A Funny Thing Happened...

by Caroline Anderson

  Coped, of course, but only just barely and not for long. A day? Two, maybe? No more than that.

  She reached out and shook him gently, with a hand that no longer hurt.

  ‘Sam? Time for bed.’

  His eyes flew open and locked with hers, and the message in them was warm and sleepy and unmistakable. Then he smiled, a lazy, sexy smile that made her pulse hammer and her mouth go dry as he unfolded out of the chair with a groan.

  ‘I don’t suppose you meant that the way it sounded,’ he said regretfully, and a smile played around his eyes, taking away any offence.

  She smiled back. ‘No—I wouldn’t have the energy.’

  ‘I wouldn’t notice—I’d be asleep.’

  They laughed softly, and she put the dogs out for a moment before heading up the stairs. It was much colder in the bedrooms, and she hoped he was a tough and hardy type, or he’d freeze to bits. She remembered her first taste of winter here. It had taken a bit of getting used to, but she’d managed.

  ‘You’re in here,’ she told him, and pushed the door open. The bed looked neat, the room quite welcoming, but it was cold. ‘I’m sorry it’s not warmer. I’ll get you some extra blankets. If you leave the door open the heat’ll come up from the kitchen.’

  She reached into the airing cupboard, pulled out a couple of blankets from the bottom and handed them to him. ‘I’ll leave the lantern hoe—don’t flush the loo, because we haven’t got any water. I’ll get some buckets in the morning. Anything else you need?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Right, I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘What time’s milking?’

  ‘Five, usually.’

  His jaw sagged slightly, then he nodded. ‘Wake me.’ ‘I can manage—’

  ‘Just do it.’

  She smiled. He wanted to be a hero? Fine, he could be a hero. ‘See you at five, then. Goodnight, Sam—and thanks.’

  She went into her room, leaving the door ajar so she had some light, and changed quickly into her pyjamas. Her teeth were scrubbed in a dribble of water, she wiped her face with a cleansing pad and dragged a brush through her hair, then curled up under the covers, rubbing her feet inside the thick bedsocks to keep them warm.

  Five o’clock was going to come awfully soon...

  Sam was freezing. He pulled on a sweater over his one pair of ‘just-in-case’ pyjamas, put on a second pair of socks and threw the other blanket over the bed before huddling back under the covers and shuddering with cold.

  He must be even more spoilt and pampered than he’d realised.

  The wind rattled the window, shaking the glass in the frame and swirling cold air round the room. So much for the warmth coming up from the kitchen!

  He tucked his face under the blankets and blew on his hands, trying to warm them, but all he managed to do was make the bed tepid and damp. In the end he tucked the blankets round his head, curled up in a ball and lay still.

  There were no night sounds other than the wind. It was strange. He’d stayed with his grandparents just down the road in the summer once, and he could remember the sounds of the night—the owls hooting, the rustling of countless little animals—he’d used to sit on the windowsill and listen to them, and try and imagine what they all were.

  His bed dipped, and something cold and wet pushed into his face. His eyelids flew up and his mouth opened to yell when a loud purr echoed round his head.

  A cat.

  Dammit, he’d nearly died of fright! It nudged him again, and he reached out a hand and scratched its ears and chuckled, the tension draining out of him. A cat he could cope with. It curled up against his chest, and after a moment the purring slowed down and stopped. The warmth seeped through against his chest, and, seconds later, he was asleep.

  It was light when he woke—light with the sort of brightness that only happens with a full moon on snow. He shoved the cat out of the way, got stiffly out of bed and went to the window, peering at his watch.

  Five-thiriy-and there was a light in the barn, a thin sliver of yellow seeping round the sliding door. He pulled on his clothes in the moonlight and limped down the stairs, hideously aware of every muscle, to find a note from Jemima propped up against a mug on the table.

  ‘Gone fishing,’ it said. ‘Didn’t want to disturb the cat.’

  He smiled and put the kettle on. However busy she was, she’d have time to sip a cup of tea. The Rayburn needed revving up, and he studied the controls for a minute and decided that it probably needed some breakfast. He found logs in the lobby and pushed them through the little door of the firebox, and once it was packed he opened the vent to allow more air in.

  The dogs watched him uninterestedly. Was he eating? No. Therefore they might as well sleep, curled up on the twin chairs. He scooped Noodle up and sat down, and she washed him vigorously before settling down again on his lap.

  It reminded him that he needed a shave, but water was short and a beard might keep his face warm in the wind.

  Not that it would have much chance to grow before the power came back on, whenever that might be. He put Noodle down and went into the parlour to phone the electricity board.

  Still no further news, except that it would be some time and thousands of homes were out. He fiddled with a little radio on the kitchen windowsill and found a local station, which told him that a helicopter had flown into some power lines in the blizzard and knocked out half of Dorset.

  So, still hand-milking, then—and hauling the water.

  Great.

  The kettle boiled and he made tea, pulled on his coat and boots and went out. It was cold and crisp, his breath making little puffs on the bright moonlit air, but the wind had dropped and the sun would be creeping over the horizon in an hour or so. Strange how fickle February could be.

  He trudged across the yard towards the barn, slid the door back and was greeted with a smile that warmed him down to the bottom of his boots.

  ‘My hero!’ she said with a laugh, and she got stiffly to her feet, pressed her hands into the small of her back and stretched, giving a little groan.

  ‘Sore?’

  ‘Am I ever. I thought I was fit. How about you?’ He grinned. ‘Oh, I can feel muscles I didn’t know I had.’ He gave her her tea. ‘How are the hands?’

  ‘Better.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I never really thanked you—I fell asleep while you were doing it.’

  ‘It’s my magic touch—and anyway, you were already asleep.’

  ‘I wonder why?’ She buried her nose in her mug and drank a huge gulp of tea, then sighed. ‘Gorgeous. I was dying for tea. I thought I might finish the cows and come and get some, but they’re being really awkward. They just won’t let down for me this morning. I don’t think the water’s very warm any more, that’s the trouble.’

  He drained his mug. ‘I’ll get you some. I put the kettle back on the hob.’

  ‘You’re just a regular sweetheart. Remind me to thank Mary for lending you to me.’

  He leant back against the wall, arms folded. ‘Just as a matter of interest,’ he said slowly, ‘where is their farm?’

  She coloured slightly. ‘Over the hill.’

  ‘About three or four hundred yards?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘So I could have got there last night.’

  To her credit she met his eyes. ‘Possibly.’

  He smiled slowly. ‘Just think,’ he said, ‘what I might have missed.’

  Something sad and a little desperate happened to her eyes. ‘Yes, just think. You could still have been in bed now.’ She handed him her mug. ‘Better get on.’

  He went back to the kitchen, filled the bucket with hot water and poured her another mug of tea. She’d drunk the first almost in one gulp. He wondered why she’d looked sad when he’d talked about getting to his grandparents. Did she think he’d go? And leave her, with this lot to do?

  She didn’t know him very well, he thought, picking up the tea and the bucket. After he’d delivered
them he carried water into the house, some to the kitchen, some to the bathroom, and then he went back to the barn.

  ‘Fill the troughs?’ he suggested.

  She looked at him in amazement. ‘Aren’t you going?’

  ‘Without my car? You have to be kidding,’ he joked, but she nodded, as if she thought it was perfectly reasonable.

  ‘In which case...’

  Hope flickered in her amber eyes, and if he’d cherished any illusions about being able to escape, they evaporated like mist in the early morning. He couldn’t abandon her—and if he did, his grandmother would kick him straight back down here again before he was even over the threshold!

  ‘I’ll fill the troughs,’ he said, and wondered why the thought of shifting a hundred and fifty buckets of water made him want to whistle...

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE dawn, when it came, was glorious. The wind had gone, the sun sparkled on the snow and if she hadn’t been so phenomenally tired Jemima would have loved it.

  Sam, for all his bucketing, seemed full of energy this morning, and she wanted to hit him for it. She’d listened to him whistling cheerfully as he brought the water up from the stream—seventy-five times, or thereabouts—and now he was shovelling snow away from the barn doors and making paths from the house to the hens, the calves and the stream.

  Still, she wasn’t surprised. As a boy he’d never sat still for a minute. ‘There’s some sand somewhere you can put down on those paths,’ she told him, sticking her head out of the hen house.

  He looked round at the farmyard. Snow had come straight off the field across the road and dumped itself on the yard, and Jemima took one look at his expression and hid a grin.

  ‘Any helpful suggestions where I should start looking?’ he said mildly.

  ‘Ah.’ She gave up and grinned. ‘How about ash from the bottom of the Rayburn?’ she offered.

  His expression cleared. ‘Good idea. Got a metal bucket?’

  ‘By the back door—it’s got ash in it. If you’re going in, could you take these?’

  She handed him a basket of eggs and he peered at them and cocked his head on one side with a quizzical grin. ‘I wonder what’s for breakfast?’ he murmured.

  She laughed. ‘Put the kettle on, too. We’ll do the paths together in a minute.’

  She ducked back inside the hen house, collected and packed the last of the eggs and checked the water, then shut them up and went across to the house. She wondered when he’d remember who she was, if he ever did, and decided to let it go on a bit longer before saying anything. It made the day more interesting, waiting for the penny to drop, she thought as she kicked off her boots.

  The warmth wrapped itself round her like a blanket as she went in, and she dropped into a chair by the Rayburn and propped her feet on the front edge. ‘Oh, bliss,’ she groaned, and shut her eyes.

  A hard, lean, masculine hip nudged her ankles. ‘Come on, out of the way. I’m trying to cook.’

  She cracked an eye open. ‘Cook?’ she said disbelievingly.

  ‘Cook. Put some handcream on and keep out of the way. Is there any butter?’

  She got up and found butter, then milk, then cut some bread and put it in the toaster.

  ‘When did you intend to have breakfast?’ he asked drily, and she muttered and flipped the bread back out of the lifeless tool and plopped back into the chair.

  ‘We’ll have bread,’ she suggested, and he. laughed, turning those astonishing navy eyes on her so her heart hiccuped. Wow, she thought, if he really set out to be charming he could be a real stunner—

  ‘How do you like your eggs?’

  ‘Soft and creamy.’

  ‘Ditto. Right, up you get.’

  She was suddenly ravenous. The heap of rich, golden scrambled egg was cooked to perfection, and she stabbed her fork into it, forgetting all about Sam and his gorgeous dark blue eyes.

  Sam watched her dive headfirst into her eggs and smiled a very masculine and self-satisfied smile. He felt a strange surge of protective warmth, and the smile faded. Protective warmth? What the hell was he on about?

  He stabbed the egg but it was too soft to co-operate and he had to scoop instead-not nearly so satisfying. He shot his chair back and almost snatched his mug off the table. ‘More tea?’ he growled, and her head flew up, eyes wide with surprise.

  ‘Did I say something to upset you?’ she asked mildly.

  He sighed. ‘No. More tea?’ he repeated, in a softer tone, and she held out her mug.

  ‘Thanks.’

  He paused at the window, then set the mugs down on the draining board. There was a man coming up the path, tall and broad and rugged-looking, and he felt the hairs go up on the back of his neck. ‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he growled.

  ‘A visitor?’ She stood up and came to the window beside him, going up on tiptoe to see.

  ‘Damn. It’s Owen.’

  ‘Owen?’

  She went to the door, just as a loud knock set the dogs off. He hung back, just for a moment, reminding himself that it really wasn’t his business who came calling at Jemima’s door.

  ‘Morning, Jemima,’ a voice sounded cheerfully. ‘Thought I’d better come and make sure you were all right, with the power off and no generator.’

  ‘I’m fine, Owen, thanks,’ she said, but Sam couldn’t hear much after that because of the dogs. He shut them up by putting his half-finished eggs into their bowls, then went back to the door to eavesdrop.

  ‘Car stuck in the lane,’ Owen was saying. ‘Someone’s tied some saucy underwear to sticks to mark it.’

  ‘It’s mine,’ Sam said, coming up behind Jemima and trying to loom over Owen. It was difficult, even with Owen on the step below, but he tried anyway, roiling with some primitive instinct that made him want to punch the man’s lights out.

  Owen looked him up and down, then smiled slowly. ‘Yours, eh? Funny, that. Can’t see you wearing that sort of gear, but it takes all sorts.’

  Sam felt heat brush his neck. ‘The car,’ he growled. ‘Not the underwear.’

  ‘Oh.’ Owen looked at Jemima. ‘Must be yours, then.’

  He could nearly feel the warmth coming off her cheeks and he wanted to flatten Owen for embarrassing her. She mumbled something indistinct about red, and then offered the wretched man a cup of tea.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Owen said, stepping in and forcing him to retreat. He was hugely satisfied to see Jess growl at Owen with her hackles up. The dog stationed herself between Jemima and the intruder and let out another low, warning rumble.

  Sam had to turn away to hide his grin. He topped up the pot, poured three mugs of tea and wasn’t surprised to see Owen shovel four spoons of sugar into his mug. His huge hairy hand enveloped the mug, and he slurped with satisfaction.

  Oh, dear.

  ‘So, how’re you managing?’ Owen asked.

  ‘Oh, all right. Sam’s been bucketing the water and I’ve been milking and feeding the stock—’

  ‘You should have called. I would have come to help; there was no need for you get outsiders in.’

  He shot Sam a threatening look, and Sam arched a brow. ‘Outsiders?’ he said softly.

  ‘Well, you’re a city boy, aren’t you?’ Owen said disparagingly. ‘Soft as grease.’

  A memory stirred, from long ago in the summer he’d spent with his grandparents. He shot Owen a keen look. ‘I remember a boy called Owen from round here. I must have been about eight at the time, and there was a little girl called Gemma or something like that.’

  ‘Jem,’ she corrected softly.

  His eyes flicked to hers and widened with recognition, and he smiled. ‘Jem? That was you? You can’t be old enough—you’d have to be—what, twenty-eight now?’

  She nodded. ‘I wondered if you’d remember.’

  The smile widened. ‘Oh, yes. You’ve changed. Grown up—well, a bit. You’re still knee-high to a grasshopper, but I didn’t recognise you. Don’t tell me, I don’t look any different!’
/>   ‘Oh, you do. You’re much bigger, for a start. I only worked it out because of Dick and Mary.’

  He nodded thoughtfully and his eyes flicked back to Owen. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, this lad, Owen, he teased Jem and made her cry, so I hit him.’ He studied his mug. ‘As I recall, Owen ran home to Mummy in tears.’

  Uh-oh. Jemima hid behind her mug, almost burying her face in it. Owen wouldn’t like that!

  Owen didn’t. Owen flushed a dark, angry rust. ‘I was just a lad—only a child.’

  ‘And she was even younger.’ His smile faded. He was impatient now to be rid of this bumbling, bullying oaf who was trying to warn him off. ‘Don’t worry about Jemima, Owen, I’ll take care of her. You go on home to Mummy.’

  The man banged down his mug and stood up, crossed the kitchen in a single stride and slammed the door. Moments later the outer door shut with a bang, and Jess, hackles slowly subsiding, whimpered and pressed her head into Jemima’s hand.

  Sam smirked.

  It was the wrong thing to do. Jemima set down her cup and shoved back her chair, standing up impatiently. Jess, sensing her irritation, slithered off to cower behind him. ‘Why the hell did you have to do that?’ she asked in exasperation.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘You know perfectly well. Don’t play the innocent—flexing your muscles at each other like prize fighters. I thought for a minute he was going to hit you.’

  ‘I was ready.’

  She snorted. ‘You aren’t eight any more, and in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s bigger than you.’

  ‘He’s bigger than you, too,’ Sam said, suddenly serious. ‘Much bigger, and he wants you.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, he’s just a neighbour.’

  Sam made a rude noise.

  ‘He is.’

  ‘In a pig’s eye. The man has the hots for you, poppet, and if you can’t see it, you’re blind.’

  She blushed. ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s never done anything—’

  ‘Not yet. What will you do if he does? If he decides he’s been patient long enough and it’s time to move things on?’