‘Lunch,’ she said with satisfaction, ignoring the fact that it was three in the afternoon.
She pulled on her boots, opened the back door and stopped dead in amazement.
From the barn she could hear an engine running.
True, it was spluttering and coughing, and after a minute or so it died, but it had started! Thrilled to bits with the prospect of the milking machine back in action, she ran across the yard and went smack into Sam’s chest.
She stepped back, laughing, and looked up into his gorgeous navy eyes. ‘It works!’ she exclaimed.
He smiled smugly, but she let him get away with it. Apart from the fact that she was so pleased with him, he had a streak of oil across his unshaven face, his hands were black to the wrist and he looked piratical and sexy and happier than he’d looked since he’d arrived.
Then she noticed his knuckle dribbling blood. ‘You’ve cut yourself!’ she cried softly, taking his hand in hers.
He shrugged. ‘I knocked it on the floor when the crank handle flew off. Come and see. It’s not perfect—it probably needs stripping down—but I think it’ll be OK.’
It was. The belt fitted, the engine ran—and the vacuum pump didn’t work. ‘The damn belt’s slipping,’ he muttered, glaring at it.
‘Want some treacle?’
He looked at her as if she were a few sandwiches short of a picnic. ‘Why the hell would I want treacle?’ he growled.
‘To make the belt sticky. Uncle Tom used to use it. It’s up there.’
He looked up, and there was an ancient, rusting pot of treacle on a high shelf in between an old can of paint and a collection of crumpled rags.
‘Treacle,’ he murmured, and, reaching the tin down, he prised the lid off, smeared a little on the belt and started the little engine again.
It worked.
He turned to her with a grin. ‘There you go, I’ve fixed your milking machine,’ he said with a beaming smile, and to her absolute astonishment she burst into tears.
‘Jemima?’
She sniffed and turned away. ‘Sorry. I’m just being silly. It reminded me of Uncle Tom.’
A firm, heavy hand closed over her shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. ‘How about a cup of tea?’ he suggested.
She nodded and sniffed, scrubbing her nose on the back of her hand. ‘I’ll go and make it.’
He cut the engine, wiped his hands on a rag and straightened up.
‘You should put a plaster on that,’ she told him, looking at his bloodied knuckle and sniffing again.
‘I’ll let you.’
‘So kind.’
His stomach rumbled. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance of anything to eat?’ he said hopefully.
‘Oh, I might let you have a dry crust—since you’ve fixed the engine.’
They kicked off their boots and went into the kitchen, and Sam’s eyes widened. ‘Scones and clotted cream?’ he said in awe, and she laughed.
‘And rice pudding and egg custard in the oven. Basically, if it’s got eggs, milk or cream in it, it’s on the menu.’
He grinned. ‘Suits me.’ It did. It suited him to the tune of three cups of tea, eight scones and most of the cream.
‘I take it you don’t worry about cholesterol?’ she said with a chuckle, watching him lick the last trace of cream off those smooth, full lips.
‘That would be churlish, since you’ve gone to so much trouble.’ His smile warmed her all the way down to her toes.
‘I really am grateful about the engine,’ she told him.
‘The cows definitely don’t like being hand—milked.’
‘My pleasure. I like fixing things.’
She nodded. ‘I suppose you’ll go now. Your car’s out, I can cope with the milking—’
‘How about the water?’
She straightened her spine. ‘I can manage the water.’
‘I dare say—but I’d hate to give Owen the Ox a chance to be valiant.’
She laughed, ridiculously relieved because yet again he didn’t seem to be about to desert her.
‘In that case,’ she said with a smile, ‘I’ll go and start the milking and you can carry buckets!’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘TELL me about your cows.’
Jemima pulled the last suction cup off Ruby’s udder and straightened up with the bucket. ‘My cows? Well, they’re pedigree Dairy Shorthorns, and as you can see they look like fat Fresians but mottled brown instead of black and white, and they have generally less milk than Fresians but it’s a better quality.’
‘And Owen wants them.’
She snorted and moved on to the next cow, washing her udder and slipping the suction cups on the cluster onto each clean pink teat in turn. The milk flowed through the clear pipe with satisfying ease, and she sighed with relief.
‘Yes, Owen wants them. I think.’
‘You think?’
‘He’s—always here. You might be right,’ she conceded grudgingly.
‘I am right.’
‘Are you always right?’
He grinned. ‘Usually.’
‘Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken,’ she mumbled under her breath, but he heard and laughed.
‘Listen, Jem, I’m only human. I just know that when a man has that look in his eye, his mind is fixed below his belt. He may want your cows, but as sure as eggs he wants you, too.’
She coloured. She could feel the warmth flooding her cheeks, but she couldn’t look away because Sam was looking at her with that self-same look in his eyes and she was transfixed by it.
It was only the empty slurping noise of the vacuum pump that dragged her attention off him and back to the job in hand. Confused, torn between thumping him for his cocky impudence and throwing herself into his arms, she turned back to the cows and steadfastly ignored him.
He wouldn’t be ignored, though, following her and quizzing her, asking all sorts of daft questions until in the end she jackknifed up and glared at him.
‘Have you done the water?’ she snapped, and he closed his mouth into a hard line and backed away.
‘I’ll do it now,’ he said tightly, and she felt a wash of shame. He was helping her out of the kindness of his heart, after all, and she had no business speaking to him like that. Heavens, she wouldn’t speak to him like that if she employed him, never mind the fact that he was just an unwilling volunteer!
She ran after him, catching up with him as he swung the first bucket into the river.
‘Sam, I’m sorry.’
He stopped, bucket suspended in midair, then lowered it slowly to the ground. It slopped over and settled. ‘Were you always a spoilt little brat or did that happen after you were six?’
She felt the heat in her cheeks and made herself hold his eyes. ‘You were crowding me. I’m not used to it. I’ve been working alone for a year.’ She looked down and scuffed the ash with her toe. ‘I know that’s no excuse for being so rude. I don’t know why you haven’t left.’
There was a long pause.
‘Nor do I,’ he said eventually. ‘Do you want me to?’
‘No.’ She shook her head almost violently. ‘Oh, no. I need your help. I thought I could cope, and for a day or so maybe I could, but it looks as if this power cut will go on for ages.’ She dragged in a steadying breath. ‘I could ask Owen—’
He bit out a terse and very to the point remark, and she smiled to herself.
‘I take it you don’t think I should ask Owen.’
‘Too bloody right.’ He hooked up another bucket and swung it into the water, pulled it out and retrieved the first from by her feet. ‘Ask Owen and I guarantee he’ll want payment in kind.’
The cows?’
‘Or you. He’s probably not that bothered either way.’
She fell into step beside him. ‘And you?’
‘What about me?’
‘How do you want paying?’
He set the buckets down. ‘Who the hell said anything about paying me?’
>
‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch.’
He closed his eyes and snorted. ‘I’m helping you because my grandmother would have my hide if I didn’t.’
She felt a little stab of disappointment. ‘Oh.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I’ll get on with the milking.’
She finished in half the time it had taken that morning, despite the Lister engine running out of petrol and being difficult to start again. Sam struggled with it, though, and she stripped out Daisy while she was waiting.
The satisfaction of tipping out the last bucket of milk before she was quite dead on her feet was amazing. She went out, lantern in hand, and found Sam just finishing off the water for the calves.
‘All done?’
He nodded. ‘You?’
‘Yes. They’ve got hay for the night. Sam?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you.’
He was silent for a long time, then he smiled, a crooked, fleeting little smile. ‘My pleasure.’
‘Liar.’
The smile widened. ‘My privilege, then.’
‘Some privilege.’
They fell into step towards the house. ‘You know what you were saying about the free lunch?’
She laughed. ‘Don’t tell me—you’re hungry.’
‘Starving. Have you got any real food?’
‘In the freezer. It’s probably still frozen as it’s out in the porch. What do you fancy?’
He grinned. ‘Not beef or chicken.’
She thought of the scant contents of her freezer. ‘You may be out of luck.’
He was. She had a couple of chicken portions, half a pound of minced beef, six fish fingers and a little heap of ice, peas and bits of plastic bag.
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, eyeing the interior with jaundice, ‘you were going shopping today.’
She chuckled. ‘Maybe. It usually looks pretty grim.’
He cast an eye up to the sky. The moon was out, almost full, and with the snow it was cold but bright.
‘We could walk over to my grandparents.’
‘They won’t have anything.’
‘They might Grannie’s always got a casserole on the go and she was expecting me.’
The thought of real food was almost enough to make her cry. ‘All right—but ring her first.’
He disappeared into the parlour with a lamp, and came back a minute later grinning broadly. ‘She’s just heating it up. She’d cooked up a storm because I was coming for the weekend. I said we’d be over in a trice. She told me to bring clean clothes—we can have a bath.’
‘A hot bath?’
‘Yes—the Aga’s under the water tank.’
‘Oh, wow. Real water.’
He laughed. ‘Indeed. Come on, then, or it’ll be midnight before we get there.’
They gathered their things together, whistled up the dogs and set off up the field. It was bitterly cold even though there was no wind, and they had to carry Noodle because she was shivering. Jess, though, was off, streaking away over the field and waiting for them by the Aga when they arrived.
The smell of home cooking assailed their nostrils as they went in, and Mary welcomed them with open arms and huge hugs, exclaiming with delight over the clotted cream Jemima had brought her. Dick was less effusive, but equally pleased to see them, and Jemima could tell from the look in his eye how fond he was of Sam.
‘I’m sorry I’ve stolen him when he should be staying with you,’ Jemima apologised.
‘Nonsense,’ Mary said, flapping her hand and bustling to the stove. ‘What do you want first? Brandy, cup of tea, hot bath or stew?’
‘Brandy.’ Sam said without hesitation.
‘Tea in the bath.’
Sam laughed. ‘Typical woman. I bet you’ll be hours.’
She was, but only because she went to sleep out of sheer exhaustion. She was woken by Sam tapping on the door. ‘Come on, it’s my turn.’
She mumbled something rude and climbed out, swathed herself in the towel Mary had given her and opened the door. ‘You,’ she told him firmly, ‘are a bully.’
‘I also have it on good authority that I need a bath.’
She sniffed and nodded. ‘Yup. Definite aroma of cow.’
‘Well, come on, then, out of the way.’
She scooped up her clothes and went into the nearest bedroom to dress, then ran downstairs with her dirty clothes in a bag and her wet hair dangling in rats’ tails round her face. Dick pressed a brandy into her hand, Mary thanked her again for the clotted cream and she sat there under the bathroom and couldn’t think about anything except Sam overhead wallowing naked in the bath.
She got lost halfway through a sentence and Mary and Dick exchanged speaking glances. ‘Sorry, I’m tired,’ she mumbled.
‘Has it been very difficult?’
She looked at Mary’s kindly face. ‘Not with Sam’s help. Without, it would have been impossible.’
‘How convenient, then, that he was here.’
‘You lied to him.’
Mary smiled. ‘Only a little. It is two miles by road because you have to go up to the village.’
‘Don’t apologise. I’m hugely grateful.’
‘Dick, I think we need more logs on the fire in the sitting room, dear.’
Dick stood up dutifully and went out to check, and Mary reached over and covered Jemima’s hand with her own soft, smooth one. ‘How are you getting on?’
She laughed softly. ‘He’s jealous of Owen.’
‘He always was. I was trying to work it out. I think it must have been about twenty-two years ago you were both here at the same time.’
‘It was. I’d forgotten how much they hated each other until he and Owen almost came to blows in the kitchen.’
‘Oh, how exciting! Nobody’s fought over me for years.’
Jemima chuckled. ‘Mary, it was awful. They were squabbling like starlings.’
‘It’s a good sign, though. He wouldn’t squabble if he wasn’t interested.’
‘But I don’t want him to be interested!’ she said, just as Sam came back into the room.
‘You talking about Owen again?’ he growled, and Mary leapt in before she could say a word.
‘Jemima tells me he’s being a nuisance.’
‘I said no such thing,’ she protested, eyeing his neatly slicked wet hair and clean-shaven cheeks. Funny, she preferred him scruffy and a little wild. ‘He’s being very useful.’
‘Flashing his gadget about, anyway,’ Sam grumbled.
‘You’re just jealous because you haven’t got one,’ Jemima said, and he chuckled.
‘I don’t need a telescopic ram to impress the ladies,’ he bragged, and Mary swatted him.
‘Come on, let’s get some food into you. At least you smell a bit better now. Leave your dirty things here and I’ll wash them for you. Now, about this supper...’
They set off a little before midnight, stuffed to the gills and singing their heads off after all the brandy Dick had coaxed down them, and they would have been all right if Sam hadn’t stumbled over a hidden log by the ditch and fallen headlong into six feet of snow.
Jemima dragged him out, laughing helplessly, and he promptly fell back in again, pulling her after him. She landed on his chest, sprawled over his body with their legs intimately aligned, and the laughter left them.
‘Jem?’ he murmured, lifting a hand to brush her hair back from her face, and in the moonlight she could see the question in his eyes.
If she kissed him—if she just lowered her head and touched her lips to his—then they would go home and finish this thing between them. She knew it, just as she knew the sun would rise tomorrow and another cow would get mastitis and Owen would ask her to sell the herd to him.
She also knew it was madness, but she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to walk away. Her head lowered, just as he lifted his, and then something hot and wet slapped across her cheek and a paw landed in the back of her neck
, shoving her face-down in the snow.
‘Get off, dog,’ Sam laughed, swiping Jess away, but the moment was gone. Jemima struggled to her feet, helped Sam out of the drift and banged the snow off his clothes while Jess bounced cheerfully round them barking and Noodle stood patiently waiting for someone to pick her up again.
They arrived back just as the grandfather clock in the parlour struck twelve. ‘Come on, Cinderella, in you get,’ Sam murmured, ushering her in with a firm hand against her waist. The kitchen was warm, and he set Noodle down on a chair by the Rayburn while Jemima lit the lantern and brushed the snow off her jeans.
She had put the kettle on and was just wondering whether or not he would kiss her goodnight and what would happen then, when there was a pounding on the door.
‘Jemima? Where’ve you been? You all right?’
She would have been if she hadn’t got the giggles.
She opened the door, took one look at Owen’s scowling face and started to laugh.
‘What’s going on?’ he muttered. ‘You were out.’
‘We’ve been to the Kings’ for supper. We’re fine, Owen.’
‘Didn’t know where you were. Anything could have happened.’
She suppressed a giggle. ‘I didn’t know I had to ask permission before I went out.’
‘I was worried,’ he went on doggedly. ‘You don’t have a lick of sense and he’s just a city boy. You could have fallen in a drift.’
‘Surely not.’ She pulled the door open, squashing her smile. ‘Come in, Owen. I’ve put the kettle on.’
‘If you’re sure. It’s a strange time of night to go visiting—and how come you’re back here?’ he said, turning on Sam with a glower. ‘Should have thought you’d stay with your folks, now the roads are clear and your fancy car’s unstuck.’
Sam ignored the last part. ‘Yes, it is a strange time to go visiting. What makes you think Jemima needs disturbing at this time of night? She might have been in bed.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of. Strikes me a chaperon might be in order,’ Owen grumbled.
‘I agree. The trouble is, who’s chaperoning who, Owen?’
Jemima slapped the kettle back onto the hob and glared at them. ‘Will you two both stop it? I don’t need a chaperon—and I don’t need you two squabbling over me! Sam’s here to help with the water—’
A Funny Thing Happened... Page 6
