who was going to travel out to the middle of nowhere to see what they had to steal? They could trust all their neighbours and their staff, and for the most part there was usually someone milling around who would soon spot a would-be burglar anyway.

  Posy wasn’t quite convinced by Sandra’s argument, but today she was glad the door was open as she let herself in. It was likely she’d find Giles and Asa in the office, so she made her way through the ground floor to the front of the house where the study they used for administration was situated. Knocking gently, she waited a moment, but when she was greeted by only suspicious silence, she pushed the door open to see that the room was empty. With a vague frown she closed the door again and paused, her hand still clutching the doorknob as she thought.

  Perhaps they were all in the orchard. Or in the cider house? Giles had mentioned at dinner the previous night some vats that were ready to bottle, hadn’t he?

  She was about to investigate both of those locations when she became aware of low voices coming from somewhere in the house. It was hard to tell where in a place this big, but it sounded like it might be the kitchen. Whether she was right or wrong, it was as good a place as any to look first.

  As she made her way back through the voices grew louder – though the words were indistinct and she couldn’t tell what they were saying.

  ‘Hello…?’

  She pushed open the kitchen door.

  As soon as she had she wished she hadn’t. It was clear she’d walked into something intense as both Asa and Sandra stopped talking and turned sharply at her entrance. Posy had never seen Asa look so distressed, and although he quickly tried to smooth his expression for her, she wasn’t fooled. Something big was going down here – she could see it in both their faces. Typical that she should walk into the middle of it – it was that sort of a day.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she began, ‘this is a bad time…?’

  ‘No, no…’ Sandra forced a tight smile. ‘Of course not. What can we do for you?’

  ‘I can come back,’ Posy said. ‘It’s not important. Well… it is important… sort of… but it could wait, you know… if you were busy…’

  ‘We’re not,’ Asa said, more sharply than Posy had ever heard him say anything before, but at her involuntary look of shock he repeated himself in a more restrained tone. ‘We’re not busy, honey. What did you need?’

  Posy glanced from him to Sandra and back again. Despite the new kindness in his voice there was still a tension in the air so thick she could grab hold and plait it.

  ‘It’s just… the tyre on the van blew.’

  Sandra looked aghast. ‘OH! Are you alright?’

  ‘Yes, I managed to get it off the road and get the spare on… well, I didn’t get the spare on, exactly… but it is on. That’s what I came to tell you. I guess you’ll want to get a new tyre as soon as possible.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sandra said. ‘Thank you so much for letting us know. But what a shame for your first time out. I hope you weren’t too traumatised by it.’

  ‘Oh, no…’ Posy said as brightly as she could manage, when even she was succumbing to the strange atmosphere in the room. ‘It was fine.’

  ‘You did well to get the spare on by yourself; you should have called us.’

  ‘I just thought I ought to let you know,’ Posy added. ‘I’ve left it on the drive.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sandra glanced at Asa, who simply looked dolefully at Posy.

  ‘So… I’ll just check the plasterer is OK… getting on with everything…’ Posy continued, flailing now for something to say that would avoid addressing the very obvious issue in the room. She knew perfectly well that the plasterer was getting on just fine and that he didn’t need any input from her at all.

  At this point, Asa would usually make a quip, or at least reassure her cheerfully that he’d be over to join her just as soon as he was able, but not this time. It pained and puzzled Posy in equal measure.

  ‘We’ll see you later for supper?’ Sandra asked.

  Posy nodded, but then remembered that she’d meant to pick something up to cook for them as a surprise supper so that Sandra or Giles wouldn’t have to do it. While she was vaguely annoyed at herself for forgetting, it didn’t seem important now.

  She left the kitchen wondering what the hell had just happened, both Asa and Sandra watching her go. She’d thought the day had already been eventful enough, but, apparently, it hadn’t finished with her yet.

  * * *

  The rest of the afternoon was dull. Asa didn’t make an appearance, the plasterer (as she’d suspected) didn’t need her at all and it continued to rain so hard there was no joy in going out. Once again she was left grappling for something to keep her occupied. She decided against visiting Karen – there were only so many afternoons she could be expected to spare for idle gossip – and everyone else was busy. She phoned her mum for a quick chat, tried her dad but his phone was switched off, then she found Marella in a meeting that she couldn’t leave. So she called Jackson.

  ‘Hey! I was just thinking about you,’ he said.

  ‘Good. And what in particular were you thinking about?’

  ‘Ah, now… that would be telling.’

  Posy giggled. ‘Aren’t you at work right now? Whatever it was couldn’t be that distracting.’

  ‘You’d be surprised what I can still get done, even when I’m distracted.’ He let out a chuckle. ‘It’s a pretty slow day, actually. I was just wondering if you were planning to come home any time soon?’

  ‘I might. I was thinking I might put it to my uncles later at supper.’

  ‘Can’t you do what you want to?’

  ‘Of course I can, but I’d rather run it by them.’

  ‘Why would you need to?’

  Posy shrugged. She didn’t really know why she needed to and she couldn’t imagine there’d be any objection. ‘It just seems courteous to mention it up front. And I said I’d help at the
orchard any time they wanted so I’d rather let them know in case they were planning anything that involves me. They’ve never actually taken me up on my offer, but I wouldn’t want them working out a schedule and then not being there for it after all.’

  ‘I’d say you’re beginning to like it there.’

  ‘I do like it. You’ll like it too when you visit.’

  ‘I mean, really like it. As in, you want to stay for good.’

  ‘No…’ Posy hesitated. ‘I mean, it’s lovely and there’s nothing to dislike, but there wouldn’t be much real work here for me. I’m just enjoying the break from my usual routine, I suppose. And it’s weird, but I feel as if I belong here already. But I’d never leave my mum and dad, no matter how much I feel at home here in Somerset.’

  ‘Well that’s good, because once you’re back in London I get to see a lot more of you. At least, I hope so.’

  ‘As often as you like once I’m back.’

  ‘Be careful saying things like that, I might just take you up on it and then you’ll be sorry.’

  Posy smiled. ‘I won’t be sorry at all.’ The fact was, she was beginning to like Jackson. A lot. It had certainly been some time since she’d enjoyed talking to a boyfriend quite so much. Often she was bored by this point in a budding relationship, so this was a good sign.

  Maybe, she thought with an unfamiliar sense of anticipation, he could even turn out to be The One. It seemed so unlikely, especially when she thought back to her initial impressions at the fancy dress party (although, even then, he must have done something to make her agree to the first date). But he was funny, cheery company, easy on the eye and totally on her wavelength. Speaking to him this afternoon had reinforced for her what he’d said via text that morning – it was about time they got together in person.

  ‘So… this weekend, maybe?’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll let you know.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting by the phone for your call.’

  Posy’s smile spread a little wider. She liked the sound of that.

  * * *