Heart of the Cotswolds: England

by M. L. Buchman

  She stopped, suddenly aware of how close together they were and how far away from anyone else. Nobody here but sheep. Back home she’d never let herself get in such a situation with an unknown man. But with Aaron she felt no threat, nor did she feel particularly safer for his presence. Somehow danger simply wasn’t relevant here in the Cotswold sunshine.

  Instead she was feeling…happy. Which was actually a little unnerving.

  “The bucolic must be going to my head,” she whispered as he watched her with those steady, all-seeing eyes of his.

  “Why is that?”

  She thought that the two of them standing in a kissing gate made that rather obvious, but if she needed to explain it more clearly, she didn’t mind.

  This time she wasn’t drunk or exhausted when she leaned forward to kiss him. Perhaps she’d meant it as a small peck, a token to acknowledge their passage through a kissing gate. Perhaps.

  She saw no real point in analyzing her true motives as she leaned into the kiss, holding on to the old wood with both hands to keep herself steady.

  Aaron did the same, not reaching for her. Instead, they touched only at their lips and tongues.

  The juxtaposition of this kiss to the ones that had existed so vaguely in her memory they were almost forgotten, brought both of those back to life. A hard kiss on a stone wall. A hasty one with his powerful hands sliding across her bare skin in his room that same night.

  And this.

  As warm as sunshine, as soft as the sweet smell of spring on the air.

  He finally eased back, watching her, waiting to see what her reaction would be.

  “How many of these gates are there around the Cotswolds?” She brushed her lips lightly once more over his and then stepped the rest of the way out of the gate. As she continued down the path, she didn’t hear him following. A glance back revealed him still standing in the gate, not yet crossed over.

  She could really get to enjoy this.

  Aaron knew something had changed. Something big. But he couldn’t seem to wrap his mind around it.

  How many of these gates are there around the Cotswolds?

  Good god! If each got him another kiss like that one, he’d lead her to every single one and die a happy man. Being kissed by Jane Tully was—

  She’d kissed him.

  Not playfully.

  Not drunk.

  Stone cold sober in the broad light of day, she had kissed him. Despite the way he’d treated her yesterday.

  It—didn’t make sense.

  Not that he was complaining, but—

  “Are you going to stand there all day?” Jane called from farther down the track. “I’ve already kissed you at that gate.”

  Aaron got his feet moving.

  First, he was not going to tell her that it was called a kissing gate because the gate just “kissed” either side of the V-shaped fence end.

  Second, he needed to find another one, fast.

  Chapter 6

  “I don’t know the last time I’ve had such a lovely day,” Jane told their unlikely dinner companion Conrad, the Earl of Evenston. She and Aaron had just returned from their walk when the earl happened into the pub and joined them. She wasn’t sure how to behave when dining with an English lord in a rustic pub, but his innate ease and graciousness made it easier to relax…eventually.

  “I’m so glad,” the earl sipped his beer. “The walk to The Slaughters is one of my favorites. I make it often myself.”

  The Slaughters had turned out to be two lovely little towns, Upper and Lower Slaughter. Lower Slaughter, straddling the River Eye (a grand word for a lazy stream less than twenty feet wide) had been especially captivating. She and Aaron had shared a late morning teatime in back of the Old Mill, watching ducks paddle about the mill pond that spread out beneath the willow trees.

  “I find it so hard to believe what exists just out your back door around here.”

  “Yes, almost every direction will lead you into our trail system. There are several groups that lead rambles in the area. You can find ornithological, naturalist, and even architectural tour guides for walks that vary from leisurely ambles to the next pub, to long tramps along the Cotswold Way. There are even dog-walking groups.”

  “Like Snoop?” The dog was in his usual place by the fire. He looked up at her when he heard his name. She leaned down to give him a scratch.

  “Don’t know that old Snoop ambles much farther than his food bowl unless he has to.”

  He was a rather round spaniel—not as wide as he was long, but clearly working on it.

  She’d ordered steak-and-ale pie and had decided that she’d never eat anything else here because it was so good. That was before she tasted the earl’s sirloin steak that had apparently come from the earl’s own cattle. She was definitely going to eat that next time; it was one of the best steaks she’d ever had.

  Aaron was having one of Hal’s Sunday-only roast dinners: a massive plate of pork, mashed potatoes, and veggies. The sharp malt vinegar of the brown sauce that he added tickled her nose. His right leg was propped on a chair. It worried her, but it didn’t appear to concern him in the slightest. Toward the end of the walk he had grown silent, clenching his jaw. She’d slipped her hand through his arm but he’d shaken her off.

  When she’d asked if he was okay, she’d received a sharp, “Fine.” Then he’d sighed. “Docs say exercise is good for it. Strengthens it. I’m fine.” Then he’d told her the meaning of the town’s name as if to distract himself as much as her during the last climb up the hill to Fosse-on-the-Wold. “Fosse Way was the main Roman road through the area, almost four hundred kilometers in a straight line. Wold means ‘upland’ or ‘hill.’ So we’re now approaching the town of Roman-Road-on-the-Hill.”

  Roman. As in two thousand years ago. Everything around here was old, most of it older than the discovery of America.

  “Did you know my cottage dates back to the Civil War? Your Civil War,” she turned to the earl, “in the 1600s?”

  “You have a cottage?” The earl’s question was no more than mild curiosity.

  Aaron’s beer was frozen in midair halfway back to the table.

  “I made an offer on one.”

  Aaron’s beer still didn’t move.

  “It’s a lovely little spot called The Springs.” She plucked the beer out of Aaron’s hand and set it on the table before he dropped it. “What’s your problem?”

  “You are a woman full of surprises.”

  That didn’t sound like any Jane Tully she knew. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “Careful there, Aaron,” the earl was smiling over his Donnington bitter, but his tone was warning.

  Aaron inspected the earl for a moment with a puzzled expression, then he turned back to study her.

  Jane wanted to squirm in her seat.

  “You startle me every moment of the day.”

  “Evasion.”

  “Good thing,” Aaron finally declared and Jane felt as if she could breathe again.

  How could she doubt that she was anything but good? Only the earl’s warning had stopped him from blurting out that she was incredible—though he didn’t think that was what the earl had been warning him of.

  Like Trent’s warning yesterday to “watch his line.” It had taken Aaron until the middle of the night last night to figure that one out—for all the good it hadn’t done him. Trent hadn’t been referring to the line of the wall at all. He’d been referring to how close Aaron was coming to losing Jane.

  Losing her?

  He didn’t have her. Someone like him couldn’t.

  But he also couldn’t understand what she’d just done either.

  Her life was a wreck. Her business and home gone. Her career blown up. Her bitchy sister married and giving her the cold snub.

  And Jane Tully’s response?

  Be so strong that she bought a cottage in the Cotswolds.

  Amazing!

  And he could absolutely see her in the place.
Not the manor-house beauty or the magazine-ad runner. But the woman who smiled at lambs and had teased him at every successive kissing gate with a peck on the nose or cheek. The one time he’d reached for her, she’d pushed his hand aside.

  They’re called kissing gates, not hugging gates. She hadn’t been teasing so much as being…fun. He tried to remember the last time he’d had fun. Aaron had always enjoyed Delta Force training, but it was more likely to be called brutal than fun.

  He wasn’t sure which of them he was testing when he reached across the table for her hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Crazy good thing!” He told her.

  Earl Conrad nodded his approval.

  “Crazy. I’ll grant that much,” she started to pull her hand back.

  Aaron clamped down on her fingers before she could wholly escape to make sure he had her attention. “No, I mean what I said.”

  “You always do, don’t you?”

  “I try.”

  “I’m learning to read your shrugs, Aaron Mason. What are you uncomfortable about now?”

  “You’ve been mind reading my shrugs?” He wasn’t even aware he had shrugged. Her hand escaped during his momentary surprise.

  “That’s why your evasive tactics don’t work on me,” Jane’s laugh teased him. “Besides, I’m not the only one doing the mind reading here.”

  She hadn’t missed his evasions even once. He couldn’t seem to get away with anything without her calling him on it. He tried to control his shoulders, but suddenly became so self-conscious that he couldn’t decide what to do with them.

  Jane’s laugh said that she could see even that.

  “Evening, Conrad.” Hal had come out from behind the bar—tonight’s sea-blue tie was cluttered with dozens of tiny sailboats apparently all racing for his throat. Snoop perked right up. Hal swept him up into the crook of his arm without even looking. The dog sighed happily and rested his head on Hal’s shoulder.

  The earl greeted him just as amiably. Over the three months he’d been here, Aaron didn’t recall the earl coming in. Of course Aaron had only met the earl two days ago so he might have been in a dozen times without Aaron noticing.

  Two days ago.

  He eyed Jane as she slid effortlessly into their conversation, talking about the walk to the Slaughters.

  He’d only met her two days ago.

  Two weeks, maybe. Two months even. Two days? It simply didn’t register.

  “Aaron has an affinity for kissing gates,” Jane revealed and earned a deep chuckle from Hal.

  “Must say Bridget does as well.”

  So they were a couple despite Bridget’s teasing. It still wasn’t clear if they were a May-September couple or Bridget simply looked amazing for her age. How had it taken him three months to learn that?

  People just opened up around Jane. He’d certainly revealed more of his past to her in two days than even to Trent in three months of working side by side.

  There was a warmth to her, deeper and richer than the crackling fire that invited people in.

  “I was just watching the lambcam.”

  Hal and Snoop were so cute together Jane could just melt.

  “What’s a lambcam?” Aaron asked which saved her from feeling completely clueless.

  In answer, Hal held out a tablet computer for her to see. On screen was a streaming video of the inside of a barn. It took her a few moments to make sense of the picture. It was a well-lit area spread with straw and divided into sections with steel fencing. Several sheep were standing near a feeder that must be filled with hay by the way they were pulling at it. Lambs scooted about the enclosure with varying degrees of confidence. From what she’d observed on today’s walk, these were all newborns, probably less than a day or two old.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Jane pointed to the lower left of the screen. Even in the fields she’d never seen a sheep lying on her side before.

  “Lady has a good eye,” Conrad addressed Hal.

  “She has two good eyes,” Aaron seemed offended as if they’d been slighting one or the other of her eyes. “But that sheep does look like it’s in trouble.”

  The screen flickered and a different lambing barn was revealed. This other barn was smaller and darker than the first, but there was enough light to see that all the sheep were up and about and all the lambs doing well. One staggering uncertainly to its feet was being licked clean by its mother.

  “Those are Henry Wallis’ sheep,” Hal informed her. “He lives over the other side of Fosse. We set up a couple dozen cameras and fed them here so that the lads could feel comfortable leaving their sheds for long enough to fetch a pint of rest.”

  “Is that what you call it?” Aaron tipped back his half-empty glass for another swallow. “How about a stone wall cam?”

  “Could do, but stone walls don’t build themselves. Sheep generally get through just fine on their own.”

  Jane could see the two men enjoying the sparring back and forth, but the lying down sheep worried her. “But what about the earl’s sheep?”

  He rose to his feet, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I suppose I shall have to forego Bridget’s dark chocolate-treacle pudding, which is perhaps a good thing,” he patted his flat stomach.

  “Don’t you have a shepherd?” Even after only last night’s dinner here, Jane had reason to know the dangers of Bridget’s desserts. But today’s long walk should be enough to balance it out. Besides, she was on vacation, wasn’t she? Sort of a permanent one? Grim.

  “I do have a sheep manager, but there’s a fair number of birthing ewes and the man needs his rest. You’re welcome to come along if you like, Jane. Your sister is well clear of the manor house. Aaron?”

  At the earl’s question, which sounded almost like a command in his cultured tone, Aaron looked up in surprise, then offered one of his why-not shrugs.

  In minutes they were walking together down the footpath out of Fosse-on-the-Wold toward the manor. The last of the day’s light and the presence of the two men accompanying her made it a warm and welcoming walk.

  How different from when she and Aaron had walked this same path for the first time at this same time of day. Her terrible dread of the horrid wedding had lain in wait at the end and her drunken bravery had barely been sufficient to enlist the aid of a total stranger.

  A total stranger who she now knew had an integrity as deep and lasting as the Cotswold hills, had shoulders she would love a chance to trace her hands down, and a kiss that sizzled even in memory.

  Yesterday she had bought a cottage.

  Today she was clearly losing her mind completely.

  Aaron sat on a bale of straw with a newborn lamb in his lap and watched Jane, who sat cross-legged on the straw nursing another from a bottle.

  It had been a hard birth and the earl still didn’t have the ewe back on her feet yet. Instead, he’d set them both up with bottles to nurse the twins. Aaron had seen them in the field, but he hadn’t realized what a scant handful a newborn lamb was. It lay neatly curled up in the cradle of his forearm, eagerly nursing on the bottle.

  The lambing shed had gone quiet with the setting sun. There were just ten sheep in the comfortable space—only the ones who might need extra help were brought in here. Most had a lamb or two asleep close beside them. The only sound was the mother’s heavy breathing and the suckling noises from two newborns.

  Jane looked up from her lamb, now curled up in her lap and going to sleep. Her smile was utterly radiant.

  How did she keep getting more beautiful every time he looked at her?

  “It really puts me in my place,” Jane pet the sleeping lamb as if it was made of glass.

  “How so?” His own lamb was done but was struggling to stand. After the third time the little boy rammed a sharp hoof into his gut, Aaron set him down on the straw and watched as he struggled to his feet. Less than an hour old, but his instincts knew what he had to do to survive. Stand!

  “It reminds me of what is important. My job always
seemed so critical: Get it done! Hit the deadline! Stay under budget!” Jane blew a raspberry noise that startled the struggling lamb enough to make him fall back to the straw.

  Again the lamb staked out his tiny legs like support struts to the sides and started upward again. His legs vibrated with the effort like a helicopter with one rotor blade shot off—impossibly hard shaking just moments before the crash.

  He could feel it himself. The shaking in his arms as he struggled to support his full weight on the rehab parallel bars, his leg too weak to take the pressure of even its own withered mass from three more operations and a month flat on his back.

  Just past halfway, the lamb collapsed back to the straw.

  Like a good soldier, he barely waited to catch his breath before struggling upward again. Aaron wanted to help it, scoop a hand under its tiny ribcage and help it aloft. But he had to find his own feet.

  Slowly, painfully, inch by hard-won inch, his lamb made it aloft. His four splayed-out legs barely able to support him. He simply stood there, vibrating with the effort, then he tried to pull one leg in closer. The pressure on the other three was too much and he sat abruptly, but the forelegs were still stiff and straight.

  The lamb began again and Aaron mentally urged him to stay strong, to make it this time.

  “Is that what it was like for you?” Jane’s soft question snapped his attention away from the lamb. Her green eyes inspected him closely, able to see things even he didn’t know.

  “Hard work. A lot of strain and sweat. Yeah, it was like that,” Aaron tried to look away but she didn’t let him.

  “He’s whole, just weak. I’m guessing he has it easier than you did.”

  Aaron could only stare. How could she know so much about him? Delta Selection—along with its ninety-five percent failure rate—was a cakewalk compared to physical rehab on his rebuilt leg. Black ops, staring straight into the eyes of Death himself, was nothing compared to facing a mirror and seeing the man he’d become.