A Funny Thing Happened...

by Caroline Anderson

  ‘I could bring you water in a tank on the tractor—you know that. I did it for you in the summer when the pipe broke and I took it up the meadow to the beasts. You only have to ask.’

  ‘She doesn’t need you, Owen,’ Sam cut in firmly. Jemima, belatedly remembering the tank on Owen’s tractor, wondered why Sam was turning down such a God-sent opportunity to escape.

  ‘It would make things easier,’ she said, feeling guilty for all the work Sam had done.

  A second later she regretted her words. Owen’s face looked smug, Sam looked like thunder and she wondered if she’d ever be able to understand men at all.

  Owen got up. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, then—don’t bother with the tea. I’m late to bed as it is. I suggest you get your sleep—unless you’re going to let me take your herd up to ours for milking?’

  ‘I don’t need to; Sam fixed the little Lister engine,’ she told him, and the scowl and smirk were reversed.

  Men! She shooed Owen out, then had to deal with Sam.

  ‘I was quite happy doing the water,’ he began.

  ‘I felt guilty. Owen can do it in no time.’

  ‘I didn’t mind,’ he repeated stubbornly.

  ‘Well, now you can go and stay with your grandparents—which is, after all, why you’ve come down here.’

  He couldn’t argue with her unassailable logic. Instead he went up to bed clutching a cup of tea, and that answered her question about whether he would kiss her goodnight.

  Oh, well. It was probably just as well, anyway. Her life was complicated enough without having an affair with a man from the big smoke.

  She wasn’t sure what he did—an architect or surveyor or something? She remembered Mary mentioning it some time ago—he’d been nominated for an award for something. She ought to ask him—if he was still speaking to her.

  It was by no means certain...

  Sam was livid. He didn’t hate people, as a rule, but he was working on changing that for the sake of Owen Stockdale.

  First the snow shovel thingummybob, now a water tank, he thought disgustedly.

  He stripped his clothes off, pulled on his pyjamas, hoisted the cat out of the way and crawled between the freezing sheets. If he didn’t end up with frostbite it would be a living miracle.

  He lay there, glaring at the ceiling and trying to work out why he was so angry with Owen, and why it mattered that he no longer had to spend back-breaking hours hauling water for Jemima. He hated doing it. Of all the things in the world that he could think of, it had to be right down there amongst eating raw fish and kissing frogs.

  So why the heck he was so mad about having the job taken away from him, he couldn’t imagine.

  Except, of course, that it meant he had no excuse for hanging around with Jemima.

  His mouth tightened and he drew in a breath and let it out on a heavy sigh. He didn’t like the thought of Owen spending so much time with her, but she seemed convinced she was safe, and who was he to argue?

  He hadn’t seen the man for twenty-two years. Jemima was far better placed to judge him.

  Dammit.

  The cat purred and kneaded his chest through the sheet, and he let out a little yelp and removed its claws.

  ‘You in league with that man?’ he asked it accusingly, and the cat dribbled on his chest.

  ‘Great Marvellous. That’s it.’ He threw back the bedclothes, scooped the cat up and dumped it outside the door, just as Jemima was coming out of the bathroom.

  ‘It dribbles,’ he said economically.

  She smiled and bent to pick it up, and the light from the lantern gleamed in her hair and turned her skin to gold. She looked like a cross between an angel and a pixie, her eyes sparkling with lively intelligence and her soft, kissable mouth curved in a smile.

  And that was why he hated Owen Stockdale!

  He was woken by the sound of Owen’s tractor in the morning, bringing water to the cows in the barn. He peered out of the window and saw a big clear polythene tank in a metal frame attached to a hydraulic lift on the front of the tractor, and wondered how many buckets it would take to fill it.

  Too many. Oh, well, he was free now. He could go and stay with his grandparents and mull over his future, which, after all, was why he was here.

  He dropped the curtain back, pulled on his clothes and went down to the kitchen. The Rayburn needed rescuing again, and he got it going, put the kettle on and made a pot of tea, leaving it to brew until Owen left.

  Petty, but probably the only way he could deal with it Owen seemed to bring out the worst in him, provoking a childish jealousy he would have thought himself above.

  Apparently he didn’t know himself as well as he might.

  He heard the tractor going, and took some tea out to Jemima.

  ‘Saviour,’ she said with a smile that would have lit beacons, and he forgot about the warm bed he’d abandoned and the sleep he could have been getting, and basked in the warmth of that glorious smile.

  ‘You could have had a lie-in,’ she reminded him, but he shook his head.

  ‘Owen’s tractor woke me. Anyway, I’m used to getting up early. I’m often on site by seven.’

  She tipped her head and studied him. ‘You’re an architect, aren’t you? Don’t you work in London?’

  He nodded. ‘At the moment.’

  A frown pleated her brow. ‘At the moment?’

  ‘I’m...’ He hesitated, then sighed. ‘Let’s say I’m unsure about the future. I just know I won’t carry on doing what I’m doing for the rest of my life. The line of work I’m in is very pressured—very make or break. I’m not sure there isn’t more to life.’

  She nodded thoughtfully. ‘I know what you mean.’

  He looked round. ‘This place?’

  ‘Here?’ She laughed softly. ‘I don’t know about this. This is just a time out. I don’t know what I’ll do about it. No, I meant before. I was a solicitor, in London. Uncle Tom became ill and I chucked in my job and came down here to look after him while I thought about what I wanted to do.’

  ‘And then he died and left it to you?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s right. It seemed like a good idea at the time to keep it going, give me time to think. I may sell Owen the stock and live here and go back to work in Dorchester—do conveyancing or something. I don’t know. I won’t go back to what I was doing before.’

  ‘Why did you give up? What was wrong with what you were doing?’ he asked, curious about a tiny, feisty woman who’d thrown away everything to come and look after a dying uncle and had ended up scratching a pitiful living from his land.

  ‘Oh-you know. I was doing matrimonial stuff—spoilt brats squabbling over their assets and fighting about who would have the children. It sickened me. So many of them seemed to have such petty reasons for splitting up, as if they didn’t have a real foundation for their marriage in the first place.’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t.’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe not. They shouldn’t have got married then, should they?’

  She perched on an upturned bucket and waved a hand at a bale of straw. He sat on it, nursing his tea while he leant against the wall and watched the cows. One of them climbed up on the back of another, and he raised a brow and turned to her.

  ‘Is that a bull?’

  She shook her head, laughing. ‘No. She’s in season. I need to call the AI man. A couple of them are ready.’

  ‘Ready?’ he asked, not sure what was coming and not sure he really wanted to know.

  ‘Fertile. The man from the AI centre—’

  ‘AI?’

  ‘Artificial insemination. They bring a little straw of frozen semen and—’

  He threw up his hands, laughing. ‘OK, OK, I get the drift! So, ’they’re in the mood, are they?’

  She grinned and nodded. “That’s right. I meant to ring him on Friday but there didn’t seem a lot of point with the weather forecast. Owen tells me the road’s clear now, so I should be all right for tomorrow.’ />
  She handed him her mug and stood up. ‘Back to work. The engine’s wonderful—thank you for fixing it.’

  He straightened up, towering over her and wondering how she could be so small and yet so tough. ‘My pleasure. When will you be finished?’

  ‘When I’ve mucked out. I have to keep them in because of the snow and it takes longer working round them.’

  He felt a rash moment coming on, but couldn’t stop it. ‘Want me to start for you?’

  ‘Would you?’ Her face lit up, and he gave a hollow laugh.

  ‘I can hardly wait.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘I know.’

  Their eyes met and locked, and she smiled again, the smile that set him alight inside and turned his resolve to mush.

  ‘Thanks,’ she murmured, and he knew to his disgust that he would have done anything for her.

  He worked like a demon. She finished the milking, pouring the milk away and mourning the waste, but until the power was back there was nothing else she could do with it. He was still forking away, whistling softly, humming every now and again, and if she hadn’t known better she’d have thought he was enjoying himself.

  She wondered why he hadn’t ever got married. Goodness knows he was good-looking enough, and apart from a regrettable tendency to brawl with the competition he would make someone a good husband one day, she thought.

  Not her, though. Apart from the fact that she was simply too busy to get involved with anyone, her work had scared her off marriage. So many people with shattered dreams, so many broken promises, so much wasted sorrow.

  No, it was easier to avoid it.

  She went over to him and removed the fork from his hand. ‘I can manage now,’ she said, and he stepped back with a puzzled frown.

  ‘I can finish.’

  ‘It’s OK. Really. Why don’t you pack up your stuff and go on over to your grandparents? They’ll be thrilled to have you.’

  He took the fork out of her hand and hefted it, looking at her searchingly.

  ‘Did I do something wrong?’ he asked softly, and she had a stupid, stupid urge to put her head on his shoulder and cry her eyes out.

  ‘No. It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Owen?’

  ‘No, not Owen either. Nothing. Just go. I can manage, really.’

  He nodded and went, putting the fork down by the door as he left the barn, and she watched him walk across the yard, Jess at his heels, and into the kitchen.

  Damn. Still, she was better off without him. It was less complicated that way...

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE missed him.

  It was ridiculous, really, because she’d spent a year managing on her own and he’d only been around for a couple of days, not even that. Still, she missed him. She missed his laugh, his company—even his irritating whistling.

  And she missed his protection when Owen came round later that afternoon with the tractor to do the water again and cornered her in the barn with the young stock.

  Not that he did anything.

  He just stood there, very big and very close, and asked if Sam had gone.

  ‘Yes—he’s gone over to his grandparents,’ she told him, and was irritated by the glint of amusement and victory in his eyes.

  ‘Didn’t need him around here anyway,’ Owen said, and there was something very possessive and proprietorial about the way he said it that irritated her.

  ‘Actually, I did need him,’ she corrected softly. ‘He was very helpful over the water.’

  ‘You should have asked,’ Owen told her again. ‘You know I would have done it. I’d do anything for you.’

  She looked up into his big brown eyes and remembered Sam calling him Owen the Ox.

  How appropriate. Big, lumbering, loyal and totally insensitive.

  ‘I know you would,’ she said, stifling a sigh. ‘Thank you. I’m very grateful for your help—it’s reassuring to have good neighbours.’

  ‘I’m more than just a neighbour,’ he pointed out.

  ‘A friend, then,’ she amended hastily, before he could say any more. ‘And as I say, I’m very grateful, but I must get on; I’ve still got to feed the hens and pick up - the eggs.’

  ‘I could give you a hand.’

  ‘Owen, it’s OK. You’ve done more than enough. I can manage now.’

  He grunted, but he went, leaving her sighing with relief. She sagged back against the wall of the barn and listened to the tractor going, then shut the calves up, picked up the lantern and went into the hen house.

  It was thawing, she realised. With the characteristic fickleness of early spring, the weather had changed from blizzard to balmy in just forty-eight hours, and now the heaped-up snow was wilting, growing heavy and plopping off the branches like ripe fruit. She listened to the steady drip of the trees and the rush of the stream, and felt relief.

  If necessary, once it was thawed she could turn the milkers out into the paddock by the stream and they could drink their fill without anyone having to carry it, so she wouldn’t have to be beholden to any of these men.

  She put the hens to bed, went in and let the dogs out for a run. The snow was too deep for Noodle to be out all day, and Jess had had a good run this morning, so she’d shut her up as well. Now she found herself heading up the hill towards Dick and Mary—and Sam—and had to stop herself. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Leave him alone.

  She missed him. She took the dogs a different way, and she remembered last night, when they’d all gone out together to his grandparents, and what fun it had been.

  He’d fallen in the snow drift, and if Owen hadn’t come round—

  Crazy. She mustn’t start thinking like that.

  The dogs followed her back into the kitchen, and she missed his big body clogging up the space. The chair that had always been Uncle Tom’s had become Sam’s in the space of a weekend, and now sat tormenting her by the fire like a pregnant pause.

  She fed the dogs, just because she had to do something, and then she made scrambled eggs and overcooked them, so they weren’t like the ones Sam had done—

  ‘This is ridiculous! You’ve got to stop,’ she chastised herself, but it was hard with nothing to fill the gap.

  She went upstairs and stripped his bed, throwing the sheets in the corner of the bathroom until the power was back on and she could use the washing machine again. They smelt faintly of him, and she had to force herself not to pick them up again and sniff them.

  Ridiculous. She really ought to get out more. She was losing it, seriously losing it, bottled up here all on her own with nothing but the animals for company.

  There was always Owen, of course!

  She went back down to the kitchen, put the kettle on and twiddled the radio. The batteries were getting low and it was crackling furiously, so in the end she turned it off and sat listening to Noodle snoring.

  And then, through the silence of the evening, she heard a siren, and blue flashing lights went past on a large vehicle. A fire engine?

  The siren stopped, and she tugged on her coat and boots and went out into the yard, concerned. It sounded as if it had stopped at the Stockdales’ farm—

  It had. A fire engine stood in the lane, lights flashing, but there was no sign of fire. No sign of anything, but she could hear shouting. She ran down the lane, her heart thumping, and as she squeezed past the fire engine she saw Owen’s tractor lying on its roof in the ditch by the yard entrance.

  ‘Owen?’ she whispered, and a man appeared at her side.

  ‘Can I help you, miss?’

  She looked up at him. ‘Is anyone in the cab?’

  ‘Farmer’s son—who are you?’

  ‘A neighbour—is he hurt?’

  ‘Don’t know yet. He’s talking. Parents are over there. Perhaps you’d like to join them.’

  She went over to the group huddled around the cab, and saw Mrs Stockdale struggling with tears.

  ‘I’m all right, Mother, it’s just my arm,’ Owen w
as saying. He sounded a little strained but otherwise normal, and she peered in. He was lying on his side, one arm trapped awkwardly beneath him, and there was a fireman talking to him through the shattered windscreen.

  He saw her and smiled bravely. ‘Jemima—look after my mother, would you? Tell her I’m all right. Take her inside or something.’

  ‘I’m not leaving his side,’ his mother said firmly. ‘I know I can’t do a lot, but I can be here.’

  His father said nothing, just stood there watching the winch on the fire engine being attached to the tractor to try and tug it back on its wheels.

  It took ages, and once it slipped and Owen bellowed with pain, but then it was up enough to prop the far side and they were able to get him out.

  ‘Broken arm,’ the fireman told the paramedic who had since arrived, and Owen was borne off in the ambulance, looking pale and shaken. He was accompanied by his equally pale and shaken mother, and his father followed in the car.

  ‘Any idea where we should put the tractor?’ the fireman asked Jemima once it was upright.

  She shrugged. ‘I’ll park it in the yard. I expect it’s still driveable.’

  The fireman looked her up and down. ‘You got a licence?’ he asked sceptically.

  She rolled her eyes and ignored him, climbing into the battered cab and avoiding the broken glass that littered the floor and seat. It started, but when she drove it forwards the steering was extremely weird. Still, it limped onto the yard and she parked it more or less up against the barn. It would have to do.

  She pulled the keys out and put them through the letter box—not that she thought anyone would be likely to steal it, but you never could tell—and then she went home. It was midnight, and it was beginning to dawn on her that for all she might not have wanted him, she’d just lost Owen and his water-carrier.

  Which meant, if the power didn’t come back on by morning, she’d have to carry water alone...

  ‘Hi, there.’

  She looked up from Betsy’s side and saw Sam outlined in the barn door, backlit by the early-morning sun. He was wearing a suit, looking clean and tidy and very much the city gent, and she was more than ever conscious of her bedraggled hair and chapped, cracked hands and the streak of whatever on her cheek.