Chapter Sixteen
Nate
Laurel had been laughing so hard at Paul’s story that she couldn’t catch her breath, and Nate had grabbed her glass from her hand. This was exactly why he had invited her, so she could relax, have fun.
But she stiffened ever so slightly at the sound of Alex’s voice.
Jess squealed and jumped up to embrace Lucia.
‘Lu! You could have come earlier you know.’ It was a gentle jibe at the fact that she was so desperately late. Way past acceptably late.
‘Oh, I know darling girl, but I just got waylaid,’ Lucia said, returning her hug with gusto.
‘This is from the both of us,’ Alex said, reaching around Lucia to hand a bottle of wine to Owen, a smirk on his face, trying to indicate exactly why they were late. Probably because Lucia couldn’t possibly bring herself to be on time for anything because the world revolved around her, rather than Alex getting his leg over.
‘Paul, my man, how are you?’ Alex cried, pumping Paul’s hand vigorously. ‘And this must be the beautiful Angeline.’ He reached for her hand and planted a kiss on the back of it. ‘Enchanté,’ he said, with the worst possible French accent.
Nate tried not to roll his eyes.
‘Angeline,’ Lucia gushed, bending over and hugging her on the sofa. ‘So nice to finally meet you, Paul has said so much about you.’
Laurel put her glass on the low table to the side of the sofa in readiness for hand shaking or hugging.
‘Oh, sorry, Nate, didn’t see you there. How are you, old man?’ Alex asked disinterestedly.
Nate stood up and stuck out his hand, making a show of being the bigger person here. The last time they’d spoken it had been tense, to say the least.
‘I’m good thanks, Alex, you?’
‘Yeah, you know.’ Alex shook Nate’s hand lazily. ‘Laurel,’ he said by way of greeting, running his eyes over her dirtily. Nate’s jaw clenched.
‘Do you want a drink, guys?’ Owen asked.
‘Yes, go on then,’ Alex said, settling himself in a chair, one ankle crossed over his knee.
Lucia turned to face him and a small seductive smile crossed her face. Christ, she wasn’t going to make this easy, was she?
‘Nate,’ she said breathily. ‘It’s been way too long.’
She hugged him, turning her face into his neck and pressing her body against him. Nate patted her awkwardly on the back. What was she doing? She never hugged him like this, usually it was a brief squeeze and then she’d move on as if she had something better to do.
‘Lucia, hi,’ he said, extricating himself. ‘How are you?’
He was polite and gave her a tight, if slightly confused, smile.
‘Really good thanks, so nice to be back in England for a little bit.’ She flipped her curls over her shoulder and looked at Laurel as if she’d only just noticed her. ‘Oh, you’re new.’
You’re new? What was that?
‘Hi, I’m Laurel.’
If there was one thing about Laurel, it’s that she was a people pleaser, but he knew she was nervous, especially with Lucia’s frosty greeting.
‘Hello.’ Lucia draped herself on the arm of Alex’s chair, his arm resting lazily around her hips, a teasing smirk playing on his face. ‘I’m Lucia, Nate and I go way back.’
Nate sat down a little closer than was absolutely necessary to Laurel, a buffer because his ex-girlfriend was being really weird.
‘Yes, I remember, I went to university with you. I was a couple of years below you,’ Laurel said.
‘I don’t remember you at all,’ Lucia said, accepting a glass of wine from Owen. ‘What did you do? Archaeology? Are you an archaeologist now?’ Taking a sip, Lucia’s eyes widened in mock realisation. ‘Oh, no, no, no! Alex said you work on a farm!’
Alex snorted into his drink.
‘Yes,’ Laurel said easily, but he could feel the tension building. ‘I do.’
‘That’s interesting,’ Owen said, leaning forward, oblivious to the snideness coming from the other end of the little coffee table. ‘Sheep, cows, pigs? Or do you grow crops?’
Laurel smiled at him in relief. ‘All of the above.’
‘But it’s not just that,’ Nate jumped in. ‘It’s a massive business with a cafe and farm shop, a conference centre, a lake, they do weddings, Pick Your Own, and of course that’s where I’m digging. Laurel runs all of that.’
She looked up at him, unreadable.
‘Thank you, Nate,’ she said pointedly. What? ‘Yes, Little Willow Farm isn’t just a working farm anymore.’
‘But regardless, everything still stinks of shit,’ Alex said, guffawing like he was hilarious.
‘Alex,’ Nate warned.
‘You get used it, being around it all the time. You get that, don’t you, Alex?’ Laurel said blithely.
It was silent for just a second too long. Jess laughed, breaking the awkward tension. Lucia flicked through her phone. Paul stared wide-eyed between Laurel and Alex, whose face was thunderous, but Nate couldn’t help but smile.
‘I hate to bring up work, but I just wanted to say thank you for endorsing Little Willow Farm, Alex. We very much appreciate it.’
Good on Laurel, holding out the olive branch. Hopefully Alex would be big enough to accept it.
‘Yeah, well,’ he took a swig of his beer. ‘It wasn’t a given, you nearly didn’t. I mean, it’s not an ideal site, is it? It’s not an ideal anything really.’
Nate rolled his eyes. Couldn’t Alex keep himself in check? Paul frowned at Nate, clearly sensing the change in their relationship. He shook his head slightly in the universal signal for ‘I’ll tell you later’.
‘You’ve found bones, I presume?’ Lucia piped up. Laurel opened her mouth to say something, but Lucia carried on. ‘When I was in Cambodia…’ she started but Nate tuned out.
He’d heard all of Lucia’s stories before, and they all ended the same way - her finding something amazing/mothering a lost child/saving a village from water drought/having to perform an emergency arm amputation so someone doesn’t get trampled by wildebeest or something equally ridiculous. Angeline was enthralled.
Benji bounded up to them and Owen pulled him onto his knee, whispering something in his ear.
‘Laurel, Daddy says that you’re a farmer. Do you want to see my cows?’ Benji asked, jumping up.
Owen looked sheepish.
‘I didn’t say she was a farmer, Benji. I said she ran a farm,’ he said, rubbing the back of his neck. But Laurel just laughed.
‘Of course I do, Benji. Lead the way.’
She let the boy take her hand and lead her away across the garden.
Nate was going to have a few brief words with Alex and Lucia.
Laurel
Laurel’s mind was absolutely all over the place as she walked across the garden, hand in hand with Benji as he led her excitedly towards what he called ‘the cow house’.
There was Lucia, with her glossy chestnut Latina curls and beautiful, dark, soulful eyes. How could she get away with wearing what essentially looked like a hemp sack? Somehow, she pulled it off, swishing in to give Nate the weirdly intimate hug, punctuated with the clanging of bangles and anklets. Perhaps she still had a thing for him?
The thing that was the most annoying, however, was the fact that Lucia had the tiniest, silver septum piercing. It didn’t make her look like a bull with a ring through her nose. No, it accentuated her golden skin and her ridiculously full, rosy lips. She probably got it from somewhere like Addis Ababa in a special ceremony or something.
It was extremely unprofessional to talk about work in a social setting, but she had wanted to thank Alex and hopefully make it good so they could enjoy the weekend. But those snide comments about her working on a farm and smelling like shit? What was he, twelve?
Laurel had been all prepared to let that go for the sake of the weekend, especially after the ‘you’re not just a farm girl’ discussion she and Nate had in the car earlier. But no, Nate had to go and jump in and be a saviour, going on about everything there was at Little Willow Farm. Well, she didn’t need a saviour, and by doing so he damn well proved that status did matter to him. That he felt embarrassed by her being just a farm girl.
Perhaps it was good that she found this out now so she could take a step back, nurse her broken heart and move on.
Perhaps she was overreacting.
‘We’ve got four cows and three of them are in the field, and one of them is pregnant in the cow house. Mr Stapleton says it’s a big one,’ Benji said knowingly.
‘Mr Stapleton?’ Laurel snapped her attention back to the boy.
‘Yeah, he helps us with the animals.’
Benji tugged at her hand, urging her to go faster.
‘Benji, Laurel, wait for me,’ Nate called from behind her. He was jogging through the garden to them, stupid salt and pepper hair flapping beautifully in the breeze. When he got to them, he touched her elbow lightly. ‘You okay?’
‘Mmm hmm.’ No, she was not. She was annoyed with him.
‘Look, I’m sorry about Alex and Lucia, they’re just—’ He pulled a hand through his hair. ‘I don’t know what they are, but I’m beginning to see them, Alex especially, in a new and very unflattering light.’
What did he expect her to say to that?
‘Right,’ she murmured.
He frowned at her.
‘What’s the matter? Are you okay?’ Nate waited.
‘Hey Benji, why don’t you run ahead to see if Mr Stapleton is there?’ she said to the boy, who pouted but ran off.
Laurel turned back to Nate.
‘I don’t need you, or Jack, or my father, or anyone else for that matter, to defend me,’ she started. ‘I don’t need a saviour.’
‘A saviour? What are you talking about?’
Really? Was he that stupid?
‘You had to jump in to tell your high-flying friends that I wasn’t just a farm girl, so I wouldn’t embarrass you, yeah?’ she hissed.
His face screwed up like newspaper.
‘That’s not it at all, Laurel. Not at all. I would never be embarrassed by you,’ he said earnestly. ‘You’ve accomplished so many amazing things. I just wanted people to know that,’ Nate shook his head and looked around, as if searching for divine inspiration. ‘I was embarrassed at how Alex and Lucia were treating you, acting like they were malicious, jealous teenagers. Pathetic.’ He shook his head. ‘But embarrassed? By you? No. Never.’
He looked back at her, holding her gaze defiantly. She assessed him warily.
‘Right, well I need to go and see Benji in the cow house.’ She took a few steps away from him, before turning back, ‘Thanks for bringing me here, Nate.’
As she walked up to the cow house, she tugged her phone out of her bag and googled how far the local train station was. Christ, that would be an expensive taxi ride.
‘Laurel, don’t be like this!’ Nate jogged after her. ‘I have absolutely had enough of Alex acting like a fucking twat all the time. I’m not letting him get away with it anymore, and I’m sorry you got caught in the crossfire just now.’
Laurel crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows at him.
‘I just think it’s amazing what you’ve built at Little Willow Farm and wanted to tell my friends. You won’t blow your own trumpet, so I wanted to do it for you.’
Laurel watched Nate colour slightly. He was impressed by her? Perhaps what Jess had said was right, and Nate had brought her to meet his friends because he, what, liked her? But he had made it clear that this was a friends thing.
What was she supposed to say?
‘Uncle Nate, Laurel, come on!’ Benji cried.
Nate looked over her shoulder and pasted a smile on his face.
‘Coming, mate,’ he said and his eyes fell back on hers. ‘Look, if you don’t want to be here, I’ll take you home. Or if you don’t want me to, I’ll organise something else for you. I just thought you could do with a break.’
Nate took off to Benji, leaving her standing in the ridiculously large garden.
Well, now she felt like a shitbag. She’d had a go at him, and all he was trying to do was help. That’s what friends do, wasn’t it? He was there for her through the George Hibbert fiasco, a quiet, solid presence that she knew she could turn to. If only her heart would stop clenching every time their skin brushed. Having Nate Daley as a friend was better than not having him at all, she supposed. She followed him quickly across the garden.
‘Nate,’ she called, and he turned, waiting for her to catch up. ‘I’m sorry, alright? Sorry. Alex just puts me on edge.’
‘Yeah, I get that,’ Nate said. ‘He’s a dick.’
‘I want to stay. I’m having a good time,’ she said.
The worry on his face smoothed into a slight smile.
‘Good,’ he said, after a long moment. Nate slung an arm across her shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s go and see this pregnant cow.’
Laurel’s stupid heart clenched again.
Nate
Laurel was so prickly sometimes. Couldn’t she just accept his help? He hadn’t lied; Laurel had built an amazing business, and quite frankly, Alex was a dick and needed putting in his place. Whatever. They were past it now and were standing in the farmhouse, with Stapleton, the farmer.
The others had joined them, and Owen was explaining how he had bought the farmhouse and some land. Even Alex was there, turning his nose up at the smell and Lucia was telling them about how she had bonded with a sacred Indian cow.
‘Laurel here runs a farm,’ Owen said and Laurel smiled at Stapleton.
‘Hard work,’ the old man told her, obviously dismissing her as a farmer, but Nate kept his mouth shut. He had learned his lesson there. ‘Cattle?’ Stapleton asked, and she nodded. ‘How many head have you got?’
‘Little over fifteen hundred,’ she said.
His eyebrows raised into his grey hair. ‘Oh, big farm then?’
‘Little Willow is the biggest in the south,’ she said proudly. ‘We’re arable as well, and diversified into different revenue streams.’
He looked confused. ‘I thought Fletcher’s Farm was the biggest in the south? I haven’t heard of that one.’
‘Well…’ Was that embarrassment flushing up her neck? Embarrassment for commercialising her farm? ‘We rebranded to a more family friendly name.’
‘Are you Bill Fletcher’s girl? I met him once at a show. Nice man,’ Stapleton said.
Laurel broke into a grin.
‘I am Bill Fletcher’s girl, yes. Nice to meet you, Mr Stapleton.’ She held out her hand and the old farmer shook it heartily.
‘John, please,’ he said. ‘We had to parcel the land and sell it off. My kids didn’t want anything to do with farming. Can’t say I blame them. It’s a tough business, so much paperwork and not much help anymore. Your dad has done the right thing, with all that diversification.’
She snorted.
‘Oh, I had to fight tooth and nail. If Dad and my brother Jack had their way, the farm would be dying now,’ Laurel hesitated. ‘They don’t like it. I’m not sure I like it, but the bottom line is that we need it.’
Stapleton nodded wisely.
‘Laurel, come and see the pregnant cow.’ Benji tugged at her hand, and she followed the boy into one of the side pens.
‘The rest of the herd is over with our neighbouring farm now, but this young man here wanted to keep a few, so I sold his dad my favourites.’ Stapleton ruffled Benji’s hair. ‘This is Penelope.’
‘I call her Bessie the Cow,’ Benji whispered loudly, and Stapleton smiled sadly.
Laurel ran her hand down the side of the cow.
‘She’s ready.’
‘Won’t be until tomorrow afternoon,’ Stapleton said gruffly, obviously not liking the perceived challenge.
‘Gosh, it’s big,’ she said. ‘Do you have a history of calves this big in this herd?’
‘No, this is unusual.’ He ran a loving hand across the cow’s neck.
As they were crowded around the pregnant cow in the cow house, Benji started saying about how he had renamed Stapleton’s favourite cows, and Nate realised that this entire situation must be incredibly sad for Stapleton. To come in to work every day to his farm that he had to sell off because he couldn’t make it work, to see the house that he probably brought up his children in turned into something else, his favourite animals having their names changed.
It must have been heartbreaking for him.
‘Come on, you,’ Jess said, grabbing for Benji’s arm. ‘Time for bed.’
It had gotten darker since they’d been in the cow house and after saying their goodbyes to Stapleton, who wandered off across the fields to wherever he now lived, they headed back to the seating area. The barbeque had long since been forgotten (as it always was) and Owen put the meat in the oven, making sure that everyone had wine or beer.
Jess reappeared sometime later with food, and flicked on the festoon lighting that encircled the seating area.
‘Oh, these lights remind me of when I was working on the Bakoni Ruins of Machadodorp in Mpumalanga,’ said Lucia, ‘That’s in South Africa,’ she added for Laurel’s benefit. ‘We stayed at the Incwala Lodge, and they were so good to us.’
‘Oh, yes?’ Laurel said, and Lucia launched into some ridiculous story.
She droned on, but Nate tuned her out again. He pulled his phone out to see if his mother or Anwar had tried to get hold of him.
‘I’m sorry. Am I boring you?’ Lucia snapped, forcing his attention back to her.
‘Lucia,’ he sighed, ‘we’ve heard it all before. How you helped the good people of Incwara Lodge with their irrigation system, the terraces that you helped excavate in lower Zimbabwe.’
There was a heavy silence in the garden as Lucia just looked at him, that ridiculous nose ring glinting in the festoon light.
‘I didn’t know you felt that way, Nate. That I’m boring everyone, boring my friends, boring you,’ she said tightly.
‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said, tilting his head.
‘No, I think we all know what you meant, that you’re too good for your old friends, now you’ve got a…’ she assessed Laurel, ‘shiny new plaything.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about, Lucia?’ He lent forwards, towards her.
‘Alex told me what you did, Nate. Punching him? Really? Choosing some bit of skirt over your best friend?’ Lucia flicked her eyes to Laurel in disdain.
Nate took a deep breath. ‘Alex made some unsavoury comments. I asked him to stop and he didn’t.’
‘Oh, I’m sure Alex was just joking,’ Lucia said, putting her hand on Alex’s leg, like it would make him jealous or something. ‘Weren’t you, Alex?’
‘Of course I was, Lu. I’m an enlightened man.’ Alex’s face erupted into a smug smile. ‘Nate just doesn’t understand comedy anymore.’
‘Don’t fucking start, Alex,’ Owen said.
Jess rolled her eyes and Paul whispered something to Angeline. It had taken so long for him to see Alex for what he actually was, Nate was a little embarrassed. And now Lucia was the only one left who had it in her to defend him.
‘Fuck off, Owen,’ Alex said under his breath.
‘What was that, Alex?’ Jess snapped. ‘Because if you told my husband to fuck off in his own house, you can leave. Right now.’
‘Come on, I think things have all got a bit heated,’ Lucia said. ‘What about another drink, and we can all relax.’
Nate looked at Jess for guidance. It was her house, after all.
Jess narrowed her eyes at Alex. ‘Alright, but no more shit from you.’
Laurel stood, brushing her skirt down. ‘I’m going to leave you guys to it, head up to bed.’
‘Laurel.’ Nate tugged on her hand to sit. ‘Stay.’
‘No, it’s okay.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll see you guys in the morning.’
‘I’ll show you up,’ Jess said, glaring hard at Lucia.
Nate watched the swish of Laurel’s skirt in the yellow glow of the lights as she went into the house with Jess, who was no doubt apologising for whatever the hell was going on.
‘You’ve changed, Nate,’ Lucia said bitterly, when Laurel and Jess had disappeared. ‘As soon as there’s a bit of skirt in your eye line, you change everything about who, and what you are. Alex can see it, I can see it, we can all see it.’
Paul coughed politely and shared a look with Nate that said ‘what the actual fuck is she going on about’.
‘Changed? What the fuck?’ He spread his arms wide
‘Nah, man. I saw it first hand,’ Alex said, swigging from his bottle. ‘You’re not the same.’
‘You know what? Perhaps I have changed, and that’s alright,’ Nate said. ‘I’ve grown up, I’ve got different values, I want different things. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not twenty-five anymore, and, unlike some, I’m not behaving like it.’ He snapped his mouth shut and sat back in the garden sofa.
‘What the fuck are you trying to say, Nathanial?’ Alex drawled from his position next to Lucia.
‘That it might be time for you to grow the fuck up, Alexander.’
Nate downed his drink. ‘Sorry, Owen,’ he said and headed into the house.